She leaned back, gripping her shirt over her stomach. She had been feeling better, but that unsettled sick feeling had returned in all its fury. Vhalla barely had enough time to escape the records room, bolting for her own chambers, before the sickness bubbled up.
“Vhalla?” Aldrik emerged from the door connecting their rooms.
Vhalla peeled herself away from the basin. Her knees felt a little shaky, and she leaned against the wall for support. She hadn’t expected Jax’s story to affect her so strongly.
“I thought you’d be out with the Western lords.”
“I came back to change before lunch.” He cast aside the muddy trousers he’d been carrying, crossing over to her. “Are you still unwell? Have you seen Elecia?”
Vhalla shook her head. She didn’t need a cleric. She needed the truth. She needed to know if everything Jax had just filled her head with was real.
“You and Jax.” Vhalla focused on the corner of the room instead of the bare-chested man before her. “Are you truly close?”
“He told you,” Aldrik breathed.
“How can you let him stay as he is?” Vhalla couldn’t fathom why Aldrik tolerated Jax’s presence, how Aldrik seemed to consider the other Western lord his friend. It seemed against everything she thought she knew of her lover.
“He wants it this way,” Aldrik said gently. “I never had the ability to free him until recently.”
“You would free him?” she balked. “He-he did something wretched.”
“Men who have done worse walk free.” Guilt crossed Aldrik’s features.
“What he did is nothing like what happened with you and the caverns.” Vhalla gripped her Emperor’s hands tightly. Aldrik looked surprised a moment, confirming that she’d guessed correctly. She’d come to know the demons he carried as well as the man himself.
“Very well,” Aldrik thought aloud. “You were able to forgive me and my crimes, perhaps you will be able to forgive his. I attached his life to yours, so it’s only fitting.”
“What is?” She frowned.
“You control his freedom, his fate.”
“Aldrik, I—”
“Vhalla, you will be Empress someday. If you cannot decide the fate of one man, how will you ever be able to pass judgment on the masses?” The infuriating royal was using this as a learning experience. “I wish I could spare you from it, but—”
“But you cannot,” she finished for him. The words were as heavy as lead. This was the price of her love. The cost of being with the man she had chosen. “What if I never decide that he has atoned?”
“Then that is your decision to live with.”
“You can be heartless,” Vhalla weakly replied with a small smile.
“You wound me.” His palms rested on her hips. “If I am heartless, it is because a library girl stole my heart.”
“You think you can distract me with your honeyed words?” She played coy, resting the back of her head against the doorframe.
“I think I can,” he proclaimed, and kissed her lightly.
Vhalla didn’t want to agree with him, but the Emperor could be persuasive when he wanted.
“NOW, VHALLA, I know I am one gorgeous spec- imen of a man, but I fear you will make your intended jealous if you continue to stare like that.” Jax grinned at her.
“I was not staring,” she mumbled, looking at the road ahead. They’d been riding for three days straight and were nearing the border between the East and the West. And the only easiness she clung to was that her stomach had thankfull quieted down.
“My lord,” Jax called across her to Aldrik. “I do not think it safe to have your lady around me.”
“I do not think I have much cause for concern from the likes of you,” Aldrik remarked dryly.
“Vhal’s only ever had eyes for one man,” Fritz added helpfully.
