Rielle shook her head against his chest. “Only you,” she whispered, curling her fingers in his hair. “Please, darling. Only you.” Her heart beat wildly. She felt Ludivine’s presence, very near, but blessedly gone from her mind, and refused to look at her. Her head still throbbed; she could still see the two of them, circling her. Corien and Ludivine, swords raised.
“Evyline,” said Audric, “will you please give us a few minutes alone?”
“What is this?” came a new, sharp voice.
Rielle looked up, bleary-eyed and nauseated, to see Merovec enter the room.
“Oh, please don’t worry,” said Ludivine, hurrying to him with a smile. She kissed his cheek. “Rielle’s just had a nightmare is all.”
“I’ve had nightmares, and it’s never caused this much of a fuss.” Merovec locked eyes with Rielle, his expression flat and cold. “What did you dream of, Lady Rielle? Are your nightmares the same as those you gave my aunt?”
“Rielle did not give my mother nightmares,” said Audric firmly. “She grieves the loss of my father.”
“And yet, again, I don’t wake screaming and half-mad from dreams of my own dead father.” Merovec approached, crouching to meet Rielle’s eyes. “What are you, exactly?”
“Merovec, that’s quite enough,” Ludivine snapped.
He ignored her, staring hard at Rielle. “How long until you bring death and madness upon the rest of us?”
“Say one more word to her,” Audric said, his voice vibrating with anger, “and I will see to it that you never set foot in this castle again.”
Merovec smiled. “Fine, then. I’ll say it to you: you share a bed with a monster, my lord prince. And it is of great concern to me that my kingdom’s heir continues to exercise such dangerously flawed judgment.”
“Merovec, you will leave this room at once,” said Ludivine. “You will go to yours and wait for me there.”
Merovec raised his eyebrows, glancing back at her. “She’s entrapped you too, little sister. She’s not your friend. She’s a thief and a whore, and she will be our doom.”
Evyline strode forward, putting herself between Rielle and Merovec. Jeannette and Fara glowered beside her.
“Lord Sauvillier,” Evyline growled, “if you do not obey my prince, my guard will be forced to remove you.”
“It’s astonishing how many people you’ve tricked into loving you,” said Merovec. “But, Lady Rielle, I see what you are. I see it plainly.”
Then, a familiar voice near the door.
“Audric,” said Tal, Sloane at his side—her face pale, her mouth thin and hard. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but we have a problem.”
Ludivine drew a sharp breath. “They’re at the gates.”
Merovec looked swiftly at her. “Who is?”
“How many?” Ludivine asked, ignoring him.
“Thousands,” answered Sloane quietly.
“How did you know what he was going to say?” Merovec asked Ludivine, his voice brimming with impatience.
Rielle looked over Audric’s shoulder to meet Tal’s eyes. The lines of his body snapped with tension. He held his hands in fists, as if he wanted desperately to reach for her.
“Who is at the gates, Tal?” she asked.
He drew a slow breath. “Everyone.”
• • •
They swarmed the streets outside Baingarde, lining every road and courtyard of the temple districts. They leaned out of windows and gathered on rooftops. They threw rotten food over the castle walls, handfuls of mud and waste. The broad cobbled yards were littered with it. They banged their fists against the iron gates; they climbed the stone walls and were pulled down by the royal guard, hit on the head and bound by their wrists.
But they kept coming, undeterred by the lines of soldiers barricading them from the castle doors, and soon the lower yards were full of them. Lines of soldiers kept them back from the castle itself, but they climbed the fountains of the saints, waving torches and staffs and knives. They pissed in the water. Fights broke out—punches thrown in Rielle’s honor, vicious kicks dealt to ribs and skulls by those wearing ragged Sun Queen sigils splattered with red dye.
They jeered and screamed, the people of me de la Terre. They shouted names—Rielle, Audric, Genoveve. They called for Merovec. They demanded to hear from the Archon.
