Page 80 of Empire of Death
“Yeah, but I don’t blame her.” He turned back toward the door. “I’ll send the dragons and prepare for battle. You rest. I can tell how tired you are.” He headed to the other side of the sitting room and grabbed the handle before he looked at me.
“I’m not tired,” I whispered. “Just utterly fucking defeated.”
Once the maids filled the large tub with steaming hot water, I undressed and slipped under the surface. My muscles immediately relaxed at contact with the warm bath, but I scrubbed my nails and washed my hair anyway because I was desperate to get clean. Once that was done, I sat there in the tub, knees pulled close with my arms crossed over my belly. My eyes stared across the room at nothing in particular, and my thoughts just floated there…like a ship on the sea.
I closed my eyes for a while because they were so heavy. I’d slept on the ship, but it’d been brief because of the anxiety of the impending battle. But every time I closed my eyes, I saw the Behemoths sprinting toward me, King Ithaca pleading for his life, and the sight of shipwrecks in the sea.
I chose to open my eyes instead, and they immediately landed on Callum, seated in an armchair against the wall, dressed in his casual attire instead of his bulky armor and large two-handed sword. He watched me with tired eyes, even though tired was something he didn’t feel.
I stared at him for a long time, finding comfort in his presence even though I was in the throes of loss. “Am I a complete fool for believing I could conquer their fleet?”
“No,Xivin.”
“I lost good ships and good men. Could have lost Zehemoth too.”
“But you didn’t lose Zehemoth,” he said calmly. “And war always comes with a price. In your case, at least it was a small price. The rest of your fleet is here, ready for battle.”
I pulled my knees farther into my chest and stared at the surface of the water. “I suck at this.”
“Your father is alive because of you. Riviana Star survived because of you. You tried to save King Ithaca from a horrible fate, and you would have succeeded if his heart hadn’t been infested with greed.”
“I only did those things because of the gifts you granted me.”
“And if the same gifts had been granted to someone else, they would have used them in a much different way. You decided to put others before yourself. You decided to wield those powers responsibly. I gave you strength, but you chose how to use it.”
I kept my eyes on the water.
“Xivin.”
I released a sigh that made the water shift underneath my nose. “I’m scared.” I felt my bottom lip tremble, and I did my best to keep it still. I didn’t want to shed tears like a little girl. My father wouldn’t retreat to his bedchambers and cry despite the enormity of what he faced, so I couldn’t either.
Huge palms suddenly cupped my cheeks, and the water level rose up the sides of the tile several inches.
My eyes lifted to him across from me, naked with me in the water, his thumbs gently swiping over my cheeks, ready to catch the tears when they fell. “It’s okay to be scared,Xivin.”
“No, it’s not.” The moisture in my eyes grew, broke the bottom lid, and then streaked down my cheeks.
But he was there to catch it, to absorb the tears into the pads of his thumbs.
“I’m supposed to be the fearless leader of the Southern Isles, to be the ferocious queen my father believed me to be, to defeat these monsters and protect the people of these lands. But all I can think about is…the fact that we can’t do this.”
“But you can,Xivin.”
“Maybe my father could, but I can’t.”
“You believe your father was never afraid, but he was always afraid. Worried that an enemy would strike down the kingdom despite the last decades of peace. He was afraid when you sailed away on your journey. He was afraid when he marched into Riviana Star. A good rulerisafraid,Xivin. That means they aren’t arrogant. It means that they care about others more than themselves. They understand just how dire the consequences of failure are, and they carry that every day.” His hands forced my chin up so I would meet his gaze instead of continuing to hide from him. “It’s okay to be afraid.”
My hands moved to his wrists, and I held on to them like I’d held on to that little sailboat at the back of the galleon. Held on to it like it was my safe passage home. My quiet tears continued for a few minutes before his touch calmed me down, before the air felt right in my lungs once again.
He gently pulled me toward him, toward his side of the big tub. His back hit the opposite end, and he pulled me to his chest, his thick arms locking over my body like a warm blanket. He brushed a kiss to my hairline as he held me there.
The water should have gone cold by now, but I felt it gradually heat and then steam once again. I watched the tendrils of vapor rise from the surface and lift into the air until they disappeared. “Is that you?” I said quietly.
“Yes.”
I remembered the way he’d conjured fire in the dark forest of the underworld, made a torch from a single branch on the side of the dirt pathway. He seemed to have done the same here, lit an invisible fire that made the bath feel fresh again.
Warm in the water and safe in his embrace, I finally closed my eyes, and all I saw was a white-sand beach with turquoise waters and gentle waves. I slipped further into my dreams…and found him waiting there for me.
