Page 95 of A Kingdom of Pleasure and Torment

There is no point in dwelling over Kathras or Luthian in a journal. It won’t bring them back. It might prolong my sadness. If I simply stop thinking about them, eventually, I will not remember how it felt to have their hands on me, their bodies joined to mine.

But Kathras had warned me. “I’m going to fuck you, Cenere. So deep and so hard that whenever you’re with anyone else, all you can think of is me. All you can feel is me.” I simply had no idea that such a thing was possible.

When I am beneath Cassan, I feel Kathras pounding into me, hear his heavy breaths beside my ear. I feel Luthian’s arms around me, his cock stretching me. Cassan is a skilled lover, but what is all the skill in the world when I long for two others?

It’s not fair to him, I know. It would be easier if he were vapid and vain. But he is kind and sensitive and sweet, and with every day that passes, I feel more like a betrayer. It is already too late for me to change my mind; after all, where am I to go now that my life’s purpose has been fulfilled? But coronation day will make things even more final, and it’s fast approaching.

We take a walk in the garden the night before the ceremony, arm in arm.

“You seem sad, Cenere,” Cassan says, breaking me from a long, thoughtful silence I didn’t realize I fell into.

I put my other hand on his arm and give a brief squeeze. “Not sad. Anxious.”

“There’s nothing to worry about,” he assures me, then pauses. “Well, I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. There hasn’t been a coronation in five thousand years, and I didn’t attend the last one because I hadn’t been born yet.”

“But you’re not nervous?” We’ve practiced the entire ceremony, from our entrance in the throne room and the initial crowning, to the procession to the sacred circle and the sharing of enchanted wine, the ritual mating. The courtiers who’ve meticulously arranged the event are as anxious and serious as the dread inquisitors, and they did not appreciate the merriment with which Cassan and I approached our rehearsals.

He shrugs and sighs. “What will happen if I don’t get the words just right? Will they behead me? No. I will still be their king. If I can’t pour my seed onto the sacred stone, will the crops wither and die? What crops? We conjure all the subsistence we need.”

I feign umbrage. “What do you mean if you can’t spill your seed? Has that been a problem any of the times we’ve practiced?”

He laughs. “I have no doubt you could make me come even if I were half dead.”

A memory of Arcus’s face as he died unsatisfied flits through my memory, and I snort. Cassan interprets it as a laugh over his remark.

“You have nothing to worry about, Cenere. I want you to be my queen, so my queen you shall be. And if anyone takes issue with anything you might do tomorrow... well, fuck them.” He frowns. “Well, don’t actually fuck them. They don’t deserve you.”

I rest my head on his shoulder. “I’m pleased that you think so highly of me, my king.”

“No, call me your prince. This is the last night that you can,” he murmurs, and stops walking to tilt my chin up with his fingers. “Let me hear it.”

“My prince,” I whisper, smiling against his mouth as he kisses me.

His heart is too good. Too pure. I hate that I cannot open mine to it. Will I always feel this guilty, pretending?

“I won’t claim to know what my father put you through,” Cassan says, searching my face. “But I hope that someday, I won’t see that sadness in your eyes.”

I force a smile and nod down the path. “Let’s go inside. I’ve grown hungry.”

When we enter the palace, the doors admitting us directly into the royal dining room, we are besieged by a slender faery with a face that reminds me of a marketplace puppet show. Dour lines pull down his mouth and his head is oddly tall. He is one of Cassan’s chamberlains, and his arms are full of scrolls. Ink stains his white hair where he’s tucked a quill behind his ear.

“More news on the invitations, Your Majesty,” he says, before even asking for permission to speak.

That is something that Casssan must work on, I think. He can’t simply allow his courtiers to flout the protocol they followed with his father.

“Tell me.” Cassan walks us past him, straight to our seats behind the table on the dais.

“Baron Scylas sends his regrets. He hints at troublesome visitors,” the chamberlain says, lowering his voice.

“Ah. So, we know where my brother is.” Cassan chuckles at that.

“Should we send a detachment of inquisitors to arrest him?” the chamberlain asks.

This makes Cassan laugh harder. “Why would I want to bring him back? To execute him? I should be thanking him. He’s the reason I’m even inheriting the crown.”

“And if he changes his mind about that and moves against you?” The chamberlain looks to me uncomfortably, as if pleading with me to make Cassan see reason.

In terms of royal succession, the chamberlain is right. Kathras did flee, but there’s nothing stopping him from later regretting the decision to give up the throne and returning to claim it. But Cassan already knows this, and I will not urge him to kill someone I love. Someone who protected me.

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