Twenty-Five

"Meetings all day?" he asked, curling a sweaty tendril of her hair around his thumb.

"We do have a luncheon at the Corps of Engineers' headquarters this afternoon," she replied, licking her lips and working hard to disengage herself from his arms. "Larsa's brokering a very lucrative deal for aqueducts in exchange for half the new mythril mine near Nalbina."

Balthier shook his head in annoyance, keeping her seated upon the shelf. "Half the mine? You agreed to half?"

"We've more mines, Balthier. Half of one small, inconsequential mine is nothing compared to what the aqueducts will do for the new settlements west of the city, you know that."

He grunted, brushing her temple with a kiss. "Contract out for your bloody aqueducts."

She rolled her eyes and tried shoving him away. The Archadian summer was far more humid than Dalmasca's, and her sweat-slick thighs had nearly glued her to the shelf. And some lengthy treatise on Archadian criminal statutes had tipped over during their exertions to jut into her ribs. Never again, Ashe vowed. "Will you please let me down? I've got several hundred years of law codes crushing my side!"

Balthier moved away with an annoyed sigh, and she slid down onto the lush carpeted floor, settling her skirt with a frown. He did his best to rearrange the books again behind her. "You wouldn't happen to remember if the Magisterial Code of Conduct was on this shelf or the one where you rested your feet, would you? I didn't even notice it flying off…"

She chuckled, remembering some heavy book flying off when she'd held onto the shelf for dear life moments earlier. Ashe snatched the book from his hand. "Of course. You never notice when you're like that."

"And the Queen dares to concern herself with mundane things like books on shelves when she is being ravished by such a handsome fellow as myself?"

Ashe shelved the book and repositioned the bookend. "You are the most self-important man I've ever…"

He roughly covered her mouth with his own, pressing her back against the books again. Who would have thought that the Emperor's private library would be such an aphrodisiac for a foreign Queen and her paramour? If only young Larsa knew what grave sins had been committed in between his tomes of antiquated legal precedents!

Footsteps in the hallway made her jolt, and she tried shoving him off of her. Since Balthier had decided to actively pursue her again after a year of thieving with Fran in the outskirts of Rozarria, he'd become far more daring in his behavior. A romp in Larsa's library during one of her diplomatic visits to Archades was not their most scandalous activity by far, but it probably had the worst political implications.

Balthier seemed to get his thrills from danger, finding a new way to nearly get them caught every time. Ashe would be in an early grave, her heart palpitating both from his lustful attentions and from the thought of some patrolling judges finding her in the Emperor's library in the company of a pirate with a bounty on his head larger than her own treasury. The footsteps died down, and she stomped on his foot.

"We've dallied here long enough," she hissed at him, trying to ignore the seemingly magnetic pull he had on her. They'd done this dance for five years now. She'd allow him back in her life for a month here, a month there. It would be passionate and exciting, but all too soon, he'd get the itch. At least that was what Fran called it. Her partner could not lie still in a place as "boring" as Rabanastre for more than a month.

He'd have to scratch that itch, be it a treasure in a distant tomb or a dangerous mark hunt or even a fling with some nobleman's daughter. But he always returned, no apologies offered, expecting to be welcomed back like he'd never left. She'd had others too, as their long periods of separation made that a necessity. Yet, nothing lasted for either of them, and it seemed that he'd always find some excuse to dock the Strahl in Rabanastre for a spell.

His feelings for her never changed, that much was certain, she thought. If anything, they'd grown stronger. He ignored her protests and began to pull down the straps of her blouse as soon as she'd righted them. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the blissful sensation of his mouth on the delicate skin of her neck.

Balthier loved her, and she him, but the two of them would never agree on a permanent solution. He was noble through his father's bloodline, and therefore a suitable match, but he refused to settle down and marry. And she could settle for nothing less with the expectations of her position. Thus, they remained forever at an impasse – a rather physical and passionate impasse, but still a problem with no resolution in sight.

At twenty-five, she was expected to marry, and her ministers had been pressuring her, but she'd marry no one else. At twenty-eight, he was still in his physical prime. No tomb he couldn't pilfer from, no bar room brawl he would back down from. He simply wasn't ready, and she'd given up asking long ago. He'd promised her "some day" but neglected to give any sort of timeline. So long as he was healthy and mobile, he'd surely be sneaking about and raising his bounty. Even Fran had tried encouraging him to consider a more legitimate and law-abiding lifestyle, but he'd have none of it.

Ashe would have to entertain the idea of marriage sometime certainly, but no suitor would satisfy. Things with Balthier weren't just physical, although their stolen moments of late had mostly been confined to that. No one understood her as he did. No one else spoke to her the way he could – everyone else was sycophantic and humble while Balthier was simply himself. He was the only one who wished to know Ashe rather than Queen Ashelia.

She finally halted him when he tried lifting her skirt. That was how they'd gotten into this situation in the first place. Stilling his wrist on the fabric, Ashe kissed him slowly, relishing what she probably wouldn't be able to enjoy again for some time. There was some shipwreck on the southeastern edge of the Naldoan Sea, and he and Fran would be leaving within the hour to steal from it. And after that, who knows where the skies would take them?

"We have to stop," she mumbled against his lips. "I'm having breakfast with Larsa."

He set her clothes back in order, although she'd have to hurry back to her guest rooms and change anyhow. There was a fine layering of dust from the bookshelves on her skirt – the library wasn't as well used as she would have thought. Then again, the young Emperor of Archadia was in search of a bride and had little time for pleasure reading these days.

"Can't convince you to come away with me?"

This was his usual parting line. Balthier wasn't much for goodbyes, choosing rather to invite her on his adventures. She was as like to take him up on his offer as he was to marry her. His eyes sought hers, the same disappointment mirrored in her own as he prepared to depart for another undecided duration of time. She wanted to say yes, just once. Leave behind her duty for just a day. Biting her lip, she watched the sun rising higher just out the window.

"Stay here, wait five more minutes and leave if I don't return."

He nodded, gazing at her strangely. She departed, finding Larsa's aide. An excuse about a headache let her wriggle out of the breakfast with rest confining her until the luncheon that afternoon. She returned to the library, throwing the lock on the door this time.

"The things I do for you, pirate," she complained, knocking him to the floor. "Tell Fran I'm sorry for keeping you."

Balthier smiled, pulling her down atop him. "She'll get over it."

In her twenty-fifth year, a snap decision to lay with Balthier one more time had seemed harmless enough on the day. The palace library was profaned again, her moans stifled in the crook of his neck as they made love on the floor and thankfully, not against the shelves. They'd straightened up again and bid each other farewell. Balthier departed for the southeast and remained there, only returning nine months later upon word that the Queen of Dalmasca had given birth.