by C. E. Murphy
“And I’m the queen of Cor…” Humour drained from her voice as surely as blood drained from her face as she took in Javier’s growing insult. “Holy Maire, Mother of God. Javier, you’re not-Javier?” Witchpower lay out of reach, dormant beneath the cloak of stillness that wrapped her mind. That habit had won over power was a relief now, for her untouchable core seemed shaken, doing nothing to slow her racing heart or the colour that reversed itself and began to climb her cheeks. Something was wrong with her hands: they trembled with cold emotion that strove to take her breath away. Tears stung at her throat and eyes, bewilderingly at odds with a fierce hope that burned her. Tears did not belong in the height of an emotion so extreme she was at a loss to name it. Neither excitement nor happiness went far enough; it harkened back to childhood and the moments of believing that Robert, in hosting Lorraine’s court for a month, would introduce young Belinda to the queen. She had known the name of that emotion once; it had, perhaps, been joy. Surely tears didn’t belong to joy, no more than such violent jubilation should belong to Belinda at all. Her heart’s beat filled her chest too fully, taking her breath and threatening to knock itself out of her body. “Javier?”
“For all that Mother’s the queen of the country, Lanyarchan lands are hard to offer you. They would be best, for it would spite the Red Bitch, but I could offer you grounds in Brittany,” Javier whispered. “Enough to be landed gentry; enough to command a certain power yourself.” He took a breath, still holding the wine flask out, away from his body, away from Belinda. “Enough to make coming to the crown more than a pauper’s walk.”
A smile found Belinda’s mouth and turned it half up long before Javier finished his plea. “To spite the Titian Bitch,” she echoed. Her heart hurt, sending spikes of pain through her arms and into her palms, down her belly and to the soles of her feet. The heart should not be able to make pain in such far reaches of the body, she thought, but it did, as surely as it had taken up all the room for air in her lungs. “A Lanyarchan lady strengthening Prince Javier’s claim to that throne. Throwing Cordula’s faith in Lorraine’s teeth, a warning that we will stand together. It is-” She had to swallow to loosen the knot that her throat had become. “It is an excellent ploy, my lord prince.”
“It is not,” Javier said with great care, “only a gambit.”
Pain lanced through Belinda’s chest again, forcing a laugh. “Is it not? What would your queen mother say to that?”
“Nothing flattering.” Javier dared a smile that looked to hurt as much as Belinda’s breath did. “I would make you my wife, Beatrice.” He cast the wine away, coming toward her to take her hands. “I may not be allowed to.” The frankness there deepened his voice and made raw cuts of it. “But I will if I can. Yes, what I presented to my mother is a game, but she doesn’t know about your power. Our power. I have no intention of putting aside a woman who could be the heart and centre of my reign in ways no one else could ever understand. Forgive me for the method of it, Beatrice, but I beg of you, will you play this game with me?”
For the second time in her life a man got down on his knees, as if he were to make a love match, and asked her to marry him. And for the second time Belinda put shaking fingers into his hair, and whispered, “Yes.”
BELINDA PRIMROSE / BEATRICE IRVINE
13 November 1587 Lutetia “You wanted movement, my lord Asselin.” Belinda spoke the words carefully, not out of respect for Sacha but out of respect for her own swollen jaw.
She had not come traipsing home to tell of Javier’s proposal with a light heart, nor had she needed to. Eliza met her at the door with a fist balled so hard Belinda was certain she’d heard the other woman’s knuckles crack when the hit landed. It had been Eliza’s only comment; Belinda hadn’t seen her in the two days since, nor did she expect to for some time yet. Belinda had opted to remain at home in the interim, as much to give the city time to spread gossip as to let the bruise fade. It had been, she ungrudgingly admitted, a magnificent hit. And she should have seen it coming. That she hadn’t struck a note of discordant humour in her, and she spent entirely too much time studying the knuckle-shaped bruise along her jaw.
Sacha, the lag-behind-for Marius had visited as well, expression bleak and tempered only with the faint hope Belinda realised Javier must have given him, that she could not possibly be expected to actually wed the prince-Sacha had only come around after two days, and his outrage was as plain, if less physical in nature, as Eliza’s had been. He, who had been quite free with laying his hands on Belinda’s person, was a study in avoiding doing so now, although his fists clenched and opened as he stalked her parlour.
