A/N: I don't own Queen's Thief.
In thanks for their victory over the Mede, Attolia had commissioned a series of statues to honor the gods.
The one meant to be Hephestia bore a suspicious resemblance to herself.
The queen examined the small clay model presented for her approval with a face like the marble the finished product would be.
It was meant, surely, as only a bit of flattery, or perhaps even as a sign that her careful parallels were a success.
Looking at it, however, sent a cold chill down her spine.
Do not offend the gods.
Attolis leaned over her shoulder. "Not particularly accurate," he said disapprovingly. "Her face is sharper." He flashed a disarming smile at the sculptor. "I could provide a detailed description if you like."
The sculptor looked as if he was reconsidering every story he'd ever heard about the annux and the old gods and for the first time fearing them for truth.
The end result was considerably different than the first offered display. Attolia found her eyes particularly drawn to Moira.
The face was uncomfortably familiar. She suspected Nahuseresh would have agreed with her if he could have seen it.
But her resemblance to Hephestia was once again only in safe parallels, and so she was reluctantly satisfied. The statues were a fitting tribute, albeit one that perhaps she ought to discuss with her determinedly innocent looking king later.
Hephestia's face was not Attolia's own.
But like the marble copy, Attolia's didn't change.
The court whispered and wondered, and their awe and fear was a defense at least as good as a guard twice the size of her own.
Keeping it that way, naturally, was a great deal less effortless than it looked. Irene sat patiently in her chair as her attendants removed the subtle layers of paint they had applied for the evening's banquet and as they undid the elaborate styling that concealed the stubborn strands of silver that had begun to appear in her hair. Her dress, at least, was not quite so elaborate a concealment; if her figure was not quite what it was before she had at last provided an heir, it was close enough to avoid doing anything drastic.
Eugenides didn't have to wait until her attendants left her to drop in through the window, certainly not these days, but he did anyway. Perhaps he was feeling nostalgic.
He did her the favor of letting her hear him come up behind her before he started toying with her hair.
"You won't be able to hide these forever, you know," he reminded her. "Unless you resort to dyes, of course."
Dyes were messy and embarrassing if rumor got out. She doubted she would take that step. "They are at least easier to conceal than balding."
"Yes, I'd noticed some of your barons struggling with that. Thankfully the men in my family just gain a distinguished gray."
"Distinguished," she echoed doubtfully.
He puffed up indignantly. "I can be distinguished."
This was true, of course, but since her earlier poke at his vanity had failed, she was hardly going to say so.
That was the true curse of having a younger husband, she thought wryly. If Eugenides had a single gray hair, she had yet to see it.
Which was particularly unfair considering the number of them he had given to everyone else.
The Thief King was well known for his almost supernatural agility and dexterity, seemingly undimmed as the years passed. He was kind enough to leave Attolia's hair up in its pins as they danced now, but she was hardly surprised to see her jewelry dangling off his hook when the music stopped.
She was surprised that she had actually felt him take one of the earrings this time, and though it was barely visible, she couldn't help but notice how his remaining fingers trembled in her own.
He returned the jewelry with his usual grin to her cool composure, but he didn't ask her for another dance. Instead, likely at a signal that the two of them had long worked out, their son swept her off to another while Eugenides went to entertain his highly pregnant wife.
They might have united three kingdoms with Helen and Sophos, but their children had brought them closer together, and their grandchildren might lay the remaining separatists to rest at last.
But at the moment, she was far more concerned with what was than what might be, so she raised a forbidding eyebrow at her son.
He just gave her the cheerful grin he'd learned from his father and tried to distract her with a stream of amusing chatter.
She could have told him that if she could see through his father, she could certainly see through him, particularly when the worry beneath it was all too visible to a mother's eye, but the practice was good for him, so she let it go.
She found him afterwards, of course.
Equally naturally, his response to the failure of his body was to climb up on one of the roof beams out over a terrifying drop. He was perched there thoughtfully, for all the world as if he was still the boy thief who had never yet been caught.
He was staring down at his arms as she approached. His hand still trembled, she thought, though it was slight enough and the distance was great enough that she couldn't be sure, particularly in the pale light of the moon streaking in through the windows.
The hook was perfectly steady. It was an irony she doubted he was in any mood to appreciate.
"That's how it started for my grandfather, you know," he said, tone deceptively light. "Just a little shaking whenever he was particularly tired. It got worse."
He had spoken of his grandfather before. The conclusion of the tale, she knew, was a fall down the stairs, the critical part here being the fall.
It was a thief's right to die from a fall.
She shot a rather pointed look at his precarious position.
"This would be a suitably dramatic place to fall from, don't you think? Nice and high. It would make a good tale about hubris, too. The old thief who tried his old tricks just one time too many." His teeth flashed in a fierce parody of a smile. "I've been caught that way before."
She considered her response. "Considering everything else you've done," she said, "I don't think it is suitably dramatic. You've raised the bar rather high."
He considered this. "You might be right," he conceded. "It's still better than stairs, though."
She raised an eyebrow. "Because you've made such a habit of settling for 'good enough.'"
"True." He got to his feet and with a few easy steps made his way back to safety before swinging himself down.
She allowed herself to let out a long breath of relief. He was the only one there to hear it, after all.
He kissed her softly in apology. He didn't have to say that the recent stream of nightmares had left him tired and more on edge than usual. It was understood and forgiven, so they moved on.
There would be guards somewhere behind them now that they were moving again, but things were not quite so dangerous anymore. They were keeping their distance from the couple as they walked, and it was easy to pretend they were still alone. It was a quiet moment, and Irene treasured it.
Right up until they reached the stairs.
"It's only a short set," she offered after a moment's hesitation.
"Of course," he said. He looked at it darkly. "And I suppose I'm no longer really needed in any case. Let the next generation carry it on."
Before she could give her opinion of that, he set his jaw and put one foot firmly down.
There was a faint crack as a loose bit of stone finally gave up entirely. He threw his arm out to grab the railing, but his fingers only brushed it.
The moment stretched, frozen, as he started to fall.
Then his hand caught at something invisible, and he was balanced again.
"I have put far too much work into keeping you alive to let you die like this now," an unseen voice said, and then the odd, stretched moment ended, and it was just Eugenides, frozen on the step, and the ice slowly thawing in her veins at the top.
She stepped down carefully, one hand on the railing, and offered him her other arm. "Together?"
"Perhaps that would be best," he agreed.
Thieves worked alone, and thieves died alone, but he wasn't alone if he was with her.
It was a thin chain of logic, she would admit, but it had gotten them this far, and she would see to it that it got them farther yet.