Chapter 9: Lessons in Devotion
The cold of the throne room was a different creature than the cold outside. Outside was honest, a clean, brutal slap. In here, the chill seeped. It rose from the black marble floor, leached from the walls of frost-etched stone, and gathered in the cavernous space above us where ice crystals hung like the teeth of some vast, dormant beast.
I shifted on my feet, the subtle ache between my thighs a warm, persistent echo of the night before. Every small movement sent a reminder—a pleasant, muscle-deep memory of Ellie’s mouth, of Nancy’s desperate clench around my fingers. I glanced to my left. Mary stood at formal attention, her jaw set, but I saw the same faint wince when she adjusted her stance. Our eyes met for a fraction of a second. A shared, private current flickered between us. Yeah. Me too.
Before the dais, the day’s petitions dragged on. A dispute over geothermal vent rights in the lower valleys. A report of ice-worm burrows threatening a reservoir tunnel. Necessary, mundane, deadly dull.
All my attention was riveted to the throne.
Ellie sat upon the jagged obsidian, looking like she’d been carved from its very heart. Her gown was winter silk the color of a deep twilight, structured at the shoulders and flowing in soft, liquid folds over her curves. Her long blond hair was woven with threads of silver and small, pale gems that caught the faint light. She listened to a fur-clad miner detail a cave-in, her expression one of deep, regal empathy. Her fingers, resting on the arm of the throne, were long and elegant. I remembered the precise pressure of those fingers inside me. My throat went dry.
Beside her, standing just a step below the dais, was Nancy. She was Ellie’s living shadow, her opposite in palette. Her dress was the white of new snow, embroidered with intricate, swirling patterns of silver that mimicked the auroras. Her curls were held back by a simple silver circlet, tumbling free down her back. She held a ledger, recording notes, occasionally leaning close to whisper something to Ellie. When she did, her hair would brush Ellie’s shoulder, and Ellie would tilt her head just so to listen. The intimacy of it, here in this formal space, was a punch to the gut.
“They look like they walked out of a legend,” Mary murmured under her breath, her voice so low only I could hear it. Her hand wasn’t on the hilt of her sword for safety; her thumb was stroking the polished pommel, a slow, rhythmic caress.
“And we look like two sticks that learned to walk,” I muttered back, plucking at the front of my own formal jerkin. It was stiff, dark leather, practical and unadorned. My trousers were wool, my boots scuffed from the proving grounds. Next to their flowing elegance, Mary and I were functional diagrams, all lines and angles.
“Speak for yourself,” Mary said, a ghost of a smile on her lips. “I’m a very dangerous stick.”
The miner bowed and retreated, his issue resolved with a few quiet words from Ellie and a note from Nancy. The chamberlain called the next petitioner.
Mary’s gaze was locked on Nancy. “Look at the way her back curves when she writes. Right at the base of her spine. You can see it through the silk.”
I could. I was looking at Ellie’s throat, at the pale, vulnerable line of it as she lifted her chin to address the new petitioner—a spice merchant complaining about tariffs. I imagined putting my mouth there. I remembered the taste of her skin last night, salt and sweetness. My own skin felt too tight, too rough for this room.
“Remember how she sounds?” Mary whispered, her voice thickening. “When she’s right on the edge. That little hitch, right before she breaks.”
I did. It was currently playing on a loop in my head, drowning out the merchant’s nasal whine. I remembered the feel of Ellie’s hair fisted in my hands, the raw, approving look in her eyes as she watched me come apart.
“We’re supposed to be guarding the throne,” I said, forcing my voice to be steady. “Not mentally undressing the Queen and the Princess-Regent.”
“Who says we can’t do both?” Mary countered. Her knuckles were white on her sword hilt. “It’s more efficient. Multi-tasking.”
A soft, warm laugh floated down from the dais. Ellie had finished with the merchant and was smiling at something Nancy had shown her in the ledger. The sound, so full of genuine delight, cut through the room’s sterile chill. It was a sound from our bed, from our private darkness. Hearing it here, in public, felt like a secret handed to me in plain sight.
The chamberlain announced the final petition. An architect from the outer spires, with plans for a new aqueduct.
As the man unrolled his vellum scrolls on the floor before the dais, Ellie leaned forward. The neckline of her gown dipped. From our angle, Mary and I could see the soft, upper swell of her breasts. We both stopped breathing.
Nancy knelt beside the architect, pointing at a detail on the schematic. The posture strained the back of her dress, the fabric pulling tight across her shoulders and the perfect, taut curve of her rear.
“Fuck me,” Mary breathed, the words barely audible.
A hot, pooling laziness spread through my lower belly, a direct counterpoint to the formal, icy room. The architect droned on about flow rates and ice-load tolerances. Ellie nodded, asking a sharp, intelligent question about run-off filtration. Nancy pointed to another calculation.
They were magnificent. They were power and grace fused, the warm, beating heart of this frozen kingdom. And they were ours. The knowledge was a live wire in my chest.
The audience ended. The chamberlain struck the floor with his staff. The petitioners bowed and began filing out, their boots shuffling on the marble.
Ellie stood, a fluid movement of silk and strength. She stretched, a small, unconscious act that arched her back and made the fabric cling for a breathtaking moment. She turned, her eyes finding Mary’s, then mine. The official, regal mask softened into something private, knowing. She saw us seeing her. A faint, pink flush crept up her throat.
Nancy gathered her ledgers, then looked up at us. Her smile was slow, warm, and utterly conspiratorial. She bit her lower lip, just for a second.
“Guard duty’s over,” Ellie said, her voice carrying across the now-empty hall. It wasn’t the queen’s voice. It was my wife’s voice, thick with promise. “Walk with us.”
Mary and I moved as one, falling into step beside them as they descended from the dais. The sound of our boots and the soft whisper of their gowns echoed in the vast space.
No one spoke until we reached the smaller, private door behind the throne. Ellie paused, her hand on the ornate handle. She looked at Mary, then at me, her gaze sweeping over our practical, weapons-and-leather attire.
“You know,” she said, her eyes gleaming. “For two walking sticks, you’re incredibly distracting.”
Nancy giggled, slipping her arm through Mary’s. “I thought you were going to wear a hole in your sword pommel.”
Mary flushed, a rare sight. “The petitioners were tedious.”
“Mhm,” Ellie murmured, pushing the door open onto a warmer, lantern-lit corridor. “It had nothing to do with the view.”
She led the way, her hips swaying gently in the twilight silk. The corridor headed not toward our chambers, but toward the citadel’s lower levels, where the royal baths were fed by the deep, geothermal springs.
Nancy leaned into Mary. “We could all use a bath, couldn’t we?” she whispered, her breath against Mary’s ear. “After such a long, tense morning.”
Ellie glanced back over her shoulder, catching my eye. The promise in her look was as clear as the plans for my howitzer. The formal court was behind us. The calculations of the body were about to begin anew.
The warm, mineral-scented air from the bath caverns ahead wafted down the hall, beckoning. Our footsteps quickened.