The Queen's Bastard

BELINDA PRIMROSE / BEATRICE IRVINE

10 November 1587 Lutetia “The prince has sent his carriage for you, my lady.” Nina bobbed a curtsey as she stepped into the sitting room with her announcement. Belinda glanced up with a faintly startled look toward the windows and the dimming afternoon sky. “The coachman says I’m to extend his invitation to dinner.”

Amusement curled Belinda’s mouth. “How forward of the coachman. I don’t believe I’ve ever been invited to dinner by one before.”

Exasperation flickered over Nina’s face and Belinda’s amusement turned to brief laughter. “I know. I have no propriety, have I? Have blankets brought out for the horses, invite the driver in to the foyer, and send Marie to my room. I’ll have to dress for him.”

“For the coachman, my lady?” Nina looked down her nose in half-teasing mockery, then bobbed another curtsey and scurried to do as she was told. Belinda climbed the stairs to her room, laying out the amber gown she’d dismissed for the outing with Eliza months earlier, only to earn Marie’s cluck of disapproval as she swept into the room behind Belinda.

“’Tisn’t the fashion, m’lady. Going to the palace you ought to wear the fashion you set.”

“Eliza set it,” Belinda said absently. “And I haven’t any of her fashions warm enough for the weather tonight. The amber is flattering and warm. It will do.”

Marie hummed, urgent little noise of dismay, but did as she was told, first settling her mistress into a chair so Belinda’s hair could be made suitable, then arranging petticoats and skirts and corsets until the amber overgown could be settled into place. It took longer than Belinda preferred-it always did-but the result looking back at her in an unwarped mirror seemed worth the time. Even Marie clucked again, this time in satisfaction. “M’lady should have a winter gown in the new style made up in this colour. It does m’lady’s eyes and hair good. Shall I have the dressmaker come round?”

“And insult Eliza? I’ll discuss it with her,” Belinda offered, and Marie, satisfied, ducked her head and backed out of the room. Belinda watched her go in the mirror, wondering, not for the first time, what kind of dragonish mistress had trained that particular obsequience into the girl. Only royalty expected such behavior, and even then it was usually only in the courtroom or private audiences. Servants were expected to be efficient, and backing through rooms wasted time.

Nina stood too near the coachman in the foyer, startling into a proper distance and blushing beyond her collarbones as Belinda entered the room. The coachman, only a few years her senior, held his expression steady, as though the flirtatiousness in it couldn’t be seen if he didn’t admit guilt in its being there. Belinda hid amusement as Nina helped her slip a cloak on, and watched the coachman as he led the way down to the street. He was young for the job, which meant he had talent that might be parlayed, in a few years’ time, to a position in the stables as a judge of horseflesh and a breeder. He could make Nina a good match, and she could be kept on as Beatrice’s servant as long as Belinda desired her.

A dark smile played her mouth as she stepped up into the carriage with the coachman’s hand in support. As long as Belinda desired her, or as long as Marius did. Nina’d lost none of her good nature or bidability in the weeks since she’d become their plaything, recollection swept away by the witchpower. She had not been taken advantage of since, out of fondness for the girl and out of no time or need to sate Marius, but Belinda was satisfied Nina’s memory and body were hers to manipulate. With the girl safely wed to the coachman, any child would be assumed legitimate. Belinda would discuss it with Javier over dinner.

The prince met her in the courtyard, dressed in blues that shaded toward purple in the rising moonlight. He took her hand as the carriage door was opened, breathing a sigh that shone silver in the cold air. “You’ve chosen a more conservative dress. Thank God.”

“My lord?” Belinda arched an eyebrow as she stepped down to the flagstones. “Have Eliza’s dresses fallen out of fashion already?”

“No, no, God, no, not with Mother looking fresh as spring in them. No, a contingency from the Khazarian court is here. They arrived without warning this afternoon, and they look to a man as if they’ve walked out of another century. All dark and dour and fur-covered. Do you have any Khazarian, Beatrice?”

The impulse to reply, blithely, “Oh, I’ve had several” nearly strangled Belinda, the expression she imagined on Javier’s face almost worth the cost of the answer. “None, my lord, except perhaps yes and no, which do me no good at a dinner. There is a dinner,” she half-asked, and Javier let go an explosive breath.

“There is, and I’m sorry I didn’t warn you. None of us had any warning, and all I could think was your presence would help to welcome her.”

“Her?”

“There’s a woman in charge of them all.” Javier escorted Belinda into the palace’s warmth as he spoke, keeping his voice low as he shared what he knew. “She speaks nearly flawless Gallic, and her hangers-on have words of it here and there. Eliza will be at the table as well. Her Khazarian’s not as good as mine, but-”

“Eliza speaks Khazarian?” Belinda couldn’t keep the astonishment from her voice, though even as she blurted the question she wished she hadn’t. Javier’s gaze darkened. “Of course she does,” Belinda said. “You taught her. I’m sorry, my lord. It just never occurred to me. I meant no slight toward Eliza.”

“I needed someone to practise with who would talk to me about something other than politics, so I made them all learn. Sacha and Marius are passable in Parnan, and Sacha’s Reinnish is quite good, but Eliza’s the best of them.”

“She would be,” Belinda murmured. