“The entire gardens are covered by bug stompers. No one can listen to what we say.” Astrid slid close beside me. I tried to draw into myself, becoming as small as possible. What was the Emperor playing at? What did I hope she was playing at? I wanted Astrid back, but did I want the Emperor? Who was pressed against my side, one hand carelessly reaching across my back to lightly graze my buttock as it rested on the bench beside me? Astrid or the Emperor?
“I thought about what you said. About having the last twelve years back. I wish for that, too.”
I felt my lips quirk in an uneven, rueful smile. “If an Emperor can’t turn back time, a lowly supply captain surely can’t.”
“I know, but if your heart is still free, I would like to claimit.” Astrid hesitated before asking, “Is there anyone else?”
“Dalliances and distractions here and there through the years, but no. No one,” I admitted. “What about you? Have there been others, aside from your husband?”
Astrid contemptuously waved the suggestion away. “Various suitors, none suitable. Besides, they’d only be my spouse. I never found anyone worth calling my consort.”
Astrid reached out a hand to gently rest it on my leg. Reflexively, I jerked away from her touch. She withdrew her hand, her expression twisting in confusion. “What’s wrong?”
“You abandoned me,” I flatly said.
Astrid’s furrowed brows smoothed as she smiled, relaxing. “I thought I told you. I was told you were dead.”
I shook my head. “Not during the war. Before. After school. You left me.”
Astrid jerked back, blinking rapidly. “Levar, had I not left when my father called, his minions would have killed you.”
“I know that, but you promised to return. You said no matter what, you would return to me. Instead, you disappeared to the Empire. Apparently, you married whatever demon lord your father had lined up for you, then made your bid for the throne and abandoned me.”
“That is unfair. I was kept from you by circumstances beyond my control.”
“The effect was the same.”
“What did you expect me to do?” Astrid asked.
“You could have written,” I replied. “I didn’t even know you were alive. Your father’s goons took you away, then there was the coup, then nothing. Just muddled reports from Military Intelligence that many Imperial nobles were dead.”
“What could I have said? You knew me as an innocent baron’s daughter. Now I was Emperor, patricide, regicide. How could I possibly explain the new me?”
“I would have understood if you’d bothered to try explaining it to me. Did you think I would not come to you had you called?”
“You made it perfectly clear no Commonwealth woman would accept me as your consort.”
“I wasn’t asking you to be my consort. I was asking you to be my wife!”
Astrid leveled a condescending frown at me. “You’re far too smart to imagine the Emperor could marry a foreign commoner.”
Her words stole the wind from my gut. It was all I could do to hold back the tears which threatened to pour from my eyes. Instead, I turned half away from her and kneaded my forehead to covertly wipe my eyes dry. The moment I could do so without openly weeping, I faced her again.
“No. I guess that was just another schoolboy fantasy.”
Astrid stood, taking the high ground against me. “Must you focus on what’s past? Can we not appreciate being where we are now?”
“Do you think it’s that easy for me to turn back the clock and return to who I was in the Academy? I spent the last ten years at war.”
“As did I,” Astrid replied.
An old, familiar hatred flared within me – the civilians who claimed that they were fighting the same war I was while sitting safely light-years behind the star front, that their rationing of strategic materials meant they suffered just as much as me and my comrades.
“You didn’t fight.” I was standing – when had that happened? The rage had me, and I threw my words at the Emperor. “You sat on your throne, parsecs from the battlefield, sending legions to kill my countrymen, my friends.Yourfriends. At least they were your friends before you left.”
Astrid’s eyes were wide, her face pale. “I didn’t know—”
“Didn’t know what?” I interrupted. “That they’d be in danger? That I’d be? We studied together at a military academy. We were training to be officers. How could we not be imperiled by a war between our two nations?”
