How To Tame An Empress (BOOK I)

Chapter 35 - What Love Makes of Man

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It felt as though the war ended before it had even begun.

The enemy had been dismantled before they could metastasize; the provinces were secure, and the borders were quiet. For once, there was nothing pressing that demanded my attention, and that realisation settled over me with unfamiliar ease.

"How many casualties?" I asked Tiberius as he stood beside me, both of our gazes fixed on the last line of fallen men laid out beyond the camp, waiting for their burials.

"Fewer than we predicted. As the resistance collapsed early, our losses are... acceptable." That, at least, was unsurpring. "But... There was one death which I believe may... upset... the empress." Pausing, I turned to face him.

"Explain." The man lifted his chin, eyes focused on a certain body set apart from the others. Even in death, he was recognisable; his armour plainer than most, his features familiar enough to stir something faint and unwelcome in my mind.

"Linus?" 

Valeria's first companion within the palace walls. He was her shadow, her shield, and for a while, I had seriously planned to take his life myself, but looking at him now, at this life which war took before I could, I was forced to remember that war, no matter who the victor was, always took victims from both sides. There is only so much of this world I could try to control.

"He fell holding the line during the countercharge." Tiberius added on, short and concise. How very fitting for a man like Linus; dying the way he lived, standing his ground.

"He was a soldier. He died as soldiers do." So I knew he was prepared for death just as every other soldier is. With that said, I dismissed the subject, going to mount my stallion as I looked down at Tiberius.

"Ria need not know about this nor should anyone think to mention it. Not unless she asks first..." Knowing will only add more grief to her life, which is something I am trying to prevent. And it seems that Tiberius agrees as he inclined his head.

"Now, if everything has been taken care of, let us return home."

It felt longer returning home than it did leaving it, but the journey was all worth it as we entered the city where streets were lined with people cheering in celebration as petals were thrown in my path, scattering beneath my horse as we led the way to the palace.

I acknowledged the people with a measured lift of my hand or an incline of my head, as was expected of me, but I felt the practiced smile on my lips wavering the closer we got to the palace. Something was wrong.

This was all routine; it was familiar, predictable. But somewhere between the outer districts and the palace walls, something began to feel misplaced in a way that I could not pinpoint.

Was it the measured smiles of palace attendants? The whispers being shared amongst servants? Instinctively, my gaze moved forward, toward the palace gates before they had even come into view, to where the familiar faces should have been stood waiting for me.

And when those very gates were thrown open wide in preparation for my arrival, the guards were stationed in perfect formation along either side while my palace remained standing tall and untouched behind them, but at its entrance where my family should have been stood, where she should have been stood; it was empty.

I did not slow. Nor did I falter.

This meant nothing, I told myself. She may have just been delayed, Evander must have caused a fuss which has caused her to be late. I knew there was an explanation for her absence, and whatever it was, I knew I would accept it without question.