The Poisoned Throne

Chapter 44

Raynor

Sybil had changed since she had gone away. Raynor had expected her to, of course, but he had not expected it to be such a drastic change. 

There was something about the way that she carried herself that expressed a renewed belief in herself. When she spoke, her voice never faltered or trembled; it was confident, almost boasting. Everyone laughed at her jokes - loudest of all the men, whom she had now fought side by side with for months. It was beginning to dawn on him that she held more power than him in this land. While he barely knew the names of the many officers and warlords who were pledged to him, she now had intimate knowledge of all of them. 

She had the strength of an Empress, he realized, more so than he had the strength of an Emperor. Something about her now reminded him of Yasmine, and perhaps that was why he no longer pitied her and treaded carefully around her; perhaps he had mistaken the change in hide for a change of heart. 

For whatever the reason, he visited Emira the night after Sybil’s return.

He knew that he was being selfish and stupid and that when this crashed down upon him, he alone was at fault. But there was a ball of sadness and loathing in his stomach and he needed to be somewhere that he was not. 

Emira knew from the moment he entered her chambers what he wanted, and the first words that left her were, “We can’t.”

In the next moment, his lips had crashed against hers, his hands graspingly holding on to her for dear life. There was no point in debating with her what he had already gone over in his mind, over and over again. He knew that this might hurt Sybil, and he knew that there would be consequences. In that moment, none of that mattered; all else but being with Emira was rendered meaningless in comparison.

Once the frenzy had passed, calm settled upon him. He turned onto his side and faced her, took her hand in his own between their sweat-covered bodies and looked into her beautiful eyes. He knew in that moment that the only peace he could have was in her presence.

“Will she ever be able to forgive me?” she asked.

“You aren’t to blame,” he told her. 

Emira shook her head as much as one could while lying down. “She won’t see that. To her, I’ll be the woman who stole her husband, no matter which part I had in this.”

“She won’t blame you.” He moved closer to her on the bed. “And she will forgive you.”

She let out a breath. “Then she is truly a greater woman than I.”

He moved his hand to push some stray hair out of her eyes before returning it to hers. “Why would you say that?”

“Because I know how much pain I feel whenever you’ve been together,” she said. “Because I hate her. Even though I know it’s unfair and that she’s her wife, I hate her because she is the one who deserves to be with you. I hate her because I cannot be her, and she will hate me for the very same thing. That’s all that affairs do; make people jealous of each other.”

Raynor felt drowsiness overcome him and moved closer to her on the bed, taking her into his arms. “Then she won’t find out, and we will keep the peace.”

Of course he knew that was impossible. Sybil finding out was inevitable, and the inevitable happened two weeks later. It was two days before Sybil and Raynor were set to leave Hi’taab to be present at Mary’s coronation in Etheron. 

“You do know that I know, don’t you?” she asked as they prepared for bed. 

He stopped in the middle of discarding his robe, staring at her. “Know what?”