Sunset of the Wandering Souls
Chapter 27

My coronation doubled as Lady Oglin’s formal arrest. She was hauled off the dais by two royal guards, her fan falling from her hand as she put up a fight. If she wanted her allies in Diatessia to see me as weak, I would do everything to show how much control I had in palatial affairs, in the least. I would do everything in my power to show them what picking a fight with the Reissu meant. I took the crown, well past my eighteenth birthday, with a speech announcing my intent for a war to keep the peace. I hadn’t expected my subjects to react positively to this declaration. Shouts that Diatessia was a threat rung out through the crowd, with similar cries about how it was time a king went against the Jakeki laws.

No war could be declared until I had a wife and a possible heir in case I was killed in battle, however. When I was well enough to ride a horse, the paralysis still present in a few fingers and toes, and my cheek, I took to the rural areas of the Interior. I kept my presence discrete, only speaking to a handful of people in each town. Erzen lived near the border with Diatessia, a farmer’s daughter. She caught my attention entirely by accident. I hadn’t meant to, but I witnessed a quiet moment shared between her and a Qriacin woman. I pled my case to her, offered her the title of queen, a title that came with the power to protect her love. All she would need to do in exchange is produce an heir and not let mine or her secret slip.

She had tugged at strands of hair, looking to where the Qriacin had left, contemplating my offer. She asked me all sorts of questions before making up her mind and dragging me off to meet her father. Erzen didn’t quite so ask her father’s permission to let her marry me, or allow me to ask him for her hand, than she did declare it. I kept myself from smiling at the thought of what the etiquette teachers would do to her upon witnessing this. She would make the perfect queen for me, she knew what she wanted almost right away, whereas I needed time to come to my decisions. I whisked her away to the palace, feeling guilty behind my plastered smile that I wished it were Pili standing before me when I married her. We consummated our marriage quite clumsily, our eyes firmly shut imagining whatever it was that was needed. Her words, “I will do everything to ensure it is a son, so we never have to go through that again,” stuck in my head.

Pili and I met before we were to head to war. The Diatessia were encroaching closer and closer to our border, amassing an army of untrained laymen. The longer we waited, the harder it would be to control the war, to protect my citizens. I tried to push those worries down, at least while Pili was sitting in front of me on the bed in the king’s chambers. “You can still go back to Ukicho before the war,” I said.

He held my hands, almost as if he knew I’d start picking at my nails. “I won’t.” He moved a little closer to me, my knee touching his shin. “I told you in Bulos,” he kissed my knuckles. “I won’t join this war as an Aeces, but as a Reissu.”

“If that is what you wish.” I blew a puff of air out of my nose. “I don’t want to see you hurt from my own incompetence, Pili. Innin is a commendable general, but he can’t protect both you and me.”

He pulled my hands towards him, pulling me into his lap. “Worrying won’t get you anywhere, Ezollen.” He rested his head on my shoulder. “We leave in two days, let’s enjoy the peace while we have it.”

I felt him kiss my neck, trailing his way to my chin, planting a final kiss on my cheekbone. “Are you jealous of Erzen?” I asked, his hands untucking my shirt.

“No,” he said, breath against my Adam’s apple, hands squarely on my hips. “Maybe.”

Pili’s fingers brushed against the base of my tail. I flinched at the tingling sensation that traveled up my spine. He seemed to realize it wasn’t a feeling I hated, and he focused his attacks on the nerves nestled there. “There’s nothing to be jealous of.” My brain was turning fuzzy the longer he played with the base of my tail, my words coming out lilted and slurred. “I don’t love her,” I said half moaning, and tried to wipe the drool off my face, “and she doesn’t love me.”

He laid me on my back, my tail crushed under my body. He looked me over, at my hair splayed around my head, my shirt pulled halfway up my torso, my trousers becoming tighter the longer his eyes roamed me. “But you’ve…?”

I nodded, wanting to hide behind my hands. “I need an heir,” I said through my fingers. “But it’s not…an act of love.” He pulled his shirt off, letting it fall to the floor. I bit the back of my middle finger looking at his chest. My face flushed at every curve, every twitch of a muscle I trailed my fingers over. I stopped above his naval, above those black-inked shapes and patterns I’d never seen on him before. “These are new.”

“Uncle insisted. They go…” Pili slipped my hand under the waistband of his skirt, put his mouth as close to my ear as possible and whispered, “down to my knees.”

I bit down on my finger harder at his words, feeling shy and nervous at the thought of everything that would come next. “They’re kind of…sexy,” I said through my finger. It was awkward, but with whatever lust filled courage I was drunk on, I moved my hand further into his skirt. It made me a little happy, maybe a little excited to know he felt arousal towards me. I took upon stroking him, Pili supplementing what my hand couldn’t physically do in our respective positions by moving his hips. It felt incredible to know I was the cause of all his moans he let out in my ear. His hand drifted up my bare stomach, pushing my shirt up further as it went. Blood dripped into my mouth as he pinched and rolled my nipple between his fingers. Maybe if I hadn’t been deprived of anything sexual outside of educational books, I would’ve last long enough for him to take my trousers off. I felt only a little better knowing he couldn’t wait either, letting loose in my hand.

My trousers came off anyway, after we’d calmed down. They were sticky and uncomfortable, and lounging in my shirt wasn’t something I was unaccustomed to. We lied next to each other, in various states of undress while I traced the patterns of Pili’s tattoo. He lulled me to sleep telling me what each symbol represented.