They love with a love that is more than love. Love is not enough. Sheโd known it as a precocious little girl, her flawless braid swinging with the same vehence obsidian curls did nowadays, countenance jolted by a passion blooming the honeyed flames rooted at the crux of her soul, unbearable to quench, impossible to keep contained. A concerning conviction, perhapsโas much at nine as twenty-nineโwhen little girls are norm-shackled to the sugar-sweet daydreams of faerie-tale aspirations they are spun. Though most all children are predisposed to wide-eyed questions, seldom did those questions disregard princes whilst rooting for the princesses and dragons. Where are your rose-tinted glasses?ย Her mother had asked, her laughter stained by exasperation. Thorn-ridden. As it is in their nature to be,ย Astrid might have claimed.ย
Foreshadowing, she considers now.ย
Is Juno not her dragon, after all? Her precious, terrible beast. The monster bound to ivory towerโwho would shield her from all as she slumbered, ensconced in a dreamland, whose kisses burn her to the marrow? Who else could it have been for Astrid but her? Mundane romanticisations were for fleeting paramour Juliets, of whose importance she would not altogether dismiss, yet who paled, nevertheless, as mere backdrop of all that had been toppled and turned, to bind the two of them in this moment. To an eternity Astrid would not settle for less than, now that she knows what it is to finally, finally have found this: this soft place to land, their glass house draped in ivy. How could it have been anyone else? How could it ever have been anyone else for her?ย Anyone, or anything, but this love that consumes her and feeds her alike. A love that is not mere love, but devotion โ fealty. As if there is a force beyond it.ย ย
Not when they remain true to one another.ย They had long ago avowed it, swathed in pristine sheets and bathed in dawnโs golden touch. Juno upholds it now, as she does perpetually, with diamond-cut clarity, and does not parry inquisition with defensive indulgences that meant nothing beyond coddling placations that could only earn Astridโs affronted wrath. โI despise it,โย Astrid replies as truthfully, words glossed by venom before the mouth that spits them presses to ivory knuckles with unbridled tenderness.ย No matter their choices, or the circumstances that had led to the interweaving of their paths, they walk theirs as equals, fingers just as intertwined, in a hold that could not be broken and would not be relinquished.ย
Even as her nose wrinkles at the mention of a manโs blood on the hands she holds, Astrid cannot condemn Juno. She has never asked Juno for a list of names of the bodies that have stained them with their blood already to sentence her โ has never demanded a tallying of sins for her to have to answer to Astridโs knife.ย There had been no need to, when her lover would be subservient to naught she could not make peace with, and Astrid, disgruntled and dismayed, leeched enough peace from the knowledge that every name would be placed at her feet were she to ever ask for it to wave it off, banishing it from line of sight when it was as inconsequential as the point was moot. Were she to ask her if she had ever killed a good man, Juno would tell her there were no good men, of this she is certain. And has she not seen enough of the world to know this was the truth? Of course. Of course she has. There were prices in this world, and many to be paid in blood. She had learnt that much long before Gabrielle Wardenโs shadow had ever endeavoured to eclipse her life. She would not call this a comfort.ย Yet the warmth of Junoโs mouth is one. A balm that soothes her, as much as the lilt to her tenor is, smoothing the furrow of Astridโs brow as though a touch to the flesh wiped it out like a wrinkle in a bedsheet. โLives are not petty,โย Astrid laughs despite her ire, head shaking at Juno.ย โThough, of course, Iโll grantย there are those of use to ambition and those which are not.โย She does not apologise for words. For all that Astrid refuses to be executioner based on Gabrielle Wardenโs say-so, like a marionette on her strings, she has never had reservations against being both judge and jury.
With a weary sigh, her lashes flutter shut, splaying shadows over the apples of her cheeks.ย โMmm,โย she hums as she thinks, an involuntary habit before she takes a trek down her own mindโs labyrinthe, plundering copse and thicket, scavenging for baubles to be bartered. Bold though she is, and brazen when she must be, Astrid is hardly one to exit discourteously, and never one to leave her lover in her wake. With Juno alone, when she delves, she takes with her; thinking, but aloud.ย โI could always offer her dirt on the others,โ comes the first idea, and just as quickly as it comes, Astrid herself casts it to the wayside.ย โNo, that is for me to use; it is more useful ammunition in my hands than hers, when I am to continue to be her agent undercover. So, what ifโ?โย Her eyes open, just like that, widening as her jaw drops, her breath leaving her in a theatrical gasp that precedes a feral grin.ย Gotcha!ย she thinks. There were two things that mattered most to the Warden matriarch, the way that Astrid saw it: the success of her business, and the children of whom one would rule it when time snatched the reins from her cold, dead hands. Didnโt Astrid have just the thing? A stone for both birds. And a thirdโs feathers for garnish.ย โThere was a cover-up,โย she discloses.ย โThe buffoon hardly asked for tens of millions to cover it up himself, but Iโd venture your motherย would value intel concerning a Femenias oil spill after Rafโs little stunt with Remus. The environmentalists would have a field-day with that shit, take political lens away from Bellum Novaโs next move. Make a trade with FemEn, if she wants to use it as leverage? Hell, Iโd feed it to the bloody press myself to keep her hands clean if its blood under my manicure she so craves; what do I care about gouging a handful of Famineโs bloody hide? Iโve known about it for far longer than I will tell her, obviously โ but what do you think, baby?โ
Born to a gilded, ivory castle and legacy steeped in generations of รฉminence grise, as a little girl sheโd grown with a head full of myth and fairytale. It seemed only fitting, only right, that as princess to her own kingdom and dominion, that she envisage herself a storybook future that would unravel according to perfectly laid fantasy. The architecture of her world was beautiful and glorious, a concoction of daydream make-believe and the boundless expanse of a childโs imagination. Romance, chivalry, courtship were the pillars of picturesque tales woven in gold thread and reverie, and the lodestar of these stories, the shimmering pinnacle of the heroโs journey and the maidenโs patient sacrifices, was love. Love, the undying revelation of truth and virtue and all that was good and worthy. Love, the unparalleled force that could conquer all. Love, she would think to herself, splayed in a garden amidst the wildflowers of the Wardenโs Summer Villa, dazed by Monaco sunlight, was worth everything and anything.ย Even to possess a little scrap of it, a wisp of bliss clutched in the tiny constellation of her palm, would be sacrosanct.ย
That little girl would indeed suffer her share of fairytale trials and tribulations โ locked in spiralling tower, caged in a glorious prison of her familyโs own making, cursed with the blood that ran through her very veins โ and she abandoned the illusions of happiness and rapture that came with love. What use did she have for illustrious fantasy and vaunted hopes of finding the keeper of her soul, the object of her singular, perfect love, when she could not make her own mother bare her heart to her? And what was so wrong with her, intrinsically, that she could not make her mother love her? The answer was more elementary than Juno could have conceived: there were simply more important things in the world than love. Ne sois pas bรชte, her mother had said.ย Bien sรปr que je t'aime. But do you likeย me, do you see me, do you know me at all outside of maternal obligation and onus. Yes, she realised, there were worse things in this world than not being loved.
