“I’m sorry,” I murmured in a choked voice.
“He’s sorry he took me away,” said Margo. “He told me so a lot. And I think you should forgive him, because you are always saying that queens should forgive, and princesses too. For my part, I have already forgiven him, and not just because he lets me ride around on his shoulders. He has very big shoulders.”
I bit down on my lower lip hard. “He does,” I whispered.
She smiled up at Remy.
“Princess, your mother may not yet be in a forgiving mood,” said Remy. “We should give her some time. And I will leave the two of you alone for now.”
I got up and looked him full in the face, searching his expression.
“What?” he said. He looked down, avoiding my penetrating gaze.
“You love her,” I said wonderingly. “Just like that?”
“She’s… well, you know as well as I,” said Remy. “She’s perfect, isn’t she?”
* * *
The problem was that I had seen too many of the fires, and I had watched too many children die. Whenever I would come to the explosions, I would always be too late. I always had too far to travel. I always had to react rather than prevent.
After Margo was born, it was harder. I would fling myself into the flames, putting it all out as fast as I could, but I was never quick enough, and people would be screaming and burning up before my eyes. When they were children, I thought of their helpless mothers who could not save them. When they were mothers, I thought of their children who would be raised without them.
I had to live with it, of course. I had no choice. And if Remy had not come home from the war when he had, many more people would have died.
If he hadn’t come home, I would still be in Islaigne, biding my time to come to him.
So, those people who were dying now, or would die as I was transporting shipfuls of people out of the country, they would have died anyway. That is, if Remy hadn’t come home from the war.
In which case, there was no reason for me to die.
I didn’t want to die.
I didn’t want to be martyr.
I wanted to watch Margo grow up. I wanted to see what she was like when she was a young woman. I wanted to hold her babies in my arms. I had a lot of things that I wanted to do.
I resolved, over and over again, that I wasn’t going to put out the flames under Islaigne.
No one would ask it of me. Even the people who were dying, they would not demand their queen die. I didn’t have to do it.
And I would not.
But the problem was that I had seen too many die, and I couldn’t bear it.
I spent two days with Margo, and I put off meeting with Remy or anyone else. I just spent every second with her, from the moment we woke up until she went to sleep. I tried to fill my soul up with everything that was Margo.
At night, I reached out with my magic to feel the power of Islaigne, raging far away, and there were no explosions.
But on the third day, there was one.
I could feel it from here, that’s how much my power had grown.
I wondered why. Was it because of my bloodline, because I was connected to the magic, or was it because I was somehow fated to douse the magic forever? Maybe I had been born to die.
I couldn’t know where the explosion was or if people were dying. I couldn’t sense that. I could only feel that it had happened. But if people had died, they had done so because I wanted just a few more days with my little girl, and I had thrown away their lives for that.
So, I was going to do it after all.
I wasn’t pleased about it, but I knew it was going to happen.
I told Margo her favorite story that night, and I snuggled with her in her bed until she went to sleep in my arms. I kissed her forehead and her nose and her cheeks and her chin.
I cried.
Then I went to find Remy.
* * *
He met me in the sitting room of his chambers. His guards had let me in.
“I’ve come to talk,” I said.
He offered me a glass of wine.
I took it. Might as well get drunk before all this, anyway. I was in a pretty terrible mood. I was not the least bit pleased about having to die. I gulped the liquid down.
“I don’t understand why you surrendered,” he said. “I’d taken out my best advantage, that other firestarter. I don’t know why I did that. I couldn’t let him hurt you, though. What were you doing, anyway? Why weren’t you protecting yourself? It was like you went into a trance.”
I held out my wine glass and he refilled it. I squared my shoulders. “It doesn’t matter why I surrendered. I did, and it’s over. We have several things we need to talk about. I don’t know if I wish us to drag them out or to get them over with. I suppose I might like to have an excuse to wait. Let’s drag it out.”
He sipped at his own wine. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Margo can never sit on the Dumonte throne,” I said. “She’s a girl, so she would be skipped over in any case.”
“Yes,” said Remy. “But if you want—”
“You will allow her to take the throne of Islaigne, however that works. She is young, and I don’t want her separated from you. She loves you. So, perhaps you appoint someone as regent until she is of age.”
“Fleur, you’re the queen of Islaigne,” he said. His dark eyes glittered at me over his glass of wine. He was confused.
“Perhaps she could be in Islaigne for part of the year, as you mentioned before, and then she could be here with you while someone rules there in her stead,” I said. “Whatever the case, I want your promise—”
“Where are you going to be?” he said.
I glared at my glass of wine and then I gulped at it, emptying it again. I crossed to the mantle on top of the fireplace and I put it there. “Secondly, I would like your word that you won’t try to conquer Islaigne. I know you wish to conquer everything, but leave it be, if you don’t mind. The country has been through enough without your trying to take it over. And don’t influence Margo to let you rule the place, because I won’t have that. Let her have her own land, and don’t try to take it from her.”
