by C. E. Murphy
“To play the part of the fool. That’s always been my role, hasn’t it, Jav? You the prince, Liza the lover, Sacha the strong right arm. I’m the young one, whose passions and naпvetй rise and fall so quickly as to make you all laugh. I believed you, Javier.” He spoke bitterly, ignoring Akilina’s presence, and Belinda’s stomach clenched again, this time in warning. She lifted a hand to stay Marius, and Javier lifted his to stay her. Fingers curled in reluctant acquiescence, she dropped her hand and watched Akilina from the corner of her eye. Smugness had left the countess as surely as it had filled her, and she cast her gaze from Marius to Javier, angry at losing control of a scenario she had clearly believed she owned.
“I thought you might find us a happy ending from all of this. Tell me, did you ever intend to give her up, or was it a story to make me hold on while you found a way to keep her close to you? I know as well as you do that she’s like no other woman.” Marius’s eyes flickered to Belinda, poison in them instead of lust, then returned to Javier. “She wakens desires I never dreamed I had. I can only hope she has the same effect on you.”
“But you would take her from me whether she does or not?” Softness filled Javier’s voice, more dangerous than cutting words. Marius barked laughter, more derision in the sound than Belinda had imagined he could convey.
“If I could, my prince. If I could. It seems, though, that she’s as much under your spell as any of us. We can’t tell you no, Jav. We never could. And I’m not that much of a fool. A prince is a far better pairing than a merchant’s son. I would have accepted it.” He spoke quietly, eyes hard on Javier. “I would have hated it, but damn you, Jav, I would’ve accepted it if you’d said she was yours, and not thrown a bone. Am I worth so little as that?”
New softness, this time of pain, came into Javier’s answer. “You’re worth far more than I could ever give you. I told you that once, and its truth hasn’t changed. You’re better than I’ve ever deserved, and perhaps I thought…there could be a happy ending.”
“It must be comforting to be a prince,” Marius said with great precision, “for no one will tell you when you lie, even to yourself.”
Javier, never swarthy to begin with, paled visibly. Belinda felt his will flex, injury strengthening his witchpower as he said, “Tell me, Marius, how badly I have lied to myself. Are you and Beatrice lovers?” The air seemed weighted with his question, so heavy that Belinda herself wanted to blurt out an answer, any answer, to appease royal anger. She no more allowed herself to speak than she allowed her hands to curl in fear, or her colour to change as she anticipated Marius’s response.
Marius laughed again, another sharp and ugly sound. “Would it be a relief to you if I said yes, Jav? Would that intimacy be enough to forgive my behavior? Would you then understand my rage and hurt at having her taken from me?” He turned his head, lip curled as if he might spit, then looked back at Javier, stood beneath the weight of Javier’s will, and said, bitterly, “Beatrice and I have never shared physical love.”
Bewilderment edging on disappointment shattered Javier’s expression, even as Belinda held stillness close, refusing her stance a waver. She understood with vicious clarity the fine line Marius walked with his answer, understood his bitterness was not for losing her, or even pointed at Javier, but for what had passed between them in the name of passion. It had not been love. It had been something else, something darker and hungrier, lust and power marked by submission and domination.
She caught, for an instant, a glint of humour in Akilina’s eyes, and knew that the Khazarian dvoryanin understood the game Marius played as well. Among them all, only Javier heard what he wished to hear, and Belinda thought how terribly right Marius was: no one would tell him when he lied, even to himself.
“I don’t understand.” Javier’s whisper came though the busy silence of things unsaid. “I don’t understand, Marius.”
“It doesn’t matter, does it, Jav? Whether you understand or not, Beatrice is yours. I’m a merchant, and you’re a prince. It could never be any other way.” Marius drew himself up, a startling amount of mocking in his sudden grace. He bowed first to Belinda, then to Akilina, murmuring, “Forgive us for airing such unpleasantries in front of you, my lady,” and then turned to his prince. “Duty calls me elsewhere, my lord. I hope you’ll attend my wedding.”
He bowed far more deeply than he had to the women, then stepped past Javier and Akilina to exit the garden bower, never looking back.
