The Pretender_s Crown ic-2

by C. E. Murphy

  JAVIER DE CASTILLE, KING OF GALLIN

  Everything he'd known of Beatrice Irvine was a lie. Her name, her presence in Gallin, her very existence was a story meant to bring her closer to him, a fabrication to allow her access to the queen, his mother, so that Sandalia might die. The love Beatrice had professed for him was a lie because Beatrice herself was a lie: everything, everything about her, a lie.

  Everything but the witchpower.

  Falsifying it was impossible. It was a part of her as much as it was a part of him, inherent in their beings, a solitary truth shared between them that could not, in any way, be undone. It could be used, manipulated, shaped, but not unmade, and it lay between them like a blade, cutting everything else away. Hate was numb beneath grief already, but against the vibrancy of the witchpower even hatred faded. Logic aside, sin aside, he wanted collusion with the one other being like himself.

  So much like himself. That they shared witchpower when no one else did carried too much weight: Belinda Primrose, Belinda Walter, spoke the truth when she named him Lorraine's son and her full brother. That Robert Drake was their father, both of them… the bitterest dredge was that in a cold, gutted part of him, it made sense. Sandalia had been strong and witty and bold; Rodrigo was all of those things still, but neither of them burned with the magic Javier carried in his blood, and Rodrigo had confessed with a word that Louis, Javier's father in name, had nothing of the witchpower in him. His power was born of something else, some one else, and he had met its progenitor in a Lutetian courtroom half a year since. Had met Robert Drake, a big man who had left little physical mark on Javier, but who had left him everything in the realm of magic. There was far more chance of truth in that story than in God's hand selecting him to carry a banner of silver magic against His enemies in war. He was only a bastard, a secret, a thing made use of by men whose end game lay beyond his comprension.

  He was precisely as Belinda was, and for a single shattering moment, he believed all she had to say. Believed she'd known none of what she'd just confessed when she came to his bed; believed, even, that Beatrice Irvine had loved him, if Belinda Primrose had not.

  The question spilled out unexpectedly, an entirely wrong thing to say to her quiet, passionate speech of freedom and determination. She was proposing an alliance and a war against an indeterminate enemy, and instead of giving a yes or no, he said, “ Did you love me, when you were her?”

  He had learned already that Belinda was a consummate actress: the memory of her performance in the courtroom struck a note even as astonishment filled her eyes now. He shouldn't believe her display, but now, unlike then, he could open witchpower senses to her and taste the truth behind her act.

  “How can I answer that?” Belinda jerked her gaze away. “My answer condemns me either way. If I say no I'm the betraying whore you think me, and if I say yes I'm both and a pervert besides. Yes,” she added far more harshly, and witchpower flared in her as though she expected an attack.

  Pain and regret lanced Javier, and a loneliness worse than any he'd ever known. The fire he'd wanted was there, a core of passion and desire that had become despair, all of it driven by the beating of Belinda's heart. Surprise washed after those rich emotions, muting them for a few seconds as he realised it was his own, that he hadn't believed she'd answer honestly, or that she'd once loved him. He drew breath to respond, but she continued, still harsh with inwardly directed anger.

  “Yes. And for a few minutes when you took me from the oubliette I believed I could do as we whispered to each other. That I could turn my back on my duty and my loyalty and give myself to you. But I was too much the creature my father'd made.” Her mouth curled as though she tasted something foul. “I turned my hands to blood crawling back to my duty because I didn't know how to leave it behind. You were the first crack in my armour, and now it's shattered apart.” She extended a hand, expression grim with determination. “I can take memories from others with a touch, and if you're learning to sense emotion… take what I can offer. If I didn't love you, it was only because I couldn't name what I felt. It was wrong, and perhaps now we're damned, but I swear to you, Javier, I did not know. And in not knowing, I loved, and in loving, everything that I was has come to an end.”

  “I believe you.” Silence rode the air between them, heavier than words. Belinda kept her hand extended, waiting. He stared at it, then at her. “You still murdered my mother.”

