The Queen's Mage

One evening, after the last council report had been signed, Serali gathered the remaining papers from Allandra’s desk.

Verya had departed with the legal revisions. Daravan and Harrek had been called away by a Watch report from the lower gate. Hagen had vanished moments before anyone thought to give him work.

Only the two of them remained.

That was no longer unusual.

There had been other evenings now. Kisses behind closed doors. Hours in Serali’s rooms after the palace quieted. Allandra had begun saying what she wanted instead of disguising every desire as a question she could withdraw.

Sometimes she gave instructions.

Serali had expected to hate that.

Instead, Allandra’s certainty made yielding feel like something Serali chose rather than something taken from her. She could refuse. She could stop. Knowing that made surrender feel unexpectedly like safety.

Beyond the windows, servants moved through the gardens, lighting the first lanterns that would remain until First Sun.

Allandra watched them kindle one by one. “The city will be impossible within a week.”

“Because of the festival?”

“Because everyone has decided winter is already over.”

“It isn’t.”

“No.” Allandra smiled. “That has never stopped anyone.”

Serali looked out at the lanterns, garlands, and blue ribbons spreading through a palace preparing for a celebration no one had properly explained to her.

“I suppose I should learn what happens.”

“You should.”

Allandra closed the final report and looked at her.

“Come to your rooms with me.”

Serali’s hands stilled.

Not an order she had to obey.

A desire stated plainly.

“My rooms?”

“You are more comfortable there.”

The observation landed with embarrassing accuracy.

Her books had acquired familiar places. She used the hearth. The servants’ passage no longer felt like a hidden threat, and Mara’s quiet presence somewhere beyond the sitting room had become reassuring rather than watchful.

The suite was, improbably, hers.

“I am,” Serali admitted.

“Then yours.”

“For what purpose?”

Allandra’s expression turned faintly mischievous. “I have an idea.”

Serali groaned. “I dislike that sentence.”

“I know.”

“It has a history.”

“It does.”

“Should I be concerned?”

“No.”

Serali studied her.

Allandra waited.

There it was: certainty without pressure. Serali could say no, and nothing in Allandra’s face suggested she would be punished for it.

“Very well.”

Allandra smiled. “Good.”

They left the office as the palace settled into evening.

The residential corridors were nearly empty: two guards at the stair, no clerks, no pages hurrying under stacks of paper. Allandra walked beside Serali without touching her, never more than a body’s width away.

Serali’s left shoulder had been aching since midday.

She concealed it as she concealed most pain—by favoring the other side and refusing to acknowledge defeat unless the limb actually detached.

Allandra allowed this for three turns of the stairs.

“You’re guarding your shoulder.”

Serali winced, which answered for her. “Only from stupidity.”

“Is the pain new?”

“Old.”

Mara opened the suite door before they reached it. One glance took in the queen, the hour, and the distance between them. She admitted them, then disappeared with the practiced discretion of someone who knew precisely when her presence had become unnecessary.

Allandra closed the door.

“Sit by the fire.”

Serali looked at her.

Allandra lifted one brow.

Serali obeyed.

That should have bothered her.

It did not.

The room was warm and candlelit. Serali settled into the hearth chair, jaw tight as the heat began working into the ache.

Allandra remained standing. “Tell me what happened.”

Serali watched the flames.

“Vandra caught me stealing from the upper pantries last winter. She pushed me down a stairwell.”

Allandra went very still. “The same Vandra who served Rania?”

“Yes. She was a fixture. Like a clock. Or the iron keys on her belt.”

“How many steps?”

“Twelve, perhaps. I did not count.”

“What happened to the shoulder?”

“It separated.”

Allandra’s jaw worked.

Serali attempted humor. “On the bright side, it was the last time anyone caught me.”

Allandra did not laugh. “And now?”

“It hurts when the weather shifts. Or when I lift something heavy. Or when I spend the day bracing for public disaster and forget to eat.”

Allandra gave her a pointed look.

“I will remember Vandra’s name,” she said. “In case of war.”

Serali laughed, but the sound came out hollow.

Allandra heard it. “You don’t like the word.”

“War?”

She nodded.

“You use it easily.”

“I have lived in it.”

“I lived under it.”

The fire cracked between them.

“When people speak about the war,” Serali said, “they speak of battles. Victories. Generals.”

Allandra waited.

