Irina is a far better tsar than Mirnatius could ever have hoped to be.
She takes to the throne like she was the one raised to it; she can somehow see both details and the wide sweep of things and then balance them in a way that leaves Mirnatius baffled. The councilors are furious the first time she joins them in the chamber, but by the end of that first meeting, they seem grumpy but won over by her (probably by all those questions she was asking while Mirnatius sat there and scowled). Archduke Domantus (the most tenacious, says Irina—annoying, says Mirnatius) sends Mirnatius a series of disapproving looks every time Irina says something clever as though to demand, It’s easy enough that a woman can do it—why can’t you?
If he cared what Domantus thought, Mirnatius would point out that he never tried to actually rule, that he’d never wanted to be tsar in the first place. He’d resented the throne, loathed it the way he loathed his mother’s memory. This is what she gave me over to the demon for? For tax rolls and the councilors lecturing and droning on and on, for nobles always conspiring behind my back and the peasants always whining about something? Wealth was enjoyable enough, because wealth bought him beautiful things. But power? He had never wanted it and would gladly have handed over his kingdom for the ability to make his own choices.
He had refused to subject himself to the monotonies of rule. If his nights must be torment, his days would at least be full of pleasurable things, and the only pleasure he could find was in art. He bought gilded furniture and exquisite tapestries, priceless vases from the far east and splendid silks from the south. And he had spent countless hours and chests of gold on turning the schemes of his own mind into reality. His rooms, his sleighs, his clothes were all realized from the designs he drew and then turned over to master artisans to craft. Everything he could dream up—from the intricate trim on a sleeve to the sweeping gilt framing a mirror to the mosaic masterpiece of his throne room floor—could be materialized by workers in wood or stone or metals or textiles or paint.
The tradition of wearing a different set of clothes every day had started out as a practical one (damn Chernobog to hell), but maybe it had kept him sane. The fine grain of the paper under his hand, the satisfying lines of charcoal designs, the choosing of the correct hue (his hands and his body for once in agreement) were the only times he felt fully present in his own body. There was a pleasure in coming back to his rooms to find them rendered in silk and brocade and velvet, waiting for him. There was a pleasure in being handed an inlaid box and opening it to find the enamel-handled dagger he had dreamed up in his own mind. There was a pleasure in the heft of its weight as he lifted it and the way the metal warmed to his hand.
(Yes, there was pleasure. But there was also, perhaps, control.)
Beneath its veneer, his life was so ugly and twisted and dark, but a beautiful thing…a beautiful thing was simply itself.
Beautiful people, though, were another thing entirely. He didn’t trust them and over time even became repulsed by them. Chernobog lusted after lovely faces and healthy bodies, and often those faces ended up charred beyond recognition, the body sprawled across Mirnatius’s bed, waiting to be disposed of.
And even the ones who lived—what good did a winning smile or pleasing figure do him? They always belonged to people who wanted something from him, whether favor or power or his body. (But they never wanted him.)
A man smiled, a lady fluttered her eyelashes, and Mirnatius burned, but only with contempt (with helplessness).
(That was better, anyway, than what he felt if Chernobog lured that man or woman to bed. Oh, there was pleasure there, too, of a kind. His body couldn’t help that. But that made the furymiserydespair of Chernobog taking over all the more difficult to endure, the way medicine tasted worse when your nurse tried to disguise it with sugar. He’d rather take the medicine—the disgust—the pain—all on its own.)
At least Irina doesn’t ask that of him. Once they’re back in Koron, they don’t even share the same bed. She touches him only when he takes her hand to lead her before the people, up the stairs to a dais, down to dinner. She hasn’t spoken a word about consummation or her rights or even heirs. He despises himself for the relief he can’t stop himself from feeling.
And there’s something honest about Irina’s plainness. She uses no cosmetics or dainty tricks like the rest of the court ladies, and now that the necklace is gone and the ring sits on Mirnatius’s own finger, she leaves the crown on a velvet cushion in their bedchamber and faces the world without her mask of magic.