“I wanted movement, Irvine, not our friendship shattered! Have you seen Eliza?”
“She left.” Belinda worked her jaw carefully, putting cool fingers against the bruise. “I assume she went to you or Marius until her temper passes. Her things are still here.”
“She’s gone, Irvine. No one has seen her. Not since Tuesday morning.”
Belinda turned toward the stocky lord with genuine horror clenching her stomach. “Gone?”
“Marius is holed up sick as a dog, all the spirit kicked out of him, and Liz is gone. You call that movement, Irvine?”
“You didn’t ask me to protect your friendship.” Belinda turned away again, startled by the ache cutting through her body. “I’m Lanyarchan. Lorraine won’t like this at all.” She had taken her bruised jaw and retreated to her bedroom after Eliza stormed out, writing a hasty letter to her “dearest Jayne” that warned him of the Gallic prince’s clever plan. Lorraine would be a fool to act on the empty threat presented by Belinda’s unexpected engagement, but the act could be made, and a trap laid in which to catch a queen. “Surely Eliza could see it was a ploy. Doesn’t she know Javier better than that?”
“Eliza’s not looking with her eyes.”
“Are you?” Belinda cast the question without expecting an answer. Sacha growled, so low and deep for a moment she thought an animal was indeed locked in the room with her.
“You’re a nothing, Irvine. A backwater noble-”
“From a country Lorraine struggles to dominate, whose faith is backed by Cordula’s power and therefore the possibility of Essandia and Gallin’s armies. You wanted movement, my lord Asselin,” Belinda repeated. “I am attempting to provide it.”
“You’ve done nothing. This was Javier’s idea.”
“Are you sure?” Belinda asked, but shrugged. “Does it matter? Without me there would be no alliance to dream up. What,” she asked more pointedly, “do you want of me, Asselin?”
“I want your word that you won’t go through with this farce.”
Belinda barked laughter, then winced, putting her hand against her jaw. “It is not the provenance of a minor noble from Northern Aulun to determine whether she will or will not marry the prince of Gallin, Sacha.” She used his name deliberately, a reminder that in comparison to a prince’s rank, he was barely more than she. “Would you have me standing at the altar and refusing my vows?”
“If necessary,” Sacha snapped. “He can’t marry you, Irvine.”
“I think you and Her Majesty are in accord on that topic. Her objection I understand, but your motivations make me curious. I’d think I would make a less offensive choice than a carefully bred pureblood who could never accept Javier’s casual friendship with Eliza or the importance of you and Marius in his life.” She hadn’t seen Akilina since the night Javier had proposed, and curiosity ate at her. It would be easy to learn from Viktor whether his mistress was infuriated over the development, but Belinda was reluctant to face the palace with Eliza’s handiwork still visible on her face. Cosmetics could cover the bruise, but a keen eye would see it regardless, and it smacked of a weakness Belinda was unwilling to show.
“Perhaps I simply want him to marry Eliza, so our quartet isn’t disrupted.”
“Then you’re far more of a fool than I’d thought,” Belinda said. “He couldn’t even if he wanted to, and not just for the s
tation she was born to.” Eliza’s confession to Javier on the bridge hung in Belinda’s ears, and the spasm of anger that crossed Asselin’s face said he, too, remembered why their gutter-born friend could never aspire to the throne. That Belinda had reminded him of Eliza’s flaw was clearly no kindness, and she moved to soften his temper with quiet words: “I hope she comes back soon, Lord Asselin. Does Javier know she’s gone?”
Fresh irritation curled his lip, her sop a failure except in redirecting his anger. “Javier’s been cloistered with his mother for two days. Haggling out the details of your wedding, I’m sure. He won’t hear me, and he twists with guilt every time he looks at Marius. You’ve destroyed us, Irvine.”
“You won’t believe me when I say that was not my intent.” Belinda gathered her skirts and lifted her chin, displaying the bruise to full effect. “Perhaps I can distract him from his mother for a little while. I’ll tell him about Eliza, my lord. It’s the best I can do.”
