by C. E. Murphy
It would take more than a hint. Belinda’s head spun, glee rushing through her veins in sparks of golden light. The extraordinary potential of what lay before her threatened to burst her self-imposed calm, and she didn’t care. It would take more than whispers to properly bring down the Gallic regent and her son. She would need proof of Sandalia’s infidelities, and a wise queen would have done away with proof.
Belinda uncurled a slow smile at her palms. Sandalia had let one shred of proof go: Javier himself. Knowing what to look for, the rest could be done. Not by anyone, perhaps, but by Belinda, with her burgeoning gift for stealing thoughts and influencing emotion. It could be done, and when it was done, Ecumenic Echon would be in shambles, and Lorraine’s Reformation throne safe for years to come.
Javier would never forgive her. Belinda swayed at the thought, letting her hands close into loose fists again. He, who had unleashed her witchpower and her heart, he who believed that above all Belinda wished to see him safely enstated on the Lanyarchan throne, he who was heir to half of Echon, would not forgive her if she so utterly destroyed his world. Nor should he. Belinda closed her eyes, regret lancing through delight until her heart hung in her chest again, aching with unfamiliar choice. Her duty was obvious.
And she would not shirk it. Nails dug into her palms and she let go a soft cry, deliberately forgoing stillness to revel in brief pain. To serve Aulun, to serve Lorraine, she would destroy Javier and with him the precious sense of belonging.
Unless she could convince him it was the only way. Dismissive laughter rose in her even as the idea formed. It was, perhaps, the only way for her, but she was a child of another realm, both in country and in heart. The few moments she would spend at Javier’s side in the eyes of all Echon would fade and disappear beneath a lifetime of duty serving Aulun. Beatrice Irvine might briefly be remembered; Belinda Primrose would never exist.
Irritation surged through stillness, an unexpected rise of emotion. Belinda clamped it down, thoughts half bent to scolding the witchpower within her. Identifying the ambition that using power woke in her made it easier to draw back from it, though it rose more quickly each time she drew heavily on the gift Javier had teased to life. Its fire was only semi-welcome: Belinda craved the skills it brought, the ability to hide and influence, but shied from the raw sense of injustice it carried with it. She had accepted with open eyes and a clear mind her place in the world as Lorraine’s natural child, and to find a part of herself boiling with resentment and striving for a place among the stars was uncomfortable and distressing. It made her wonder at her own beliefs, whether she was content with the lot she’d been handed, when a lifetime of knowing who and what she was had never troubled her before.
“It’s still too early.” Dmitri’s voice, heard through a child’s pretense at sleep. She had been nine then, truly no more than a child. Perhaps now, at twenty-two, she was still come too early to her gifts; perhaps that was why Robert had never removed the barriers in her mind. But the witchpower that pooled in her mind told her otherwise: it had wakened her to Dmitri’s arrival in Khazan, and overwhelmed her at the tavern in Aria Magli. Robert might yet believe that her magic should go untested and untrained, but that was a rare mistake on her father’s part. True power would not be forever contained, and it had broken free outside of his influence and in its own time.
And so, too, Belinda thought, would she, if it were necessary in shaping Gallin’s fall and Aulun’s rise.
Skirts gathered, she finally stepped free of shadow and slipped down the hall to her lover’s chambers.
AKILINA PANKEJEFF, DVORYANIN
14 November 1587 Lutetia There is something wrong with the guardsman.
Akilina chose him at random out of Gregori’s ranks, once the death services were attended to. She chose him for his rough-hewn good-looks and a tendency toward cleanliness that most of his brethren didn’t seem to share, and that, she realises now, is what’s wrong. His thick hair looks greasy, his brown eyes bright with fever. Sweat stands against swarthy skin and trickles into his beard, and she thinks she can smell him, even from half a room away. It’s not like him, and a combination of curiosity and disgust compels her to snap her fingers and gesture him toward her. “Lutetia doesn’t agree with you…?”
“Viktor, my lady,” he supplies without resentment, though she’s sure she’s asked before. His gaze flickers to the side, unwilling to meet hers. That would be proper, except for the skittishness she sees in him.
