Page 21 of A Pact of Blood

My friends would have found these concerns absurd. I can so easily imagine Cataline shaking her head in bewilderment.Don’t they ever think even of the people of their baronies or whatever other territories? The ones they’re supposed to watch out for?

Nica would snort and speak up with her sarcastic lilt.Don’t you know a gold statue of the emperor makes all our lives richer?

Picturing them with me lifts my spirits while deepening the wave of homesickness. My gaze drifts over the rest of the room—and jars to a halt on my husband.

Marclinus has come up beside Vicerine Bianca. He leans so close his lips brush the shell of her ear, whispering something to her as he trails his fingers down her back. He caresses her as if the gold marriage band gleaming by his sleeve didn’t exist.

Of course, he’s never cared about her marriage vows either.

It’s not a surprising sight—Marclinus has outright groped Bianca in front of me in the past, and she’s made no secret of their intimate association—but it’s the first time he’s overtly approached another woman since our wedding. I hesitate, unsure how I should react.

Even I’m not supposed to criticize our Imperial Majesty. Should I pretend I haven’t even noticed?

A flush has darkened Bianca’s smooth brown skin. She says something back to Marclinus, turning partly toward him, but she keeps her hands clasped modestly by her waist. Her gaze darts across the room… to me.

Her dark eyes hold mine for the space of a heartbeat. I can’t help thinking there’s a question in them and in theslight slant of her mouth, as if she’s confirming she has mypermission.

I don’t know why she’d think she’d need to seek it. She’s enjoyed throwing her closeness with Marclinus in my face plenty of times before. I outright told her I wouldn’t interfere with their ongoing relationship after we married.

I meant what I said. The situation might have struck me with a momentary awkwardness, but not a particle of jealousy nips at me.

If he dallies with her, it should spare me having to use a dose of my special potion on him for a third night in a row, with all the playacting that goes into my performances.

I incline my head slightly and return my attention to my plate.

Is that how a proper empress is supposed to act? Is that what Marclinus’s mother would have done, in the few years she stood with Tarquin after his crowning before she lost her life to childbirth?

As thorough as my training in royal etiquette has been, it somehow never prepared me for the scenario of how to handle a husband who flaunts his affairs in front of your entire court. Marclinus seems to require an additional set of rules of conduct.

There might be more I could learn from the empress who came before me—the one so beloved by the common people they gave her an honor all her own. Perhaps I can use this banquet to get a little something for myself as well.

When I’ve cleared my plate, I weave through the room again, watching for any of the older nobles who’d have been in court three decades ago during Tarquin’s early years as emperor. Here and there, I stop to mingle.

After a little small talk about the food and the atmosphere, I work in a question in a casual tone. “You know, I’ve heard so many lovely things about EmpressFionille, it seems a shame I never had the chance to meet her. I wonder what foods she’d have brought out for a banquet?”

The impact the late empress had on the court is unmistakable. The mention brings a soft smile to every face, and everyone agrees that she was wonderful.

I don’t learn much of anything specific, though, even about her taste in cuisine.

“She would have loved this feast,” one of the elderly vicerines tells me with a pat of my arm.

“She made every meal feel like a banquet,” a grizzled marchion says. “Pleased with whatever we were having.”

A faded baronissa taps her lips with a distant expression. “I don’t know if what was on her plate mattered much to her. She always looked beautiful, whatever the occasion.”

I’m left unsure of whether Marclinus’s mother had little mind of her own or if it’s been so long that recollections are too hazy for details.

She must have donesomethingto earn her people’s affections.

I meander through the room for a little longer, making polite chatter, but the plates have become quite picked over. The crowd is thinning. When I’ve exchanged at least a few comments with everyone who’s lingered, I set off for the library.

The rulers of Dariu are enamored with their own grandeur. Surely there are accounts somewhere of the significant events of any emperor’s rule.

It can’t hurt to do a little research into how a Darium empress has typically behaved beyond the royal standards I’m used to.

Given that Marclinus and Bianca vanished from the dining room some time ago, I don’t think I need to worry about my husband wondering where I’ve wandered off to.Not that he should have any reason to disapprove of this line of research.

I slip past the library’s heavy door and stall in my tracks with its thump behind me.

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