Chapter 26 : The pleasure I was avoiding!
Morning light flooded through the Emperor's chambers with unusual warmth, catching on gold fixtures and making the carefully tended plants seem more vibrant than they had any right to be.
The royal chamber was vast—a sprawling space that opened onto a balcony overlooking the entirety of capital Siena. Emperor Emrik sat on a cushioned couch positioned to capture the view, watching his empire stretch toward the horizon while a young maid worked her hands across his shoulders with practiced, deliberate care.
Advisor Markious occupied a side chair, posture immaculate despite the early hour. Empress Althaea sat across from him, green eyes tracking every movement in the room with the attention of someone who understood that power lived in details. Two additional maids stood ready near the doorway. A law enforcer sat at a small desk, quill poised for any orders requiring documentation.
"The Art of Rebels has performed outstandingly, Your Majesty." Markious adjusted his formal uniform—a nervous habit that betrayed tension beneath his composed exterior. "A letter from Minister Graham arrived at dawn."
"Ah, I knew exactly how it would unfold." Emrik's voice carried the relaxed confidence of someone whose predictions consistently proved accurate. The maid's hands moved lower, working tension from muscles along his spine. "There's nothing to be tense about. What's the status of Kazzara? And I heard Mabel isn't at Maru—where is he?"
He gestured lazily for the maid to extend her attention to his chest. She complied without hesitation, her touch professional despite the intimacy of the service.
"I received intelligence from our spies that Kazzara is on the verge of collapse." Markious unrolled a parchment covered in dense script. "The situation there has deteriorated significantly. Widespread suffering. Those in power are exploiting the population to extremes—" He paused, glancing at Empress Althaea, who'd gone visibly tense. "The abuse of women has reached several million cases in the past year alone. No governance. No law. Just chaos."
He handed the parchment to the law enforcer for official recording.
"Should we intervene, Your Majesty? Though I acknowledge it's not within our current ruling territory..."
"No." Emrik's response was immediate, certain. "We wait. Let Kazzara become more desperate. More broken. Then we'll send overwhelming force—Iron Knight, Platoon Knight Ethelia, Darian, and the full Zyrick State army. Finish the work in an instant when resistance is minimal."
The casual ruthlessness of it didn't register on his face. Just pragmatic calculation.
"I want to see exactly how far King Aslon falls before we collect the pieces."
Markious nodded, making notes. Empress Althaea's expression remained carefully neutral, though her fingers tightened slightly on the armrest of her chair.
"My lord—" Althaea rose and approached Emrik, her movements calculated for effect. She placed her hands on his shoulders, and the massage maid immediately withdrew, understanding the dismissal. "I wonder if you'd want another child. A boy or a girl."
She leaned close enough that her next words reached only his ears.
"Yesterday when we... it was my fertile week."
Emrik's relaxation evaporated. Tension flooded back into muscles the maid had just loosened.
'What is she thinking?' His mind raced through implications. 'Five legitimate children are already enough for the bloodline. More would be absurd given the time gaps. This would dilute focus, create new succession complications...'
But his face remained composed. Political survival meant never revealing discomfort.
"It would be wonderful," he said loudly enough for everyone present to hear. "Whether boy or girl, any child would be my beloved son or daughter."
Althaea stepped back, perhaps embarrassed, perhaps satisfied with planting the seed of possibility.
Emrik stood abruptly. "I'm going to bathe. The morning meeting is concluded."
He grabbed a towel, draping it across his shoulders, and walked toward his private bath chamber. Outside the doorway, two maids in their thirties waited—experienced, discreet, understanding exactly what imperial "bathing" entailed.
"Excuse us, Your Majesty." Markious began gathering his documents to depart.
"Wait." Althaea's voice stopped him before he reached the door.
She watched the others file out—the massage maid, the standby servants, the law enforcer. Once only she and Markious remained, she moved close to him. Not intimately—there was nothing seductive in the proximity. Just the physical assertion of control, the way predators crowd prey to establish dominance.
"I want you to gather information." Her voice was low but clear. "Find out if any kingdoms or princes are interested in my Natasha. Any suitable matches for political alliance."
Markious met her gaze without flinching. He wasn't weak, despite her games. "Of course, Your Majesty. I'll compile prospects."
