Page 24 of The Death King
She finally walked out, shutting the door harder than necessary.
I was finally alone once more, but that high was brief. Soon, the loneliness suffocated me on all sides, whispers of the past entering my ears and scalding my heart. I felt a twinge of pain that made everything hurt.
Everything.
I’m here, Talon. Khazmuda’s powerful voice entered my mind, dwarfing the fire right beside me.
I stared out the window into the darkness, seeing the stars through the thin clouds that hung in the sky. It was a cold night, frost pressing into the corners of the glass, just the way it coated the outside of my heart. I know you are.
“King Talon.” Commander Navarrese entered my study, spine straight, decorated in his full armor like a battle could arrive at our borders at any moment.
I waited for that day to happen, but with every passing year, I feared it less and less. “Yes?” I looked up from the scroll that had just arrived on my desk.
“General Titan is here to see you.”
I’d been relaxed in the chair just a moment before, wearing my armor and cape, so used to the weight that I felt light when I wore nothing in the privacy of my chambers. My eyes bored into his for several long seconds as I absorbed that announcement. “Why did he abandon his post?”
Commander Navarrese stood with his arms at his sides, his eyes still and locked on my face. He took a beat to compose his response. “I don’t know, King Talon. The second he dismounted his steed, he asked for an audience with you.”
I suspected I knew exactly what this was about—but I’d better be wrong.
He gave a quick nod and stepped out of the room.
A moment later, General Titan entered my chambers, the smell of horse reeking from his clothes because his message was too urgent for a shower. His forehead shone with sweat even though it was a winter’s day. He stopped several feet from my desk, and once our eyes were locked, he was silent.
“You abandoned your post and rode across a desert just to stare at me?”
“King Talon?—”
“Are we under siege?”
“No. I needed to speak with you?—”
“Have we found a hoard of black diamonds?”
“No. But this is urgent.”
“It doesn’t sound urgent.”
He moved his hands behind his back and straightened his spine.
“Say your piece. Just know it’ll probably end with you losing your head.” I sat back in my chair, elbows on the armrests, and waited for his ridiculous plea.
His eyes dropped for a moment as he breathed hard, winded from the long trek down all the hallways and up the staircases. “I apologize for abandoning my post, but I selected an exemplary replacement in my absence.”
“It’s not your job to do that. It’s mine.”
“I needed to speak with you?—”
“A letter would have sufficed.”
His eyes dropped again, probably realizing just how foolish this was.
“Forget about Calista. She’s forgotten you.”
He flinched slightly, so slightly it was practically undetectable. “She’s my woman?—”
“Not anymore.” His obsession with her only made me grip her tighter, only made me want her more. She’d turned my most respectable and loyal soldier into a fucking idiot. He risked his neck by standing before me this very moment—all for her. I’d promoted him to the highest rank, deployed him to the Arid Sands because I knew he would fulfill my wishes, but Calista had single-handedly enslaved his mind with her beauty. “She found a black diamond and fulfilled her obligation, but you chose not to honor that agreement. Is that true?”