The sudden loss of her beauty confuses his court. He hears the whispers, those first few nights back in the feasting hall at Koron—She was beautiful, wasn’t she? We all thought so, didn’t we? But how could we have thought–? I mean, look at her now!
Mirnatius, who has always enjoyed seeing the flatterers and sneerers of his court set back on their heels, found it funny at first, those popinjays as baffled as he was when he filled page after page of his drawing book with sketches, trying to capture what it is everyone else saw.
He knows the truth now—Irina explained about the Staryk silver. His court, he assumed, would never have the same satisfaction and would, he thought smugly, wonder and speculate until they convinced themselves that their own memories were faulty and one day forgot they had ever found her beautiful at all.
He had not expected them to invent their own explanation for the change, much less for them to use his own face as proof.
The rumors, Irina’s nanusha says, started in the servants’ halls, but they soon spread to the members of the court, and then out through Koron, and then all through Lithvas: The tsar and tsarina sacrificed their beauty to save us from the Staryk.
Mirnatius is still handsome, of course. Nothing has changed that anyone could point out—his hair is still silken, his eyes are green as emeralds, and not a feature is altered. When he sets up a mirror at his elbow and sketches his own face, the lines are the same lines he drew before. But his otherworldly allure, the charm that had entranced everyone who looked at him (everyone except Irina), disappeared with Chernobog’s passing. What is left is just another handsome man.
But Irina is plain now, the change so abrupt and stark that it demands explanation. So the people concoct their explanation, and decide that since the change in Irina is greater, her sacrifice must have been greater. The tsar and the tsarina both sacrificed, the people say. But the tsarina gave far more.
Never mind that it was Mirnatius who bore the endless years of manipulation and pain, the loss of his own mind and the agony of his own body. His people appreciate him now, in a distant (unsatisfying) way, but it’s Irina who they love.
If he makes himself, he can admit the fairness of that, because Irina is the one who rules them. Mirnatius still sits on the high throne, signs the orders, inspects the troops, makes the pronouncements. But Irina is the one who goes to council meetings, listens to reports, bargains with the nobles, makes the decisions. Mirnatius’s is the face the people see, but Irina’s is the hand that rules.
He’s glad, of course. Irina taking on all the unpleasant responsibilities he always despised leaves him more time than ever to devote to his art. And he does throw himself into it, taking up paints in addition to his charcoals. When he’s focused on coaxing the correct stroke out of his brush, the perfect color out of his oils, the fitting balance of composition, he is almost happy.
But the rest of the time…there’s so much rest of the time. He hadn’t realized how much of his life he had spent fighting Chernobog, trying and trying to outwit him (it never worked, but Irina made it look as simple as breathing). Then there was the covering up of the demon’s indiscretions and all the time he spent trying to escape from his own body. Time stretches out now, and there is only so much painting he can do before his hands cramp and his eyes blur. He falls back on pouting and needling the servants, slouching around the palace looking for distractions.
Irina had distracted him during those first days after the wedding (before she set him free). But she’s too busy for that now with every moment of her day delegated to some important task. He only sees her at breakfast, at dinner, at any public appearances they make. Sometimes he thinks she’s forgotten she even has a husband.
But then: “You’re restless,” Irina says over breakfast one morning, her eyes sharp like a bird’s from the other end of the inlaid claw-foot table. Somehow even the morning sunlight on the gold centerpiece (nymphs frolicking in a copse of alders) is not as bright as her eyes. (It feels like years since she turned that bird-sharp gaze on him.) “You need some occupation to keep you busy.”
He glares at her, stabbing his didzkukuliai with a scallop-handled fork of his own design (every item in this room is of his own design). He’d looked at her adoringly when she freed him, worship in his heart as well as his eyes. But that was months and months ago. And though he knows what he owes her, would even grudgingly admit it if pressed, Irina is so goddamn difficult to get along with. Imperturbable. Cold like ice. (He painted her once as a sculpture of ice, then slashed paint over the canvas before it was half done.) She looks at him like she looks at the piles of paperwork delivered to her desk each morning: speculative, assessing. But the paperwork at least gives her that satisfied expression, one that says she’s found a worthy challenge. (She’s never looked at him like that.)