AKILINA PANKEJEFF, DVORYANIN
4 January 1588 Lutetia Akilina watches Marius go, then turns to Beatrice Irvine again, finding herself awash with admiration. Beatrice, or Rosa, or whatever her name truly is, is cooler than the winters in Akilina’s homeland. The confrontation with Javier should have destroyed their relationship; instead it seems to have shattered a friendship much older and deeper than anything the young woman could possibly share with the prince. It suggests Sandalia was right not to bring Javier into the attempt to unmask Beatrice’s true identity; if he can be swayed in the sight of one of his oldest friends, then mere words are unlikely to change his mind. It would be wrong to say Akilina is anticipating Beatrice’s downfall with delight, but she would be telling herself false if she didn’t admit to a certain enthusiasm for the project. Not for the hurt that it will bring Javier; despite what they say about her, Akilina takes no particular pleasure in causing others pain. She simply loves both puzzles and secrets, and understands that both have power.
Akilina Pankejeff is very fond of power.
Nearly all the pieces are in place to expose Beatrice. Akilina considers, briefly, sparing the prince his lover’s exposй, but there’s a part of her wedded to drama, if not cruelty. Her search for Viktor’s Rosa has led her to fascinating discoveries; discoveries she has not yet shared with even Sandalia. Javier will regret, too late, being swayed by Beatrice’s spell rather than standing at Marius’s side. He’s fortunate he’s the prince; a lesser man would lose all status at the coup d’йtat that Akilina intends to present. If Javier is wise he’ll accept that he has, indeed, been under a spell, and that Beatrice Irvine is a witch best meant for the burning.
Akilina meets Beatrice’s eyes just briefly, and for a wonder, the young woman neither curtseys nor so much as inclines her head in acknowledgment. Her gaze is steady, cool hazel as she dares, at least for a moment, to hold herself equal to a countess.
Akilina likes this girl.
She’ll like bringing her down even more.
A smile curving her lips, she graces Beatrice with one small nod, an admission of challenge, and then she gathers her skirts and slips away from the garden, eager to deepen the game.
BELINDA PRIMROSE / BEATRICE IRVINE
4 January 1588 Lutetia “You look at me as if you’re no longer certain of me, my lord.” Beatrice kept her voice soft, putting sorrow into it instead of accusation. Javier twitched, the first movement save breathing he’d made since Marius’s departure. He hadn’t so much as watched Akilina go, his gaze fixed wholly on Belinda.
“Marius has never spoken to me so,” he said roughly, when another moment had passed. “How is it that you’ve lain a barrier between us all, Beatrice? Eliza is gone and Sacha will barely speak to me when he’s not searching for her. Marius, my gentle Marius, has become brittle as ice. We four, who have been together since childhood, disrupted by one woman. How have you done this?”
“It was your own power that persuaded them to stay away from the opera.” Belinda spoke carefully, wanting only reminder in the words, not blame. “Perhaps…” She hesitated, not for effect but out of genuine uncertainty, then exhaled a sigh. “Perhaps it was, or is, time for childhood to be left behind, my lord. They-”
“I will never give them up,” Javier snapped. Belinda lifted her hands in apology, shaking her head.
“I meant no such thing. But friendships change, don’t they? Nothing remains the same. I don’t at all mean that you should lose them, Javier, but a reckoning, a redefining, may be at hand. It’s
inevitable, isn’t it? You’ll all marry, one way or another. You’ll all have families and duties and responsibilities beyond those to one another. Perhaps I’m a harbinger.” Belinda smiled faintly. “An ill omen.”
“No.” Javier sounded desperate as he stepped forward to take Belinda’s hands, squeezing them until her bones ached from it. “You’re the only one like me,” he all but whispered. “You’re not, you can’t be, an ill omen. Marius is-” Desperation broke his words a second time and Belinda shifted his grip, so they held each other’s hands.
“Marius fell in love with me, Javier, and you took me from him. His mother might have agreed to me marrying him, but she’s neither privy to your plans nor a fool. I’m no longer a viable interest, and she thinks it’s time he’s wed, so Sarah Asselin it shall be. He’s hurt and angry and I hope he’ll forgive you. I hope you’ll forgive him,” she added more quietly. “I did not mean for any of this to happen.”
