My Beloved Queen

CHAPTER NINE

His first visit! And so this was his second. But why had he come—why had he been sent here? Why had he returned?

For the king.

Which one?

Mine. My king.

Orelus. King Orelus of Ceorid. The Great King.

Great. Great, they call him. How can a man be great?

The great uniter—the man who had taken the broken, tattered remnants of the Ceorid Kingdom and restored it to its former glory. Rebuilt it in his mighty image. The man who had saved Nivai's kingdom—who had defeated the old king's greedy sons.

The hero of Ceorid.

Nivai had been sent by him to the western nations to find—to procure for him—

Her. Her eyes. She couldn't see—she couldn't see that she was—

A queen. A peace treaty. A marriage contract. And he'd found one in Alaimore.

Alaimore. He was in Alaimore now. In a hallway in the castle of Alaimore. A visitor—an ambassador. The first, tentative step toward peace between nations at war.

He was an ambassador—a noble man of noble breeding—and when he closed his eyes the only sight that would greet him would be darkness. Empty, peaceful darkness. Not a face—not another pair of wide, unseeing eyes. There was nothing in his head but him. Nivai. Ambassador Nivai of Ceorid.

He was the only one breathing the air in his lungs. He was the only one warmed by the blood rushing through his veins.

And he was in a hallway in the castle that belonged to King Johan III, the king of Alaimore. And the king of Alaimore was a naïve but hospitable man. And the king of Alaimore had a daughter that the great King Orelus was likely to marry. King Orelus had all but outright said as much by requesting that Nivai work out the more base details of the peace treaty with King Johan III.

Nivai breathed in slowly through his nose, and when he exhaled the air that filled his soft lungs poured languidly from his mouth. His vision was blurry, but when he blinked all that surrounded him rushed into sharp focus.

He was leaning against a wall, and the palms of his hands were pressed firmly against the smooth stone. He took another breath and then pushed himself off the wall—made himself stand on his own two feet, as he always should. His hands began to shake without the firmness of stone to keep them still—to press up against them and force them to quiet their trembling. So he curled his fingers into fists—curled them so tightly that his knuckles turned a ghostly, sickly white—until he felt his nails dig into the skin of his palm.

He was real. This was real—this was truth.

And she wasn't.

Not anymore.

He uncurled his hands from their fists and looked down at himself. His clothes were askew—crumpled by his leaning against the castle wall—and he moved to right the disorganization. To make himself proper and noble again.

And then he looked around himself—at the hallway he stood in—to see if someone watched him. To make sure that no possible spy or enemy had seen an ambassador from Ceorid forget himself. Forget truth and certainty—if only for a second.

But a second at all was a second too much.

There was no one, but as Nivai stared he saw a guard appear from around a nearby corner and advance quietly past him. The guard walked without saying anything to Nivai; all he offered the foreign ambassador was a short nod of the head before he disappeared down the hall.