Shadow's Edge - Brent Weeks [112]
“You’ve been a hard man to find, Solonariwan,” Kaede said.
“It’s just, just Solon now.”
“The empire needs you, Solonariwan. I won’t make any demands of you besides the—besides producing an heir, and if you require rooms for a mistress, it will be arranged. The empire needs you, Solon. Not just for your family. For you. I need you.” She looked terrifically fragile, as if the wind would break her. “I want you, Solon. I want you as I wanted you twelve years ago and as I wanted you before that, but now I want your strength, your fortitude, your companionship, your…”
“My love,” Solon said. “You have it, Kaede. I love you. I always have.”
She lit up, exactly like she had when she was little and he’d given her a special present. “I’ve missed you,” she said.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, a lump rising in his throat. “I’m afraid I was never able to explain why I had to leave—”
She stepped close to him and put a finger on his lips. Her touch sent shockwaves through him. His heart thundered against his ribs. Her very scent suffused him. His eyes couldn’t find a place to rest as he looked at her. Every beautiful line and curve and color and tone led to another and another.
Smiling, she put a hand on his cheek.
Oh gods. I’m lost. She had that same uncertain, wavering look that she’d had that last day, when she kissed him and he’d nearly torn her clothes off. She kissed him and her lips were all the world. She started tentatively, just touching that exquisite softness against his lips, and then drawing him out. She was suddenly aggressive, just as she had been that day, as though her passion had only been building for all the time he was gone. Her body pressed up against him and he moaned.
She broke away from him, breathing hard, her eyes fiery. “Come to my chambers,” she said. “This time, I swear my mother won’t break in on us.”
She climbed up a tall step and looked at him over her shoulder as she took a few steps away, her hips swaying. She grinned devilishly and brushed the nagika strap off her shoulder. He tried to step up after her, but he slipped back to his place on the floor.
Kaede slipped the gold belt off her waist and dropped it carelessly. Solon strained to climb up that damned step. Something was cutting off his breath.
“I’m coming,” he said, wheezing.
She shimmied and the nagika dropped to the floor in a silk puddle. Her body was all bronze curves and shining waterfalls of black hair.
He coughed. He couldn’t breathe. He’d thrown this away once, and he wasn’t going to give it up now. He coughed again and again and dropped to his knees.
Kaede was just down the hall, smiling, the light playing over her lean body, her long long legs, her slim ankles. He climbed back to his feet and strained against the ropes again.
Why is she smiling? Kaede wouldn’t smile when he was choking to death.
Kaede wouldn’t be like this at all. Her mannerisms weren’t similar to the girl he had known, they were exactly the same, fitted to an older face.
A woman who’d been a queen for ten years wouldn’t let down all the barriers that fast. She was everything he’d hoped or imagined—the real Kaede would be furious with him.
The vision disappeared all at once, and Solon was back on the wall. He was staring over the edge, only the ropes keeping him from falling to his death.
Around him, men were dying horribly. One’s stomach had swollen to three times its normal size and he was still reaching into the air, as if shoving food down his throat. Another was purple, screaming at someone who wasn’t there, but he was no longer screaming words. His voice was a wreck and every once in a while, he coughed and blood flew out of his mouth, but he never stopped screaming. Another was shrieking, “Mine! It’s mine!” and beating the stone wall with his hands as if they were attacking him. His hands were bloody stumps, ruined, but he never stopped. Others were lying down, dead, with no indication of what had killed them.
Many had killed themselves by one means or another, but some had been scorched with magic or exploded. The wall ran red