Kingsbane

by Claire Legrand

  “You found me,” said Ludivine. “Well done.”

  Her voice came split into three parts, a distorted chorus—her own voice, and Corien’s, and a third. Unfamiliar and thin. Inhuman. Not even angelic. Something vast and cold.

  Audric released her and stepped slowly away.

  Merovec stared. “What is this?”

  “Manipulating my father’s mind,” Ludivine continued, “is not the way to win my heart.”

  With that sentence, the voices changed. Ludivine’s voice and the third, unnamed voice remained.

  But Corien’s voice changed to Rielle’s own.

  A chill broke out across her skin. She remembered those very words. She had spoken them several months earlier, on the day of her fire trial, in the cave under the hill.

  So it continued, the conversation unfurling quickly.

  “Shall I release him, then?” Corien’s voice.

  “Release all of them.” Her own voice.

  “As you wish.” Corien said again—as did Ludivine and the third, unknown voice, all of them accompanying each sentence, as if they were three actors in a play, reading the same lines in unison.

  Audric glanced back at Rielle, his happiness from mere moments before replaced with a cold, hard anger. “Tell me what’s happening. Now.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  But she did know. She was beginning to know.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Ludivine continued—and this time, horribly, the new voice was that of King Bastien. Small cries erupted across the room. Their late king’s voice was coming to them somehow from beyond the moment of his death. “Why are we all here? Armand?”

  Audric looked as though the floor had fallen out from under his feet. “Father?” he whispered.

  From her chair near the doors, Genoveve called out Bastien’s name, her voice awful and desperate.

  “I don’t know, my king,” the chorus continued, now joined by the voice of Rielle’s father.

  Ludivine sank to her knees, pressing her hands flat to the floor. She was breathing fast and hard.

  Tal pushed forward out of the crowd. He hurried at once to Rielle, his scarlet-and-gold coat gleaming in the candlelight.

  “Do I need to alert the city guard?” His hand was steady at her elbow. “Rielle, tell me what to do.”

  “He’s doing this,” she whispered. She looked bleakly up at Tal. “He’s going to ruin everything. I don’t know how to stop him.”

  “Corien?”

  Merovec’s voice exploded. “Who’s Corien? Someone fetch the royal healers, for God’s sake!”

  “Don’t leave me.” Rielle grabbed Tal’s arms. “Whatever happens, don’t leave me.”

  Tal’s expression softened. “No one’s leaving you, Rielle.”

  “Are you hurt?” Rielle’s father again, his voice drifting up from Ludivine’s trembling form. “What’s happening here?”

  “Rielle is leaving you, I’m afraid.” And that was Corien.

  Audric turned to her. “Rielle, what is this? Why is she saying these things?”

  But Rielle couldn’t answer him, the words wedged in her throat. Corien, don’t do this. She would not look at Audric. She clung to Tal’s sleeve. I’m begging you.

  I’m sorry, my darling, Corien replied at last, and the sound of his voice was both a relief and a torment, for it held no joy or satisfaction. Only a quiet sort of pity. I do this for the sake of your own happiness.

  It is not up to you to determine my happiness for me!

  You’re doing a terrible job of it yourself, he replied. I’ve waited long enough for you to see the truth. They will reject you, once they see what you really are. And he will too. He will most of all.

  And then, Lord Dervin’s voice, thick with despair: “I never meant for this to happen.”

  “Tell me what’s happening this instant,” said Merovec. He stared at Ludivine as if she were in the process of growing a second head. “Is it an angel, speaking through her?”

  Rielle’s voice, pathetic and small, slid out of Ludivine’s throat: “I thought you…”

  “That I loved you?” Corien’s voice, tender and soothing. “Child, I love you more than I can say. I’m doing this for you. If you don’t leave them, they will stifle, shame, and punish you for daring to breach the walls they are building around you.” Then a pause, and Ludivine looked up at Audric, tears streaming down her face. “Yes,” she whispered, her neck straining as if she were fighting against her own voice. “Even him.”

