Chapter 8
When Rys awakened in the morning, he was alone. No black tails wrapped around him, and his hands found only empty space next to him.
He found this familiar, but expected something more from Fara. Perhaps he had pushed her too much yesterday, but he had been certain that she had been as interested in the game as he was.
His hand pressed against the mattress. It felt warm, if only just. Fara hadn’t left that long ago, Rys surmised. Her body warmth lingered.
As did plenty of little black hairs, sprinkled across his legs and beneath the sheets. He supposed that was the price of those wondrous fluffballs she had attached to her ass.
Rising from the bed, Rys stretched. Soft, warm light glowed from the wall lamps and he swore that he heard the pitter-patter of Mina above him once he turned off the soundproofing. He had no windows in his bedroom, but he did have a ceiling duct for the imps. Windows were easily compromised and difficult to secure with wards. The duct at least didn’t allow anyone except Mina and the imps into it.
He quickly dressed as he ran through his plan for the day. Grigor likely needed a few more days to prepare for the Labyrinth raid. Not all the infernals were in the palace, after all. So Rys had some time to manage things.
The door opened, interrupting Rys’s thoughts. Fara backed inside, carrying a large tray with bowls, plates, and cutlery. With a flick of his wrist, Rys held the door open with magic.
“I’m surprised you don’t have automatic doors given all the magic here,” Fara grumbled as she settled the tray on the floor. It had some sort of cushion beneath it.
Rys stared at her. “Are we eating on the floor?”
“Humor me.”
He shrugged and kneeled opposite her. The tray held simple food: porridge, grilled fish, a herby-looking soup that he doubted the taste of even if it smelled nice, and thinly sliced pieces of fatty, oily pork.
“This is the strangest breakfast I think I’ve had,” he said. He held up one of the slices of pork.
“I wanted to reproduce a traditional breakfast from Pharos, but a lot of what we eat simply isn’t here. Rice is rarely grown, and nobody knows what soybeans even are. The selection of meat is wildly different, so I simply grabbed something that was preserved that nobody would miss.” Fara shrugged.
“Something tells me that you haven’t cooked for a while. You made this yourself?” he asked.
“Thank you, Rys,” the fox said flatly, her tails curling around her and ears drooping.
“I appreciate that you prepared breakfast, but I don’t think you’re interested in me for my ability to give out empty compliments.” Despite his words, he began to eat.
The two of them wordlessly tore apart the meal. Rys rated it pretty highly for something prepared so haphazardly. High quality ingredients prepared simply worked well. Poor cooking skills couldn’t ruin something if they weren’t used, after all.
“You seemed to like it despite your whining,” Fara accused him, noticing his opinion.
“I have fairly broad tastes,” he said. “Food fads in the Infernal Empire shifted constantly. There were a few years where the upper courts fried everything in obscene amounts of oil. That was hell on logistics and ruined agriculture for decades, as all the crops shifted over to try to meet the massive surge in crops necessary to produce all that oil, and then it was gone in a flash.”
“You don’t seem the sort to force others to meet your personal desires like that,” Fara said, playing with one of the bones from the fish. “Even yesterday, you made me come to you. I still don’t know if I get it. You have all this power, but you rarely use it. Why not? You could have taken me at any time since I returned, but you kept playing this game.”
“It was a fun game,” he said. “Do you regret it?”
Fara’s tails flattened against the ground in the blink of an eye. “No. Not for a second. It was… exciting. And freeing. I don’t know if you can understand that last part, or why it’s so important.”
“Fara, you do remember that I’ve been pushing you to make your own decisions since we met? So, yes, I do realize the importance of freedom to you,” Rys said. “You made the decision yourself to work with me, to sleep with me, and to swear loyalty to me. All of that, despite how our first meeting went.”
She frowned. The tips of her tails curled up and seemed to dance in the air. “That’s not what I mean. It’s…” She sighed and played with her hair, refusing to look at Rys. “Mina told you how she dedicated her life to training, and gave up everything? I feel the same about my life. I trained, then I fought as an enforcer, then I joined Gregory and protected his family, which eventually led to Vallis. Every day has been full of purpose.”
Rys listened patiently.
“I trained, or fought, or protected, or sometimes listened to the grousing or planning of others. Yesterday, I did none of that after the meeting.” She smiled. “We went to the baths, we played our game, you slapped your dick on my face.” A giggle escaped her despite her lewd words.
“I expected that to work,” Rys admitted.
“It did. I can’t believe you just walked away,” she whined. “I spent an hour bitching at Vallis about how you blue balled me and yourself. But that’s my point. The entire day was just… fun. Vallis had all this work to do, and I just screwed around.”
Fara reached her hand out, palm open. Rys took it, and she smiled at him.
“That is why I want to be with you, Rys. Not because you have a big dick, or because you’re hot—you’re both, by the way—but because you’ve given me something I’ve always wanted, and I didn’t know it. I’ll find somewhere to go while living for myself like this, but I can do it in my own time and for my own reasons.” Fara raised an eyebrow. “Which is why I wonder why you helped me.”
“I just told you earlier—” he began to say.
“It’s as much a happy accident that I’m staying with you, as anything else. But what if I decide to leave? What if Vallis decides she wants to reclaim her family heritage back in Gauron, and I decide to go with her?” Fara pressed. “You can manipulate, control, and abuse others with all the power you have, and you don’t. Not as much as you could. You could have taken me, or used a contract long ago to claim me.”
“Do you want me to?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
She shuddered. “No. But I don’t think you’d ask, and if you pushed, I suspect you know the result.”
“Then I’ll level with you: that answer is exactly why I don’t bother.”
When Fara gave him a look of confusion, his lips turned upward. He wished that she had brought some drinks. For now, he made them some coffee. Taking the opportunity to clean up, Fara shifted to the edge of the bed.
Rys gave her a mug of black coffee, then sat next to her. “If all I need are people who will do what I say, I can get them anywhere. Any ruler can buy, hire, or force generals and administrators into service. But loyalty and respect are earned. I can rely on Grigor because of that mutual respect, even after all these centuries. I do manipulate people, but the worst of it is saved for those I don’t care about. Anybody in my inner circle is valuable, and that means mutual respect.”
“That doesn’t sound very evil, you know,” Fara said.
“It’s more about being efficient. The endless lust for power and control does tend to make me seem evil, however. Others don’t appreciate it when I covet what’s theirs or refuse to accept their authority.” He smirked. “That’s why power is freedom, Fara. The more of it you have, the less others can force you to do what they want. As long as you want freedom, I think you’ll remain with me.”
“Just like Vallis, Maria, and Alsia,” she noted. “A slow descent into corruption because we gain more from you than from doing ‘what’s right.’”
“So you do understand.”
“A little. I expected corruption to be more overt, or at least to corrupt people into doing worse things,” she admitted. “But maybe I’ve just seen too many questionable things done that it’s so easy to accept you, and I’ve been in the archipelago too long to care about all the infernals.”
“They’re a loveable sort,” Rys said.
“I think Grigor carries the load in that sense. Margrim too, maybe. He has a rough charm. I half expect him to try to retire and start a farm somewhere, given how much of an old man he sounds like at times,” she said.
Her fingers crept along his leg, and Fara’s smile turned seductive. “So, do you have any plans for the morning?”
As it turned out, he didn’t. At least, not anymore. His new plans involved reducing Fara to a moaning, screaming pile of ecstasy and juices. The rest of his day—once he cleaned up—focused on a few minor administrative matters.
Finally, Grigor let Rys know that he had given word to the other infernals and they were returning. It was time to deal with the undead dragon.