“I remember empty pantries. Servants disappearing because they had been conscripted. Boys leaving through the palace gates and never returning.”

Her fingers tightened against the chair.

“One of the kitchen boys used to save burnt rolls for me. Then one day he stopped coming to work.”

“No one told you what happened?”

“They stopped setting a place for him.”

Allandra looked toward the fire.

“I remember casualty reports,” she said. “Names of soldiers I had trained. Deciding which villages we could defend and which we could not. Sending people to sleep while knowing I would wake them before dawn.”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Then, more quietly, “After Vulmar’s assassins came, I inherited a crown, a Mantle, and a war in the same week.”

Serali knew that story.

Everyone in Lyehira did.

The warrior princess whose family had been murdered. The new queen who held the line against the Night Fae and then accepted peace instead of vengeance.

She had never considered what the story felt like from inside it.

“Avalusia wanted you to keep fighting,” she said.

“Many did.”

“But you ended it.”

Allandra’s expression was tired and certain. “I had buried enough people.”

Serali held her gaze.

“I think the people beneath wars are usually the ones most eager for them to end.”

“Yes,” Allandra said.

She crossed the carpet and knelt before Serali’s chair.

“You are safe tonight.”

Serali’s throat tightened. “That is not a practical promise.”

“No.” Allandra’s voice softened. “But you do not have to brace for everything alone.”

Serali looked away.

Allandra reached toward her shoulder, then stopped before touching it.

“Do you want Lia to examine it?”

“For my pride?”

“For the pain.”

“Hot water helps.”

“Then you should take a bath.”

Serali looked back at her. “Was that your idea?”

“Part of it.”

“And the rest?”

Allandra tilted her head. “Massage may help.”

“I will ask Mara in the morning.”

“Or I could do it.”

Serali blinked. “You?”

Allandra’s mouth curved. “I have hands.”

“An alarming qualification.”

“I am also dexterous.”

“I am not certain that is a word.”

“It is. Would you like to test the claim?”

Serali stared at her. “You want to help me bathe?”

“Generally, couples do.”

Heat climbed into Serali’s face. “I am unfamiliar with the customs.”

“Then we will proceed cautiously.” Allandra’s gaze remained steady. “Bath or massage first?”

“Bath.” Serali hesitated. “But you do not have to—”

“I want to.”

The interruption was gentle.

Firm.

Allandra knew what she wanted now, and trusted Serali to tell her if she did not want the same.

Serali found she liked that trust almost as much as the authority.

“Bath first,” she repeated.

“Good.”

Allandra’s fingers brushed the top of her arm, light enough to refuse.

Serali leaned into them.

They moved to her bathing chamber. The one with the tub large enough to float a small navy, brass taps that produced actual hot water on demand, smug fish on the tiles and shelves of ridiculous bath powders in glass jars. Allandra started the water, tested the temperature, and then turned to Serali with the confidence of a woman issuing campaign orders.

“Clothing off,” she said.

Serali hesitated. It was one thing to undress in the dark, the hurried fumbling of two people desperate for privacy and relief. It was another to do so in the full spill of candlelight, with Allandra watching, and with the memory of old shame tight as a fist in her chest.

Allandra saw the hesitation. “If you are embarrassed—”

Serali shook her head. “It is not that.”

“What then?”

Serali looked down at her arms. “It feels… exposed.”

Allandra stepped closer. “Is it the scars?”

Serali swallowed, then nodded.

Allandra's expression softened, but she did not offer sympathy. Instead, she loosened the ties of her outer gown and let it slip from her shoulders, pooling quietly around her feet.

Beneath it she wore only a simple linen shift, sleeveless enough to leave her shoulders, collarbones, and much of her back uncovered.

The move was so matter-of-fact, so unceremonious, that for a moment Serali simply stared.

Allandra was broader than she appeared beneath her formal clothes. Her shoulders and upper arms were marked with pale slashes, some old, some newer, layered across the gold-cream of Sun Fae skin. The largest scar ran from just beneath her clavicle down toward her sternum, a pink-white seam that must have hurt terribly when it was new.

Serali reached out without thinking, brushing her fingers along its edge. “This one?”

Allandra looked down at it, then back at Serali.

“First winter of the war. A Lyehiran blade through chainmail.”

Serali's hand trembled. “You never mentioned.”

“There are many.”