It’s impossible to keep in temper with her now. After Chernobog, when he was first free, he was such a sop (he reached for her, his heart as open as his hands). In that moment, if she had found some warmth or expressed some interest in him, perhaps things could have gone a different way. But as it is, he falls back into his sulks, even if he longer loses his temper (well, not so often as before). The damned woman saved him. He’s hers—she claimed him in front of the oldest powers of the earth. But now she won’t even tell him what she wants of him.
“Oh, yes? And what does the tsarina suggest should occupy me?”
She ignores his leer; she has since the beginning, like she always knew it was a put-on. “Many kings and khans throughout history have been great patrons of the arts. With your eye, you could do the same.”
Something leaps inside him, but he ignores it, picking up the delicate sea-green cup that holds his sugary tea. “Oh, yes, I’m sure the Minister of Finance would dance with joy. Weren’t you droning on about the empty coffers just yesterday?”
She smooths her napkin in her lap. Her movements aren’t graceful or even elegant, but the contained competence of them draws the eye nonetheless. (Irina isn’t beautiful; she isn’t even stylish. So why does he always find himself looking at her?) “It will be a few years before we are back on steady footing. Two more good harvests should do it, I believe. After that, I’ll be able to spare some funds for you.” She always says it like that, like she’s some merchant’s wife speaking of her housekeeping money. “In the meantime, you could start to plan.”
“Plan,” he echoes, voice flat. The thing that leapt is wiggling again, like an overeager puppy. He refuses to let it show.
“Find out who the greatest artists of the age are. Discover which ones are dissatisfied with their current patrons. Start correspondence with those who might be persuadable. And then, once we have the funds, you could start to invite them here. You already have the best artisans in Lithvas. Look further afield.”
The thing is—he can see it all so clearly in his mind, in full color. Koron, a center of the arts, a place where the most notable painters of portraiture and landscapes, the greatest sculptors and architects, flock. He tries to hold the usual scowl on his face, but she’s watching him so closely he knows she can see the hope in his eyes. Curse her!
She finishes the last bite of her eggs. “You are scheduled to inspect the guards this afternoon. Don’t be late.” She stands, brushing out her skirts. He designed those, too, the way the spring green silk of the underskirt peeks out under the sweep of the blue brocade. “Think on it.” And then she’s gone, off to all her very serious and important tasks.
Mirnatius doesn’t want to think on it. But he does. He can’t stop himself: now that she’s planted the idea in his mind, he can’t stamp it out. He complains about her managing ways to the assistant who mixes his paints, rubs his stiff hands and slumps in a chair to sulk, stalks out to inspect the guards (he’s only a few minutes late). He bathes afterwards and chooses what to wear to dinner (not that Irina will even notice), slouches down to the hall, picks at his food while she is engaged in deep discussion with the ambassador on her other side. He stamps upstairs to his bed and stares at the prancing unicorn embroidered in the canopy above and then falls asleep and wakes up the next morning and does the same sorts of things. And through it all, he thinks on it.
It’s some days later before he finally throws down his charcoal and stomps into his office. A servant, gray-haired and wary, finds him there some time later, pulling open drawers and shoving aside scrolls, trying to find his seal. “Where is the cursed thing?” he demands of the servant.
“...I…believe the tsarina might have it, Sire.”
Of course she does. She has to use it to seal all of those decrees and proclamations she sends out in his name.
“Well, get it back.”
The man’s face shifts from wary to terrified at the idea of being trapped in an argument between the tsar and tsarina, and Mirnatius rolls his eyes. “Fine! Get me another one, then!”
The servant scurries off and rushes back in some time later with another seal. It’s one for the general use of the royal family, but it will do. Mirnatius seals the thing and hands it over to the trembling servant.
“Have this dispatched to Master van Rijk.”
The man swallows. “I am not familiar with that name, sire.”
“The landscape painter, the Diskaz one. I think he’s in La Serenissima now.”
“...where in La Serenissima, sire?”
“How should I know? Find out.”
“...yes, sire. And will your highness be using this room often?”