That it had, and that it increased Javier’s reliance on her, was a gift she hadn’t looked for. Without his childhood friends at hand, Belinda thought the prince more likely to buck Sandalia’s whim, and seek Belinda herself out when he was supposed to be otherwise occupied. It might lead him to share secrets that weren’t his to share; Belinda would try to work that from him. Flat acknowledgment rose in her: she had been avoiding moving too abruptly within the court as much to keep eyes off her as to steal moments with Javier; it wouldn’t be long before what time they had together came inevitably to an end. It was shocking sentiment to want to stretch that time out, and as well that neither Robert nor she dared communication while she was so publicly in the court’s eye; Robert would be thoroughly displeased with her reticence, and Belinda would have no legitimate grounds on which to defend herself.
“I know you didn’t.” Forgiveness lightened Javier’s voice, before reluctance deepened it again. “I should see Mother before the countess does. God knows what she’ll tell her.”
“That I’m a harlot not good enough for the royal house, so she should marry you herself,” Belinda said drily. “Go. I’ll take myself back to embroidering.”
Javier quirked a brief, unhappy smile, then stepped closer to kiss her. “Don’t abandon me, Beatrice,” he murmured against her mouth. “I’m bereft on all sides. Without you, I lose hope.”
“Never lose hope, my lord prince,” Belinda replied. Javier broke from her, touching his knuckles to her cheek, then spun and strode away, sodden earth marking his passage through the garden.
Belinda exhaled, standing alone in the wind and chill, then made fists of her hands and called stillness to herself. Witchpower flared, golden light drawing shadows close until she felt the freedom of invisibility.
Thus wrapped, she threw caution to the side and went to seek out the secrets shared by Countess Akilina Pankejeff and Sandalia de Costa, queen and regent.
Anger propelled Belinda through the palace halls. Anger at herself for dallying with Javier, for luxuriating in the life of nobility; for allowing herself to lose focus. Anger, too, at Javier, for playing Marius so clumsily; as a prince he should have more ability with people than that, though perhaps inevitably royalty failed to understand its effect on the common man.
Anger, most exquisite anger, at Akilina Pankejeff. If her purpose were to split Belinda from Javier, she’d failed, but that she was willing to make such a blatant attempt at it rang caution through Belinda’s soul. That very blatancy might have helped Belinda in defusing Javier’s anger, though Marius’s careful play with words had gone much further in doing that than anything Belinda had or hadn’t said. Still Javier was no fool, and Akilina arranging for him to catch Belinda and Marius together smacked of a deliberation that the prince might have resented, had that card been necessary to play. Belinda didn’t know the raven-haired countess well, but such an obvious hand seemed unlike her. And if it was, then she’d had a greater plan in bringing Javier to the young lovers in the bower, and not knowing that plan angered Belinda, too.
It was easy to stalk through the palace, hidden in plain sight, with anger to fuel the witchpower. It burned away the usual heady wash of sexual desire that using her magic carried; that, beyond anything else, was useful to know. If the impulsive, idiotic actions brought on by too much use of power could be headed off by focusing on rage instead of want, it was much the better for Belinda.
Tempestuous emotion allowed her to walk through Sandalia’s audience chambers a few steps behind Javier, slipping through the doors before the guards closed them again without anyone being the wiser. It let her follow the prince, unseen, into the private dayrooms beyond the formal courtroom, where she had the presence of mind to stop just inside the doors, while Javier walked ahead. He didn’t seem to share her gift for recognizing when witchpower was being used around him, unless it stood directly in conflict with what he wanted. But angry or not, there was no use in pushing the boundaries further than she had. A few feet of distance felt safer, even through the turmoil of frustration, and both prince and queen were well within viewing and hearing range.
Sandalia, in fact, lounged on a divan before a half-banked fire, her hair loose and informal; she clearly had no plans to be seen in public again that day. She quirked an eyebrow as Javier came to an abrupt halt and bowed without his customary grace, and a wave of amused curiosity splashed off her. “I won’t like this, will I?”
