Chapter 1369: Stricken cowards(2)

It was said that men who hated their own homes were bound to be miserable. What, then, was an emperor who hated the mere sight of his own halls? Except, of course, accursed.

Bastard, bastard. There is a bastard in our midst.

The carved bronze eagles mounted along the walls every fifteen paces seemed to screech the words down at him, glaring with polished, furious eyes at the illegitimate creature walking below.

There were likely grand, tragic verses a bard could have composed about his plight, of that, Tiberius had no doubt. A younger, softer boy might have even delighted in trying to rhyme them.

The thought made him stop dead in his tracks on the runner. When was the last time he had felt delighted? Even satisfied? Happy...?

He looked around the vast corridor. The oppressive, bruised red of the carpet and the stone walls gave him a sudden, thumping headache. He felt as if he were drowning in open air, trapped in a current with no way out, staring down a road that ended in nothing short of his own grave.

This is my home, he tried to convince himself, his knuckles turning white as he clenched his fists. The only one I will ever have.

No. It was not. It would never be.

It was just another prison, one whose bars he could not see, but could touch and feel every second he drew breath. He had come to this wretched court searching for Claria, but with every passing moon, the grim truth settled deeper into his bones: the sun had set on that life.

He would never see her again. Mayhaps she was simply dead, her body dumped in some forgotten trench after she was used by some soldier, maybe the red whore had her killed when she took power and had him arrested and throwed in the dungeons.

Julian claimed his spies were still searching for her, but Tiberius would be three times a fool to believe a single syllable spilling from the old monster’s mouth.

"You are a married man," Julian always loved to remind him whenever Tiberius dared bring up her name. "You should worry far more about the woman in your bed than the woman in your dreams. You have yet to plant a brood in her, Imperial Majesty."

As if he could ever bring himself to touch that woman. She terrified him. It was already unbearable that they were forced to share the same bedchamber. Night after night, he would lie motionless under the heavy furs, feeling her cold, unblinking eyes burning into the back of his head. He would fake sleep for hours, every nerve in his neck tightening in sheer agony as he waited for the cold bite of a dagger between his ribs. Sometimes he would even touch him with her cold hands in the middle of the night.Just a touch and then back to sleep

She was fucking creepy.

And besides, what hope was there of finding rest under a flickering candle when the sun had already gone down forever?

Perhaps the problem was himself. If a man could not find a grain of happiness in the highest station in the realm, the rot was surely inward, not outward. Even his desperate little attempt to get one over on Julian felt less like a masterstroke of treason and more like the pathetic temper tantrum of a child.

He had managed to bend a single agent to his will, and the man was a craven and a fool. In a few days’ time, the sniveling coward would probably run straight to the Old Ghost, weeping and confessing everything in the desperate hope that Julian would let him keep his head.

Tiberius let out a long, shuddering breath and forced his boots to move again, making his way toward his private quarters.

He assumed he would have a few precious hours of silence. By this time of the evening, Eloir would surely be... well, doing whatever it was she did when she wasn’t looming over him like an executioner. The troubling truth was that he knew painfully little about his own wife. He knew her house, her lineage, and the cold, deadly grace with which she moved, the way she liked to kill men she disliked.....but beyond that, she was as much a stranger to him as a specter in the dark.

He reached the grand double doors of his bedchamber, pushed them open quietly, and stepped inside. At the very least she would not be there for the moment.

He needed time and space alone to settle his thoughts.....perhaps he should just go and confess.

She was there.

Instantly, Tiberius felt himself four times the fool.

Two times because he knew so dangerously little about his wife that he had gotten her routine entirely wrong or perhaps the thought she would not err away from her usual time. And another two times a fool for what he had just caught her doing.

Parchments, dozens upon dozens of them, were fashioned around the massive four-poster bed, splayed across the heavy velvet counterpane and spilling onto the floorboards. Eloir was sitting in the middle of the mess, her fine silk sleeves pushed up to her elbows, sifting through each letter and ledger with intense, methodical focus. She looked for all the world like a curious child who had stumbled upon a deeply fascinating puzzle.

Except that the "puzzle" spread across their bed was the secret fruit of years of careful, dangerous work that had just been found.

"About time you came back... I got bored, so I had to find my own fun," she said smoothly, not even bothering to turn around or hide her exposed back from him.She probably never even saw him as a threat.

She muttered softly as her fingers swept over another sheet of parchment, humming a light, airy tune that sent a chill straight down his spine. "I had to snoop around for something to do, you see. And wouldn’t you know what I stumbled upon in our very own room..."

"My death," Tiberius replied, his voice dead and hollow.

"Always the dramatics with you," she chided softly "Though it very well will be your death unless you close that door... you never know whose maid belongs to whom in this serpent’s nest.It might belong to my father wondering why I am still not yet pregnant, or perhaps your father wondering the very same thing."

Tiberius turned and pushed the heavy oak door shut, the latch dropping with a sound like a guillotine blade falling into place. "How did you find it?"

"Remember when you so proudly showed me that your night table had a false bottom?" He recalled the moment vividly, he had hidden a few wooden game pieces and a pair of ivory cups there, trying to show her a rare bit of warmth during their first night, trying to be gentle, trying to be decent.

"Well, it made me wonder if this grand room possessed any other delightful little tricks. And guess where I found these?"

"The wardrobe," Tiberius whispered, his stomach dropping into a dark abyss.

"The wardrobe..." She finally turned her eyes upon him, shifting slightly on the bed. A single, dark lock of hair fell gracefully across her brow, contrasting sharply with her pale skin. "Why on earth were you keeping all of this away from me, my dear husband? It seems to me that a husband and wife ought to be entirely honest with one another.They are whole under the eyes of the gods..."

Tiberius suddenly recalled, with terrifying clarity, what she had done to her previous husband who indeed kept secrets from her. Though, he had to admit to himself, his own case was a bit different from that of his late, unlamented stepbrother.

"I thought this was a personal matter," Tiberius said, forcing his voice to remain steady as he took a slow step toward the bed. "A burden of my own making. I judged it better not to make you an accomplice to my folly. You are smart enough to understand precisely what it is you hold in your hands. Did you truly wish to be dragged into this fire?"

Eloir tilted her head, a faint thin smile touching her lips as she tapped her manicured fingernails against Tiberius’ thigh.

"An accomplice?" she echoed, letting out a soft, dry laugh. "How delightfully noble of you. I swear, Tiberius, I never know quite what to make of you. One moment you blind me with a flash of brilliant cunning, and the next you leave me utterly baffled by your childish foolishness. I suppose that is simply how a man is built."

She shifted back against the heavy velvet pillows, making herself comfortable among the sea of stolen documents. The swell of her chest pressed tightly against the silver embroidery of her gown as she drew a slow breath, casually hooking a loose parchment with the bare arch of her foot and sliding it toward herself.

"Did you really think you could tear down Julian all by yourself?" Her dark eyes glittered with a cold, mocking pity. "Look at you. A poor, base-born child, without friends, without lovers, without gold, and without a drop of true power. A wooden puppet who prances on stage whenever the old man pulls your strings.

Did you honestly believe that alone you could accomplish anything worthy of note? It is quite the miracle that your head is still attached to your neck.I don’t think the old bastard take kindly to traitors"

Not for long, Tiberius thought bitterly, staring down at the parchment curling around her toes. A cold weight settled in his stomach as he realized he was rapidly making a habit of feeling like an utter fool.