Mirnatius stares at him blankly, and the man hurries to clarify. “I ask only because if your highness intends to…make more use of it, we could keep it stocked. With paper, waxes, quills.”
He’s probably going to have to write a great many letters in the future, he thinks wearily. At least there’s a pleasure in calligraphy. “See to it!”
He does have to write a great many letters after that, and he spends more time in his office than he ever would have believed. There’s something gratifying about the replies—they all reply. Lithvas may be a backwater on the edge of the khanate, but a royal correspondence is a royal correspondence. Whether any of the famed artists will actually come, well, that depends on how much money Irina can spare him.
He refuses to ask her, though. He’s the tsar, after all—he shouldn't have to go groveling at a woman’s feet for funds. And yet he does want to know. He fumes for a while about how to ask without asking, but Irina, as usual, pulls the rug out from under him.
She’s standing in his office one day when he comes in, picking at the paint underneath his fingernails. She looks up from the letter she’s holding and for once he feels like she sees him.
He’s about to rage about the way she’s pawing through his private correspondence, but then…she smiles.
He blinks.
The smile is small and doesn’t last long, but even after it fades, her face is still relaxed, a more pleasant expression than he’s ever seen her direct towards him. “You’re making progress,” she says, nodding towards the piles of papers on his desk.
It’s the closest thing to a compliment that she’s ever offered him. He has no idea how to respond. Petulant? Or offended? She doesn’t wait for him to decide.
“The prince of Suane and his retinue will be arriving tomorrow.”
He’s fairly certain that he’d heard something about an envoy from Suane, but he hadn’t paid attention. “The crown prince?”
“No, his third son.” At the displeased look on Mirnatius’s face, she adds, “It is still a promising sign that he’s sending a member of his family. They say his highness is a young man of high spirits who surrounds himself with the most charming of companions.” Even Mirnatius is not so unsubtle that he can’t translate that: a sensualist who seeks after only his own pleasure and likes to be flattered. “Would you mind keeping him amused during his stay?”
“You’re asking me to play nursemaid while you talk with the diplomats?” Again, he’s unsure whether to be irritated or flattered. Why does Irina so often leave him feeling that unpleasant mix of emotions? (Does she think he’s a charming companion?)
“I am asking you to ensure that our country continues on friendly terms with the royal family of a visiting power,” she corrects, and then waits.
He holds her gaze. Cold, yes, just like always, but with something moving underneath it, like a fish under a layer of ice. Can I trust you with this?, her eyes are asking, and he decides to take it as a challenge.
“I’ll see that he’s amused and make sure that no one offends the man.” It’s as much as he can bring himself to agree to.
“Thank you,” she says, setting down the letter, and as she passes him, she reaches out to pat his hand. The shock he feels is from the surprise, that’s all.
And maybe there’s surprise in Irina’s eyes when the Suanish party leaves three weeks later and Prince Mikael slaps Mirnatius on the back with a smile and a promise to invite him to Suane for a hunting trip. Is it surprise? He can’t quite label what he sees, but he knows he wants to keep seeing it.
“The prince seemed to enjoy his time with us,” she says the next morning at breakfast, and, as usual, it’s not a compliment. But it’s something. “I believe he will speak favorably of us to his father.”
He snorts, because he doesn’t know how else to respond. “And the trade agreement?”
“We came to a mutually beneficial arrangement,” she replies, and her mouth almost twitches. She’s pleased with herself. Perhaps she’s even pleased with him. That shouldn’t please him as much as it does. “Speaking of beneficial arrangements, would you mind paying particular attention to Duchess Laima?”
“What?”
She looks a little taken aback. “I just mean charming her a bit. She’s been refusing to allow our troops to pursue bandits that flee into her lands. I think it’s just because she doesn’t like me.”
“And you think I can butter her up?”
She doesn’t reply to that, just sits looking at him. He takes a moment to unknot his fists and loosen his shoulders. He’d thought she meant—but he’s never going to let someone touch him again if he doesn’t want them to. (The back-slapping from Mikael hadn’t bothered him; there was no attraction behind that. No…intent.) But she hadn’t meant that. Just charming her a bit. Some flirting. No harm in that, especially not with a woman old enough to be his mother.
