How To Tame An Empress (BOOK I)

Chapter 48 - A Silent Goodbye

--Valeria POV--

For a long while, Stacius said nothing.

He only held me tighter, his face hidden against my stomach as his tears seeped through the fabric of my tunic. Every breath left him brokenly, his shoulders trembling beneath my hands until it no longer felt as though an Emperor knelt before me, but a little boy who had finally discovered that there were some things his power could not save.

And despite everything, I held him.

My arms folded around his head and I rested my cheek against his hair, allowing him to weep for the child we had lost and the marriage which had died alongside them. My fingers moved through his curls, soothing him in the same way I had soothed our sons whenever a nightmare drove them from their beds.

What a curse love was. Even now, with blood drying upon my skin and the ache of his hands still lingering around my arm, I loved him. I loved the warmth of his hair beneath my fingers. I loved the familiar weight of him against me. I loved the man who had made me laugh in this very palace and the father who never passed either of our sons without touching their heads.

Perhaps hatred would have been kinder. Hatred might have cut cleanly through every memory and allowed me to walk away without turning back.

But love had never been kind to me; it had simply taught me how much pain a heart could endure without having the decency to stop beating.

A quiet knock sounded against the chamber doors as I stood up straight, but Stacius did not move. His arms only tightened around me, as though he believed whoever stood outside had come to take me from him.

I turned my head, watching the doors open cautiously before Evan stepped inside. His face was pale, his jaw held stiffly, and there was something in his eyes I had never seen before as he looked between the blood staining my tunic and his father kneeling at my feet.

"Evan." I called gently as his attention returned to me. "Please find Balbina. Tell her I need her to help me clean myself."

His lips parted as though he wanted to ask whether I was all right, but perhaps the answer was too obvious, so instead, he nodded, and before leaving, his gaze fell once more upon Stacius, whose face remained buried against me. 

There was no anger in Evan's expression. Only a quiet incomprehension, as though he could not reconcile the father who had raised him with the man now clinging to his wounded mother.

"Stacius." I called softly once Evan left, but he shook his head against me like a stubborn child. "I need to clean myself."

"I will help you." He murmured against me.

"No. Balbina will." My answer was not cruel, but it was firm, causing him to finally look up. The streak of blood my thumb had left upon his cheek had begun to dry, and his eyes were red and swollen, stripping away every trace of the Emperor until only my husband remained.

"We will continue speaking later." It was the only thing I could offer him right now, and perhaps that was why he accepted it so readily.

His arms loosened with visible reluctance as he rose slowly, but his hands remained upon my waist until the final possible moment before eventually slipping away. At the doors, he looked back at me as though committing the sight to memory.

"I love you, flower." He whispered, the words wounding me more deeply than any apology could have, and I bit my lip, holding myself back from telling him that I loved him too.

"I know." Was all I managed to say instead, knowing that if I allowed myself to say what he wanted to hear so badly then they would become another chain around my throat. He seemed to understand that though, because he smiled faintly before leaving.