“No.” Sacha’s gaze turned ugly. “It’s the least you can do.” Belinda pulled stillness around herself, hiding in plain sight in the thin November sun. It would be easy-appropriate, perhaps-to enter the palace with fanfare and pomp, but she found herself shivering with distaste at the idea.
She wondered, too late now, what Robert would say to the hand she’d played. An engagement to a prince meant portraits, drawings, discussions of her face and figure across the breadth of Echon. It meant the ordinary prettiness she’d hidden in would no longer be a disguise, her anonymity gone. She might still move among the lower ranks without fear of discovery, but a placement in a household like Gregori’s might be forever out of her reach again. It was a thought that should have come to her before she agreed to Javier’s mad plan.
And yet. And yet, had she thought, she would have chosen the same path she now walked, separate and in shadows, because from within she could more closely monitor Javier and his mother. Could more closely direct them into dangerous waters, all to Aulun’s benefit.
Besides, her complexion could be roughened, weight gained or lost, her hair darkened or lightened. Those things could lend her anonymity again, if such measures were even necessary. Belinda stood aside as a gaggle of court ladies passed in a rush of perfume and giggles. They looked through her, no more seeing her than they might see the air they breathed, and she watched as they disappeared down the hall in a flurry of bright colours and shining hair. Mundane disguises faltered and fell before the witchpower-granted ability to stand amidst a gathering and go unseen. The only danger there was in avoiding those who could see through her magic, and thus far, the only ones who could were on her side.
The thought slowed her as she approached Javier’s chambers. Robert worked for the love of his queen, but Khazarian-born Dmitri-if indeed he were born of that northern country; his accent when he’d accosted her in the Count Kapnist’s estates had been flawlessly Aulunian-had no such tie to Lorraine. Belinda stepped into an alcove, holding her breath as she conjured memory, the distant voices of her father and Dmitri as they climbed the stairs to Robert’s sitting rooms. Dmitri’s, low and marked with the Khazarian accent: “-begun. The imperatrix is with child-”
And amusement from her father: “That was quickly done.”
“As it had to be,” Dmitri agreed. “With the imperator’s wars, that Irina has even a chance of childbearing is-”
“A blessing to us all,” Robert’s tone, sanctimonious, garnered a staccato laugh from Dmitri, one that cut through the stillness surrounding Belinda even now. She half-focused across the hall, understanding coming to the woman where the child had seen no meaning at all.
Ivanova Durova was no more the Imperator Fodor’s daughter than Belinda herself was. Dmitri had lain with Irina and gotten a child on her, and as much as Robert had, guided that child’s growth to adulthood. Like herself, like Javier, Ivanova was witchbreed.
Sudden coolness poured down Belinda’s insides, chilling the shadows that held her safe. Robert was her father, and Dmitri Ivanova’s. Sandalia showed no signs of witchpower, and the king whose name Javier bore was long dead.
Belinda found that she did not, for an instant, believe that Louis IV of Gallin had carried the witchpower in his blood.
Who was Javier’s father?
Laughter trilled in her throat, more desperation than humour. Belinda pressed herself against the walls, folded her hands against her mouth and winced as she found the bruise again. Its ache soothed her and she increased the pressure against it, ignoring pain until it faded. The impulse to flee the Lutetian palace, all the way back to Aulun, so she could put the question to Robert Drake in person filled her. It was not a question to be asked in a letter, even to dearest Jayne; those, while cryptic, could be discovered and decoded. A hint, even the slightest hint, that Javier, like herself, was a queen’s bastard, would send Gallin flying apart and shame both Sandalia and Cordula to no end.
Belinda’s heart crashed once against her ribs and held there, emptiness in her chest that thrummed through her veins until it felt that she might erupt from negative pressure within her.
It would send Gallin flying apart and shame Sandalia and Cordula to no end.
Javier’s ties to Lanyarch would be shattered. Sandalia was only heir by marriage, not blood, and for her son to have come from the wrong side of a marriage bed would break his claim to that long-empty throne. Likewise, his mother was regent in Gallin, holding the throne for her son.