“Fine,” he says.
A week later, the imperial troops ride into Duchess Laima’s lands and make quick work of the bandits. When the news reaches Koron, Irina smiles at him again.
He tries to tell himself that that’s not the reason he continues to do her bidding, but he knows it’s not true. Somehow he finds himself schmoozing with nobles and foreign dignitaries and even bankers and tradesmen. He’s good at it—he shocks himself with his own charm. He never had to be charming before; his face and his rank did all the work for him. But making himself agreeable to these people feels like pulling one over on them, and there’s a smug satisfaction in that. It’s funny, when they think he actually likes them.
If, very occasionally, he actually does like them, he doesn’t admit that to himself. He would never concede that he’s actually developing a few friends: a duke’s son who loves fashion for its own sake, not just as a way to impress others; a wife of an ambassador who shares a passion for art; a blunt-tongued, low-born (brilliantly talented) painter from some village in the back of beyond who traveled to Koron and presented himself for the tsar’s patronage. None of them mind Mirnatius’s sharp tongue, and he is actually interested in what they have to say. (Maybe, with them, he doesn’t have to pretend to be agreeable. Maybe he just is.)
But sometimes…sometimes. A man steps too close, close enough to smell his skin under the myrrh of his scent, and it takes all of Mirnatius’s control not to shove him away. He takes a step back, smoothly distracts the man, and the moment passes, but his heart is still thundering, his palms sweating. He takes to wearing fine kid gloves when he knows he’ll be with someone handsy; if one more person (who isn’t Irina) lays their hand on his bare skin, he’s going to scream. Once, a girl actually manages to kiss him while he’s distracted, and when he comes back to himself, he’s in a darkened room, sweating, his mouth stale with vomit. (But that only happens once.)
He puts up with it, though, because Irina notices. He wasn’t sure, at first. She watches him more than she used to, but that could be the wariness of a squirrel in the presence of danger (oh, who is he fooling? He’s the squirrel in this relationship). But one afternoon, they’re walking with Archduke Domantus as the old man laments that they will never convince Prince Rudolf to do whatever they want him to do.
And out of nowhere, Irina says, “Don’t worry. Mirnatius will charm him. He’s very good at it.”
The heat that washes through him is heady as wine in his veins.
It’s easier to ignore the spark of interest in some courtier’s eyes after that. It still makes his stomach lurch, but he’ll suffer through it (for Irina). It’s happening less and less now, anyway. He’s made sure to talk about Irina a great deal, praising her many sterling qualities and dropping hints about how much they enjoy being alone. Some react with amusement, others roll their eyes, but there are fewer touches now, fewer significant looks over goblets of wine. He begins to believe he has it all under control.
And then an archduchess slides her hand up the inside of his thigh under the table at dinner one night. The panic that fills him means he barely even feels the pain when his knee slams into the bottom of the table. The dishes and cutlery rattle and she retracts her hand as everyone turns to look at him in surprise.
Irina is looking at him too, a small line between her brows. He focuses on that line while he tries to steady his breathing. (He keeps his hands in his lap so that no one will notice the tremor.) She sets down her goblet. “I beg your pardon,” she says to the table at large. “My husband is not feeling well. We will excuse ourselves—please, carry on without us.”
He has to take her arm, as is proper, but perhaps she’s more supporting him as he makes his wobbly way out of the hall.
“What happened?” she demands once they’re in an empty corridor.
He wants to wave her off, but Irina is stubborn; he knows she won’t let it go. He tries to say it like it’s nothing, and he’s proud that his voice barely wavers. “That hussy you asked me to make nice with decided to grab a handful.”
Irina’s hand tightens on his arm and a fierce fire flares up in her eyes. “Indeed?”
The next day, Irina is not at breakfast, and later that afternoon he is delivered a note from the archduchess offering her apologies for leaving court so abruptly, but her children have taken ill. She doesn’t return.
