Essian Shiloh stared at me. Breath escaped her in bursts, chest heaving. Pin-prick pupils still with absolute focus. I've been on enough battlefields to know the countenance of prey meeting a predator.
She clung to her daughter as if I were a beast here to snatch her away. Tight fists around my bride's arms. Amina, my wife to be, daughter of my slain foe Mer Shiloh, swayed on her feet. Eyes distant.
They were clad in the odd clothes of their home city-state, Solateria. Instead of stitched garments, they wore lengths of silk knotted, tied, and woven together to form dresses. The month they spent in transport to my manor shone in shaking shoulders and bags under the mother's eyes.
Amina was a beauty worthy of my attention. Her snow-white hair was captured in a bun by golden twine. Loops of beaded strings framed her elegant features. She seemed to glow in the colored light cast by the stained glass windows. This was a wedding with no guests. Held in my very own manor, in an unadorned hall.
A bell rang out. It was the parable bell signalling the start of half-day. I sighed. The yellow light that had flooded the hall from the outside dimmed and disappeared. We were drowned in darkness for exactly five seconds until a pale blue light began streaming through the windows. The sun had changed forms as it did every day. Only when god's second eye, the blue sun of love, change, and past, was in the sky could a wedding be officiated.
Tears swelled in the older woman's eyes, threatening to spill over and make this meeting more inept than it already was. Foolish crone. I held up a hand. She froze.
"Madam, escort yourself to your quarters. Ask any of the servants, and they'll lead the way." I said, my voice echoing against marble pillars and bone-white walls. "I wish to talk to my wife,"
"But, sir, you wouldn't excuse me from my own daughter's-" I leaked a bit of my mana out, and she stiffened as all shadeless people did. After all, without a shade, she had no access to her mana, thus no way to disobey me.
I nodded to the door on the far end of the reception hall. Face implacable. Her tears flowed freely as she bowed to me, scurrying away. I watched her leave, then turned to my now wife.
"I wish to examine you, unbind your dress." For the first time, she looked up at me, mouth agape, and for a moment, I thought she'd object. The idea died as she lowered her head again.
Her knotted dress wasn't as complicated as it seemed, falling off her after only a few tugs on precise strings. She stepped over the cloth that pooled around her feet.
I prowled around her like the beast she thought I was. Eyes roaming her supple body. Her nipples stood out starkly from the thin gossamer of the underclothes. The sheet clung to her curves. Redness bloomed on her cheeks. Her perfect lips quivered. I absorbed her, remembering every inch. She tracked me with subtle glances.
I stopped in front of her. She heaved as if she had run a fortnight.
There was a suspicion I had since I laid eyes on this woman. "Do you want to kill me?" I said it, and the words stirred no feeling in my chest.
She shuffled back, arms extended as if to ward me away. I didn't move at all, studying the expressions that ran across her beautiful face. First shock. Then fear. Lastly, steel entered her blue eyes.
"Yes," She released the word as if she had fought to keep it in. A brazen declaration. Gone was the feigned weak woman. What stood in front of me was the same fire I saw in her father before I killed him. The sheep sheds its skin to reveal a wolf.
"You're awfully shy about your revenge, couldn't even look at the man you want to kill in the eyes," I walked towards her, "You know your father died in honorable combat. One on one, he just wasn't able to keep up with me."
"I don't hate you because of my father. I wasn't born shaded, and my mother was a slave turned mistress. He never noticed me unless it was to try to pawn me off to some Lord." She stepped forward. "I hate you for what you're doing now. I hate you for embarrassing my mother. And I hate you for taking me away from my home."
I resisted the instinct to roll my eyes. Her fool father was the one who started this, choking off trade routes and kidnapping the daughters of lower nobles. Being the steward of an entire city went to the rabid bastard's head. He had tested the empress's patience and tasted steel for it.
"Most of your siblings are dead. Those who aren't are in the custody of some very bad people. Do you know the bids there were for you?" I closed the distance, her breast pressing against my muscled chest. "You could have ended up with Vizier Gardinz, rumored to feed his drakes tasty young ladies. Or worse, ended up at one of Madam Edida's brothels."
She recoiled back as if slapped by my words. Even in her faraway home city, Edida's cruelty was known.
"The head of my clan has been pressuring me to marry. Continue my prestigious bloodline. We don't need to be friends. After you give me an heir or two, you can disappear. We can even use a surrogate golem."
Our breaths mingled in the gap between us. I raised a hand to caress her cheek, but stopped myself. I turned from the two-faced woman.
Just as I broke fortresses and the will of kings, I would break her resistance. One-sided love was the leash I'll place on my wife.
"I expect you to acclimatize to the area's fashion, thus not to attract attention. We're going out to announce this auspicious marriage tomorrow. I will be bedding one of my courtesans tonight." I began to stride away, but a hand clasped my wrist.
"Aren't you forgetting something? Maliek Reiha," she said. "It's only proper for a husband to display himself to his wife as well."
I peered at her, eyebrows raised. Was this her way of trying to grasp some power in the situation?
As I will. I unbuckled my pants and pulled off my shirt. She watched me like a zoologist seeing a particularly interesting insect.
She mimicked the examination I did to her, ending with a dismissive huff. I reclothed myself and didn't look back as I left the hall. Not even when I heard her muffled cries.