Chapter 4: Honeyed Lies, Poisoned Smiles
Dolores stood in the center of the room they’d given her. It wasn’t the imperial bedchamber. That, she’d learned, was solely Ullan’s space. This was a consort’s suite—larger than her whole farmhouse, all sleek surfaces and quiet, alien elegance. Her opened travel bag sat on a low silica bench, its contents spilling out like evidence of a different life.
A pair of faded jeans. A few cotton blouses, one with a tiny embroidered flower on the collar. A simple, knee-length sundress. She picked up the sundress, the fabric soft from a hundred washes. She imagined laying it against the backdrop of the celestial maps etched into the walls, against the cold thrum of ancient machinery. It would look like a child’s plaything. A joke.
Nothing she had was at the level of an imperial council meeting.
She sighed, letting the dress fall back into the bag. The scent of Earth—of laundry soap and sunshine—rose faintly from the fabric, a sharp pang of homesickness in her gut.
A soft chime echoed through the room, a sound like a distant, polished bell. Before she could answer, the tall, seamless door irised open.
Two young women entered. They were slender, their features sharp and elegant, their skin a shade of pale grey that looked like morning mist. They wore identical, simple robes of charcoal grey, their hair braided tightly back from their faces. Their eyes, large and dark, immediately found the floor.
“Mistress,” the one on the right said, her voice a monotone. “We are the servants charged with preparing you for the council gathering.”
They moved with a synchronized, fluid grace, approaching her without seeming to actually walk. Dolores took an instinctive step back, bumping into the bench. “Preparing me?”
“The Emperor’s directive,” the other said, still not looking up. “You must be presented appropriately.”
They stopped before her. Four pale hands lifted, reaching for the fastenings of her simple tunic—the only Earth-style clothing she’d put on that morning.
“Whoa, wait,” Dolores said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I can dress myself.”
The servants paused. For the first time, they looked at each other, a flicker of something—confusion, perhaps annoyance—passing between them. “The garments are complex,” the first one said. “The rituals of preparation are specific. You cannot do it alone.”
“I don’t want you to undress me,” Dolores stated, her voice firm. This felt like a violation she wasn’t ready for.
Another silent look passed between the two girls. The second one spoke, her tone slightly softer, a practiced coaxing. “Then at least permit us to prepare your body for the meeting. The atmosphere of the council chambers is dry. The lights are harsh. Your skin must be conditioned. It is a practical necessity, Mistress.”
Dolores hesitated. Her skin did feel tight and strange in this artificially regulated air. The idea of some kind of lotion was deeply appealing. She uncrossed her arms slowly. “Fine. Just… the skin thing. That’s it.”
They bowed their heads in unison. From a fold in her robe, the first servant produced a small, opaque vial. She unstoppered it, and a fragrance filled the air—deep, spicy, with a hint of something like ozone after a storm. It was foreign, but not unpleasant.
Dolores stood stiffly as they gestured for her to remove her tunic and pants. She did, quickly, folding them over the bench until she was standing in her simple cotton bra and underwear. The air was cool on her skin. She felt profoundly exposed.
The servants didn’t seem to notice. Their touches were clinical, efficient. They poured the oil—warm, as if heated from within the vial—into their palms and began to smooth it over her arms, her shoulders, her back. Their fingers worked in slow, firm circles. It was relaxing. The oil soaked in quickly, leaving her skin with a soft, satin finish and that lingering, exotic scent.
She began to unclench, her shoulders dropping.
Then the second servant moved to her hips. Her hands, slick with oil, swept around the curve of Dolores’s waist, down over the swell of her hip. The motion revealed the skin beneath her underwear’s waistband.
There, unmistakable against her golden-tone skin, were four faint, bruise-colored smudges. The perfect imprint of a large, masculine hand. Ullan’s grip from the night before, when he had pinned her, claimed her, roared his ownership into the dark.
The servant’s fingers stuttered for a millisecond. Her dark eyes flicked up, meeting her companion’s gaze over Dolores’s shoulder.
A smirk. Tiny, there and gone.
The other servant’s lips twitched in response.
Dolores flushed, a wave of heat rushing from her chest to her hairline. The intimacy of the marks, the private fury and passion they represented, had just become public gossip for these emotionless girls. She wanted to shrink, to cover herself. She forced herself to stand still, jaw tight, staring straight ahead at the star-map wall until the blurry constellations swam.
They finished in silence. The oil was absorbed. Her skin glowed.
Without a word, they moved to a tall cabinet that seemed to melt out of the wall itself. From within, they drew garments that shimmered like liquid. They held up a dress of deep, rich burgundy. The cut was simple but severe: a heart-shaped bodice that would cup her breasts, sleeves that were mere cuffs on her upper arms, leaving her shoulders bare and sloping. The fabric was heavy, whispering as it moved.
They helped her into it. It fastened with hidden clasps at the side, pulling snug around her ribs before flowing out in a soft, forgiving skirt. It fit her curves perfectly, as if it had been grown for her. It made her sundress look like a dishrag.
Next, her hair. They sat her down, their fingers moving with astonishing speed. They didn’t pull or yank. They gathered her long, wavy hair, twisting and weaving it into an intricate knot at the nape of her neck. From another box, they produced hairpieces—delicate, intricate vines of a silver-bronze metal, dotted with tiny, five-petaled flowers crafted from the same material. They tucked the vines into the knot, the cold metal a startling contrast against her skin.
They stood her before a reflective panel. Dolores didn’t recognize herself. The woman in the reflection was regal, severe, powerful. The burgundy made her skin look warmer, richer. The metal flowers in her dark hair glinted like captured stars. The dress celebrated her shape instead of hiding it. She looked… imperial.