“Look at me, Viktor.” Command suits her voice well. Viktor draws his shoulders back, coming to full attention and bringing his eyes to hers. “Lutetia disagrees with you?” she asks again. “You’ve kept close to me since we’ve arrived, and you look ill.” It’s only as she says it that Akilina realises it’s true. In the handful of days she’s been at Sandalia’s court, of all the guards, Viktor has never been far from her side. Even when weariness must have had him wanting his rest, he’s been nearby. Delight curves her mouth and she considers him again, this time as a cat might a morsel. He needs bathing-God, he needs bathing!-but he’s broad of shoulder and if there’s a thickness to him through the hips, all the better; fragile men have never been to her taste.
That thought, inevitably, brings the pale, ginger-haired Javier to mind. He is beautifully shaped, though his slender body makes Akilina think of a boy not yet grown to a man’s form. She has little doubt of his male assets, but now isn’t the time to explore that road. Not with news of his engagement coming so quickly on the heels of Akilina’s arrival that she might think it deliberate if she didn’t know better. As it is, an alliance with the little Lanyarchan girl strikes Akilina as enormously funny, and she has every intention of remaining in the Gallic court long enough to watch the romance play out. There will, after all, be pieces to pick up afterward, and Akilina fancies herself something of an expert at puzzles.
Which brings her back to Viktor’s attentiveness. It seems a simple puzzle, to be sure, but pleasing to unravel regardless. “Are you unwell?” Heartsick? she wants to ask, but it’s far more entertaining to play it out and see if the man condemns himself with his own tongue. A guard ought not look so high as a noblewoman, though should her eye fall so low he dares not turn away. Such is the narrow path offered to the lower classes, and Akilina enjoys making a man walk its balance.
“Not ill, my lady,” Viktor replies, but he sounds uncertain of himself. Akilina cocks an eyebrow and leans forward, arching her throat as she smiles up at him. His gaze falls to her breasts and then jerks away again, more caution in him than many a man bothers to show.
“Too little sleep, then.” She traces a finger along her jaw, then down the line of her throat, watching Viktor struggle with where to put his eyes. “You’ve been near me my every waking hour, Viktor. Do you watch over me while I sleep, as well?”
“Yes, my lady.” Viktor’s voice has gone hoarse and he struggles not to watch as Akilina idly follows the curve of her own breast, mounded against corsets. The attempt is valiant, and she would admire him for it if it didn’t amuse her so much.
“And why do you watch me so closely, guardsman?” Viktor’s erection is plain to see against his pants. It’s a shame he’s so badly in need of a bath, or the afternoon might take a far more entertaining turn than Akilina had anticipated.
Viktor, thickly, says, “She told me to,” and Akilina’s hands grow chilly, ceasing their exploration of her body. The afternoon, it seems, will yet provide some entertainment.
“She?” That Sandalia would put a spy on her is to be expected. That she’d choose one of Akilina’s own people is both audacious and foolish: the strain of surveillance is a thing to be worked up to, to be taught, not dropped into the lap of an amateur. It explains Viktor’s failing health and his sharp scent; he is absolutely unprepared for this kind of work.
“Rosa,” he answers, then draws his eyebrows down heavily and passes a hand over his face. “Rosa,” he says again, but there’s uncertainty in his voice. Akilina stands, moving
closer to him even though doing so causes her to hold her breath.
“Who is Rosa, Viktor?” The command is gone from her voice, leaving gentleness. He seems close to breaking, this strong Khazarian guard, and it would be a shame for him to shatter before she understands the game he’s been drawn into.
“Prince Javier’s woman,” he responds, and Akilina’s astonishment blooms into laughter.
“Javier’s woman, as you so crudely put it, is Beatrice Irvine, some ignoble gentry from Northern Aulun. She set you to spying on me?”
“Rosa told me to,” Viktor says stubbornly, and something in his gaze clears, fever pitch fading as he turns a glower on Akilina. It’s a moment before he seems to realise whom he’s scowling at, and then he shakes himself and drops his gaze. “I’m sorry, my lady.”
