by C. E. Murphy
Javier’s slow one-sided smile answered more thoroughly than words. “Try it again.”
“And have my nose smacked up against a shield again? I think not.” Belinda rubbed her nose in offense, then lobbed her power with her free hand, deliberately winging it wide.
Javier fell into a fighting stance, eyes snapping to the golden ball even as silver creased the air again. Belinda put intensity behind the desire to stop her power’s movement, and it brushed against Javier’s shimmering shield with a tingling caress instead of painful force. He split an astonished grin and she curled her toes under herself, lower lip caught in her teeth as they both stared at aspects of magic dancing with each other in the prince’s bedchamber.
“We should stop.” Javier’s voice had no conviction. “Can you imagine what it looks like from outside? Fire darting across my room and light glowing bright and white like no torch anyone’s ever seen?”
“The curtains are drawn. There’s nothing to fear, Javier. Or will you be content with always hiding your skill, never pursuing its depths? I will not.” Belinda tossed her hair as Javier’s expression darkened.
“We dare not show it, Beatrice. Tell me you’re not that great a fool.”
“I’m not.” Belinda brought a second ball of witchlight into being, the first one flickering but holding its position as fresh light cupped itself in her palm. “But look what you’ve done here, with just a little push. Shields, Javier. What else is possible? Can you make it invisible, so it can be used in battle?” She sent her own magic rolling out of her palm, taking a slow and circuitous route toward Javier as he glanced first at her, then at his own shielding. Concentration made a line between his ginger eyebrows, and the silver sheen of power faded a little at the edges. He exploded a breath of air, nearly a laugh, and shook his head.
“I may have to claim it’s Gabriel here to protect my royal arse. I don’t know if I can take the moonlight away, Bea. It’s always been there.”
“Concentrate.” The word came hard, Belinda’s attention split three ways, but Javier gave no notice of her second attack until golden witchlight spun out behind him and wrapped itself around his eyes. He shouted, clawing at his face, and his shield failed. Belinda shot up onto her knees, hand extended to direct her first attack toward the prince, who roared in offense as witchlight invaded his chest.
Laughter burst forth from Belinda’s throat and lost her concentration in doing so, both hands clapped over her mouth. For all her complaints, Javier was right: they couldn’t afford to be found out. The witchlight blindfold she’d wrapped him with faded and he glowered at her, shooting a cautious look at the door. No one came to it, his guards on the other side evidently unconcerned with noise. Her laughter, Belinda thought, might have been the saving grace after Javier’s shout.
For a moment they faced each other, both panting with effort before Javier curled his lip as if to damn the consequences and pooled silver light in his palms. With an instant’s thought he split the ball of power into two and lobbed them, one after the other, toward Belinda. She shrieked, half startlement and half play, and flung herself across the bed, dodging physically even as she tried to focus on the idea of hardening the stillness, pushing it out of her as a force of its own.
Silver splattered against a brief golden shield, the reverberated impact less startling than her success. Javier shouted with pleasure and Belinda, half off the bed, lobbed another handful of power at him. He ducked, not bothering to shield, and power exploded behind him as it smashed into the wall, leaving a scar above unlit candles. They both gaped at the mark on the wall before Javier turned toward Belinda, censure warring with admiration.
Heavy pounding on the door startled them both badly enough to jump, and Javier’s expression shot toward anger before he swept his hand over the mark on the wall and stalked toward the door, yanking it open. “All’s well,” he said sharply to a dismayed guard. Then, unexpectedly, a snigger ran over his face and he added, “A little disagreement over how the candles ought to be arranged. They said we gingers are tempermental, but God save me from the brunette in my bedroom. You’ve heard nothing at all, of course.”