“The Emperor awaits you in his private office before you proceed to the council,” the first servant said, her voice still devoid of inflection, though her eyes gave Dolores a swift, appraising glance.
They led her through a maze of silent, gleaming corridors. The only sound was the whisper of her skirt and the soft tread of their bare feet. They stopped before a door of black, etched with a single, complex rune.
The door slid open.
Ullan’s office was a contrast to the bedchamber. It was all function. A wide desk of dark wood, stacks of data-slates, a large window looking out over the spires of the city. He stood by the window, his back to her, dressed in layers of black and deep grey, his long hair tied back. He was the picture of contained, imperial power.
The servant announced her, a bare murmur. “The Empress Dolores.”
Ullan turned.
Every ounce of that imperial composure evaporated. His eyes widened, then darkened. His breath caught audibly. He looked utterly wrecked, as if she’d walked in and punched him in the gut. He stared, his gaze traveling from the metal flowers in her hair, down over the burgundy fabric hugging her breasts, tracing the line of her bare shoulders, then back to her face.
He was dumbstruck.
“You are incredible,” he finally breathed, the words full of raw wonder. “You are beautiful in anything, but each time, you manage to leave me astonished in different ways.”
Dolores laughed, the nervous tension melting from her shoulders under the heat of his look. She crossed the room to him, the dress whispering its approval. She reached up, took his face in her hands, and kissed him. It was soft, a brush of lips, a promise.
When she pulled back, a smudge of her lip color—a shade the servants had applied, something deep and rosy—stained his lower lip. She chuckled, using her thumb to try and wipe it away. “You’ve got my…”
He captured her wrist, laughing softly, his eyes crinkling. He didn’t let her wipe it off. He just held her wrist, looking at her like she was the only source of light in the universe.
Then his focus shifted. His gaze dropped to the neckline of her dress, to the swell of her breasts rising from the burgundy fabric. A familiar, possessive intensity flooded his eyes. He released her wrist and lifted his hand, his fingers aiming to squeeze the soft flesh above her heart.
Dolores swatted his hand away with a sharp smack. “If you do that,” she said, her voice firm but playful, pointing a finger at his chest, “we will not leave this room, and I will end up completely disheveled. It took a very long time to get like this.”
Ullan smiled, a slow, wicked, utterly unrepentant smile. He didn’t move to touch her again. He just kept smiling, looking at his mark on her lips and the woman who had transformed into his empress, knowing both were his.
He just kept smiling, looking at his mark on her lips and the woman who had transformed into his empress, knowing both were his. The silence between them thickened, warm and charged, until he sighed, the sound almost petulant. “It feels wrong in here now,” he grumbled, glancing around the austere office. “All my things, lined up neatly. It’s too clean.”
Dolores raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about? My things were only moved to the consort’s suite last night. We haven’t even spent one night apart.”
“Exactly,” he said, his voice dropping to a low murmur. “For four years, our clothes were tangled in the same closet on Earth. Your socks with mine, your herbs on my shelf. I’d open a drawer and your scent would come out.” He looked at her, his expression genuinely troubled. “Now my clothes just smell of… nothing. Of air. It’s strange.”
A slow smile spread across Dolores’s face. She looked up at him through her lashes, a gesture he knew intimately. “We could just… change the tradition,” she suggested, her tone impossibly light. “Have a shared bedroom. Seems simpler.”
Ullan’s breath hitched. He cursed under his breath, a rough, guttural word. “Don’t look at me like that,” he warned, his gaze dipping to her mouth. “Don’t look at me like that and talk about sharing my bed with you, unless you want to explain to the entire Imperial Council why we’re late.”
He stared at the wall for a second, wrestling with himself. “At least let me touch one,” he muttered, the request jarringly blunt amidst the political tension. “Just for a moment.”
Dolores laughed, a soft, knowing sound. “I understand the need,” she conceded, and gave a slight nod.
His hand came up slowly, as if approaching something precious and volatile. He cupped the full curve of her breast through the stiff burgundy fabric, his thumb sweeping over the apex. He squeezed gently, then kneaded, the pressure telegraphing pure, frustrated longing through the layers of silk and structured lining. She let her eyes flutter shut for a second, leaning into his touch.
When his fingers began to work at the hidden seam of her bodice, trying to delve beneath the cup to find her nipple, she slapped his hand away with a sharp, decisive crack.
“Enough,” she said, but her voice was breathy. “Now you’ll have to face your council knowing you’ve left me wet.”
Ullan groaned, a sound of pure torment. He adjusted himself roughly through the fine fabric of his trousers. “I won’t be facing them,” he corrected, his voice strained. “They will submit to me. There is no other way.” He paused, his eyes locking with hers, the emperor’s mask slipping back into place but with a crack of warning visible only to her. “I just need you to know… there may be blood. Spilled by my hand.”
Dolores went very still. She searched his face, her playful warmth evaporating. Ullan watched the shift, worry knotting his gut. He saw fear, or worse—revulsion—beginning to cloud her eyes.
He braced for it.
Then he watched, utterly disarmed, as a different heat kindled in her gaze. Her lips parted. “Is it wrong,” she whispered, the words barely audible, “if that… arouses me more?”
Ullan cursed again, louder this time, a raw and helpless sound. He turned swiftly, grabbing a heavy data-slate from his desk with more force than necessary. “We leave. Now,” he commanded, striding toward the door. “The sooner we are done, the sooner I can have you alone.”