Page 41 of Queen Takes Sunfires 2
“He talked about his Eye often. That’s why he wanted a solar queen, so she could be the Eye of Ra, his feminine counterpart.” Whispering, I tried not to break down. Not to let my emotions bubble up out of me. “Carrying a solar goddess’ blood and magic, mixed with his dominion, she would make him invincible. She would blast the worlds with her fiery majesty. She would punish his enemies, destroy their civilizations, and make their lands impossible to inhabit. She is destruction, and once riled…” My throat closed off, making it difficult to get the last words out. “Only blood will appease her.”
Horrified, I hunched my shoulders, my free arm wrapped around my midsection, trying to hold myself together. “Goddess. I am the monster he always wanted. He didn’t need to sire a queen at all.”
“You are no monster.” Sunzi’s low voice vibrated with intensity. “Of that, I am sure.”
I couldn’t stop shaking. It felt like my body was going to fly apart into a million pieces. I tightened my arm around myself, but it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t help but remember the way Dörr had wrapped his arms around Helayna, offering his protection. His strength. Despite her own power as queen. And she’d accepted his gesture gratefully. It hadn’t been weakness on her part. She hadn’t been afraid of him, or afraid of seeking his comfort and affection.
If I dared…
Without opening my eyes to gauge Sunzi’s reaction, I leaned forward. Closer to him. Until my forehead rested on his chest. He lowered his head near mine, but he didn’t seize me, or even dare breathe on me, as if afraid I would jolt away like a frightened deer. Maybe I would. I didn’t know until I tried.
But if I could have comfort, like her, then I wanted it. Badly. I wanted someone on my side. Someone who could protect me, whatever that meant. Even when it was my own fear hurting me. Even if I was by some cruel trick of fate the very thing Ra had been plotting to create.
I turned my head slightly, so I could hear the steady thump of Sunzi’s heart. “Would you hold me?”
His arms closed around me. “Without question, Your Majesty.”
He didn’t squeeze me or pull me against him. He didn’t even put his hands on me, only the solid weight of his arms around me. He wasn’t a giant like Ra, dwarfing me with his size. He didn’t intimidate me with his mere presence.
I shook harder. The blazing, punishing sun still burned inside me. One flicker away from destroying everything. From escaping my control. But I was so tired already. Weary of being afraid and alone.
“You will never be alone again,” Sunzi whispered.
And I cracked. A sob escaped my throat, a wretched, soul-wrenching sound of agony and rage and terror. I fisted my hands in his tunic, heaving as wracking cries tore out of me. The tears of a child watching her mother’s torture and death. Forced from her home. Seated on a throne beside a monster, coldly calculating how quickly he might sire a child on me. Watching countless other women screaming and crying and ultimately dying.
Over and over and over.
That had been my entire existence for an eternity. All the tears I had never been allowed to release exploded out of me. Worse, though, was my rage. My anger that I had been taken, my childhood destroyed, my life ruined by one mad god. Rage churned in my stomach. I wanted to strike out and lash the entire world with my anger, which only made me more furious and sick at heart.
I didn’t want to hurt anyone. Only Ra. And he was already dead.
“Hurt me, Your Majesty,” Sunzi said calmly, still holding me. “Release your anger on me. I can take it.”
Clenching my jaws, I fought to restrain myself from doing exactly that. He didn’t deserve my rage. He didn’t deserve to be hurt and used like that. No one did.
Flames licked inside me, the fire raging higher. Sunfire essence pushed against the boundary of my skin, stretching and shifting my bones around. It felt like something was going to tear out of me if I didn’t release it. So hot, my blood started to boil in my veins.
I strained to hold it in. Groaning, my throat burning with acid and flames, I couldn’t warn him how close I was to losing control. If I opened my mouth, flaming solar energy would explode out of me.
In desperation, I found the braided shining ropes in my mind, the new Blood bonds I had formed with them, and I dumped all that fiery essence on them. A cataclysmic solar storm raged out of me into those bonds. Flames crackled. Everywhere. I braced to hear their screams. To smell the smoke engulfing the house, just as it had in the vision earlier.
Sunzi made a soft grunt, his breath catching. But he didn’t scream in pain. He didn’t explode in a wash of flames. He didn’t try to stop the surge of sunfire essence pouring into him through the bond. In fact, he seemed to welcome it with open arms.
His body softened against me, though he kept his arms around me. His head dropped against my shoulder. He took all that fire into him. They all did.
My Blood. I was surely burning them up, destroying them with the boiling Eye of Ra inside me.
Heart pounding, I waited to feel pain. Their anger and sense of betrayal. But all I felt was wonder.
“Such power,” Sunzi whispered. “The Goddess lives in you, Your Majesty. Not Ra.”
My cheeks were wet, my throat raw. His tunic was damp beneath my cheek. I unfurled my fingers, intending to release his tunic, but then realized I’d tangled his hair around my hands. As fiercely as I’d gripped his shirt, I probably yanked a good portion of his hair out as well.
Yet he made no complaint. I didn’t even feel any pain from him in the bond, only immense satisfaction. Gratitude that I had allowed him to comfort me. Relief that I wasn’t scared of him, even allowing him to hug me. When had anyone ever wrapped their arms around me? I couldn’t recall. Perhaps my mother, before we were taken. Surely she had hugged me. But I couldn’t remember.
It was so… nice. I didn’t want it to end, yet I felt ridiculous and childish and selfish for even requesting it. I was a grown woman. An Aima queen, evidently, descended from the goddess, Sól. A child of Gaia, the Mother of All. And yes, I was supposedly the Eye of Ra, too. With enough power burning inside me to destroy the entire world.
Yet I would give up all that power to simply stay here, like this. Safe. And held.