The guard looked in nervously, eyeing the scarred wall and Belinda in equal parts. She scrambled for the edge of the bed, twisting her hands behind herself guiltily, as though she might be holding one of the maligned candles. Something in the guard’s expression changed, as though he was trying not to laugh at his betters, and then he stepped back with a rap of his fist against his chest. Javier closed the door and turned on Belinda, who ran to him, hands against his chest as she looked up with laughter and adoration in her gaze. “I am trouble,” she whispered in delight. “And you, my lord, you are control and restraint and—”
He put his hands over hers, silencing her with the gesture. Belinda drew a sharp breath, words lost beneath Javier’s grey gaze and the things his touch told her. Even in his irritation he sparked with life, a joy unrecognizable to him after a lifetime of solitude. She had brought that to him, saving him from lonely constraint; saving him from the Hell that he was sure was his for all eternity. For a few aching seconds her heartbeat matched his, breath stolen beneath an exquisite agony that knew he could not keep her, and still found itself daring to hope he might find a way.
The strength of passion undid Belinda, leaving her gazing at Javier in astonishment. A lifetime of duty had never warned her of being needed, not for herself; only for what she could do. Hunger crawled up through Belinda’s body, claws of determination curling in her groin and stinging her breasts, a taste of ambition burning away thought. She slipped her hands from beneath Javier’s and knotted them at his hips, making a clean insatiate line of her body against his. “Look at who we are together, my lord, my love, my prince. Think of what we could do together. Think of the thrones we could hold.”
But for all that he desired her, he went still, eyes darkening to silver. “We, Beatrice?”
Rage, pure and unexpected, took Belinda’s voice and flooded her body until she felt as though heat poured off her. It captured her power, building it higher, alien and exciting. Javier had no right, no place, in questioning her use of we, not when her power was clearly as great as his. It burgeoned inside her, begging to be used. It would be easy, deliciously easy, to let that rage ignite the very air, to burn Javier where he stood for daring, daring, to question her—!
Belinda forced clenched teeth into a smile, internal struggle more violent than anything she could remember. Pushing away outrageous anger and slowing her heartbeat should be the work of a moment, the calm of stillness captured and wrapped about her. Instead witchpower flexed and fought her will, demanding Javier acknowledge her as equal, even superior: she could do what he did not, disappear from plain sight, manipulate others into acting as she desired. He could be used like any man, made to think well of himself and his cleverness while all the time doing her bidding. That he stood against her was exciting, profoundly interesting, but his gambit would ultimately fail: he was only male, slave to her will.
Belinda shuddered from her core all the way to her skin, so profound Javier caught her out of concern, despite the challenge she’d laid at his feet. Eyes closed against another surge of unaccustomed ambition, she whispered, “We both know I could never stand at your side and share power, but I might offer it to you in support, from behind those thrones you conquered. I meant nothing more, my lord. Forgive me.” She opened her eyes, procuring a weak smile that had more to do with deep-seated uncertainty about her own impulse to dominate than the sought apology Javier would see it for. “Once more I’ve failed to watch my tongue, and I’d only just promised I would do so.”
Mollified, he drew her closer again, voice dropped as he murmured, “Then perhaps I should watch it for you, Beatrice.”
Belinda trembled, subsuming the outraged witchpower as she tilted her head back and opened her mouth to the prince’s.
JAVIER, PRINCE OF GALLIN
9 November 1587 Lutetia
“She isn’t your usual type, Javier.” Sandalia is watching her son, making him uncomfortable, though he doesn’t dare let that show. He left Beatrice sleeping off the aftermath of sex in his bedchambers hours ago, and he has been thinking, pacing, avoiding everyone ever since.
Even now he paces the confines of Sandalia’s chambers, reaching for wine, nibbling on sweetmeats. He isn’t hungry, but better to let his mother believe that’s the problem than delve deeper. “She’s pretty enough,” Sandalia admits, “but you’ve always had an eye for the slender blondes.” Amusement suffuses her words. He thinks of her as a happy woman, he realises. She is many things, of course—focused, intent, a queen—but in the end, to Javier, she is his mother, and she is happy. “Deliberately avoiding comparisons to your mother, I imagine. What draws you to her?”
Javier imagines, briefly, telling the truth. Daring to explain, as he has never dared, the witchpower that he thought was his burden alone. Daring to pool light in his palms and explain that his will is its source.
As always, since childhood, caution stays him. He believes, must believe, that his mother wouldn’t condemn him as a monster, but while Sandalia is earthier than her brother Rodrigo, she’s also a true Ecumenic queen, and he can’t imagine making her believe that his abilities aren’t the devil’s tricks.
