Chapter 36: The Bathhouse at Dawn
The silence of my own chambers was a mockery. The lavish tapestries, the alabaster statues, the pool of still water reflecting the moon—all of it seemed to belong to someone else. A capable woman. A ruler. I could still feel the ghost of Neferti’s dismissive hand, the searing contempt in her eyes. Your realm. The words were a brand on my mind.
I had sent Benedetta and Marisa away with a curtness that made them flinch. I could not bear their concern, their soft hands, their unspoken loyalty. They were mirrors, and in them I would only see the crumbling figure I had become.
The humiliation did not cool. It fermented. It turned into a dark, acidic resolve.
If I was a failure as an empress in that room, then I would not be an empress there. If my will had proven to be rotten timber, I would carve it out entirely and offer the hollowed shell. The logic was perverse, but it was the only compass I had left in the wreckage. To voluntarily go lower than I had been forced. To choose the degradation, thereby owning it. It was the last twisted vestige of my control.
The palace slept. I shed my crimson silks, the symbol of my station, and draped myself in a simple, unbleached linen shift from a servant’s alcove. The coarse fabric was a confession against my skin. I moved through the shadowed corridors not as a sovereign, but as a phantom. The guards at the approach to the royal wing were my own; a flick of my eyes from the darkness and they melted away, confusion and fear on their faces. Their discretion was a final service to the crown they thought they still served.
The door to Jabari’s private chamber was of dense cedar, banded in bronze. From within, I could hear the low murmur of voices, the soft clink of a goblet. No laughter. I did not knock. I pressed the door open just enough to slide my body through, and then closed it silently behind me.
The room was bathed in the soft, warm glow of a single oil lamp. Neferti and Jabari were reclined on the central divan, sharing a bowl of dates. They froze, mid-conversation, as I entered.
I did not approach. I let them look. Let them see the linen shift, the loose hair, the bare feet on the cool stone. Let them see the absence of the empress.
Jabari’s eyebrows lifted. Neferti’s face was impassive, a smooth mask of obsidian.
“The guards have grown lax,” Jabari said, his voice a dry rumble.
“I dismissed them,” I said. My own voice was flat, stripped of inflection.
“You are intruding, Angela,” Neferti said. She used my name alone, a deliberate stripping of title.
“I am not here as an intruder.” I forced my feet to carry me forward until I stood at the edge of the fur rugs, just outside their intimate circle. The scent of their bodies, of wine and intimacy, was thick in the air. “You showed me what I am. Tonight. You revealed the core. A creature of appetite, willing to betray anything to sate it.”
“And this is your conclusion?” Neferti asked, plucking a date, not looking at me.
“My conclusion is that such a creature does not deserve a throne. It deserves a chain.” I drew a breath that shuddered in my chest. “I offer no more deals. No more bargains. I offer the creature itself. You broke the empress. Here is what remains. Do with it as you please.”
The silence stretched. Jabari set his goblet down carefully. Neferti finally turned her head, her dark eyes traveling the length of my body with a cold, appraising curiosity. “You wish to serve?”
“I wish to be used. There is a difference.”
A slow smile touched Jabari’s lips. He understood the nuance, the deeper surrender. Neferti nodded, almost to herself. She swung her legs down from the divan and sat forward. Her feet, slender and high-arched, rested on the deep fur.
“Begin there,” she said softly.
I knelt. The stone was hard and cold through the thin fur. I kept my eyes down, focusing on her feet. The lamp-glow gilded her skin. I reached out, my hands trembling only slightly, and took her left foot. It was warm. I bent my head.
The first touch of my lips to her instep was a lightning bolt of finality. This was it. The point of no return. I heard Jabari shift, felt his gaze like a physical heat on my back. I closed my eyes and let the sensation drown me. The faint taste of salt and perfumed oil. The smooth texture of her skin.
I took one toe into my mouth, my tongue circling the joint. Then the next. A methodical, devotional act of abasement. Each one a nail in the coffin of my former self. I was meticulous, focused entirely on the task, letting the rhythmic motion empty my mind of everything—the shame, the pride, the towering failure.
Above me, I heard a soft sigh. Then the sound of a kiss. I opened my eyes, just a sliver.
Jabari had pulled Neferti to him. They were kissing over my head, a deep, languid kiss of shared power and possession. His hand was tangled in her hair. Her fingers trailed down his chest. They were not watching me. That was the most profound part. My act was not a performance for their eyes. It was a service so base it became ambient, a part of the room’s atmosphere, like the flickering lamp or the scent of myrrh. I was beneath notice, even as I worshipped the most intimate part of her.
The realization was a relief so profound it felt like grace. This was my place. Here. Not making decisions, not carrying the weight of a dynasty. Just this. The simplicity of use.
I continued, moving to her right foot, my world shrinking to the geography of skin and bone. Their murmured affections, the wet sounds of their kiss, the creak of the divan as they moved against each other—it was all the soundtrack to my annihilation.
And in the heart of that annihilation, for the first time since the obsidian egg had fallen, I found a terrible, perfect peace.