She released him with a dismissive gesture. Once alone, she walked to the balcony railing and stared out at Siena's sprawling cityscape.
'I can't let the Aurelith Empire become more vast under his control alone,' she thought, fingers gripping ornate stonework. 'More territory means more power concentrated in Emrik's hands. More resources for Lucien's incomprehensible schemes. More obstacles to my own ambitions.'
'If I can marry Natasha to a foreign prince, establish my own sphere of influence outside Emrik's direct authority...'
The thought crystallized into determination.
She would expand power on her terms. Build her own empire within the empire.
And no one—not Emrik, not Lucien, not anyone—would see it coming until the foundation was already laid.
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TWO HUNDRED MILES AWAY — Ryounjiku State, Evening
The royal chamber prepared for Princess Thalira at Saffron Cloud Palace reflected the wealth of a state governed directly by Imperial Law rather than local nobility. No duke ruled here—only Imperial Governor Roimus Woose, who managed affairs with the precision expected of someone answering directly to the Emperor.
Every luxury had been provided. Every comfort arranged.
"Oi, Zeta—" Princess Thalira's voice carried irritation and boredom in equal measure. "Why are you behaving like this? Did you see a ghost?"
Senior Maid Zeta stood near the window, one hand pressed between her thighs in a gesture she couldn't quite suppress. Her bodice clung to her body more tightly than it should, damp with perspiration that had nothing to do with physical exertion.
"Pardon me, Princess Thalira." Her voice came strained, carefully controlled. "I'm not feeling well. But on Empress Althaea's orders, I must accompany you. This fever will pass."
Thalira approached, placing the back of her hand against Zeta's forehead with surprising gentleness—playing at being an authority figure, practicing the role she'd someday need to inhabit.
"You're burning up. Your body's drenched in sweat." She pulled back, making a decision. "I'm ordering you to send other maids who can provide music and dance. You need rest. This... whatever this is... it isn't for you to endure."
'You're right, Princess,'Zeta thought as she bowed and retreated toward the door. 'The pleasure I'm avoiding now is exactly what I want most.'
She walked through corridors that seemed too long, too warm, every step an exercise in restraint. Finally reaching the servants' quarters, she entered the maid chamber and locked the door behind her with shaking hands.
The bodice came off first—unlaced with desperate fingers, fabric peeling away from overheated skin. Her mature body, thirty-six years carefully maintained, was exactly what men found desirable. The kind of figure that should have been claimed by a husband, children, normal life.
But she'd chosen service to the Empress instead. Chosen duty over desire. Virgin still, despite knowing—through observation, through whispered conversations, through the education that came from serving in a palace—exactly what she'd denied herself.
Until she'd seen Prince Lucien.
Silver-white hair catching moonlight. Violet eyes that seemed to see through every defense. That body, pale and perfect, moving with unconscious grace. The way he'd looked at the Empress—not with lust alone, but with something more complex. Control wrapped in desire wrapped in calculated intention.
Since that night, Zeta's carefully constructed restraint had been crumbling.
She lay on the narrow bed in her underthings, one hand trailing across her stomach, moving lower with aching slowness. Her other hand covered her mouth to muffle sounds she couldn't quite suppress.
'If only I'd been the one he'd looked at that way. If only I'd been the one he'd touched...'
Her imagination supplied details her experience couldn't: his hands replacing hers, his weight pressing down, those violet eyes watching her come undone beneath him.
The fantasy was vivid enough to feel real. Her body responded with intensity that shocked her—decades of suppressed desire finding outlet in this private darkness, fingers working with increasing urgency, breath coming in gasps she couldn't control despite the hand over her mouth.
'Wrong. This is wrong. He's a prince. I'm a servant. This obsession will destroy me—'
But the thoughts dissolved into pure sensation as her body reached its peak, trembling, gasping, breaking apart in waves of pleasure that felt like both relief and damnation.
She lay there afterwards, staring at the ceiling, body still shaking with aftershocks.
'I chose the wrong man to want,' she thought, clarity returning with cruel precision. 'The wrong desire to nurture. This will consume me if I don't stop.'
But even as she thought it, she knew she wouldn't stop.
Couldn't stop.
Because for the first time in thirty-six years, she'd felt something that made duty and service seem hollow by comparison.
And once you'd tasted that particular poison, restraint became impossible.