“Viktor.” Akilina puts a fingertip beneath his chin and forces his head up again. “Lady Irvine reminds you of a Rosa?” This is fine stuff: a guardsman in lust with a lady. Better yet, the prince’s woman. Akilina could have his head for it, and make it a gift to Gallin.
Viktor, it seems, ceases to care that Akilina is his mistress, and turns the full force of frustrated anger on her, black eyebrows drawn low over dark eyes. There’s desperation in him, a broken understanding that bleeds from his gaze. The fever is back, burning in him. “I’ve swivved the bitch, my lady,” he snaps, and even as he speaks it’s clear he doesn’t know how what he says can be, but that he believes it with every fibre of his being. “She more than reminds me. I’d swear on my own grave that she’s the same bit that warmed my bed and Count Gregori’s in the days before he died.”
Heat and cold slip over Akilina’s body like a lover, raising queasiness instead of passion. It fades in seconds, leaving heart-palpitating excitement in its place. “Viktor, Viktor, Viktor.” Akilina covers his lips with her fingertip and steps closer still, risking staining her gown with his sweat. “If you are not right, darling Viktor, it will indeed be your grave you swear on. Now tell me,” she breathes. “Tell me everything.”
BELINDA PRIMROSE / BEATRICE IRVINE
14 November 1587 Lutetia “Eliza can’t be gone.” Javier’s petulance astounded Belinda, his hurt that of a child whose world had been so badly shaken he could only stand and rail against it. “Where would she go? Why would she go?”
“Lord Asselin tells me she is, my lord,” Belinda said unhappily. “And I haven’t seen her since Tuesday morning.” Javier hadn’t noticed, or had not, at least, commented on, the bruise that marked Belinda’s jaw. That was as well: she discovered that she genuinely preferred not to lay its blame at Eliza’s feet-or fist-and she doubted Javier would accept clumsiness as an excuse. “Are there any childhood hideaways she might be able to make her way to?”
“Not without me.” Casual arrogance filled the reply, making impossible the suggestion that Eliza had somewhere to go outside of Javier’s personal haunts. Belinda held her tongue, waiting for a chance to propose the idea without insulting the prince. “Beatrice, she can’t leave. I need her.”
“Did you ever tell her that, my lord?” The part of the devil’s advocate was an unfamiliar one, and Belinda took no relish in playing it. Javier alone was no doubt easier to manipulate than Javier surrounded by his lifetime friends, but the raw misery pulsing off him made Belinda want to throw her characteristic behavior away and gather him close in sympathy.
Javier made a noise of exasperation. “Why would I? We’ve been together all our lives.” Again, the emotion that poured off him showed no indication that he could be in the wrong. It was a powerful thing, Belinda thought, supreme confidence in oneself. Powerful and dangerous, perhaps most especially to those who never had it challenged. Belinda believed in her own growing magic and in her skills, but not with Javier’s royal conviction. Understanding how people might react was a survival trait for her; for the prince, it was something to be advised on by councilors and generals.
“You’ve been together all your lives, but still you’ve become engaged without warning her,” Belinda pointed out. “You’ve been together all your lives, Javier, and she loves you. She’s in love with you. Did it not strike you that such news might come most kindly from your own lips?”
“I told Marius!”
“Oh, God help me.” Belinda let herself fall into Aulunian for the one phrase, endowing it with a Lanyarchan burr and all the impatience she could muster. “Yes, and that was well done, but those three are your friends, Javier. Marius isn’t the only one who deserved to hear it from you. They all did, maybe Eliza most of all.” Pride was as dangerous as Javier’s boundless confidence, and even Javier had grasped the idea that the poor might be even more terribly proud than the wealthy.
“Well, then, I’ve got to get her back.” Javier threw off his sulk in a fit of action, stalking across his chambers to fling open the wardrobe and root through it. Belinda watched, bemused.
“Shall you humiliate me by announcing an engagement and then riding after another woman, stopping to ask all the passersby if they’ve seen a beauty filled with rage come this way, my lord?”
