Belle Révolte

by Linsey Miller

  We were not all right.

  “Yes,” I said, and I couldn’t bring myself to mention the yawning emptiness inside of me where my magic had once been. “We did.”

  There would be time for that later. All power required sacrifice.

  We had lived; there was no sacrifice too great for that.

  Thirty

  Annette

  Magic gathered behind me. Henry laughed.

  “Child, if you even attempt to finish channeling that, you’ll only hurt yourself.” His laughter rumbled down his arm and into my head, a sick, shaking sound that drowned out Coline’s response. “You were not made to hold so much power. None of you were.”

  He dropped me. Air crushed into my lungs. Coline charged her father, and Brigitte attacked with her. I scrambled away from him and back to Isabelle, the memory of her hands channeling with me still warm against my arms. She groaned, fingers twitched, and I pressed my hands into the sieve of Isabelle’s body. Yvonne crept to me and wadded her scarf up against the wound. None of it helped.

  Wasn’t this the plan all along? We couldn’t fight back if we didn’t know how. If we didn’t have weapons. We couldn’t do anything when we died early and our artists died at twenty-nine. We couldn’t heal ourselves when we did. We couldn’t heal ourselves, not like they could. It was a culling.

  “Yvonne,” I whispered, voice rough as Estrel’s. “I don’t know how to fix this.”

  But no matter how much I channeled or wore down, my necklace showed me nothing—no past, no present, no futures. The silver cracked. Crumbled.

  There was no way to win this fight.

  “Quicksilver. Do you have any quicksilver?”

  Yvonne stared at me, brown eyes wide, and she passed me a vial from her pocket. I dumped all of it into my cupped hand. The silver shivered, melting into a puddle. No bowl to help contain the visions. No time to focus right.

  Coline attacked her father as Brigitte distracted him, but he had fought wars before we’d even been born. He dodged easily. Magic gathered in him, and he channeled it into his sword. The steel flattened into a shield. Both of their strikes clanged off of it.

  Brigitte swung her other sickle up, and he leaned back. His foot hooked around her ankle and yanked her off her feet. Brigitte fell.

  He brought the shield down on her neck. She rolled at the last moment, hair ripped away by the shield’s base. Coline hesitated, eyes wide.

  “Are we done now?” Henry asked, teeth clenched. He shook the shield, and it folded in on itself until it was a blade again. “This has gone on long enough.”

  A pink stain flushed his skin. As if this fight were getting to him. As if he weren’t used to channeling so much magic by himself these days.

  As if without his hacks, he wasn’t half as good.

  I pulled Isabelle into my lap. If we were dying, we were dying together. My left arm wrapped around her chest, the quicksilver slithering between the cracks in my fingers and clinging to the back of my hand. I tucked my chin into her shoulder, and Yvonne leaned her forehead against mine. Her hands still trembled in Isabelle’s injury.

  Magic seeped from me to it. Red streaked the edges, the blistered skin of my hands peeling away. I had been divining for so long today that channeling the magic was easy, the current of magic steady, but it ate at me, the weakened pieces of me giving way as I dredged the power from my bones. I had to find the right one. We couldn’t afford the wrong future.

  “What are you doing?” Yvonne asked, her hands lifting from Isabelle’s shoulder.

  I kissed her, only once, too quick to be nice. “What I do best.”

  All the magic I had ever gathered paled in comparison to what I channeled into the silver staining my hands. Silver swam in my sight, the world smeared by the power in my veins, and a single, certain future danced across the quicksilver.

  “Coline! Left,” I said.

  She hesitated, her father’s attack rattling up her arm. She stumbled back. He raised his sword and attacked again. I yanked at the future and held it tight in my hands.

  “Retreat.”

