I Married the Emperor to Kill Him novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Try Again Tomorrow
At his wedding before the whole imperial court, Cassien puts his dead brother's dagger to the Emperor's throat; Isandor catches his wrist, finishes the vow, promises the court he won't touch his consort until asked, and in the bedchamber hands the dagger back and says they've met before.
Cassien married the Emperor of Valdrecht at noon, and one minute later he had a knife at his throat.
It was his dead brother's dagger.
It was slim and silver, with a moonstone set in the pommel, and he had carried it sewn into his left sleeve for three hundred miles.
A thousand oil lamps hung over the Hall of Lamps.
The whole imperial court knelt on the gold floor behind them, dukes and generals and their wives, watching the tribute prince of Lisvaine get married.
Cassien knelt on a white cushion in white wedding robes.
Emperor Isandor stood over him with the gold marriage cord in his hands.
Isandor bent to tie it around Cassien's wrist.
His throat came down close, bare above the black collar of his robe.
Cassien did not think about it anymore.
He had done all his thinking on the road.
He tore the stitches, pulled the blade, and came up off the cushion with the point under Isandor's jaw.
The court gasped all at once.
Isandor's hand closed on his wrist.
It was not a hard grip.
Isandor did not push the blade away.
He held Cassien's wrist where it was, the steel a hair from his skin, and looked down at him.
Up close he was taller than Cassien had thought, broad through the shoulders, with black hair loose to his collar.
His eyes were dark grey, and they were smiling.
"Majesty!"
Armor clattered at every pillar.
"Stand down," Isandor said.
He did not raise his voice.
The guards stopped.
A heavy man in red chancellor's robes was on his feet in the front row, rings flashing.
"Seize him! Majesty, he's a Lisvaine dog with a knife!"
"I can see the knife, Chancellor."
"Then let the guard take his head!"
"It's my wedding," Isandor said. "Sit down, Corvain."
Corvain sat, red to the beard.
Cassien pushed against the grip, and it was like pushing a wall.
"You burned my brother alive," he said, loud enough for the back of the hall.
Nobody breathed.
Isandor's thumb moved once across the inside of Cassien's wrist, right over the pulse.
Heat shot straight down Cassien's body and settled low in his belly.
His face went red.
He hated Isandor for that more than for anything else.
"Your hand is shaking," Isandor said quietly.
"It isn't."
"It is. Try again tomorrow."
Then, with the blade still at his throat, Isandor looped the gold cord around both their wrists and pulled it tight.
He said the vow to the whole court.
"I take Cassien of Lisvaine as my consort, under my roof and my name, until one of us is dead."
A nervous laugh broke out somewhere at the back.
Isandor waited for Cassien to say it back.
Cassien said nothing.
Isandor leaned down until his mouth was beside Cassien's ear.
"Say it, Highness, or they'll think you've lost your nerve."
Cassien said it through his teeth.
"Until one of us is dead."
"Good," said Isandor, and he took the dagger out of Cassien's fingers as easily as a cup.
The feast went on, and that was the worst part.
Cassien sat beside Isandor at the high table with the cord still around his wrist.
Isandor's knee was an inch from his, and the court ate roast swan and stared.
His cousin Maelis stood behind his chair with her hands knotted in her grey skirt.
She was the only other person from Lisvaine in the room.
When the third course came, Corvain raised his cup.
"To the Emperor," he said in his soft voice. "May he sleep in his armor tonight."
The tables roared with laughter.
"Shall I send a breastplate to the marriage bed, cousin? Or will a strong lock on the consort do?"
Cassien put his hand on his eating knife.
Isandor's hand came down over it, warm and heavy.
Then Isandor stood, and the hall went quiet again.
"Since the Chancellor worries about my bed," he said, "I will settle it in front of all of you."
He looked down at Cassien.
"I will not lay a hand on my consort until my consort asks me to."
There was a silence, and then a long, delighted murmur.
Somebody actually clapped.
Cassien's ears burned.
"Then you'll die untouched," he said.
Isandor smiled.
"We'll see who asks first, Highness."
The bedchamber was black marble and gold, with a garden door at the far end and a bed big enough to hold a war council.
The servants cut the cord off their wrists and backed out.
The door shut.
They were alone.
Cassien stood by the cold hearth with empty hands.
Isandor came toward him slowly, and Cassien hated that his breath went short.
He stopped close enough that Cassien could smell cedar on his robe.
Cassien's body knew exactly how big he was.
It knew the weight of that hand on his wrist, and it wanted it back.
"Go on," Cassien said. "Call your guards. Hang me in the morning."
"I'm not going to hang you."
Isandor held out the dagger, handle first.
Cassien stared at it.
"Take it," Isandor said. "It's yours."
Cassien took it.
His hand closed on the grip, and Isandor let go and did not step back.
The point rested against Isandor's chest.
Isandor looked down at it, then at Cassien.
"You promised to kill me once before," he said. "On a roof at Haldermere, in the rain."
"I've never met you."
"You were twenty-one, and you'd had most of a bottle of very bad wine."
Cassien's whole body went cold.
"You met me," Isandor said, and his mouth twitched. "You called me the ugliest guard in the south."
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