He was right next to me, standing in front of me. “Look at me.”
I didn’t look at him.
He reached down and snatched my chin and tilted my head back. “You’re talking like you’re going to be dead.”
“Well, I’m not pleased about it,” I said, folding my arms over my chest. “Do we have an agreement, or are you going to make this difficult?” Then I remembered I’d wanted him to draw it out, and if he agreed, he wouldn’t be doing that. So, then I’d have to leave and go it do it now.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to have the nerve. My lower lip started to tremble. I groped for my glass. “I need more to drink.”
He let go of my chin. “You’d best explain this to me. Now.” His voice had dropped to a growl.
I went looking for the wine bottle. With shaking hands, I poured myself more. “I’m the queen of Islaigne, and I’ve finally figured out how to open myself to the magic within me. It’s a prophecy, actually. It’s about a queen who dies, after she saves her people from the ravages of flame. Anyway, I figured out how to do it, and I have to now. I can’t let the nation suffer.”
He stalked across the room and took my wine from me. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” he said, nostrils flaring.
I reached for my wine glass. “Give that back.”
“There are no such things as prophecies.”
“My wine.”
“And what about Margo?”
“She’ll be fine. She was without me for weeks with you. She doesn’t need me.”
“Oh, that’s not true,” he said. “Two weeks is one thing, a lifetime is another.”
“We both lost our mothers young,” I said.
“Oh, yes,” he said sarcastically, “and we weren’t damaged by that at all.”
I made another grab for my wine glass. This time I got my hand around the stem.
He pulled back on the glass for a moment, and then he relented.
I drew it in to my body and I took a long, long drink. My head was starting to feel a little fuzzy, as if that drink had pushed me over the edge. Or maybe it was just taking a few moments for the effects of the wine to catch up with me, since I was drinking so fast. I sniffed.
“Your soft spots for common people have always been a little… ridiculous,” he said. “But this is going too far. You can’t do this. I won’t allow it.”
“You can’t tell me what to do,” I said. “You can’t stop me.”
“What am I supposed to tell your daughter?” he said. He cocked his head to one side, changing his tone. “‘I’m sorry, your mother’s an idiot.’”
I glowered at him. “Can’t you just promise me the things I ask of you?”
“No, I won’t,” he said, lifting his chin and glaring down at me. “In fact, I’ll promise the opposite. I’ll take Islaigne, I’ll burn it to the ground myself. I’ll turn all your people into slaves.”
“You wouldn’t,” I said. I had the urge to throw my wine glass at him.
“All your sacrifice will be for nothing,” he said. “So, don’t do it.”
“Remy, blazes.” I turned away from him, shaking with anger. “What do you care? You were complaining because I kept Margo from you for all those years. Well, now, you’ll have her all the time. It’s not as if you care about me. We both know that.”
“Do we?”
“Yes, we do, because we can examine your actions.” I whirled around to face him. “You never treated me with respect. When we were married, I was your prisoner and your whore, forced to do your bidding whenever and wherever.”
“Oh, you were never an unwilling participant—”
“Sure of that?” My eyes flashed.
He blinked.
“And then, you tried to strangle me,” I said. “And you stole my daughter. Is this the way a man behaves when he cares about a woman?”
“Did you truly feel forced?” His voice was quiet. “I always thought that things between us, in that area, at any rate, were—”
“Oh, does it matter?” I was yelling. “You are a wretched, wretched man, and you hate me.”
He looked up at me, but he looked vulnerable and regretful. He didn’t look like a man full of hatred.
“I pretended with you. I lay under you and pretended I liked your touch, but I always loathed you.”
He flinched, as if I’d struck him.
“I loathe everything about you,” I said. “I always have.”
“And yet,” he said quietly, “you have failed to kill me twice.”
“Well, I’m only leaving you alive now for Margo,” I said. I upended my third glass of wine into my mouth and drank it all. Then I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and staggered a little. I was drunk now. “Everything about you disgusts me. Don’t pretend to yourself that we have any kind of real connection, Remy Toussaint. We’re nothing. We’ve always been nothing. And you, you’re nothing. You’re pathetic and weak and so, so needy. No woman could ever want a thing like you.”
His jaw twitched. He didn’t respond.
I swept out of the room.
It was only when I was in the hallway that I realized I was still carrying the empty wine glass. I knelt and set it down on the floor and continued to walk away.
But now, I was crying again.
Blaze everything.
I was staggering from drinking too much, but I made it out onto the top of a turret at the north side of the castle. From up here, I could see the river and then the ocean beyond, the water stretching out toward Islaigne.
I walked all the way to the edge of the turret. I clutched at the stone there. It came up to my waist. I wasn’t in any danger of falling over to my death.
I laughed wildly. As if that mattered.
The laughter overtook me, and I was doubled over from the forced of it. Then, just as quickly, it was gone.
I breathed.
This was it.
This was the end.