  “Yes.”

  He stared harder, then pinched the bridge of his nose. Too many things were changing, the footing he'd always stood on shaking loose. Robert Drake was his father, Lorraine Walter his mother, and conniving, manipulative Belinda Primrose his twin.

  But Sandalia de Costa was his family. She had known he was no blood of hers, and had made him her son. Drake may have granted him the witchpower, but the older witchlord was not, would never be, Javier's father. The thought was calming, but he feared looking at it too closely, certain he would shatter under its weight. Power rose, soothing and stabilising, and he held on hard to its silver comfort before dropping his hand. “You might have lied just now. Blamed Akilina, as Lorraine has done.”

  “You'd have known. And I'm trying not to lie to you.” A desperate sort of humour coursed through Belinda's exposed magic. “It doesn't come naturally, so perhaps you'd consider not encouraging me to my more usual half-truths. I liked Sandalia,” she said more roughly. “There was even a moment when I wondered why I'd want her dead.”

  “And then?”

  Belinda's extended fingers curled in a loose fist. “Then I wondered why I wouldn't. I was trying to protect my mother's throne, and I didn't understand the scope of Robert's ambitions. I still barely do. It's too strange, too… alien to comprehend.”

  “A foreign queen,” Javier said carefully. He was too tired for rage, too tired for hate, and too full of uncertainty to try to burn weariness away and give those darker emotions their due. He needed Eliza on hand to spur him to anger against Belinda, or Sacha to build unfocused fury.

  That thought sparked heat after all, and he saw resignation and defeat crumble Belinda's face. “No,” he said aloud, surprising himself. “Tell me your intentions. I'll bend an ear to listen, at least.”

  C.E. Murphy

  The Pretender's Crown

  BELINDA WALTER

  “Do more than bend an ear.” For the second time, Belinda extended a hand. “I'm speaking in riddles, not to confound you, but because the truth I've had from Robert's mind is beyond my comprehension. Spoken aloud it'll only sound like dreams. Take my hand, please, king of Gallin. Without witchpower sharing none of this will make sense.”

  “Here?” Javier made a short gesture toward Marius's grave. “Should this not be done in private?”

  “You would bring the Aulunian heir back to your own quarters?” Belinda asked, exasperated. “Here your people will give you privacy to mourn. Back in your tent you resume your duties. Thought shared with witchpower is the work of a moment.” More softly, she said, “Take my hand, Javier.”

  Javier scowled, then set his jaw and seized her hand all in one swift motion, clearly belying his instincts in doing so.

  Static shot through the touch, witchpower flaring in a burst that lifted hairs on Belinda's arms and sent a thrill of excitement through her. Too familiar, that taste of desire. Javier jerked back, but Belinda knotted her fingers around his, refusing to let him go as she grated, “This is how we know each other. You woke my power with passion. If we're to win over this thing we must learn each other again, go beyond this already-known need and find another path.”

  “You're a witch, you've done this deliberately, you-” Javier broke off with a strangled sound, one too close to release for Belinda's liking. Fire sizzled through her, golden power bubbling and surging until her body ached and heat melted the core of her.

  Sex isn't power. Dmitri's words came back to her, an unlikely source of salvation. He'd been both wrong and right, but now she snatched at the ways in which he'd been wrong
. Commanding the storm hadn't been born of sensuality, nor did she any longer require that sexual pulse to steal emotion and thought from those around her. Sex and power could be divorced: for the sake of her soul, they must be divorced.

  She'd drawn on rage and on raw determination to power the magic in the past; now panic proved a new and capable way to feed it. She had always claimed more faith in Lorraine than the Reformation God, and yet faced with knowingly surrendering to desire in the arms of a man she'd learned was her brother, Belinda found she had a little faith after all: faith that God would not forgive a passion so unholy. It seemed she wanted a chance at salvation, if a life such as hers might be forgiven.

