Gold-Tinted Wax.
Chapter One.
She lifted the shallow metal bowl from its stand above the candle and poured a little puddle onto the parchment, pressing her seal into it. It was gold-coloured wax of course, because, after all, she was an Empress.
It was a dark, beautiful night, but the Empress of Carthak couldn't sleep. So she had done the same thing she always did when she was troubled: write to her brother. It wasn't her parents she wrote to, or her sisters, nor her ladies in waiting or her friends- no, it was Roald she wrote to: long letters of gibberish. It was the closest she could get to speaking to him without the trouble of setting up long-distance speaking spells and he had always calmed her.
Of course, her letters were rather empty. She couldn't tell him of intricate details of her court and empire and she certainly wasn't going to tell him how she really felt at being so far from home.
Oh yes, she could just imagine it now:
Dear Roald,
I know it hasn't been long since I last wrote to you (a day?) but I couldn't help myself. I was feeling so sad, I needed some comfort. I wish I could come visit; I miss you. I miss home. It's so hot here and dusty. The slaves scare me, Roald and my husband- well, Kaddar scares me too. Every night I go to bed, shaking: what if he wants me this night?
Kalasin laughed a bitter laugh, a sound that echoed eerily around the quiet night. No, a letter like that would not do. Her letters were mundane accounts on what she actually liked (or pretended to like) about her new home, and all about what she spent her time doing and her positive thoughts about her husband. Just the act of writing to her calm, serious brother was enough to soothe her in times of distress.
She often wondered how many of her letters Roald read, and if he gave up half way through her drabbles. Behind those thoughts was a question she didn't want to know the answer to: how much did he see through her letters?
She wanted to go home- at least for a short while. She wanted to be there when Roald announced Shinko's first pregnancy and for the birth of Roald's first child (there was no doubt in Kally's mind that the wait wouldn't be very long- it was Roald, after all, and he succeeded in everything he did). She wanted to see Roald's face when she got pregnant. She wanted Roald to be there to hold her newborn.
There was only one other person Kalasin missed as much as she missed Roald. It wasn't her other siblings: she and Lianne had never gotten on much until they were older, and then Kally had been away preparing for her new position as Empress. Liam and Jasson, too, were much younger than Kally; she had never formed the same strong bond with them. They had been held in the nursery for too long and she had got used to it being just Roald and herself.
It wasn't her parents she missed so much either. Thayet had had Roald and Kally quickly, to secure Jon's throne, and so both monarchs had been far too busy dealing with the early stages of their reign to bring up children. Although Jon and Thayet had struggled to spend more time with their younger children, for Roald and Kally they had been largely absent.
No, the only other person Kalasin missed so much was Faleron of King's Reach. Her cousin and friend, he had also become her lover- of sorts. He had taken it into his skilled hands to instruct the empress-to-be in the ways of physical love, for she could not be empress in a land where the emperor was allowed many wives and be completely unprepared.
The Empress pulled a fresh sheet of parchment towards her and began to write.
Dear Faleron, how are you?
No. That was ridiculous. She crossed it through.
When they had been together, she had always played up to him. She was a princess, she was going to be empress, she was stunningly beautiful. He should feel honoured that she had chosen him.
He would take it all with a lazy smile and kiss her mouth firmly to stop her ramblings and remind her of the purpose of their love-making.
Her teasing had continued when her feelings began to run deeper. She knew that as cousins they shouldn't really be doing this; there would be Chaos if their parents found out, but she enjoyed it and she had always had what she liked. Even when he had returned to the war, she couldn't bring herself to quit her frippery and tell him to take care.
Dear Faleron,
It is strange to think I have already been gone so long. It does not seem five months since I first moved in. yet, at the same time, it feels like years and years since we last kissed-
With a growl, the Empress tore her last attempt up, throwing the pieces towards the candle. A scrap fell into the melted wax. She snorted; gold-tinted wax, indeed.
She missed Faleron painfully, just as she missed Roald. She missed the way she could tease him and his lazy air; she missed how worried he could get over something small and truly insignificant. She remembered the time she had fallen and scraped her knee- and the time he had lost a letter from a friend: how panicked he had got.
Kally missed his body too. She couldn't get used to Kaddar's dark skin after Faleron's paleness; and Kaddar's hands were too soft compared to Fal's calloused knight-palms.
But despite all that, she couldn't bring herself to write to him. She wanted to, but it was so awkward. What could she say to him? He had promised to write to her and yet she had received no letters; obviously he did not care as much as she had believed.
He was probably off fighting some battle somewhere. Either that, or choosing his bride. Faleron had held his mother's persistent encouragements at bay while he was sleeping with Kalasin but now Kally was gone, what reason had he to hold back? And when he had a wife, he wouldn't want his cousin from far away sending pestering letters every month.
No, she had been just another woman to him. A fun one, she hoped, but clearly no more than that. It seemed that their little affair had even severed their friendship.
After all, what was she but another notch in the bedpost for him?
The Empress threw her other attempts of a letter to Faleron in the fire. There would be no gold-coloured wax-sealed letter of love arriving at his door. Only, as always, at Roald's: her constant rock.
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