Her son. Not Louis’s son. Javier, as a bastard, had no right to Gallin’s throne. Only his heirship to Essandia would be legitimate, coming through his uncle to his mother to himself, and Rodrigo, for all his fondness toward Sandalia, might well not be able to see past a bastard child. Not when his faith in his church was so much to him that he himself had never wed and fathered an heir. His piety, Belinda thought, must have been a frustration to Robert and Dmitri, who now seemed to her intent on littering Echon’s royal families with witchbreed bastards.
Yes. If it was their plot, then Dmitri had to be Javier’s father, though the look of the ginger-haired prince held nothing in common with the hawk-faced man at all. Perhaps his pale skin and slim build, nothing more, certainly not the narrowness of his grey eyes or his long jaw.
Uncertainty washed through her. Javier looked far more like the washed-out blond king who was his father by law than like Dmitri or even his own mother. Maybe witchbreed magic was less rare than either she or Javier thought, and slept unnoticed through most generations, only sparking from time to time in certain families.
But then her own father should not have the power that he did, and perhaps then Ivanova, daugher of Irena of Khazar, had no power at all. But had Dmitri and Robert not been certain of that gift arising, then the circumstances of Ivanova’s birth made little difference to anyone. Belinda quelled the urge to clutch her temples, as if she’d try to hold her thoughts together. No, witchbreed parents knew what they had when they made a child, and Robert would know, must know, who Javier’s father was. Perhaps not Dmitri after all, his sharp features and darkness clearly not inherited by the witchbreed prince. Someone else, then, a user of witchpower outside of Belinda’s realm of knowledge. Someone at court who could guide Javier in the development of his skills.
No.
Javier had told her she was the only one like himself. Belinda had recognized almost immediately that her father, too, was like them, but Javier had spoken freely of having no guidance, only his own sense of self to show him the way.
Robert didn’t know. The thought came with startling clarity. Her father, who seemed to Belinda to be always in control, did not know that the prince of Gallin was witchbreed. Had he known, he would have influenced Sandalia through her son rather than insert Belinda into the realm. It was what Belinda herself would have done, and her father was far more calculating than she. Javier lay outside Robert’s realm of influence, and that meant he, even more than Sandalia and her ambitions, stood as a threat to Aulun.
A chill of curiosity lifte
d bumps on Belinda’s skin as she thought of other royal scions, and wondered how many of them were their father’s children, and what purpose they served if they were not. Her purpose was clear: as the hidden daughter of Aulun, she was a secret weapon, trained to protect a throne that stood on the faith of a new religion. Ivanova, openly Irina’s daughter, could hold no such position in her mother’s court; she had been born in wedlock, if on the wrong side of the sheets, and no one would question her heirship. But that in itself could be a purpose, if Ivanova could be controlled and influenced through witchpower. An unbreachable Khazarian alliance would strengthen Aulun immeasurably.
Belinda shuddered in a breath through her fingers, then spread her hands wide, staring at her palms. Echon’s fate lay in her hands more thoroughly than even Robert imagined.
Excitement darted through her, testing her external stillness like a hummingbird in search of life-giving nectar. She kept it locked within, golden witchpower cloaking her against all comers as she considered her needs. Foremost, always foremost, was to find proof of a plan against the Aulunian throne, but beneath that now lay the task of discovering who had fathered Javier de Castille. To learn, in short, what other players influenced Echon’s royal families by way of the base side of a marriage bed. It cannot be found out thrummed in the back of her mind, her father’s lifelong warning, and she thought that even if she had the means to ask, Robert might withhold that answer from her. She had often asked questions and rarely had them answered-that lesson had been learned early on. Better to discover what she could on her own and, armed with knowledge, come to her father with details that shone light on Sandalia’s indiscretions and shattered Javier’s claim to a trio of thrones.
To do otherwise was to question her own existence, focused and purposeful as it had been, and even with power growing inside her with its own ambition for dominance, Belinda did not doubt herself or her place in the world. And even if-alien thought, difficult to so much as endure, much less truly consider-even if she were somehow to be brought into the light as her mother’s daughter, every step toward securing Aulun’s future secured her own. The truth of Javier’s heritage would inevitably help fashion that security.