Chapter Text
Briala spied the Empress in the sitting room—never sitting, mind. The one room she could not crawl through hidden passages to reach. Briala felt another jab. Despite everything Celene was kept beyond her reach. That she would have to pass by those infuriating hens flocking around their Empress. She wondered, absently, if they’d deign to acknowledge her presence. They never had before. To her surprise, the three parted and studied her as she approached the sitting room.
The steps required to reach the room were few but her mind raced. This is a manipulation. Briala would expect to seek secret passages to make audience with their Empress, but she was treated as any other noble? The ladies-in-waiting acknowledged her presence as though she had a right for an audience?
Briala felt her focus narrow. Was this a trap? Does she have the stomach for this? Perhaps Celene had webbed those un-tended knots along her spine into excess buttressing.
Perhaps it should have slowed the Elven Ambassador’s steps, but it did not. If Celene wished to end this stalemate away from prying eyes, she would savor a last dance and baptize in the blood of love, or life, lost.
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Celene studied Briala as she approached with the rarest of opportunities to study her openly. Briala looked so much younger than she recalled. A mask failed to hide beautiful, bright eyes etched with worry. There was a subtle curling and uncurling of her hands and this brought mirth to Celene’s lips in the form of a smile. Nervous, Bria? Your palms are sweating. She buried the chuckle that threatened and allowed precisely two beats for her smile to linger. “We thank you for joining Us, Ambassador. The festivities are to your enjoyment, We hope?”
Briala let the curtains fall behind her entrance. Celene’s lukewarm greeting caused a flare beneath her ribs that wasn’t a stab as the others had been. …Smalltalk, Celene? Briala spied the ring given to Celene by Lady Mantillon upon her hand. It reminded her that this wasn’t an attempt to bridge their understanding on common footing, nor to make Briala feel any more comfortable. Everything was an opportunity in the Game. But Briala felt the crushing weight of two decades of trust built into a pyre—the same pyre that started in Halamshiral and ended the same way as their love—ash. Save your mindless prattle for one of your lordlings, Celene. I’ve not come to curry favor. She cut her attention to silver platter replete with wine and untouched glasses. It was likely safe, given the scent on the lady-in-waiting’s breath. She approached and poured two. It was not a subtle remark. After all, nobles were unlikely to pour their own wine at these events—thank goodness for the elves, else they’d dehydrate. She poured two and lifted them in hand, offering one to Celene. Her gaze burned with several things, none easily identifiable.
The Empress’s eyes follow from the Elven Ambassador’s eyes, down the length of her hand, and then to the proffered crystal. Celene accepts the gesture, withholding a sigh. Briala knows I despise this wine. But in The Game, appearances must be maintained. She lifted her glass in acknowledgement and brought it to her lips. Briala mimicked the gesture, but neither of them tasted the wine. Absently Celene wondered if they were so unwilling to engage in the most base signs of trust if there could ever be anything more between them.
Briala broke the silence, “You cannot even bare to imbibe a fine wine you find too banal, but greet me as dryly as the lordlings vying for your throne?” Celene sighed, it would appear her attempt at civility was being interpreted as a fig leaf rather than an olive branch.
The Elven Ambassador lowered the glass to her side and chanced a half-step closer. Her gaze moved over Celene’s body unabashedly. She was beautiful, but that was hardly the reason for the breach of privacy. Her eyebrows knit together, “You… are unarmed.”
The Empress did not step back from Briala’s approach. It would be more accurate to say she leaned into it. She could smell her perfume given the proximity. Celene had always preferred spice—in her tea, wines, and certainly women. A chill ran down her spine. How long had it been since she enjoyed intimacy—well, aside from the mercenary captain chained to her bedpost. That hardly counted. Her lips curled into a smile that was one part warmth, one part heat. “Hardly a thorough inspection. Perhaps you should take a closer look.” It was certainly improper to chance flirtation at such a time, but she was parched for her affection. Besides, she was always armed. Small blade, subtle curve, easily slid into her garter and fully obfuscated beneath layers of silk.
Briala did not share the same mirth. Two decades reduced to paltry desire? A chiseled auburn eyebrow lifted, hidden behind silverite, “Your Radiance’s bed is occupied last I checked.”
Celene suppressed any shock and smiled for the guile of her ex-lover. “Do you believe I favor his—or any man’s---company, Bria?”
That name. Briala’s breath quickened. She searched the Empress’s eyes and in an instant she raised the stakes. She placed the base of the wine glass upon the tray beside and lifted both hands to the back of her head. Within an instant, the mask fell away. “Not for all the Empire. Is this why you invited me?”
Celene’s breath, too, caught. Unmasking Briala was practically foreplay. An intimacy shared by lovers or the gravest of enemies. Which one of the two Briala was she was yet to be certain. But she, too, abandoned her unimbibed wine glass and removed the half-mask from her face. It felt revealing to nearly anyone else. Celene may as well have lacked silks and gems—with her face bare, there was nothing left she could hide from her. “No. W-I invited you here to chance peace.”
Briala was temporarily mute as her face moved over the face of her lover. The shading was all wrong—she is thin. Highlighting and darkening make-up softened her features. She hadn’t thinned due to a lack of eating but an overabundance of training. Celene likely stayed up far too late practicing her dagger work until she worked out the knots from holding up heavy dresses all day. She felt a sudden heat beneath her cheeks. The tell would be evident to Celene since she mistakenly removed her mask thinking to remain unperturbed in the presence of her first and only love. Briala set her jaw, infuriated, “Then Her Radiance is conceding the Dales to the Elves? Will you make the gesture replete by tearing down the sculptures of the palace bearing your ancestors’ countenance?” Her hands began to ball into fists, “The elves gladl—” Briala’s words caught in her throat.