  And then, a vision passed before Rielle’s eyes, and as it unfolded, she sensed the strength of it like an earthquake vibrating through her body. Instinctively she knew that everyone in the room was seeing the same thing she was, unfurling before their eyes like shapes drawn through clouds: Herself, standing in that cave, flinging out her arms, an expression of wild ecstasy on her face. A blaze of power erupted from her fingertips to race across the cave, knocking three men to the ground—Lord Dervin. King Bastien.

  Her father.

  The images came faster and faster. Ludivine, huddled on the ground, continued her horrible narration.

  Rielle’s shimmering ghost stared at Lord Dervin, King Bastien, her father. All of them dead.

  From across the ballroom came cries of alarm, fear, anger. Beside her, Tal whispered, “God save us. Rielle, tell me this isn’t true.”

  But she couldn’t. She was helpless in the face of this, her lies spreading across the room like a flood that would end the world.

  The vision shifted, and then showed Audric, arriving at the cave. “Rielle?”

  Herself, huddled beside her father’s body: “Here.”

  And Audric, standing over the corpse of his own father.

  Tal turned away, hand over his mouth.

  “I tried to stop him,” Rielle whispered, walking toward him. “I’m sorry, I…I burned him. He’s terribly wounded, but…it wasn’t enough. Audric, I’m so sorry. His name is Corien. He’s an angel, Audric. He turned the Sauvillier men against us…”

  Their two forms embraced. “Thank God you’re all right. I thought I’d lost you.”

  “Never,” said Rielle, wrapping her arms around him. “Never.”

  The vision ended, leaving the room just as it had been—except now, the room was in an uproar. The air sizzled with panic. Shouted questions and curses, keening wails. The kingsguard and Rielle’s Sun Guard immediately formed a protective circle around her and Audric, keeping the crowd at bay.

  On the floor, Ludivine cried out. Her body jerked as if it had been kicked, and then her eyes cleared. She sucked in a gasping breath and pushed herself unsteadily to her feet.

  “They’re here.” Her voice was her own again, but torn through like shredded paper. She grabbed Rielle’s hands. “We must find them before they do anything else. They’re close. Here, in the city.”

  But Rielle could only watch Audric, her body clenched stiff with dread.

  “It wasn’t like that,” she whispered so only he could hear. “It was more than that. He didn’t show you everything that happened. I tried to stop him that day. I lost control.”

  Audric’s expression was unreadable. He was looking at her with such focus that she felt flayed, every layer of herself peeled ruthlessly away.

  Then he muttered, clipped and cold, “Come with me now,” and swept past her, toward the garden doors on the ballroom’s northern side, his kingsguard following close behind.

  • • •

  Deep in the gardens, near the edge of the seeing pools and far beyond the golden reach of the party, Audric finally stopped. His back was to them. He faced the black seeing pools, the catacomb doors beyond them. It was dark and still, so far from the castle, the guests’ confused outrage a distant rumble.

  “Leave us,” he told his kingsguard, and t
he Sun Guard as well. They obeyed, moving off into the trees until they were alone—Rielle, Audric, and Ludivine.

  Rielle felt light-headed, a strange numbness sweeping in constant waves through her body. The only thing she could feel with any certainty was Ludivine gripping her hand.

  “I defended you,” said Audric at last, his voice soft. “From the beginning, I’ve defended you.”

  Ludivine stepped forward a little, putting herself in front of Rielle. “Audric, please, allow me to explain—”

  “Oh, I think you’ve done enough. I think I’ll be the one to talk now. That was real, wasn’t it? That vision I saw. That was the whole truth. And everyone else saw it as well. I could hear them reacting to it, just as I was.”

  “It was part of the truth, yes,” Ludivine said, “but it’s more complicated than what you were shown.”

  “Oh, please, stop talking, Ludivine. Stop talking this instant.” And then Audric turned, his terrible dark gaze falling upon Rielle. “You tell me. Darling. Was that the truth?”

