"I could die a happy man here"

Malik murmurs, pressing his lips to your throat as he winds your hair around his first once, twice, thrice.

He lounges back on a pile of silk pillows in his opulent chambers, you curled into his arms. Your robes lie draped across the floor like rivers that shimmer when you move, a thin band of silk tied around your eyes. It is a necessary precaution for when you get headaches.

As a saintess, you are often plagued with visions, the only precursor to these visions, the blinding headaches you get. The blindfold helps with the pain sometimes.

Malik is the emperor of a large continent in the south named Izur for his ancestors. A man with a reputation for being lazy and cruel, he was never the religious type. That was until the Pope announced the presence of a saintess on his latest visit to the palace. That was when he brought out you. You, stunning, enchanting, lovely, you. Malik thought he had ascended to God right there.

He proposed a marriage to you to the Pope less than an hour later.

And here you are three months down the line, concubine to arguably one of the most powerful men in the world. Wife of a man besotted with you. Lavished in jewels and finery and every whim fulfilled.

There is only one problem with this arrangement, your husband is weaponising your status.

Due to the current war between Daeteron and Shaelania, Malik has been asked to step in hundreds of times by both countries, advisors, friends. He just simply can't be bothered to.

And so he lied. God does not wish for him to step in. He proclaimed. And after all is he not blessed by God by his wife? A saintess, touched and beloved by God.