After that, whenever someone leans a little too close, a servant will appear, informing the tsar that his presence is needed elsewhere. And as for the few courtiers or officials who do seem to be starting to take the tsar’s flirtations a little too seriously, one day they will make their excuses and disappear from court or else their manner changes abruptly and they become much more restrained. Mirnatius isn’t sure how, exactly, Irina is warning these people off, but it’s the only explanation. He hates that he feels thankful, but it’s so much easier doing this charming thing now that he has a reputation for being besotted with his wife and she with him.
And also—Irina starts to keep close to him when they’re in public together, pressing up against his side, hanging off his arm, glaring daggers at anyone who gets too coquettish towards Mirnatius. It makes his head spin, but most of the courtiers think her open proprietariness is funny, and the ones who are angry are at least angry with her and not with him for vomiting on their shoes.
But as soon as they are alone, she steps away and drops his arm. She’s still made no hint of wanting to introduce further intimacy into their relationship. He’s glad, mostly, except when he’s not. The thought of being intimate makes his stomach lurch, except…maybe not with Irina.
He finds himself thinking about what it would be like and…what he feels is not disgust. She wouldn’t bat her lashes at him and try to seduce him. That isn’t her way. She would be straightforward, as she always is, and tell him what she expects of him, as she always does, and maybe…maybe it would be all right if it was Irina. He prods at the thought now and then, imagines what it would be like for her to touch him with her small, capable hands. The heat he feels is a completely different kind than he’s ever felt before. It’s…not unpleasant.
One evening at dinner, he’s seated beside some fine lady—he isn’t paying attention to who (he’s watching Irina converse with the young boyar across from her. The man makes her laugh, and Mirnatius burns with envy and has to remind himself that he can’t go over and plunge his sword into the man)—when the lady, who has not noticed his disregard and is chattering away, leans closer, the curve of her breasts pressed against his arm, and whispers something suggestive in his ear.
He jerks back, shocked as much that there’s still anyone at court who doesn’t know the tsar’s reputation for being completely devoted to his wife as it is from the words themselves. Everyone knows that the tsar doesn’t dally with anyone. He’s spent the past year making that very, very clear.
He’d just taken a bite of whatever it is he’s eating (he wasn’t paying attention to that either) and he finds himself in a choking fit. Immediately, Irina’s head whips around, and then her hand is on his cheek. “Dearest?” she says, and even though his lungs are still seizing and he’s coughing so hard that tears are leaking from his eyes, he’s so, so aware of that hand, of those eyes.
Irina gives him a glass and he drinks, and a moment later gets the coughing back under control. As he sucks in deep breaths of air, her hand slides down from his cheek to his chest, smoothing down his jacket. “Are you quite all right, my love?” she asks, and he knows it’s just for the watching eyes, he knows.
He knows.
“Yes, fine.”
She nods, and then heat flares in her eyes and she says, not quite so low that the nearest courtiers can’t hear her, “I’ll make you feel better later.”
There are a few titters as Irina sits back and turns calmly to talk to whoever’s next to her, but Mirnatius barely hears them. That night when he returns to find a hot bath waiting for him, he dismisses the servants before he disrobes. In the water, he takes himself in hand, something he almost never does (hasn’t done in years and years), imagining that it’s Irina’s hand, and when he reaches release it feels good. Simply good, nothing else.
If it was Irina…
But it’s irrelevant anyway. He knows that her possessive touches and heated gazes are only to convince watchers of their devotion. She doesn’t want him.
But perhaps…perhaps she no longer loathes him. She actually talks to him at breakfast now, about her day, about whatever matter of state is pressing on her mind, about the weather or her letter from her friend the queen of the Staryks or the contents of a book she’s been reading. She’s not asking him for advice (good, because he doesn’t have any), just thinking out loud in front of him. But she doesn’t dismiss the few things he does say in reply, and she seems to take pleasure in having someone to listen.
And she listens to him. She asks him questions about his art, about his correspondence (brisk—he receives regular letters from half a dozen well-established artists outside of Lithvas, and more than one has hinted that they’d be open to an offer), even about the mood of certain courtiers.
