Flush into lea, empress is nearly more mare than han, speaking a tone breathy and with bright authority, though horselord is half-dristracted. Yué’s fur is mussed and clinging like sealskin. She looks like something else: an apparition, a goddess, the glassy scale from a trout. Like a moth’s wing mimicking something else, it is hard to tell quite what he sees.

A moment ago she had sheathed herself with intent to deflect. He does not know how much she enjoys being looked at by slough-eyes.

And the sky is overbright, his mouth raw for wanting. A strangeness clothes them, tension in the walls of green around.

Nomad balances many senses, mostly, the sequence of movement required to feel Yué’s mouth as she speaks.

She demeans him. Uses him. Is he not hers to command? A piece on a board to be moved by queen’s paw? Wèi jūn, he had asked for this, and empress has graciously granted it, above even the merit of her own people.

But he is not han, and in looking at her the fire of a steppe stirs, sore and satisfying. The tender pulp of a fresh-pulled fang. The sense of something better off removed.

It feels good, if not right. Desirous, if not honored.

Moving around grass, Batu teases the ache; grateful, irritable, adoring her easily.

He strides forward, pushes her back, sweeping at lavender fur where it curls down the length of her throat. He kisses her lips. “Careful, empress Yué.”

And moves off, away, a stallion’s tread in heady thought.