The Empire (The Lover's Opalus) by Grayson Reyes-Cole

flexed his fingers.
    She came to him, and he no longer studied the tension between them, so he allowed her to run her hands over his arms. “Tell me.”
    “I wish that I could, Raeche. I am not always sure of what I sense. Sometimes it is like the low register of a timra playing in the air around her.”
    “You have said much the same of me.”
    He actually smiled. “Yes, there is something about you, sharp like a poisoned sword. Like the tongue of the timra. But it is different with our daughter. Hers is a live timra and it hisses and waits to strike. You rarely use the Spirit you have harnessed but I must ask if you have felt this.”
    She shook her head fast, blinking to stop the feel of acid in her eyes, swallowing to stop the feel of acid in her throat and chest. “I have not, Lanus. But I am not as strong as you think. I have no control over the Spirit inside me. You know I was never a good student.”
    “But always a beautiful one,” Lanus said softly.
    Her heart sang even as it broke. “Beauty is insignificant.”
    “So casually said because you have always had it. Beauty has never mattered to you.” He reached out and stroked her hair behind her ear. The touch was gentle and certainly born from the Spirit of Impulse. “I am called a fool for my inability to look away from you.”
    “None would dare call you a fool, my Emperor.”
    His lips parted in a hard smile as he continued to stroke her cheek. It seemed as if he could not stop touching her. First her hair, then her cheeks and jaw, her shoulder, her hair again, her chin. He pulled her into a close embrace. He smelled of the East Forest, though he should not have. Raeche knew he chose the scent and his smell was of her home. Sometimes it made her sad. Now, her sadness, their sadness, was constructed from worry over what this omen her husband spoke of meant for their beautiful daughter.
    “The Spirit chooses to hide her fate and neither of the Codices speak of her yet,” Lanus confided. “They will not speak of her until her ninth birthday.”
    “This Spirit Timra you sense, is it coiled to strike now?”
    “No.” He coughed, clearing his throat. “I sense that it does not strike until she is ready to become the Empire. But it is strong and it laughs at me. It taunts me in the way of the Death White Border.”
    Tears dotted Raeche’s cheeks because to laugh at Lanus was to laugh at the Empire. Not even the Spirit mocked the Empire. Only one entity did. The South, the Poachers and Riddlers beyond the Death White Border. “Lanus, I love her, and you love her. We will use that love to hold the Spirit of Protection in our hearts until the Codices do speak of her.”
    Lanus nodded but did not speak.
    “Come with me to the altar, then. If I cannot see it for myself, you must share this burden with me.”
    “No, Raeche, I can carry this–”
    “You have told me that I am the Empire. Do not forget it now.”
    Rather than answer, the Emperor capitulated with a bow of his head meant to show respect absent of deference.
    She grabbed his hand and covered the avla eggshells. The room grew dark as she led him to the tall window facing north. They stood before it, hand in hand, and Lanus whispered to the Spirits to allow him to share his premonition with Raeche without harming her or drawing undue attention to his daughter.
    In minutes, the transference was done. Raeche’s heart had been branded with an iron of dread and her body wrapped in ice. She let Lanus draw her to the long tufted seat near the window. Lanus sat and allowed her to climb into his lap where they held each other and watched the stars dance through the sky to the sad ballad of their Spirits.
    “Do not go to the South,” Raeche whispered. “Leave the border to your brother for a while.”
    Lanus nodded and before long began to drift off to sleep. His eyes opened when Raeche spoke softly into his ear.
    “I do not know why there is such darkness within me,” she