“I really can’t pay attention to who is feuding with whom and who is scheming with whom and who is flirting with whom,” she says one morning she coolly cracks a quail’s egg. “I haven’t the time. I’d be glad if you kept an eye on them.”
He can’t deny it—she trusts him now. At least to handle the social side of ruling, but considering where they started (she thought him a selfish, childish fool, he knows she did), it’s something. Maybe she even likes him now. He thinks, sometimes, that he sees fondness in her eyes when she looks at him, but he could be imagining that. (He has a very vivid imagination, especially when it comes to Irina.)
And so they get along, and things are going so smoothly, and the kingdom is flourishing more with each passing week. The seasons are regular now, a joy the people of Lithvas have not yet started to take for granted, and the harvest is good and the next one even better, until one day Irina says to him, “Which master will you invite to Koron first?”
He already has a name in mind (the landscape painter he wrote to first), and she listens as he tells her about him, and when she tells him how much he should offer, his jaw drops. And she smiles at him again. It might even be a grin. His pride doesn’t even feel pricked; when he sits down later to draw, all his hand will sketch is that grin, over and over.
Archduke Vladas brings him abruptly down to earth when he asks for a private word in the garden. Vladas is the least annoying of his councilors, but Mirnatius doesn’t want to hear about some boring political issue, even from him. Not on a glorious spring day when he could be painting Irina’s face on the easel set up on his balcony. Still, the councilors bother him so rarely now (now that there’s Irina) that he does try to at least hear them out when they do approach him. He aquieses not entirely gracelessly and walks with Vladas between the flowerbeds, his mind still mostly on Irina’s smile.
Until he finds out what it is Vladas wants to talk to him about.
Fifteen minutes later, Mirnatius bursts into Irina’s office. “Get. Out,” he barks at the secretaries who are bustling around. They take one look at his face—flushed, eyes flashing—and disappear.
As soon as the door closes behind the last one, Mirnatius opens his mouth, but (as usual) Irina anticipates him. “What’s wrong?” she demands.
He glares at her, now annoyed at her inviting his rage when he wanted to hurl it at her with no warning. “I won’t have your councilors lecturing me about heirs! If you don’t want to share my bed, that’s your choice, but—”
She interrupts him. “I don’t want to share your bed?”
He ignores her. “I will not be blamed for ‘worrying the people’ or ‘undermining stability’ or whatever fool thing the councilors are on about. If they want an heir so badly, they can take it up with you. And you better tell them that, for if one of them so much as brings it up again, I’ll—”
“Mirnatius!”
His mouth closes. She never calls him by his name. In public, it’s always “beloved” and “darling,” and when they are alone, she doesn’t address him as anything at all.
She stands up from her chair and comes around the desk to stand in front of him. The line is back between her brows, and even when he’s angry at her, it feels good to have her eyes on him again. (Better, even, than the spring sunshine. When did he become such a sap?)
“Do you…want me to share your bed?” she asks very carefully.
His cheeks go hot again, but this time not with rage. He doesn’t reply.
She watches him from a moment and then, brow smoothing, takes another step towards him. “I didn’t think you wanted that. After…” she trails off, starts again. “You hate it when people touch you.”
“Well, yes, but not you!”
He hadn’t meant to say that; the words burst out of him without his permission. He’s never been so embarrassed in his life, and he wants to storm out and go throw some furniture around, but Irina’s eyes have him pinned like a butterfly.
“I see,” she says, and then she takes another step forward. Right before her mouth meets his, he sees that her lips have spread into that grin again.
After that, when the tsarina flirts with the tsar in public, Mirnatius knows that it’s still just for show. But there’s something in her eyes, something warm and intense, that is not for anyone else but him. It’s a softer variation on how she looks at him when they’re alone, the kind of look he never expected to be directed at him from anyone, much less from Irina. For the first time in his entire life, he feels seen. Irina wants him. Not his beautiful face, not his power or his wealth or his throne. Just Mirnatius.
(Now the last bits of Chernobog are driven out, the last of his demons exorcized, and he is just Mirnatius.
And maybe Mirnatius is someone worth being.)