Rielle stood at the main doors of Baingarde, held back both by the thick lines of guards standing between her and the city, and by the immense wall of sound that battered against her.
“Blood Queen!” they cried. “Sun Queen! Rielle!”
Their cries became a clamor, an indecipherable din.
And soon, a chant arose above the rest: “Give us the queen! Give us the queen!”
“Are they talking about me?” Rielle asked Tal. “Or Genoveve?”
“I’m not sure it matters,” he replied. “I wish you would have stayed upstairs.”
“They need to see my face. They need to see I’m not afraid.”
Audric was speaking furiously with the commander of the royal army, who had been the second-in-command to Rielle’s father—Rosalin Moreau, a pale, stern-faced woman with eyes of slate and white hair cropped close to her head.
“You cannot possibly expect me to believe that hundreds of armed, trained soldiers can be overwhelmed by an unruly mob.” Audric gestured sharply at the yard. “Drive them out of here. Get them past the castle walls. Sweet saints, Rosalin, they’re nearly at the doors!”
“Do I have your permission, then, my lord prince, to use whatever force is necessary against them?” Commander Moreau asked flatly.
“I urge you not to,” Ludivine murmured at Audric’s elbow. “That will only give them more ammunition against you.”
“What would you have me do, then?”
I could slip inside their minds, Ludivine answered. I could calm them, direct enough of them away that the rest will lose their fire.
Rielle startled, for she felt not only Ludivine in her mind, but Audric as well—faint, and kept behind layers of her own thoughts and Ludivine’s. But he was there, solid and steady, his mind taut and thrumming with worry.
Are you talking to both of us at once? Rielle asked.
It seemed efficient, Ludivine replied.
Rielle shook herself. Her mind was still raw and tender in the aftermath of her dream. She wished desperately for quiet, that Ludivine would leave and take Audric with her.
I think she should do it, Audric, she said instead. Let her take control of them.
Is that what we’ll do now? He looked away from her, his thoughts in her mind terribly unhappy. We’ll use Ludivine to rob our own people of their freedom of choice when we must?
Ludivine’s presence turned impatient. Can you think of a better idea?
And then Audric’s thoughts sharpened. He turned toward Rielle, and she stepped back from him, for the expression he wore was terrible, so shocked and angry that it transformed him into someone unfamiliar. Still himself, but as if seen through a dark cloud.
He spoke quietly, so only she could hear. “You saw him tonight.”
Her stomach dropped. For a wild moment she considered lying.
He saw, Ludivine said, her panic arriving swiftly. Oh, darling, I’m sorry. I didn’t think before I connected us all.
Rielle swallowed her anger, trying to settle her spinning thoughts. “I did see him, yes. In a dream.”
“You kissed him.” Audric’s jaw worked. “Just now, I saw it in my mind.”
“Yes.”
“You were in his bed. He was touching you.”
Rielle’s breath left her. “Yes. But I didn’t want to. He forced me into his bed. He took control of my thoughts and made them real, against my wishes.”
He turned away from her, running his hand roughly through his curls.
She follow
ed him, her throat clenching to see his eyes bright with tears. “Audric, please, you must believe me,” she choked out.
“I do believe you,” he said, but he avoided her gaze.
“My lord prince?” Commander Moreau insisted. “Your orders?”
Merovec stepped forward. “Let me speak to them. They want to be heard, and I’ll hear them. Seeing any of you will only provoke them.”
And then a sharp cry arose from out in the yard, followed by several more. The crowd scattered, their angry screams turning to cries of panic.
Rielle hurried to the door, shoving past Evyline to look outside.
Resurrectionists from the House of the Second Sun—dozens of them, clad in white and gold—stood throughout the crowd, holding blades to their own throats. Some had already fallen, blood gushing from the slits across their necks. One by one, the others followed, too quickly for anything to be done, until only one remained. A man, standing closest to Baingarde’s doors, his eyes wild. He held a golden scepter in his right hand—its polished shaft glinting in the torchlight, a gleaming, sun-shaped medallion capping the top.