She turned, exposing the open back of the shift. Two more scars crossed her skin: one near the base of her ribs, another above her left shoulder blade.

Serali counted. “Five?”

“Seven, if you count the burn here.”

She touched a faint ripple near her hip.

Serali stared at her, searching for words. “But yours mean you were… strong.”

Allandra arched an eyebrow. “Scars do not confer meaning.”

“You got them fighting for your country.”

“So did you.”

Serali laughed, hollow. “I got mine failing to make beds on time. Or getting caught at the wrong end of the corridor. Or for just… existing.”

Allandra turned fully toward her. “May I?”

Serali nodded, wary.

Allandra slipped the shift over her head and laid it neatly beside the discarded gown.

Now bare to the waist, she stepped close again and gently slid Serali's sleeve from her shoulder, tracing with feather-light fingers the raised white lines that crossed her upper arm and back. She examined each one with clinical precision, but her touch was gentle, almost reverent.

“I will not compare them,” Allandra said. “But if you wish, I will help you forget they are there.”

Serali did not trust herself to speak.

Allandra moved behind her and began carefully loosening the laces at the back of Serali's dress.

Serali froze.

“I can do it—”

“I know,” Allandra said gently. “But I'd like to.”

Serali let the words die.

The last knot loosened. Allandra eased the dress from Serali's shoulders, letting the silk whisper down her arms. It pooled around her feet with barely a sound.

Beneath it, Serali still wore only a thin linen shift and her underclothes.

“Turn around,” Allandra said softly.

She did.

Serali closed her eyes, waiting for the weight of Allandra's gaze to descend, to find her body wanting or insufficient.

Instead, Allandra reached up and untied the ribbons at Serali's collar. The linen shift slipped from her shoulders, and Allandra folded it with the same quiet care she'd shown her own clothing before setting it aside.

Without a word, Allandra unfastened the ties of her own skirt and stepped out of it, leaving them both in little more than their underclothes.

Then she crossed the remaining distance between them.

She wrapped both arms around Serali from behind, her chin settling lightly against Serali's bare shoulder. The embrace was possessive, but never rough. Serali let herself lean back, breathing in the unfamiliar, comforting warmth.

Allandra pressed a kiss to the back of her neck.

“There,” she murmured. “That is the hardest part done.”

Serali laughed, breathless.

“I think the bathing is worse.”

“We will discover together.”

They finished undressing in companionable silence, setting the last of their garments neatly beside the others.

Serali stepped to the edge of the tub, testing the water with her good hand. It was perfectly, absurdly hot.

Allandra watched her slide in, then followed. The water covered their bodies up to the chest, and the heat forced Serali’s muscles to loosen whether they wished to or not. The bath salts smelled of citrus and juniper.

Allandra sat opposite, legs braced, arms draped over the rim of the tub. She looked utterly at home, as if this were the most natural place in the world for her to be.

Serali, meanwhile, was acutely aware of her own bones, her unremarkable chest, the way her knees looked too large out of the water.

Allandra reached for the soap, lathered it between her hands, and nodded at Serali’s left arm. “Let me see.”

Serali surrendered her arm. Allandra began to knead the muscles around her shoulder with a slow, methodical precision that bordered on painful at first, then softened into relief. Serali’s whole body tingled.

“You are very serious about this,” Serali said.

“I learned to do it for soldiers in the field. You are not so different from them.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“It depends on the day,” Allandra said. “But today, yes.”

They sat in silence for a long time, Allandra working out the knots, Serali’s head swimming from the combination of heat, pain, and strange, buoyant pleasure.

At some point, Allandra shifted her hand from Serali’s shoulder to her jaw, and kissed her, deep and certain. The taste of her was like sunlight and oranges and the bitter memory of old victory.

Serali melted into it, the way one might into a dream: unplanned, and a little afraid.

When they broke apart, Allandra’s hand stayed on her face.

“Better?” Allandra asked.

Serali nodded, unable to think of anything clever to say.

Allandra did not move her hand away. She shifted her grip, thumb stroking the ridge of Serali’s cheekbone, gaze steady and unblinking. The confidence in her touch unsettled and soothed at once, and Serali found herself unable to look anywhere else.

“The shoulder is only one place pain hides,” Allandra said, voice low and matter-of-fact.

Serali’s ears went pink. “There are others?”