Especially when he doesn’t believe it himself.
It’s easier, now that he has Beatrice. Now that he knows he’s not the only one gifted, or cursed, with the witchpower. He’s continuously surprised that a woman should share his powers, but better a woman than a man. Beatrice’s sex gives him an easy excuse to spend time with her. Should he have discovered another man with such skills, the hours they’d spend together training would have all of Echon snickering in their sleeves at Sandalia’s only heir. It’s not a path Javier has any interest in taking, all the more so given how desire helps to focus the witchpower for use.
“She’s useful, Mother” is what he allows himself to say. It’s all he can allow himself to say, even if he were to leave the question of witchpower itself behind. The pain that sears through him at the thought of losing Beatrice takes his breath, and to confess to more than her use would have Sandalia remove her from his life permanently. “The night Marius brought her to meet us—”
“You’re the only son of a royal house I know who means more than one person when he says us,” Sandalia interrupts. Javier smiles because she expects him to and waits a moment to see if she’s going to follow that familiar path of scolding before he goes on.
“That night she named me the true heir to Aulun,” he says when it’s clear he’s been given a reprieve from that particular lecture. “Even a brunette catches my attention that way.”
“Did you stop to think that might be what she wanted?”
“Mother,” he says impatiently, “I’m the prince of Gallin. I think the last time I met a woman who didn’t want to catch my attention she was ten and trying to steal pears from our gardens. Of course I did. But even if she was, if she’s bold enough to do it that way, then she may be reckless enough to help—” He breaks off, unwilling to speak specific terms, even in a room where no one is supposed to be spying. “Reckless enough to help,” he repeats, and makes it a finished sentence.
Sandalia, less paranoid or more confident than he, laughs. “Help? What would you have her do, Javier? Wrangle an introduction to the Aulunian court and slip poison into Lorraine’s tea?”
Javier exhales. “I had a different plan.” This is a moment of danger, one he barely recognizes himself for risking. It borders on sentiment, a weakness Javier never thought himself to share, with the exceptions of his childhood friends. For those three he will do anything. To find himself about to propose what he intends to, in order to retain contact with the only other witchbreed being he’s ever found—and in order to threaten the Aulunian throne, he reminds himself—speaks of something his mother might see as vulnerability.
It is never wise to show weakness to royalty.
Sandalia’s eyebrows quirk, invitation to continue. Javier puts down his wineglass and picks it up again, cursing himself for the tell even as he does so. “This is not,” he begins, “intended as a long-term arrangement.” He has to say that first, or she’ll never listen. He has to say it first, to establish to himself that it’s true. Interest and amusement light Sandalia’s eyes at that opening foray. She gestures to the wine, and he pours her a cup, brings it to her grateful for the physical distraction. “Lanyarch is without a king since Charles’s death,” he says as he does so. “Either out of respect for you or fear of Lorraine, no one has come forth to put on a pretender’s crown since you fled the country.”
“Let’s pretend respect,” Sandalia says drily. “I know this, Javier.”
“Lanyarch is still Aulun’s greatest threat as an Ecumenic neighbor to the north, contentious and chafing under Reformation rule. But the threads that tie us there are slender, Mother. You’re a widow, not a daughter of any Lanyarchan nobility, and you have no children by Charles.” He smiles suddenly, bright and disarming. “Unless you’ve hidden one all these years?”
“I’m beginning to consider claiming that,” Sandalia says, though she’s smiling. “If you don’t reach your point.”
Javier is avoiding doing just that, and knows it. He takes a sip of wine—a small sip, because he wants a large one—and says, “The Lady Irvine is Lanyarchan nobility, however minor.”
Sandalia takes it where he wants her to, dark eyes widening momentarily. “You would propose marrying her to strengthen your claim to the Lanyarchan throne? Javier—”
“I would propose engaging myself to her to see if fear can shake Lorraine Walter out of her royal seat,” Javier corrects. “If we can push her to invasion or war, Mother, then Lanyarch can call on Cordula for help. We all only seek an excuse.” He falls silent a moment, caught by childhood schoolings, and beneath his breath murmurs, “How many centuries is it since Aulun held Gallin’s throne in any meaningful way, or since Gallin has reigned with true power over Aulun? Two? More? And still we rattle back and forth at one another like angry children, each of us certain the other has stolen our toys. Hatred runs old and deep, the reasons long forgot.”
