“That’s hideous,” I said.
“That’s politics. If I’d left them unchecked, my warlords would have started killing each other or else overthrown me. The nobility needed an outlet for their aggression. I thought the Alliance would be the perfect target. But you hadn’t kept up with naval technological innovations. My space fleets smashed yours. The League surrendered, the Despotate disintegrated, and even the Commonwealth armies retreated.”
“But you could have stopped there, demand we negotiate, gain your regions and avoid a decade of bloody stalemate. Why didn’t you stop it then?”
“Because you were dead,” Astrid said, her words barely above a whisper. Her eyes were downcast as she stared out the window, away from me. “At least, I thought you were.”
“What difference did that make?” I asked.
“It made all the difference in the Rim. With you gone, there was no reason to preserve the Commonwealth, or any of its allies. My Empire was united behind the war effort. We were on the verge of victory. It seemed one more push would break through and secure total conquest. If I’d stopped then, I’d have lost my throne.”
“What’s changed now?” I asked.
Astrid paused before answering, “Circumstances beyond my control.”
“How very convenient.”
Astrid’s face swiveled to mine again, her eyes blazing before she set to pacing across the room like an anxious cat. “It’s decidedlyinconvenient. I’m the Emperor. I have all the power, yet I can’t have anything I want. I can’t improve the Empire, I can’t corral my violent nobles, I can’t even be with the man I love despite his miraculous return from the grave.”
“It was your actions which nearly put me in the grave,” I said.
Astrid turned to me, finally, her face streaked with tears. “Don’t say that. I never wanted to hurt you.”
I paused, parsing the shock of realizing Astrid still cared for me, trying to square that realization with her actions. “You say you love me, but you didn’t even consider that a war against my Commonwealth might kill me.”
“I knew you were supporting the Exploratory Service deep in Fallspace. You’d be behind the front lines. Safe, if your lines held. All your armies needed to do was stand firm, and you’d be protected. But they couldn’t even do that.”
I wanted to fold her into my arms and wipe those tears away, but my anger demanded its turn to speak. “But it wasn’t the Commonwealth’s fault. Or the Despotate, or the League’s. My death—when you heard I was dead, you must have known it was your fault.”
Astrid’s anger melted into anguish as she whispered, “Yes.”
“Well, I hope you’re happy with the choices you made.”
“I’m not,” Astrid said, a quiver in her voice. “Every choice I made was correct according to the information I had at the time, but they all turned out wrong. I hate all these duties which make me compromise my desires, trade my dreams for the hope of a future which never keeps its end of the bargain. I try to return to you and wind up trapped on the throne. I try to stalemate a quick war to cement my Empire but get draggedinto a victory which endangers me more than defeat. I try playing nice at the negotiating table, only to get threatened and bullied into slaying one of those I called here to treat with. I never get what I want. I’m the Emperor, damn it. I should get one thing I want. Just one damned thing.”
“Well, what do you want?” I asked, demanded. “What the Fall do you—”
I didn’t have time to finish my sentence before she was on me, pressed against me, pressing me against the wall, pressing her lips against mine in a furious, desperate kiss. The act was so sudden, I reacted as though I was under attack, reaching for the dirk at my belt, but she caught my wrist and slammed it against the wall, all the while never breaking the kiss.
Slowly, my body reacted the way it always had to Astrid’s kisses, wrapping my free arm around her waist and pulling her tight to me. Not that I needed to bother – she’d pressed me against the wall so hard I could hardly breathe. Or maybe it was the kiss sucking the air from my lungs.
Right when it seemed I would black out from the sensation, Astrid paused, allowing me to take a deep, shuddering breath. I panted, exhausted, exhilarated, and energized all at once.
“I’ve missed that,” I said. It was the only thing I could think to say, to express how after a dozen years, one kiss would send me falling ass-backwards into the endless pit of love.
“Shut up,” Astrid ordered, but it wasn’t the Emperor who said it. It was Astrid, grinning with wickedly delicious intent. She dragged me by my captured wrist to a bedchamber situated behind the main room of her suite and flung me on the bed. Before I could sit up, she crawled on top of me and pinned my hands to the covers.
“You always talked too much,” she said, and then she kissed me again.
Awake or asleep, that night I had pleasant dreams.
SCHOOLBOY SHENANIGANS
ASTRID WOKE MEin the morning, physically rolling me out of bed. “Get up. You need to leave.”
I sprang to my feet, ready for a fight. Seeing Astrid lay out her gloves and calmly pluck her finger caps from the deadly zeroblade claws beneath, I relaxed a smidge. The many scratches on my back stung from the night before. Even with the caps, I wasn’t certain she hadn’t drawn blood. “What’s wrong?”
“You can’t be seen here,” Astrid said brusquely. She’d never been one for softening her statements. It was a part of her personality which I ordinarily prized, because I never had to search for double or triple subtextual meanings behind her words, but this morning, her asperity stabbed at my heart, so full from last night, like a pin at a balloon.