  She searched frantically for a solution, for the perfect words that would disintegrate this horror and return her life to what it had been only moments before, whirling about the ballroom with him.

  Her silence stretched on too long.

  “Tell me!” he roared.

  She jumped, the fury in his voice crashing against her like glass. She had only a few times in her life ever heard him raise his voice, and each had been in the defense of her or in the throes of loving her.

  “It’s true,” she whispered. “What you saw, what everyone saw, is at least part of what happened.”

  “Part of what happened,” he repeated.

  “He didn’t show you everything.”

  “He.” Audric blew out a soft laugh. “Corien.”

  She stepped forward, hesitant. “I wasn’t trying to kill our fathers. I was trying to stop Corien from hurting them.”

  “And yet still they died.”

  “I…” She shook her head, tears rising. “It was the most power I’d ever unleashed. I was terrified. I thought he was going to kill them. I lost my grip on it.” She watched him, how he kept his expression cold and hard, and felt the world fall away from her, leaving her suspended in darkness. “You don’t believe me.”

  “I don’t know what to believe anymore,” he said, his voice empty of all feeling.

  “Believe me,” she cried, reaching for him. “I love you, and I wouldn’t…”

  She fell silent, catching herself.

  He smiled cruelly at her. “You wouldn’t lie to me?”

  “I was trying to save them.” Her words felt small on her tongue, pale and inadequate. “I lost control.”

  “And now they’re dead,” he said flatly. “And now we’re married, and now you’re queen.” He turned away, dragging a hand across his face. “What am I supposed to do now, Rielle? Everyone in there saw. Maybe everyone in the city saw. And I’ve just married you. What do they call you? Those who hate you. The Kingsbane. And now he’s proved them all right.”

  “Stop berating her and listen to me,” Ludivine said. “Corien is coming, and he’s close. We should be sending out every last soldier to bolster the city’s defenses against him. And I should be searching for him rather than standing here keeping you from hurting each other. I suggest we talk about this later.”

  “Fuck your suggestions,” Audric hissed. “We’re talking about this right now.”

  “I told you he would make you hate me.” Rielle’s voice came out thin and shaky. It was a foreign thing, beyond her control. “He’s been waiting for the chance to turn us against each other.”

  “Well, and he’s succeeded beautifully, hasn’t he?”

  Tell him about the child, Ludivine said, her presence shrill and piercing. Rielle, he must not turn you away.

  Tell him about the child, and I’ll kill you, Rielle replied.

  “I lost control, Audric,” she said aloud for what felt like the hundredth time, and she would say it as many times as she needed to. She clenched her fists to steady their trembling. “Please believe me. I was trying to stop Corien. He was threatening you. Don’t you remember? You were on Atheria. I saw you. You were in pain. You might have died.”

  He watched her in silence for a moment. “Yes, I remember.”

  “So, then.” A soft wave of relief butted against her. “What I did was an accident, and I did it while trying to save you.”

  But Audric remained unmoved. “And then you lied about it. Both of you did.”

  “Only because—”

  “To protect me? Because you thought I couldn’t understand what had happened? Because you didn’t trust me to help you handle the situation?”

  “Because I was afraid,” Rielle whispered. “I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.”

  “And the dead Obex? The villager in Polestal?” His face was closed to her, and that was the thing that was breaking her, the needle sinking slowly into her heart. “The nights you spend with Corien? Is that all because you’re afraid of losing me?”

  She shook her head, unable to speak.

  “And your mother too,” Audric pressed on. “You’d lost control, you said. And I believed you. You were only five years old. But a child of that age knows what anger is. You could have stopped yourself, but you didn’t want to.”

  “That’s unfair,” Ludivine said, her voice low and dangerous. “She had had no training, no teacher to help her. She could not have been expected to contain her power the first time it erupted.”