The man caught Rielle’s eyes and then, grinning, called out to her, “As you have done for our queen, so we beg you to now do for us. As you promised us, Sun Queen. As you promised, our beloved God and savior!”
Rielle rushed forward, but Evyline caught her firmly around her waist.
“Lu, stop him!” she cried over her shoulder.
But he had already drawn his own little blade across his throat. He fell first to his knees and then forward, the scepter clattering across the stone. And the sight of him lying there, choking on his own death, blood pooling beneath his body, shattered what calm Rielle had managed to gather.
She flung herself against the vise of Evyline’s arms, screaming and sobbing—for the man’s death, for the bodies staining the yard red and the thousands of others trampling each other to get away, back out the gates, back to the streets. And she sobbed for herself, furious and exhausted. She beat on Evyline’s arms, and when she would not let her go, she dug deep into her gut, into her palms and the hot turns of her feet, and shoved them all away—Evyline, her Sun Guard, Merovec, the dozens of guards streaming in and out of the doors.
Audric had expected it. He caught Ludivine, and they steadied each other, only stumbling while the others fell.
“And this is allowed?” Merovec pushed himself back to his feet. He flung an arm out at Rielle. “This temper? This unpredictability? You’re all fools.” He pointed at Audric. “You’re the worst of them all. Can you not see what’s happening? She has poisoned you first, and soon it will spread to the rest of us.”
Ludivine caught his arm, talking too softly for Rielle to hear, but soon Merovec had subsided, his expression slightly bewildered, like that of a child waking from sleep. Together they hurried away. Merovec’s guards followed, frowning in obvious confusion.
Audric stared after them. Then he glanced at Commander Moreau. “I want that yard empty and clean within the hour. I want the streets of this city restored to order within two.”
The commander nodded. “And those who refuse to leave?”
“I think you’ll find that they’ll be easily convinced,” said Audric darkly. Then he found Rielle; their eyes locked across the room. He moved past her, away from the doors.
“Come with me, please,” he said quietly, and then to his guards, “See that Lady Rielle and I are not disturbed.”
She hesitated only for a moment. Her instinct was to reach out to Ludivine or Corien, but she refrained, her stomach roiling from the memory of them fighting in her mind.
She followed Audric across the entrance hall, the crowd’s cries diminishing behind her and the clanking golden footsteps of her Sun Guard close on her heels.
• • •
He led her to the Hall of the Saints, and once their guards had stationed themselves outside and closed the doors behind them, silence fell across the vast room.
Rielle shivered. The cold inside the hall was different from that of her dream. This cold was sterile, marble-eyed. She glanced up at the statues of the saints, the weight of their hard gazes and massive bronze weapons pressing upon her shoulders.
Audric stood at the center of the room, facing the dais upon which his father’s throne stood. “I’ll need to be crowned king, and soon,” he said, his hollow voice echoing softly against the cold floor, the cold walls. “I’ve delayed it for as long as I could, but that’s finished now. Mother’s condition is too debilitating, and I don’t have hope that she’ll ever recover. The queen she was is dead.”
Rielle approached him slowly, watching his body sag under the weight of his own words.
“The people need to know the crown is strong,” he said quietly.
“Why have we come here?” she asked.
“Because the last time we were both in this room,” he replied, “our fathers were newly dead, and you were blessed by the Archon as the Sun Queen.” He turned to her, his expression unreadable. And this was the most troubling thing that had yet happened that night, for ordinarily his gaze was warm and open, his face soft with love for her.
“And you want to remind me of my duty, is that it?” She straightened, hardening herself against him. “As if it is ever far from me, even for a moment.”
“You know that I wish it could be otherwise for you.”
“And yet you bring me here to shame me.”