  She did. Henry attacked, harder, faster, unyielding and giving up no ground, but when he reached to channel magic, he was close enough to grab. Coline and Brigitte tried to stop him, and he threw them off. They slammed into the wall, collapsing to the ground in a tangle of bruised limbs and blades. I hadn’t wanted a future where we beat him. They were too few and far between, and there was too much red in them. I wanted a future where he got close enough for us to channel through him. My fingers closed around his ankle.

  “Oh,” I whispered, all the power he had wanted to use against us channeling through my skin. It was so easy to redirect. He was used to using hacks, to channeling magic through others, and I pushed all of it into Isabelle.

  So I scryed the past as Estrel had taught me. I scryed what Isabelle’s body had been before the hit. Henry tried to pull away, but I held tight. Isabelle jerked.

  Her veins slithered across the opening. Yvonne ripped herself away, the red stain on her hands and clothes streaming back into Isabelle’s body. The wound repaired itself from the inside out—bones snapping into place, muscles threading together, her skin as perfect as it had been an hour ago—and her eyes flew open. The only blood between us was mine, and it was a feverish pink. Isabelle breathed.

  And Henry XII, King of Demeine broke free. Coline crawled to her feet behind him.

  “How?” He growled and stumbled back, blood beading across the skin where I had channeled through him. “Do you really think the midnight arts, a mere reflection of my power, can overpower me?”

  “No,” I said. “But she can.”

  Coline grabbed his collar and forced him to his knees, so they faced each other.

  “I don’t want to be like you. I don’t want your power. I don’t want to wear down my country and use its people to keep myself alive.” Coline slid the point of her sword from his arm to his neck. Blood welled over the point. “You’re not powerful. You’re a parasite.”

  All of the futures where he lived tasted like funeral pyres, but the ones without him were breaths of fresh air.

  Henry plunged his hand into her side, the rings on his fingers transforming into a knife that glittered with the noonday arts. Coline bit through her lip but didn’t scream and held her sword to his throat to keep him still. Her hands didn’t shake.

  “They will devour you,” Henry said, voice low and shaking. He was too weak to stand, too worn out by what I’d done to him. “They would sooner eat themselves and shit on our legacy than let you rule them as they need to be ruled.”

  “Fuck our legacy,” she said. “Demeine is worth more than our legacy. Our people are worth sacrifice.”

  It took more than one slice to sever a head. It took more than one slice to sever a head. Estrel had taught me that, as she had most things. Brigitte helped Coline finish the job.

  I coughed up blood and silver. My arms shook, slivers of metal slipping from my skin like splinters. Flickers of the quicksilver darted beneath the cuts on my hands, sunk into the wrinkles of my palms, and solidified, silver scabs across my knuckles. The rapid beat of my heart fluttered in my head, and I tried to stand. A trembling hand curled around my wrist.

  “Annette?” Isabelle’s faint voice shot through me.

  The wound across her shoulder and chest was still open and red, but the veins were sealed. The muscle had regrown. I could no longer see the sickly white of her bones. Her grip on me was loose.

  I tried to say her name but only a rasp escaped. I pushed her back onto the floor, my hand shaking against her shoulder. She blinked up at me.

  “You’re bleeding.” She lifted a hand and slowly touched the hollow of her throat.

  I touched the same spot on me. The skin gave way, bowing beneath my nails like the thin wing of a Stareater. Her bleary eyes w
idened, and I knew I was right. Something was wrong with me.

  Yvonne groaned. “Don’t move. Don’t touch it anymore. You need a physician.”

  She had a bloody nose from some hit or another, and I tried to sop it up with my sleeve. She let me. It didn’t help much.

  “My ears are ringing,” I muttered.

  She laughed. “I think that’s just the door.”

  Someone was pounding on the doors, the hinges rattling like bells, but whatever Coline had done to the locks held.

  We were alive. We were mostly intact. I ran my trembling hand down Yvonne’s arm, savoring the feel of her warm skin. She leaned against my shoulder, touch for the sake of it instead of support, and the bitter scent of fire still clung to her clothes. Coline and Brigitte checked the royal guards they had downed at the start of the fight, and the two who had lived didn’t put up a fight. They knelt before Coline and muttered in soft, steady voices. One stared at her father’s head the whole time.

