I met Cyrus’ eyes, and everything in me stilled.
His eyes were the first part of him that I fell in love with. So penetrating, like he could read my very soul like it was a book. I loved their intensity, even if it sometimes frightened me just a little.
He used that look as he slowly walked toward me.
I took in a breath as he reached me. Time. Mountains. Sandalwood.
I even loved the way Cyrus smelled.
“What is it, my love?” he asked as he took my hands in his. He pressed my palms flat to his chest, holding his hands over mine. “What is the matter?”
I looked away from him, over his shoulder, to those huge wooden doors. “I just can’t today, im yndmisht srtov,” I said as I shook my head. “All the games. The posturing. The politics. I just can’t today.”
Emotion pricked my eyes and my chest felt tight.
So long. We’d been alive for so long. Done all of this for such a long time.
“Do you ever get tired of it?” I breathed. “Do you ever wish it would all just disappear?”
My eyes slid back to his. He didn’t answer right away. He gazed at me, and I could see him thinking, considering all I just asked.
And I understood. Because when I thought about it, all that Cyrus had accomplished, it’s incredible. There isn’t a word big enough for it.
“When I look at you in the mornings, standing at the window, looking over the land, with the weight of the world on your shoulders, weighing you down, I wish it would all disappear,” he said. His voice was low, intimate. The words just between the two of us. “When I see you sitting on your throne, alone in a room full of subjects, a look of distance in your eyes, I wish it would all disappear.” He drew me closer. He touched his forehead to mine, and we breathed the same air. The heat of his body warmed me. “When we lie in bed, and someone walks in with complications that must be dealt with, and I see the disappointment in your eyes, I wish it would all disappear.”
My eyes slid closed as his words wrapped around me in a warm, soft embrace. I leaned into him, resting my forehead in the crook of his shoulder and neck. He took my right hand in his left, cradling it gently against his chest. His other wrapped around my waist.
Slowly, he began swaying us to the music. Gentle, tiny movements. I clung to him, relishing in his strength and solid presence. I breathed in his air, letting it fill me.
Together.
As one.
We swayed gently back and forth.
He softly hummed. They weren’t the exact notes that the orchestra played in the ballroom, but they matched the melody. It was a love song. One about all the pain we’d endured together. But also all the nights in each other’s arms. The kisses shared in passageways. The acts of kindness and patience. The shared tears over grief that would never go away, no matter how long we lived, over a child lost long before his death.
Softly, Cyrus hummed the song of us.
“I want to go somewhere,” I said quietly against my husband’s skin. “Just you and I. For a long while. Just as husband and wife.”
I looked up, to stare into his beautiful face. And I loved all the devotion I saw in his eyes, and I felt it in myself; this man had made some bad choices. Made lifetimes of mistakes. But I would do anything for him. I would never, ever love another as I loved him.
“Anything, im yndmisht srtov,” he promised. And slowly, he leaned forward, and took my lips as his. Forever.
* * *
My hands immediately cling to my chest. The hollow ache in it makes it nearly impossible to breathe. Tears immediately spring into my eyes. I can’t stop them. They silently cascade down my face, saturating my pillow.
I sob. I reach across the bed, searching for a warm body, or even just a warm space beside me, but the sheets are cool and empty.
A bone-rattling breath sucks into my chest and I curl into a ball on my side.
Cyrus may have created his own curse that he shared with so many others, but this is my own: to love a man who did such a horrible thing to me. To ache for him in the same breath that I hate him. To crave his touch and nearness, even as I have to piece the puzzle of my identity together, over and over.
But no matter what, I always end up at the same place. I want him with me.
Even if right now, it’s the last thing I need.
Rolling over, I search for my phone on the nightstand. The screen blinds me momentarily when I wake it. I don’t even have any choice in it when my fingers scroll through the names and click the one.
It rings only twice before it connects.
“Im yndmisht srtov,” Cyrus breathes over the line.
“Cyrus,” I whisper. And the moment his name crosses my lips, emotion splits my chest. More tears force their way down my face. I cover my mouth with my hand to hold in the sob that wants to rip from me.
“What’s wrong?” he breathes. “Tell me where you are and I will be right there.” And I do hear him moving. I hear others in the background, jumping to fulfill his needs, speaking in German.
“No,” I whisper. “I’m fine. You don’t…” But I don’t know what to tell him. I don’t know how to vocalize what is going on inside of me. “Can you just… Can you just lie here with me?”
He’s quiet for a long moment. The only thing I hear is the sound of his breathing, but just barely.
And then he pulls the phone away from him as he sends those around him away. Once more I hear him walking. And I just listen to him. I absorb the familiar sounds of his breathing.
Through this little electronic device, I can feel him. Can nearly touch his presence. Cyrus is that strong. That commanding. That tangible.
The soft sound of a door clicking shut comes through, and then rustling.
I can picture it. Him crossing our room. The enormous canopy bed. Him climbing into it.
“I’m here, my love,” he finally says to me.
His voice.
Oh, his voice.
I clutch the fabric at my chest, as if I can hold my own heart and keep it from splintering into a million little shards.
My throat is tight.
“Talk to me, im yndmisht srtov,” he requests. His voice is nervous. Hesitant.
“I don’t know if I have anything to say,” I whisper. “I just… I needed to hear your voice.”
“I cannot express how grateful I am to hear yours,” he says. “The past four days have felt like four years.”
The words I’m sorry are right there at the end of my tongue, but I hold them in. Because I am, but I’m not. “They have been long for me, too.”
There’s another long pause, as both of us search for words to express this moment.
“I’ve told no one here at Court,” he says. “Mina and Fredrick have sworn silence. The time and manner is yours, whenever you choose.”
I nod, even though he can’t see it. Tears of gratitude cascade down my face. “Thank you,” I say quietly.
Once more, we’re both quiet.
But right now I’m imagining him lying there in the bed. One of his arms is hooked behind his head. He stares up at the black crystal chandelier that hangs high above it. The stones of the ceiling are familiar. But he’s not really seeing any of that. He’s seeing us, slowly dancing alone out in the hall. Alone, just the two of us.
“We never took that trip,” I say. My voice is little more than a whisper. “With just you and I. Together. Just husband and wife again.”
I hear just the smallest of breaths catch in his throat. I know what my remembering the little details of our past together means to him.
I know what it means to me.
“Do you remember what we planned?” he asks gently.
More tears push out of my eyes as I squeeze them closed. I shake my head. “No,” I admit. “Will you tell me?”
“That very night we began to plan it,” he tells our story, reminding me. “We were to depart in three weeks. You had always heard incredible things about India. We were going to go to the jungle and then the beach. No timeframe. Just however long we needed, just you and I.”
His words thicken. And he stops speaking for a long while.
Cyrus is a harsh and cold man to everyone who knows him, even to those who don’t.