Allandra’s mouth quirked. “Everyone carries it somewhere different. Sometimes the back. Sometimes the legs. Sometimes—”

Her hand trailed down Serali’s bicep, then paused, thumb resting in the hollow at the inside of her elbow. “—sometimes it takes longer to find.”

Serali stared at the water, which suddenly seemed far less dangerous than anything outside the tub. “You intend to search?” she asked, trying for dry humor and half-failing.

Allandra leaned in, close enough that Serali could feel her pulse through the water. Then she kissed her again, hard enough that Serali tasted copper and sun, and Allandra’s hands cupped the base of her skull. There was no softness in it, only a promise of what would follow.

Allandra’s body was a scaffolding of heat and certainty beneath the floating tension of Serali’s own.

The Queen shifted, arms tightening, and Serali found herself moved bodily, her legs suddenly astride Allandra’s, their chests pressed tight above the slice of water that burned hotter with every second. The arrangement was deliberate, ceremonial; Allandra’s hands steadied her just above the surface, stealing every illusion of control.

Serali’s first instinct was to laugh at herself, at the absurdity, but the pressure of Allandra’s mouth left no room for mockery. When Allandra finally broke away, her cheeks were flushed, eyes dark as river stone.

“I intend to search,” Allandra repeated, voice thick with a precision that had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with hunger.

If you would like to read the rest of this chapter (this bath scene gets VERY STEAMY), you can find it here on Inkitt:

Chapter Places Pain Hides | The Queen's Mage by Lemon_Tea_With_Honey at Inkitt

You can find this spicy chapter here on Inkitt:

Chapter Welcome to Cheat | The Queen's Mage by Lemon_Tea_With_Honey at Inkitt

The beginning of this chapter is also on Inkitt:

Chapter Here | The Queen's Mage by Lemon_Tea_With_Honey at Inkitt

After, they lay together on the bed, breathless. Allandra spooned behind Serali, careful not to press the injured shoulder, but close enough that Serali could feel every line of her body.

Allandra felt the tension leave her body.

She pressed her lips to the nape of Serali’s neck and whispered, “I am here.”

Serali did not answer, but her hand found Allandra’s where it wrapped around her stomach, and she clung to it as if it were the only solid thing in the world.

Mara found them the next morning exactly as she had expected to.

The Queen and the Royal Mage lay tangled together beneath the blankets, Serali tucked against Allandra's side, one of Allandra's arms draped protectively around her waist. Sometime during the night they had stolen nearly every blanket on the bed and somehow still managed to occupy only half of the bed.

Neither appeared inclined to acknowledge the existence of morning.

Mara smiled to herself.

She set a tray of tea and fresh water quietly on the side table, cracked the curtains just enough to admit a ribbon of pale spring sunlight, and withdrew as silently as she had entered.

No one needed to know the Queen had spent the night.

By the time Serali woke, Allandra had already fastened the last clasp of her gown.

She paused beside the hidden servants' passage.

"I should go before anyone begins wondering where I've disappeared to."

Serali nodded.

"...Probably wise."

Allandra stepped close, brushing an errant strand of dark hair behind Serali's ear before pressing a brief kiss to her forehead.

"I'll see you in a few minutes."

Serali blinked.

"So soon?"

Allandra smiled.

"You've forgotten."

"...Forgotten what?"

"Today is one of some breakfasts."

Serali stared for a heartbeat.

Then groaned softly.

"Oh no."

"Oh yes."

"I suppose Everly will notice if I fail to appear."

"I believe she would consider it a personal betrayal."

Serali sighed with theatrical resignation.

"Then I suppose I have no choice."

"I don't believe you do."

Allandra's smile lingered for another moment.

Then she slipped through the servants' passage and disappeared.

A few moments later, Mara entered carrying a fresh dress over one arm.

She glanced once toward the concealed panel, then back to Serali.

"Good morning."

Serali accepted the dress with a suspicious look.

"...How much of this morning did you witness?"

Mara's expression remained perfectly composed.

"I came to help you dress."

"...That wasn't my question."

"No."

"It was not."

Serali narrowed her eyes.

"You are becoming evasive."

"I spend a great deal of time around clever women."

Despite herself, Serali laughed.

"Come," Mara said, smoothing an imaginary wrinkle from Serali's sleeve. "Princess Everly has been known to become impatient when breakfast is delayed."

Serali sighed.

"I suppose we'd better not keep her waiting."