  Need burned out under that panic, witchpower steady and bright within her. Belinda shuddered and dared lift her gaze to Javier's. The silver-eyed king looked back at her with a mix of revulsion and loss that sent Belinda's vision hot and swimming. She whispered, “It isn't fair,” then laughed at herself, rough sound of pathos. The world had never been fair, and yet hers had shifted so dramatically that such protestations seemed in order. And those changes hadn't yet come to an end; she must, indeed, pursue them with all diligence, make certain they came to pass.

  Javier gave her a thin smile in return, his emotion more controlled than her own. At its core was confusion and hatred: he had no call to love her, and every reason not to. But the edge had gone, even when he thought of his mother. His world had, perhaps, also changed too greatly to let old anger hold sway, at least in this moment. Where rage once burned, sorrow now lay: sorrow for Sandalia, and more freshly, for Marius. Guilt, too, guilt so deep it coloured everything, even his command of the magic inherent to his soul. He feared the witchpower in a way Belinda didn't, saw it as condemnation even when the Pappas, the father of his church, had named it God's gift. He had stolen free will from too many men, and saw that as an unforgiveable crime, as deadly as the one he and Belinda had shared, to ever be comfortable with his magic.

  “Enough.” The sharpness of his tone caught her out: her feelings would be as clear to him as his were to her. Discomfited, she wondered what she'd betrayed in those few seconds, but he cast off her concerns with an angry burst of words: “Show me this stuff of dreams. Show me the enemy you say we have.”

  The demand shaped her thoughts, spilling them into as near a semblance of sense as she could manage. A hint of resentment splashed after it and she bared her teeth, not liking that his command could get such a ready response from her. They had to be equals in this, or fail.

  Then there was no more time for petty resentment, the fractured images she'd stolen from Robert washing through witchpower and sharing themselves with Javier de Castille.

  JAVIER DE CASTILLE, THE QUEEN'S BASTARD

  Fire rained from the sky.

  It seemed a brief eternity before he realised that no, fire rose into the sky, streaky smoke trailing behind vast blasts of heat as incomprehensible machines flew toward the stars. They strove for the moon, for ships made of metal that hung in the void between heavenly bodies. Men piloted the vessels that left streaks across the sky, working to serve an overlord they knew nothing about.

  His vision reversed, turning from the sky to the earth, where terrible pits, deeper and broader than any salt mine, scored the surface, and where men rode in monstrous metal contraptions that hauled ore and dirt toward the wide crater edges.

  Distant from the mining sites lay cities, great square buildings with uniform windows and tall smokestacks that belched black muck into the sky. The men and women who worked them looked weary, ill-fed, grey with smoke as they guided ugly chunks of precious metal down rattletrap belts that led to processing centres a thousand times larger than any forge Javier had ever dreamt of. Heat boiled out of them, turning the sky to hazy waves and bringing the very depths of Hell to life.

  His voice cracked, pushing aside the pictures: “If this is what they want, they must be stopped-”

  “Wait.”

  Another ship sliced through the sky, and this time fire did rain from it, huge slabs of light slamming into the ground, into buildings, into the mines, and killing men by their hundreds. Belinda whispered, “I've seen inside their ships, Javier…”

  With the whisper came the image of a man, though that simple word fell away into nothingness as the creature came clearer. It was man-shaped in the way a peddler's monkey might be, with a misshapen head atop a central column, but nothing else in its makeup said man in any way. The face was a snarl of rage, eyes set wide apart and swiveling independently of each other, and too many brutish limbs manoeuvred the controls of its ship. It had half again the bulk of any man Javier had ever seen, so thick and fearsome it might forgo its radical weaponry entirely and simply pull its enemies apart. Even as nothing more than a picture in his mind, it stank of something that made his bowels turn to water, as though it could crawl inside his head and trigger a primitive terror that undid any rational thought and strength of character he might cobble together.

  “What…?” Horror lay somewhere in the depths of his question, but bewilderment was what coloured it.