Celene’s hand was cool against her cheek, and soft. She always wore gloves when she trained that the Orlesian Empress may never have a callous. Her fingertips brushed along her bared face and Briala’s eyelids fell shut, surrendering to this brief respite. There was a quieted voice raging, telling her to put distance between them. It spoke of Celene’s manipulations drenched in the blood of innocents. But there was a quieter voice that ached for comfort. The Spymaster had spent months on the roads—Orlesian and Eluvian. The last bed she slept in was the one currently occupied by a mercenary captain. The weight of it all felt stifling. Then came the guilt, imagining Felassan’s voice, gruff and half-asleep, I thought you stayed because your girl might make things right, not because it’s cozy. Briala’s heavy eyelids lifted, and pupils narrowed for Celene was radiant in candlelight.
The Empress’ smile faded, but the warmth in her gaze remained. As she spoke her voice was soft, her touch grazing the length of her ex-lover’s jaw, “If I am surrendering the Dales, perhaps, too, I shall offer restitution for services rendered at market price. At that point, I may as well declare elves equal citizens in the eyes of the law, too, ma petit.” As her fingertips neared the tip of her chin, they fell to gently graze Briala’s exposed collar bone. “Nothing would unite the realm quicker than my head on a pike. And because Orlesians do not lack irony, it would be an elven pike.”
Her skin felt too-sensitive suddenly. The gentle tones and brush of her fingers across bare skin was precisely how their lovemaking always began. She was lulled into compliance, Celene’s words could breach her mind even as her attention was elsewhere. The absurdity of it wasn’t lost on Briala. Celene was right, of course. Any such gesture would be swiftly met with resistance and put down but that didn’t demoralize her resolve. But there was something revealed in these actions. Celene was seducing her, yes, but their negotiations were ongoing and Celene had yet to reveal the leverage she offered. The Elven Ambassador was all-too-aware of the subtext. She could chance a kiss just a breath away from impropriety. She could inquire directly as to the terms of Celene’s proposition.
“Bria,” Celene whispered, breaking the Spymaster’s internal quandary. There was something so desperate in the way Celene spoke her name. As though it, or what it represented, was shelter in a tempest.
In a beat, the distance between them closed. Celene’s lips met hers; and the Empress tasted of Rivaini tea and rosewater. The hand at her collar bone had fallen and now wound tightly around her waist. Celene was stronger than she remembered. Briala’s mind quieted for the first time in over a year. Quiet passion, muffled cries, hours of love-making crammed into private moments too precious and few for either of their liking. The Spymaster had not realized just how lonely her path had been until this moment.
Celene, for her part, had almost entirely abandoned her original plan. Watching her former lover’s breath catch at a particular touch sent chills down her spine. Suddenly the thick layers of silk and corseting felt stifling, even in the winter chill. Briala’s lips were the only ones she’d ever desired to kiss. Since the ripe age of fifteen Celene had loved her. Over two decades later she still did, and not a fraction less. This wasn’t the wisest course for either of them, but wisdom wasn’t fueling her movement. With a couple steps, Briala’s lower back was pressed into a table, Celene’s hips firmly pinning hers there as the kiss deepened.
Something drew Briala’s attention to the forefront as she was brought from her reverie. Her hand slid down the rich violet of Celene’s gown over the curve of her hip, trapping them between her hands. Her own voice was velvet, lips swelling as she broke their kiss, “I spent two decades as your companion, Celene.” She gave a grind of her hips against Celene’s thigh, despite the layers she could pinpoint her lover’s body.
Celene stiffened at the sensation.
Briala’s gaze was dilated for the passion they shared, and the brief win in their negotiations.
“Much like the dagger you have strapped to your thigh,” she gave another grind and Celene stiffened, muffling any cry as the tip of her curved dagger drew blood against her thigh. “I was there, hidden beneath your skirts, a tool for you to use.” She gave a last, third grind, watching as she evoked a cry from her lips which she muffled with a kiss as Celene had done to her a thousandfold.
She ended the kiss after another beat, lifting her hand to brush the only place on Celene’s face she could without smearing her face paints—just under her jawbone. “But a dagger cuts both ways, Your Radiance.”
Her thigh ached, and Celene felt blood on her white silk stockings. Clever, she thought. Releasing her grasp on Briala, but noting the Spymaster did not offer the same reprieve, she met her gaze with a verbal riposte, “Non, if you were a tool, Bria, I’d have other uses for you than a dagger.”
Briala bit back a chuckle and slid from the sturdy table and warmth of her Empress. She had not been sufficient in her suppressing Celene’s cry. The deluge of admirers would descend.
They both heard the footsteps outside the door, a guard peaking their head into the room with half a dozen others outside, straining to see within. “Your Radiance? Shall I remove your… company?”
Within the room the Elven Ambassador and Empress were seated across a table with two untouched glasses of wine, masked. Celene lifted her eyes at the interruption, “Is it kind of you to offer to escort the Elven Ambassador, monsieur. Our conversation has only just ended.”
Briala’s eyes lifted suddenly to Celene, “I haven’t heard your terms, Your Radiance.”
Celene met Briala’s eyes, “Non, but soon. The terms have only just been finalized.”
Dismissed. Defeat was bitter. This truly had just been for the opportunity to consort and nothing more. Perhaps Celene had decided their affair had been an enjoyable thing of the past. Rising, she curtsied to her Empress so that the dozen admirers had one less thing to gossip about. She backed away before turning on her heels to leave. Celene’s voice halted her, “Ambassador.” Briala turned, “Your Radiance?”
Celene smiled warmly at her. “We enjoyed the visit.”
One. Two. Three. Four seconds.
Briala’s eyes widened a fraction. “Good evening, Your Radiance.” With that, she turned.