It was as if she had been blinkered, blind and deaf when Astrid found her. It was Astrid that had picked her out from a crowd, a lone asteroid in a black sky, silhouetted by her own solitude and reclusion. It was Astrid that had sparked their awakening, the cosmic phenomenonย that had rewritten the laws of all that she had known and come to understand about the world, pulling her into orbit of solar flares and soft lips. They had created their own covenant, a binding of truth and honesty, seen without skin or artifice. With Astrid, there was no need to conceal or aggrandise, no purpose for deception or justification. She had seen it all: the horror and the swallowed sins, the trail of blood and bodies spanning a thousand miles to Babylon. The incarnation of War, dressed as beauty and wisdom, was a monstrous thing to love. In many ways, their story was an underworld myth โ Persephone descending into the kingdom of the dead to be with her deathless lover, her Queen of shadow and bone.ย Better creatures could love you, I know. But now theyโll have to get through me.
If it was a matter of happiness, of relinquishing heritage and birthright for a dazzling, sunburst chance at peace, then Juno might have taken it just for her. For her, anything.ย โ But they had both been named for goddesses, born with a hunger for theย divine, for purpose and glory and the right to rule pantheons with an empyrean burning that outweighed any mortal longing for ordinary bliss.ย
Her beloved is fair and magnanimous, a searing beacon of justice and compassion. She says Lives are not pettyย in the same breath of laughter that she kisses Juno with, sweetness melting upon their mouths like sunlight and the distant warmth of stars.ย ย โIn the grand scheme of things, Darling, some lives are.โย They donโt hold their tongues with each other, no bitten tongues or suppressed words to smooth the fault lines of difference between them. She loves Astrid for every way theyโre different, the many and varied paths they diverge. She understands things about the world that Astrid would interrogate and argue into submission before she would allow it to become prosaic. Death, murder and Warโs laissez-faire approach to morality are just theย tip of the iceberg.ย ย
โIโm not saying that betraying us should automatically equate to death โ trying, sentencing, due process and all that โโย Juno gives a little wave of her hand, a teasing acknowledgement of Astridโs unwavering conviction in the law. I know the scripture and the holy writ, she thinks, I learned it all by heart before my world ran red with blood and retribution. She shrugs, insouciant and cold-hearted even as she strokes a hand across Astridโs jaw, a finger brushing her cascade of dark curls across her shoulder. Not so much a rationalisation because Juno doesnโt deal in philosophical quandaries or existential doubt, but a reinforcement of stark reality. In the law of War, treason is tantamount to worse fates that death; to die swiftly, quietly, is a mercy.ย ย โBut he knew what he was getting into. Everyone that swears allegiance to us understands that what we do to our enemies as a necessity. Whatever he chose to value more than his own life โ money, sex, power โ he chose it knowing that crossing us would make him an enemy of the House of War.โย ย
She watches Astrid think, admiring the intricate machinery of her cunning and calculation. Their attraction had been wrought equally by mind as it was by body, an understanding struck between equals perfectly matched in wit, brilliance, and political savoir-faire. It was glorious to watch her in the House, castigating the ancient Lords that reigned from the comfort of corruption and languorous rot, but it was something else to see her like this, her guile and adroitness out in the open, artfully constructing manoeuvres.ย โThat would do quite nicely. Appropriate, too, with their recent campaigning to greenwash their activities and paint themselves as saints of the new environmental crusade.โย ย She spares a wayward, far-flung thought of Rafael and what this would mean for his familyโs empire, before discarding it just as easily as a devious smile blooms across her face.ย ย โFemEn served up on a silver platter for the life of one man. Sheโd be a fool to turn down such a trade. It wouldnโt even have to be you if you planted the information with the Daily Mail. And of course, with you leading the exposรฉ, all sheโd have to do is sign on the dotted line.โ
A little thrill of pleasure and adrenaline runs through her spine as she leans in to capture Astridโs lips, licking into her mouth with a blossoming of heat and desire. Itโs fiery and a touch obscene, her hand anchoring on Astridโs jaw so she can press deeper, closer, harder. When she pulls away, the slight hitch in her breath and composure tellingly reveals the state of her arousal.ย ย โHave I ever told you that watching you plot the destruction of our enemies isย extremelyย attractive?โ