His mother’s gaze goes cool. “It’s only a lifetime since Aulun splintered from the Church, and in that time her Reformation has spread to Echon’s northern states. Our reasons are fresh, Javier, and born of a hope to see all the world safe in the arms of Christ, not led astray by weakness of flesh and mind. If you can’t remember that now, how can I trust you with a war for a throne?”
Not so very long ago, Javier realises, that lecture would have sent his head ducking down and apologies to his lips. Now he lifts his eyes to Sandalia’s with neither fear nor regret, and knows with certainty and a small shock of joy that Beatrice has helped him come this far. “The Church is an excuse, Mother, and if you can’t admit it to yourself, at least I can. The wherefores of this plot run far deeper than Lorraine’s father and his cuckholding ways. But let it be,” he adds, smoothing away the disagreement with a gesture. “What matters is that if an engagement to Irvine can shake the Red Queen’s grasp on Aulun, her reign may fall beneath the combined might of Gallin’s army and Essandia’s navy.”
Sandalia is silent for long moments before she nods and admits, “Clever. It’s a clever thought. But how much of it is born of sentiment, Javier?”
He will not allow himself a guilty wince. Instead he shrugs, loose and casual, hoping the cost of that doesn’t show. “Some. I like her. But she’s not meant to be a queen, Mother, and I know that. I’ll need to do better than her to hold even Gallin’s throne, much less Aulun’s.”
“There’s Irina’s daughter,” Sandalia says thoughtfully. Javier’s eyebrows wrinkle until his head hurts.
“She’s fourteen.”
“As was I the first time I was wed,” Sandalia reminds him acerbically. “Besides, if you’re to do this she’ll be more than old enough by the time you’re able to brea
k with Irvine and still hold two thrones.” To his astonishment, he realises she’s genuinely considering his proposal, and he wonders if it’s not as rash as he first conceived. “For God’s sake, Javier, whatever you do, don’t get her pregnant.”
“Ivanova?” he asks lightly. “I’m overwhelmed by your belief in my manhood, Mother, but I’m afraid it won’t reach all the way to Khazar by itself.”
Sandalia gives him a sharp look that makes the jape worthwhile. “Irvine no more wants a pregnancy than I do. Don’t worry, Mother.” An impulse hits him, though: what would their child be like? Heir to witchpower from both parents, trained in it since birth? Echon might never have imagined such power in such a ruler.
Sandalia interrupts his musings with a snort that belies her delicate prettiness. “The only reason a woman bedding a prince hopes to not become pregnant is if she fears for her bastard’s life when a legitimate heir comes along. Ask her to marry you and she’ll lose that concern, Javier, so for God’s sake, watch yourself. Make sure she watches herself.”
He finds himself holding his breath, as if he’s a child again. “Does that mean you approve?”
“It has merit,” Sandalia allows. “It would have more if your Beatrice were of more significant rank, but the tie to Lanyarch…” Her expression turns sour, a sure indicator that she wishes she’d thought of the ploy herself. “It’s well thought out. Making Lorraine nervous is an entertaining way to pass the winter, if nothing else.”
“And come spring,” Javier says lowly. Sandalia nods, slow and thoughtful.
“Come spring,” she agrees. “Come spring.”
BELINDA PRIMROSE / BEATRICE IRVINE
9 November 1587 Lutetia
“Whisper seditious promises in my ear, Irvine.” Asselin caught Belinda on her own street, dragging her toward evening-made shadows between houses. She protested, one sharp startled sound, and he curled a lip, crowding her into darkness roughly enough to make passersby studiously look away. Belinda put her hands against his chest, thrust him back, and for a moment imagined him falling many feet to a snow-covered courtyard below. There were damp patches of white stuck to the Lutetian streets even now, enough to make the momentary vision seem real, memory of a lifetime past overlaying the world in which she now lived. Irritation flashed through Asselin’s hazel eyes as Belinda fixed him with a steady gaze.