He hardened his voice. “What did you just do?”
“I lowered the sun.” Gripping the bars of the balcony railing, the pharaoh dragged himself up, as if weak. Turning slowly, he looked at Xio Voe, his face upturned, the renewed wind tugging at his hair. “I can feel your desire. Your lust.”
“You didn’t lower the sun. No one ever has. What was the point of this display?” Something had happened. He’d felt it. Time had shifted. But he wasn’t an ignorant Anorian, confused about the sun’s purpose and relation to the planets.
The pharaoh put his hand out, almost brushing Xio Voe’s chest with it, and the sharp, crackling pulses of electricity thrummed through skin, muscle, and bone. That was power, real power, not just authority, not just influence. Xio Voe wanted to feel it again, wanted more of it. The pharaoh’s fingertips passed across his chest, near his neck, and in his weakness, at the deep throbbing in his collarbone, he lifted his chin as his body begged for more. The pharaoh’s eyes widened in understanding. A whisper. “You like it.”
Yanking on his self-control, furious at his lack of self-discipline, he stepped back, away from that hum, out of range of the pharaoh’s reach. “Explain your actions.”
“I’ve told you. I help our rotation. I keep our planet-”
“-in motion, so that the sun will rise and set as it should. Yes, I recall.” If he shifted closer, if he moved in, he’d feel that power again, feel it humming and rippling through him, and the temptation of it beckoned him. Praise the gods, he wanted that power.
“Your,” the pharaoh’s nails dragged across his own stomach, and he seemed to shiver, “desire. It… It is thick within me.”
Xio Voe wanted something else to be thick within the pharaoh, and he gritted his teeth to keep the words back.
