The Man of Day and Night
A withered leaf plummeted to the earth.
Skeletal trees, reduced to bare bone, writhed violently as the fierce wind shoved them about, while ice-cold rain lashed down upon the hills that were fading into a dull gray-brown.
Seated on the windowsill and gazing out at the ash-colored landscape, Thalia spotted the mounted warriors entering the castle courtyard and pressed her face to the cold glass.
Through the rain-spattered haze she saw Barcas astride a massive gray warhorse. She watched as he dismounted with elegant grace.
Handing the reins to a servant, Barcas swept back his rain-soaked robe and revealed a face as pure and white as carved marble. It was a cool, refined visage so utterly at odds with the savage who drove her mercilessly nearly every night that she could scarcely believe they were the same man.
Wiping away the fog her breath had left on the glass with her palm, Thalia stared down at him until he turned his head in her direction; she hastily drew the curtain shut.
Even that fleeting meeting of eyes sent her body temperature surging and her heart racing irregularly. Biting her lip in agitation, she slipped down from the windowsill and curled herself before the fireplace. Yet even before the roaring flames the trembling would not subside.
She wrapped her arms around her legs and buried her face against her knees.
She had no idea how she ought to treat Barcas. Ever since the nights they had spent together, everything she had once believed clear had tangled into chaos.
At times the man in bright light and the man in darkness felt like entirely different people.
By day he wore an impassive face that seemed never to have known desire, treating her with the same ordinary manner as always.
But in the dark he was different. That man who existed only as a faint outline was fierce and primal, like one of the pagan kings of the East who had once made the ancient kingdoms tremble in terror.
Feeling the throb in the place he had so relentlessly claimed the night before, she pressed her thighs tightly together. Her cheeks burned as if set aflame.
She had never expected Barcas to throw himself into the act with such fervor. Was he not a man as abstemious as any priest?
Considering that their coupling had begun only at her own insistence, his passionate response struck her as almost mysterious.
It felt all the more so when she recalled how every woman in the imperial palace who had tried every wile to seduce him had tasted only bitter defeat.
…Had it been the same with Aila?
Her thoughts slid at once into self-torment.
Before, she had firmly believed he was a man who could grow heated for no one, and so she had assumed that even with Aila he was merely fulfilling the duties of a fiancé.
But perhaps the two of them had been more than that. Was this not a man who poured such violent desire into her and then, the next day, wore a calm face as though nothing had happened?
He might well have performed every raw act with Aila and then pretended to be the proper fiancé. No—he must have done exactly that.
She could never be special to anyone. That was a truth she had learned long ago.
If he could feel desire for her, he could feel it for someone else as well. Had he married any other woman, he would surely have responded in precisely the same way.
So stop attaching special meaning to his actions.
“Oh, honestly! Stop chewing on your lips like that.”
A frivolous voice sliced through her thick reverie. Thalia lifted her head with a start.
She had no idea when the woman had entered the room, but her nanny stood there, a large basket tucked under one arm, glaring at her.
“If you break the skin, the dye won’t take properly.”
“It doesn’t matter. He can’t—”
She almost snapped that Barcas would never see her face, then closed her mouth.
Every evening the nanny made a great fuss over dressing her. If the woman learned that all her efforts were wasted, she would only become more of a nuisance than she already was.
Thalia hid her bloodied nails in the folds of her skirt and rested her forehead on her knees. The nanny clicked her tongue at the sight and set the basket on the table.
“Don’t sit there looking so miserable. Eat this. The healer has freshly brewed the medicinal herbs Her Majesty the Empress sent.”
Thalia scowled down at the mysterious decoction.
Ever since her return to the imperial palace, Senebier had begun sending every sort of miracle tonic said to aid conception. It was silent pressure to obey her will. And the nanny was faithfully playing the part of the Empress’s devoted servant.
The woman thrust a bowl of blackish liquid under Thalia’s nose and fretted.
“Come now, drink it quickly. Her Majesty the Empress strictly ordered that you must take it without missing a single day.”
Reluctantly accepting the bowl, Thalia downed the medicine in one gulp.
It felt exactly like swallowing hot mud. She desperately suppressed the urge to bring it straight back up and hastily poured water to rinse her mouth.
Suddenly Barcas’s mocking remark—that she seemed perfectly fine playing the broodmare—echoed in her mind. She crushed her blood-beaded lip and swallowed the humiliation.
I made this choice for myself. There is no need to feel ashamed.
Repeating the words inwardly, she roughly wiped her wet mouth with the back of her hand, only for the nanny’s excited voice to dig into her ear.
“You’ll get ready now, won’t you?”
Turning her head over her shoulder, Thalia frowned at the nanny, who was already pulling garments from the chest and spreading them out. Clearly the woman assumed that tonight, as always, Thalia would go to his bedchamber.
She shifted her gaze back to the window. Having returned soaked by the rain, Barcas would be bathing by now. After that he would attend to the official business he had not yet finished. Work had piled up of late; he would probably not retire until dusk. Even as she thought this, her legs were already carrying her off the bed of their own accord.
Loosening the tightly braided hair, Thalia walked toward the bath the maids had prepared in advance. As she sank into the lukewarm water scented with fragrant oils, the nanny came up behind her and began to wash her hair.
Surrendering herself to those rough hands, she looked down at her own body.
Wherever his lips had brushed, heat-blossom traces remained. Sliding her fingers along the mottled marks that looked as though she had suffered a fever, Thalia felt a faint dizziness and closed her eyes.
What she had expected to be an obligatory act occurring only now and then had, at some point, become an ordinary part of daily life.
At first she had knocked on his door once every three days or so. Then, before she knew it, she found herself coming and going from his bedchamber every single night.
She had tried to excuse it by saying she had merely given in to the nanny’s nagging, that she only wanted to conceive as quickly as possible and be free—but deep down she knew it was a lie. With each passing day it was growing harder to leave his arms.
Whenever she cast Barcas aside and lay alone on the wide bed, emptiness swept over her; each time she washed away his traces she felt a strange regret.
She found such a self terrifying, yet she could not control herself at all. The loathsome fever that had tormented her since the age of nine had clearly returned.
No. This isn’t that. I’m only using him.
She hastily denied her own thoughts.
She could not allow herself to be dragged into the mire once more.
Steeling her mind, Thalia rose from the bath with a resolute face. She dried herself with a soft towel and dressed in the blue velvet gown she had brought from the imperial palace.
She knew Barcas would never truly see her, yet she still did not wish to face him looking shabby.
Through the mirror she studied the face that resembled Senebier with a chilling closeness, then rose from her seat.
Opening the door, she stepped out into the corridor where candles had been lit.
She set her feet upon the carpet that shimmered with flickering light, then turned her eyes to a window spattered with rain. Just then a golden flash split the ink-black sky.
Thalia gave the rumbling heavens a brief glance before continuing on her way.
At last, when she reached his door, the waiting servant opened it as though he had been expecting her.
Thalia carefully set her foot inside the room where darkness lay thick.
In that instant a flash of light whitely illuminated the outline of the man standing by the window.