  “Unfair, yes, you’re right about that. This is all terribly unfair. That you spend your nights chasing another man’s love. That you carry in your body the power to destroy us all, and that I’ve believed this whole time that I could trust you. That I should love you, even now.”

  Rielle went to him, a sob bursting out of her. “Audric, please, you have to believe me! It was an accident!”

  “And how many accidents am I expected to forgive?” He shoved her arms away. “Don’t touch me!”

  She stumbled, and Ludivine caught her. She felt Ludivine reaching for Audric’s mind, swift and angry, ready to subdue him, and whirled on her.

  “Haven’t you done enough?” she cried. “For God’s sake, Lu, leave him alone!”

  Ludivine stepped back, her eyes twin coins of steel.

  “Eager to spin more lies, are you?” Audric said, his own eyes glittering with tears. “You can’t resist interfering at every opportunity. You’re a snake, and a coward. From the moment I learned you were an angel, I should have resolved to fight you with everything I have in me.”

  Ludivine regarded him with an eerie calm. “I love you with all my heart, Audric. But if you try to hurt her, I will kill you.”

  “And the moment I feel you try,” Rielle told her, “I’ll turn you to ashes.”

  Audric watched them both, a bitter smile on his face. “My detractors say I’ve been entrapped by you. That I’m some spineless fool whose mind is soft, easily swayed. I suppose they’re right.”

  “You’re neither spineless nor soft,” Rielle protested.

  He looked away, his jaw clenching. His gaze fell on the seeing pools, and Rielle wondered if he was remembering the same thing she was—their childhood, every beautiful, innocent, ignorant year of it.

  He is, Ludivine said. It softens him. Talk to him, now.

  “Audric,” Rielle said, moving toward him, hating herself for leaping to obey Ludivine’s instructions. But she was desperate; she could feel things moving too quickly in the wrong direction. “Please, look at me. I’m still me. We’re still us.”

  “Our love has been built on lies,” he said, his voice choked.

  She touched his arm, and he moved away from her. “I told you not to touch me.”

  She looked helplessly after him. “What can I do? Tel
l me how to mend this.”

  And then he let out an awful, exhausted laugh. “You haven’t even apologized yet. All of this,” he said, sweeping his arm toward her and Ludivine, “and neither of you has apologized. And you ask me how to mend it. No more secrets, no more lies. That’s what we said the day they put my father in his tomb. You promised me.”

  His voice turned ugly. “What a fool I was, to think a promise meant anything.”

  He began walking away from her, and she ran after him, unthinking and frantic. She grabbed his arm, and he turned and caught her wrist, his grip hard. She refused to be frightened by him; she put up her chin and met his eyes.

  “Release her,” said Ludivine, storming toward them.

  “I defended you,” Audric said again, his voice a mere whisper. “Anyone who thought you might be the Blood Queen, the doom we’ve feared for centuries, I was the first to tell them they were wrong. That you could control your power, that we could trust you, that you would keep us safe. And now you’ve proven them all right. You’re the monster Aryava foretold. A traitor and a liar.”

  And swiftly, all at once, like the strike of a storm illuminating a dark field, Rielle realized he was right.

  Ludivine was saying something, both in Rielle’s mind and outside of it. But she was a faint hum of sound, and then Audric was releasing her, dropping her arm as if he were disgusted by it, turning away from her.

  In that moment, held numb in a net of despair, she heard Corien speak.

  You’re not a monster, child, he told her, his voice tender with compassion. You are simply yourself.

  She let out a shaky breath, a half-formed sob, and stepped back from Audric, from Ludivine, from the seeing pools of her childhood. Ludivine tried to stop her. With a blink, a swift flick of her wrist, Rielle sent her flying back into the trees, and Audric too, and Evyline, who’d only seconds before come rushing out of the trees, unable to stay away any longer.

  Alone, the gardens ringing from the force of her desolate anger, she felt Corien embracing her mind, shielding her from Ludivine.

  Don’t listen to him! Ludivine cried, and then was silenced.