  “Invaders from a foreign land,” Belinda whispered. Her voice and her magic were both laden with uncertainty, not in what she shared but in how it could be. “They come for our… our salt and our metal and our land. These ones are Robert's enemy, the enemies of his queen. They fear them in particular because the witch-power has so little effect on them.”

  “In particular?” Now horror did break through, Javier shaking off the images to stare at Belinda. “There are others?”

  “Dozens. Dozens of races, all in need of the same resources, as we need what we take from the Columbias. Some are more easily defeated.” Belinda put her hands along her temples as though she tried to hold her thoughts together. “Some fall before the witch-power easily. Those ones pursue other paths of exploration, staying away from Robert's kind. The space between the stars is almost infinite, and they rarely meet anymore. But those who can fight the witchpower will come on Robert's heels, will come to strip this world of its iron and water and greenery. Robert means for us to feed those resources to his queen, to advance us so far as to deliver them what they need while they never soil their… hands.”

  Another picture rode with the last word, a great silvery scaled monster with no more hands than an insect might have. It cried of dragon to Javier's mind, though only because no mortal creature he knew had such size or such sheen: it looked less like a great wyrm or terrible lizard than a giant, segmented insect, oddly fragile for all its enormity. “My father's people consider themselves delicate invaders,” Belinda whispered. “They make slaves to do their bidding rather than destroy populations and take what they desire. The ones who come after them would simply wipe us from our homes as if we were rats.”

  “But what are they? Where are they from?” Not why -the why of what the things Belinda told him of made sense, in a remote and unemotional way. His people raided the Columbian continent for goods and raw materials; the idea that someone else might invade them for the same seemed only reasonable. But those who might come for Echonian resources should be Khazarian, or Aferican, not monsters encased in ships that cut through sky instead of water. Cold crawled over Javier's skin and inched its way to the bone, carrying disbelief beginning to border on refusal.

  Belinda laughed, soft sound of near panic. “I don't know. Alien. Inhuman. Things I never dreamt existed. God hasn't peopled only our world, Javier, even though your church or mine would burn me for the heresy of saying so. But what I've taken from their mind is real. No one could imagine it.”

  “But he's-” Javier choked, unable to put voice to the idea that Robert could be other than a man.

  Belinda swallowed, so strained he felt it through the witchpower. “The soul leaves the body at death, transcending to Heaven or Hell. They have a way of capturing it, giving it a new body and a new life.” Her uncertainty rose through the witchpower, not in doubting that something like what she described happened, but unable
to comprehend how. “It has to do with the witchpower, with their ability to make magic with their minds. It defines them, more than it defines us. We see our talents as powerful, but they consider what they can do here to be weak. But it's strong enough to slip into a few places and to shape our countries and our continents so that we'll be raised up to serve them. And if we don't allow this shaping we'll have no defence when their enemies come. We'll have no way to fight back against any of them.”

  “So you would play both sides against the middle,” Javier said slowly. “You would hide from Robert Drake the fact that we move against him even as we embrace the changes he brings?”

  “We don't dare turn to him for help. He'll use his witchpower against us and bend us to his will.” Belinda's argument rang with unshakable surety. “You said I'd hidden my power behind walls of womanly fear, but it was Robert who locked it away. I was too young, my power developing faster than he was prepared for, so he placed that wall in my mind. I remember him doing it, though I didn't understand all that it meant until I met you. And he stopped your power in Lutetia, stopped it without effort. He could well be able to do it again.”

  “We're stronger now, both of us.” Javier spoke without knowing whether he was truly entertaining Belinda's madness or simply drawing it to its inevitable conclusions. “We might be less easily taken now.”

  “And if we defeat him only to learn he reports to his foreign queen? We can't know what she might expect of him.” Belinda sank back, face pinched. “I know a thing or two about living in the shadows, Javier. About shaping events from there, and the wisdom of moving subtly.”

  Javier bared his teeth, anger coming to sudden light inside of him. “If we can do nothing about Drake, then-”