Javier went still, so sudden and profound Belinda imagined for a moment that he had learned her trick of letting nothing touch him. She sighed and crossed to him, putting her fingers at the small of her back, where she herself wore a tiny dagger. “I want her gone no more than you do, Javier. If we’re to find her, let’s put a practical plan into place, rather than chasing hares across Echon. She’s a woman alone, without money. She can’t have gone terribly far in four days.”
“She does have money,” Javier said thickly. “I can’t count how much she’s stolen off me over the years. She…” He drew his hands from the wardrobe, rippling his knuckles as though a coin danced over them. “Practised,” he murmured. “On me, I suppose, so she could steal from others without being caught. Oh, Liza, you fool.”
It was not, Belinda thought, Eliza who was the fool. “Send men, my lord. Send them to wherever you can think she might be. Make it known that you’re doing so, if you want. I can stand the embarrassment.” She smiled faintly. “And Eliza will like that you’ve put up the fuss. It may bring her home.”
Javier turned to look down at her, hope burning bright in his gaze. “Would it bring you home?”
“Yes,” Belinda said gently, and smiled to seal the lie. Eliza would be found only if she wanted to be; Javier, Belinda suspected, simply had no understanding of where to seek the gutter-born woman. But relief turned the prince’s eyes to slate and he nodded, drawing her close. Against her will she put her arms around him, feeling his sigh and brief tremble before he spoke against her hair.
“And what of Sacha? Is he as angry as all that, too?”
“Sacha has strictly forbidden me to marry you.” Belinda made her voice light and tipped her chin up to give Javier another smile, this one intending to mask nothing but the truth. “I expect he’ll denounce me as a harlot eager to spread my legs for anyone willing to move toward freeing Lanyarch from Reformation rule if I don’t break it off with all due haste.”
“Really?” A hint of welcome laughter warmed Javier’s question. “And is that true, Beatrice?”
Belinda widened her eyes in a too-broad semblance of innocence. “Of course not, my lord. I’ll only spread my legs for the prince’s friends, and complain bitterly when they’re coarse and inattentive lovers.”
Javier’s laughter turned full, a bark of sound over Belinda’s head. She lowered her gaze, taking momentary satisfaction in the truth turned against Asselin, then looked back up to smile at Javier’s teasing remark: “Splendid. I’ll tell Sacha he’s dreadful in bed when he comes to me with imprecations about your reputation.” His humour faded. “And Marius?”
“Believes you’ll put me aside, my lord.” Belinda sighed, more genuine regret in the sound than she was comfortable owning to. “The same story you told your mother. A mother might eventually forgive, but a friendship like Marius’s is a precious thing to waste.”
“He’ll forgive
me, in time.” Javier’s unflaggable confidence rang false. “It would help if I had a sister to marry him off to. Marius is inconsistent in love. You were-” Discomfort wrote itself over his face. “You were the first he bothered introducing to us.”
“If I’d known about the witchbreed power,” Belinda murmured, “I might have come straight to you, and we might have spared Marius’s heart.” Again, there was more truth in her words than she liked, and Javier drew her closer, sensing her melancholy.
“We two are alone,” he said into her hair. “You couldn’t know. Nor, I think, would you dare introduce yourself to a prince. You fail to watch your tongue often enough, Beatrice, but that boldness might have been beyond your ken.” He chuckled without humour and moved away from her, tension in the lines of his body. “Or did you choose Marius so you might meet me?”
“What a horrible burden to always walk beneath,” Belinda said after a moment, letting raw sorrow touch her voice. “It is lonely to be a prince, isn’t it, my lord? Rumour said that Marius Poulin was your friend,” she admitted cautiously. “I did not imagine he would bring me to meet you so readily.” Truth lay in fine shards beneath her words, Javier seeming too delicate, in the moment, to ease with soothing falsehoods. “I could not have imagined what has happened.” That, at least, was truth unvarnished, so much so that Belinda uttered an unnaturally rough laugh. “Who could?” she added, unable to help the question. To her relief Javier turned back with a wry smile.