The bathwater had long gone cold, but Sera remained motionless, staring at her distorted reflection in the rippling surface. The servant girl's whispered warning coiled through her mind like smoke. *The Emperor's curse only a Valtaris can break.* Outside, the sounds of celebration from Varian's victorious soldiers clashed violently with the growing storm that rattled the palace windows.
She examined her body in the dim candlelight - the purpling bruises on her wrists from where Varian had pinned her, the red marks his teeth had left along her collarbone, the soreness between her thighs that reminded her of how thoroughly he'd claimed her. The dagger she'd taken from Kaelan's shoulder lay on the washstand, its blade still flecked with dried blood.
A floorboard creaked behind her.
Sera snatched the dagger just as Varian's broad frame filled the doorway. He leaned against the carved wood, holding up an identical blade - the one she'd left embedded in Kaelan during the rebellion.
"Forgetting something, little queen?" His voice was rough from shouting orders and smoke inhalation. The scent of fire and iron clung to him.
She sank deeper into the water until it lapped at her chin. "Come to finish what you started in the courtyard?"
"Come to collect what I'm owed." He stepped forward, his shadow swallowing her whole. Water dripped from his unbound hair as he crouched beside the tub. "You spared the city when you could have let it burn. That deserves..." His fingers trailed through the water, stirring the lavender oils. "...proper gratitude."
Her pulse jumped as his thumb brushed her lower lip. "Name your price, princess. Jewels? Silks? Your traitorous cousin's head delivered on a silver platter?"
"The truth." She caught his wrist, feeling the rapid flutter of his pulse. "Why does your skin burn when you touch me? Why did you really choose me?"
For a heartbeat, his mask slipped. The carefully constructed indifference in his storm-gray eyes fractured, revealing something raw and desperate beneath. Then—
Varian gasped, his entire body going rigid. He clutched at his left arm where the old scars she'd noticed before suddenly glowed an eerie blue beneath his skin. The light pulsed like a living thing, spreading up his neck in jagged lines.
Sera stood abruptly, water sloshing over the tub's edges. "What's happening to you?"
His laugh was ragged, pained. "You wanted... the truth?" He collapsed against the tub's edge, his breathing labored. "The Dainthar emperors... bound to a demon's curse... for seven generations." His fingers dug into her thigh hard enough to bruise. "Only Valtaris blood... can calm it."
She moved without thinking, hauling his seizing body onto the bed. The glowing scars now covered half his face, the unnatural blue light casting monstrous shadows across the chamber. His muscles locked and spasmed beneath her hands.
"How?" she demanded, pressing her palms to his heaving chest.
Varian's hand convulsed around hers, crushing her fingers. "Your blood... must let it taste..." His back arched violently as the curse flared brighter. "Now... or it will... consume us both."
Sera grabbed the dagger from the washstand. Without hesitation, she dragged the blade across her palm, reopening the scar from their marriage contract. Blood welled instantly, dripping onto Varian's bare chest where the curse burned brightest.
The moment their blood mingled, the room exploded in blinding blue light.
Sera's vision whited out. She felt rather than saw the power surge between them - a living current that connected her very soul to Varian's. Images flashed behind her eyelids:
A shadowy figure in ancient Valtaris robes chanting over a bound Dainthar ancestor...
A demon's grinning maw opening beneath a castle's foundations...
Varian as a boy, screaming as the curse first manifested...
Then - silence.
She came to sprawled across Varian's chest, both of them drenched in sweat. The glowing scars had faded to faint silver lines. His breathing had steadied, though his skin remained fever-hot beneath her palms.
His hand came up to cradle the back of her head. "Told you... you were mine."
Before she could respond, the chamber door burst open. A wide-eyed servant gaped at their tangled forms.
"Y-Your Majesty! The Northern Lords have arrived early! They brought the High Priestess!"
Varian's arms tightened around her. "Damn them to hell."
Sera's blood ran cold. The High Priestess of the Northern Clans could sense dark magic. And she would certainly examine the new bride for any signs of corruption.
As the servant fled, Sera looked down at her still-bleeding palm - at the way Varian's fingers instinctively laced through hers, their blood mingling once more.
The curse might be quieted for now. But its mark remained.
On both of them.