  The other kept glancing at Isabelle and me.

  I touched my face, and Isabelle pulled my hand away. Her shoulder creaked like a house settling.

  “You look worse than whatever you’re thinking.” Yvonne turned my hands over and over, inspecting them like she usually did her alchemistry work. “I have never seen anything like this.”

  Well, at least I was interesting now.

  “You glowed like a star come to earth,” Coline said, crouching before me. “Can you scry what’s happening with Kalthorne?”

  “Absolutely not.” Isabelle’s arm tightened around my waist. “She’s completely worn out.”

  I glanced at Yvonne who shrugged and whispered, “Your choice.”

  “Can one of us do it, then?” Coline ran her hand along her sword and cleaned the blade. “I need to know what happened with Kalthorne. If we attacked, if we’re at war, there might be no going back.”

  Isabelle sniffed. “I’m no good at scrying.”

  “You two deserve a moment of rest anyway.” Coline sat down, hard, and focused on the reflective surface of the sword. Nothing happened. She gathered no magic and did no channeling, but her eyes flitted about as if she were dreaming, and she smiled. “The army refused, and the Segance group isn’t doing anything?” She paused, head tilting. “There was a fight, but it wasn’t with Kalthorne.”

  Emilie des Marais, what have you done?

  “Well.” Coline, suddenly jittery, leapt to her feet. “We need to keep moving. This is good, but the other artists and my father’s friends will try to take my place soon enough. I need to make sure the royal guards aren’t going to do anything untoward and get Serre under control.”

  No. Coline had scryed?

  But I hadn’t seen it. I should’ve seen her channeling. I should’ve felt the tug of power flowing through her. I had always felt magic.

  I rubbed my eyes and stared harder at her sword. No smears of power shone in it.

  “Annette?” Yvonne touched my hand. “What’s wrong?”

  Coline and Brigitte helped Isabelle up, and while the three of them spoke, I turned to Yvonne.

  “I can’t see magic,” I mouthed. The others couldn’t know.

  Had my use run its course?

  “You’re worn out. We’ll try later.” Her brows drew together in a familiar, confused wrinkle. “You need to rest.”

  Some hacks, after channeling for too long, lost the ability to use magic all together.

  I opened my mouth, and she shook her head.

  “It will be all right,” she said, taking my hand in hers. “Think you can stand?”

  She helped me up, and Isabelle stood on my other side. I hooked one arm through hers.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  There were no words I could think to say, so I pulled her close and didn’t let go.

  Coline leaned in and kissed my forehead, then Isabelle’s. “If either of you ever nearly die again, I will be unimaginably cross with you.” She glanced at Yvonne. “You too.”

  “Now.” Coline shifted her sword to one hand and picked up her father’s head with the other. The skin beneath the blood splatter on her face was pale, old-milk white. She did not look at his face. “You two.”

  She rounded on the guards, and the one who’d been staring at Isabelle and me earlier flinched.

  “You were members of the royal guards and protected my father. He was a very bad person and king to the majority of Demeine. That wasn’t within your control. What you do now is,” she said. “Will you protect me?”

  The other guard licked his lips. “Traditionally, the old guard is killed with the king.”

  “Traditionally, the king doesn’t replace his worn-out body with parts from his people,” said Coline. “Anyone who broke the law, knew of that transgression, or abused their power will be tried, but I have no desire to kill for the sake of killing. However, if you refuse, that will leave us in a complicated position.”

  “I would be honored, Madame Royale Nicole,” the staring one said.

  Coline raised an eyebrow, blood dripping down her face.

  The other one glanced at his companion and shook his head. “We would be honored, Your Majesty.”

  Coline swept to the doors and shouted, “Who knocks?”

  The pounding stopped.

