Alliance by Marriage

Chapter 32

The whiff of autumn is clear in the air, despite the warmth and the still green leaves.

The city looks hushed, its once cheerful red roofs and white walls now darkened by soot. Occasional black holes glare where whole buildings have collapsed. Some of the rubble has been cleared away, but still, the sight is pitiful. I've seen other places look like that after our troops were done with them, but it stabs me in the heart to see my own home in such a state.

In the distance, where the sky meets the sea, the enemy fleet can still be seen, barely a scatter of dots now. I avoid looking down at the bay, now a graveyard of burned ships, their masts sticking out of the water, some still sporting burned rags that were once sails.

I may not look, but I know they're there.

I can't wish it all away.

That's why they've left me alive. To live through this unimaginable defeat. To reap its fruits for the rest of my life. A much harsher punishment for a king than a simple, dignified death.

I turn to my generals.

Even though a week has passed since the battle, the wounds are still fresh. They are good men who did what they could—and failed. My eyes find Techo, who looks at his feet, avoiding my gaze. He's lost his fleet. There will be no new one, according to the agreement I had to sign. We'll be paying them now, not the other way around. We'll be the ones not allowed to build ships from now on.

Everything there was to say has been said already so we just stand in silence, observing the ravaged city and the departing fleet, trying to distinguish the obscure future in this mess.

My feet are heavy as I navigate the stairs. The corridors and the inner yards of the palace are empty. Even though I catch a glimpse of a few servants, there's nothing like the constant activity that has been here before. Some must have been killed, some taken, some probably hide in their rooms. The stables stand open and empty. The door leading to the kitchens hangs on one hinge, broken. Dust covers the stones, with no one to sweep it away.

No eunuchs guard the entrance to the women's quarters, and the tall doors stand ajar. I push one of them open and step inside. The fountains don't work, and there's not a sound in the huge empty space but my footsteps and the echo. Instead of the usual pleasant perfumes, the air is filled with some unpleasant smell I can't quite place at first. The floor is littered with pieces of clothing and items broken and dropped as the women left in a hurry, heading to the ships that would take them back to their original homes. All the marriages were annulled on the second day after the battle. I was told they weren't forced, and if any wanted to stay, they'd be allowed to.

Yet the place is empty.

My feet carry me to Narin's room, perhaps hoping for a miracle, or at least a good-bye message. She was special. I treated her well. There's no way she would have simply left, without acknowledging the special bond that we had.

The nasty smell gets stronger as I come closer, and as I glance inside, I find its source.

Brown smears decorate the walls of the room and all the items in it. Unlike the other rooms I have passed that looked barren, this one hasn't been emptied. There's still a coverall on the bed, and the pillows, and the golden wall hangings that I have presented her with. Yet they're all marked with disgusting brown smears, and the smell of excrement is so dense here that I retch and turn away in a hurry.

Is this her message?

Is this what she thought of me all this time?

My head is ringing as my feet carry me away. Outside, I stop for a moment, looking into the blue cloudless sky, breathing deeply to banish the nasty smell from my lungs. I can't think about this now. It's too much. I'm too tired.

I turn away and head for my room.

I've been feeling this fatigue since the day of my defeat. With my anger and my pride and my purpose taken away, there was no reason to open my eyes in the mornings. Still, I had to face the winners, to sign the humiliating documents, to save what was possible for my people and for this island that's going to be our prison for the foreseeable future.

Now they're gone and we can start picking up the pieces.

But I'm too tired for that.

I press the handle and push the door to my room when someone says, "Hey."

I look up and find Emilio standing at the end of the corridor. I blink at him dumbly. I thought he had left with the women. I'm not sure how I feel, seeing him now. It's like encountering a ghost of better times.

He watches me warily.

"May I come in?" he says at last.

I shrug and step into my room.

Walking around it, I unbutton my doublet and open a few buttons on the top of my shirt to breathe easier. The window facing the bay is wide open, but I avoid looking there.

He walks in after me, quietly, as if entering a chamber of someone gravely ill, and shuts the door behind him. He's dressed in some mismatched clothes—the grey pants look like those that servants wear, while the shirt looks rich, decorated with golden ornaments. I'm quite sure it has come from my own closet. I don't really care. Everything is such a mess that he fits right in. I wonder what he's been doing all this week, and what has kept him here.

"So?" I say, sinking into an armchair. "They didn't want you back?"

Stepping softly, he walks over and sits on the floor at my feet.

"They did," he says. "But I preferred to stay. Can't I?"

"Too late to ask. The ships have left. You're stuck here."

He chuckles quietly. "I guess I am."

"Didn't they give you a good enough reward for your trouble?"

"I didn't want it." He shrugs, looking down. "I didn't want to go back and be treated like a piece of trash again. You're the only one who's ever treated me like a fellow human being."

I hum. "That's what I thought you were."

"Am I not?" He raises his head and peers at me.

I study his familiar face, the gentle outline of the cheekbones and the jaw, the ever-inquiring eyes. I had seen the real prince when the documents were signed. Taller than his lookalike, broader in the shoulders, but the resemblance was there. What struck me as strange, though, was the feeling he evoked in me. To me, he seemed like the lookalike.

Emilio sitting by my feet now seems like the real thing.

I reach out and touch his face. The bruises left by Messenio have disappeared by now, and so have the ones left on his neck by my own fingers. Looking at him, I feel no revulsion that flooded when I first learned about his identity. With everything I owned having been stripped away, I'm just a man now, and he's just a man. Suspended in this limbo between the past and the future, we're suddenly equals.

I run my thumb on his lips, remembering how we laughed and talked and kissed. There was so much about him that was real and good, so many moments when he's opened up to me, and yet I hurt him again and again.

Yet he stayed, even in my defeat.

I sink my fingers into his hair and gently pull his face closer.

"I'm sorry," I whisper, and then I kiss him.

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