I turned and looked over my shoulder, almost expecting him to have come after me. But I had done my job too well.
I wished my last words to him had been something different.
Too late now.
I shut my eyes.
I had a moment of hope, that perhaps I was too drunk to accomplish this, and that I’d have to wait until I sobered up, at which point I would probably lose my nerve.
But no such luck. I opened myself up, and the drunkeness seemed to make me even looser and wider, and I could feel the power flowing through me, stronger than it had ever been.
I grunted.
It hurt.
I reached out with my mind, and the flame of Islaigne was there. I found it, touched it, saw all the borders, where it ended. Some places were under land, some places were under the sea. It stretched far and wide. It burned hot.
I opened myself, let my power rush through me. It was thick and heavy as it began to pour onto the living flame, dousing it out entirely.
Pain ripped through me.
I cried out.
Oh, blazes, what was I doing? I didn’t even want—
But there was no closing myself off now. The magic was free, and it was urging its way through me, and my body was shutting down as it did its work. I needed to hold on long enough to make sure that I got every last bit of the flame, and I wasn’t sure if I could.
Blazes, the pain.
I tried to cry out again, but my voice didn’t seem to be working.
I tried to lift my head, open my eyes, one last look at the night sky…
But that wasn’t possible either.
I felt as everything began to turn off, and a wave of peace flowed in where the magic had come from. It reminded me of the way I’d felt as a little girl when my mother had pulled me into her arms. I thought of her lips on the crown of my head and I relaxed into her, feeling as though I was losing form, as though I was fading into darkness.
Islaigne was dark too, no more magic there, nothing at all.
I sighed—or maybe I just thought I sighed.
It was all right now. I had been angry before. I had been sad. I had raged. But this end, it was all right. It was nice, in fact. I was done. I had completed my task.
It was finished.
REMY
Remy found Fleur in the north part of the castle. She was on a turret, and she was lying in a heap, her limbs tangled up unnaturally. She wasn’t moving.
He had been wandering around with the bottle of wine, trying to find her, unsure of how he felt.
It was typical of her to devastate him. She was always doing that, and he was always helpless when it came to her. He couldn’t be sure if any of the things she’d ever said to him were true. Whether she’d ever meant it when she whispered to him that she was his or if she’d meant it all as an elaborate manipulation. He didn’t know if the things she’d just yelled at him were true either. With Fleur, everything was difficult.
But when he saw her like that, he dropped the bottle of wine.
It hit the stone floor and shattered. Dark liquid flowed out like blood.
She wasn’t bleeding.
Blazes, she’d gone and done it already?
Remy fell to his knees next to her. This was ridiculous. Of all the ideas she’d ever had, why would she do such a thing? He remembered her telling him that having her magic had made her feel as though she meant something, as though there was some purpose to her life. And maybe this was an ultimate purpose, but he…
He didn’t understand any of that.
All he knew was that he had tried to hold this woman close, and she had pushed him away. Until her last moments on earth, she’d pushed him away.
He pulled her into his lap.
She was still warm.
But her head flopped back like a broken doll, and sh
e was too still.
He put his finger under her nose, feeling for breath.
Nothing was there.
A noise tore out of his throat. It was something anguished. He pulled her close, her cheek against his, and he leaned back against the stone wall behind him, cupping her skull, holding her close.
Blazes.
He was going to fall apart. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t the way things were meant to be. He didn’t know what the proper ending was, but it couldn’t be this.
He drew in a shaky breath, and the fire magic inside him flared.
It was hard to keep it in check in the best of times, but when he felt any kind of emotion, it wanted out, and the emotion that was churning inside him now might be the most intense thing—
The magic burst out of him.
But… oddly, he didn’t burst into flame.
It went into Fleur. He felt her suck it out of him, the way she did when she touched him and pulled on his magic.
Was she doing that on purpose?
Was she alive?
The magic was seeping into her now, flowing into her body. He tightened his grip on her and he opened himself up, and he let it out.
She took it.
It flowed out of his fingers and out of his chest. It gushed out of his pores, liquid flame, and it went into her body.
And then—
He gasped.
It hurt.
The magic in him, it was pulling free from the place where it was attached, and he was reminded of the time that Fleur had tried to suck all of the magic out of him with that jewel.
She’d tried to take it away from him by force, and it was all interconnected with his internal organs, but…
If he was careful, if he delved in, he could untangle it and let it all out, give it all to her.
But he hesitated, because he understood that if he did this, he wouldn’t have magic anymore. It would be gone forever.
If he met the men of Fonte on the battlefield, he would not be superior. He would not be able to burn down his enemies.
Likely, he wouldn’t even be able to keep the lands he’d already conquered. Without his magic, he would lose his dominance. Blazes, his hold on Dumonte itself rested on his claim to the living flame. Perhaps… with the help of Dubois, he could scrabble some sort of—
Throne Shaker (The Clash and the Heat Book 3) Page 23