“Only if you dislike me condemning your favourites,” Javier snapped. Sandalia’s eyebrows went higher and she sat up, making a small imperious gesture toward a chair opposite her. Javier flung himself into it, making its feet bump off a thrown rug and squeak dully against the cold tile beneath it. “Akilina is trying to destroy Beatrice, and she may well have already ruined my friendship with Marius.”
Even consigned to shadows, Belinda put a hand over her mouth to hide the slightest hint of laughter from visible expression. Javier’s easy arrogance appealed to her much of the time, but it could also be both appalling and amusing. Perhaps it was the near-godhood of princedom, but she had thought him able to accept his own failing when it came to the situation with Marius. To hear him place the blame elsewhere was a dreadful sort of delight. Hurt and anger pinged off him in sharp sparks, almost audible, like a rain of needles falling against a hard floor. In marked contrast, fresh humour rolled around his mother. “Do tell, Javier. What’s happened?”
He sketched out the events in the garden, giving Belinda more innocence than she deserved and lingering over Marius’s rejection and hurt. Sandalia listened silently, her laughter at first contained and then slipping away, until her response was as grave as Javier might wish it to be. “And you believe Akilina is at fault, for making more of their meeting than it was? What if she was right, Javier? What if your Beatrice and Marius were lovers?”
Javier snorted, derisive sound that barely touched the bleak disbelief Belinda could feel from him. “He said they weren’t, and Marius couldn’t tell a lie if his life depended on it. You know him, Mother. I’m not wrong.”
Sandalia pursed her mouth, brief thoughtful expression. For an instant Belinda wrestled with the temptation to cross the room and touch the regent’s smooth cheek, to steal her thoughts from her and understand what idea it was that held her for that moment. She held her ground, wisdom greater than curiosity: her experiments hadn’t determined whether she could touch someone while hidden in shadow and still remain unnoticed. The queen’s private chambers would be a disastrous place to discover the limits of her power did not stretch so far.
“It is true,” Sandalia murmured after a few seconds. “Marius couldn’t lie to save his own life.” She watched Javier, who nodded agreement, and the corner of her mouth curled as her son read nothing further into her statement. Belinda breathed a silent exhalation, understanding quite clearly what Sandalia implied and Javier failed to read. Marius might not tell a convincing lie to save his own life, but his known inability to dissemble might well save another’s. Javier, Belinda thought, would have to learn more about
the way what was unspoken said as much as what was voiced aloud, or how careful truths could be infallible lies, before he would make a worthy king. She wouldn’t have imagined Marius to have that double-speech within him, but then, he was a merchant’s son. A reputation for honesty and a skill for using the truth to tell lies would do him very well, were he to follow his father’s trade.
And unless Javier learned to not trust those around him to employ such tactics, he, unlike his merchant friend, would never follow well in his father’s trade.
Belinda allowed herself a quick smile at the floor, expression hidden by habit even when shadows concealed her. Not in his reputed father’s trade, at least; she was still curious as to his true heritage, but in the weeks she’d been half-imprisoned in the palace, she’d not yet found a way to direct Sandalia’s thoughts to a lie told a lifetime ago when she could touch the queen’s hand and steal the truth from her. It would come in time; truth always did.
“What would you have me do, Javier? Take Akilina aside and explain I can no longer listen to her counsel, because my son’s jealous heart has taken a dislike to her?” Belinda heard teasing in Sandalia’s voice, though Javier’s tight expression said he was having none of it.
“You’re the queen,” he said petulantly. “You don’t have to explain anything.”
Sandalia laughed aloud, a thing rare enough that Belinda couldn’t remember having heard her do so before. She had a much deeper laugh than expected, in contrast to her sweet soprano voice. It coloured Belinda’s viewpoint of her, enriching her into sudden humanity as her smile carved lines around her mouth and bent her toward likability. It was a striking thought: Belinda had never conceived of queens as being likable or not; that was a thing reserved for ordinary human affairs. Lorraine was a creature for veneration, and Sandalia was her rival and therefore the enemy; that was all that mattered.