“Not to shame you. To understand you.” He clenched and unclenched his fists. “You said Corien forced you into his bed.”
As she remembered that dark room in the mountains, she felt cut in two between a wash of dread and a shiver of delight.
“He did,” she replied.
“You said he took hold of your thoughts and made them real, against your wishes.”
Suddenly Rielle understood the heart of this conversation. An ill sweep of cold rushed down her body.
Audric watched her, waiting, but she could not find her voice, so he said it for her. “He made your thoughts real. You were imagining the two of you together, in his bed, and he saw that and gave it to you, because he thought it was what you desired.”
Rielle shook her head, fresh tears blinding her. She hurried toward him and reached for his hands.
“Audric, please,” she said, “you don’t understand.”
“I think I understand quite well,” he said, his voice cracking, the unfeeling mask he wore slipping to reveal a terrible, naked sadness.
And then he seized her arms, drawing her roughly to him. He bent low over her, his breath hot against her face.
“Is this what you want?” He tightened his grip around her wrists. He nipped her bottom lip, a little too hard, and though Rielle hated the look on his face—as if he despised himself, as if he could hardly bear to touch her—she felt herself rising to meet his passion. Her body responded, her blood thrumming with need.
“Yes, this is what I want,” she whispered, trying to touch his face, but he wouldn’t let her. He kissed her, hard, and wrenched her arms down to her sides, locking her in place. She cried out into his mouth, squirming against him.
“Come here,” he said thickly, and then they were stumbling toward one of the broad, polished tables lining the side of the room, in the shadow of Saint Marzana’s shield. He yanked the dressing gown from her body, but when she tried to unbutton his own shirt, he jerked away from her.
He shoved her against the nearest table, turning her away from him. He fisted one of his hands in her hair; with the other, he reached around to tease her, and let out a harsh groan against her neck when he found her hot and ready for him.
“This is what you want, then,” he said, stroking hard between her legs. “To be handled like this. To be used as if you’re nothing, as if you can’t be hurt.”
She tried to twist back and look at him, b
ut he choked out, “No, Rielle,” and pushed her down, pinning her against the table with his hand hard around her neck.
And, though she hated herself for it, though she knew it was just what he expected her to do, she came apart with a sharp cry, her thighs clamping shut around his hand. And he didn’t wait for her to recover before driving inside her.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” he said as his hips slammed against hers. “Please, Rielle. Tell me you don’t want him.”
“I…” She shook her head, her body buzzing with pleasure even as her heart shattered. “I can’t.”
“I know you can’t.” He sobbed a little, somewhere above her. His hands gripped her hips hard enough that she knew she would wear the marks of his fingers for days—and yet his viciousness was what she wanted. She wanted to forget this horrible night. The black fortress in the mountains. Corien’s weight flattening her against his bed. If Audric took her hard enough, she would be scorched clean of all shadows, all confusion.
“He’ll use you,” Audric said. “I know what he offers you, and I understand why you want it. But he doesn’t love you, Rielle. He loves what you can do. He loves how you could help him achieve what he wants. That’s it. Nothing more.”
And he was wrong. Rielle knew it even as she listened to his voice break. Her connection with Corien was more than what Audric claimed. She knew Corien desired her power, and yet his hand had flinched around hers in that cold dreamscape, as if he could hardly believe his luck that she would deign to touch him. And yet he did not ever look at her with fear, even though he knew intimately every deep, dark corner of her mind.
Audric’s lips came down upon her neck, sweet and soft, and it was such a familiar touch, so like their usual lovemaking, that all thoughts of Corien flew from Rielle’s mind. She began to cry with relief and reached back to hold him, her arm bending awkwardly. She found his hand and squeezed it. She gasped out his name.
He lowered himself upon her, wrapping her in his arms. His cheek was wet against hers. He turned his face into her hair.
“Tell me you love me,” he whispered desperately. “Please, Rielle. Tell me, and I’ll believe it.”
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