  “We answer to His Majesty,” a voice called out.

  “Here is your king.” Coline must have undone what she did, for she pushed the doors open and tossed her father’s head into the hallway crowded by what must have been the rest of the royal guards. The two who had survived our fight flanked Coline and didn’t so much as blink while glaring down their fellows. The dozen of them, red coats stitched with blue and orange, parted as his head rolled to a stop between them. One at the front stepped forward, but an older guard held him back. Coline’s full named passed his lips.

  “He instigated the war with Kalthorne, refused peace when it was offered, and was willing to sacrifice our soldiers to keep the war ongoing, all to distract the Deme people from the problems brought to light by Laurel. My father is dead, but his conspirators are not, and they may try to massacre Serre or kill me,” she said. I hadn’t noticed, but she had replaced her stolen sword with her father’s, and that too she tossed to the ground at the guards’ feet. “Demeine deserves better. The people of Serre shouldn’t live in fear simply because their court is changing hands, so will you protect your people today? With Laurel? With me?”

  The older guard nodded, the gold sun pin on his chest catching the light, and bowed his head. “Of course, Your Majesty.”

  Coline, thoroughly, rightfully, distracted spoke with Brigitte and the guards. I yawned, eyes fluttering shut. Yvonne leaned back and picked up my hand, and I lifted it to the light. Nothing called to me. There was no hum. No thrill of power awoke in my veins. There was only silver and light, a mirror streaked red beneath my skin.

  “Are you worried?” Yvonne asked, eyeing the odd slices of silver writhing where open wounds should have been.

  I leaned into her and shook my head, Isabelle’s arm still about my waist and Coline’s voice in my ears. “How could I be worried when I’m with all of you?”

  Epilogue

  Emilie

  One Month Later

  No one outside of us who had been there truly knew what had happened, but people gossiped and whispered about godly retribution, Thornish magic, and medical experiments gone wrong. We mostly let the rumors stand and kept what we had won in Segance between us, Her Majesty Nicole—who demanded I call her Coline—and the Thornish delegation of soldiers, politicians, and one ecstatic artist thrilled at the prospect of speaking to us. Considering we weren’t at war, and Coline was much more concerned about Demeine than her father had been, no one seemed to mind.

  Coline made it remarkably clear that her nobles needed to have mor
e on their minds than previously.

  My mother almost liked her.

  Almost.

  “At least she’s doing things properly,” she said on the eve of Coline’s coronation.

  I stared at her, unsure if I were unconscious and dreaming in the Segance infirmary somewhere. “She killed her father and took his crown.”

  “Only slightly less traditional than waiting for him to die.” She tapped my teacup with her finger. “Drink.”

  Our relationship, in the strained month after the death of His Majesty Henry XII and peace with Kalthorne and reorganization of the noble houses—which was, to my mother’s chagrin, still ongoing—had simplified. She mothered me.

  Aggressively.

  “You died,” she had said to me days after the fight in Segance. She had traveled there to discover what had become of me, and Madeline had found her first. The words were an accusation.

  I had nodded. “So they keep telling me.”

  She had not left my side since, and no amount of begging saved me from her endless teas and tonics.

  I sipped the tea and let her talk. It was far easier than arguing, and, as much as I hated it, I was too tired. My ability to channel magic had never returned. It was as if someone had reached into my soul and plucked out a part of me, separating us forever. As if I were eternally walking down a familiar set of stairs and missing the same step every time.

  “Have you decided what you’ll be wearing tomorrow?” my mother asked softly. She fiddled with the vials of honey and medicines from Yvonne Lortet.

  Her alchemistry almost made me wish I had gone to finishing school, but it was a very small almost. Without magic, I couldn’t even see the power stored in her creations. It was an unbelievable ache.

  “When you divined my future before sending me off to school and saw me in clothes you didn’t approve of and no physician’s coat, I think Mistress Moon was very truthful,” I said. “I have a suit. I look very good in it.”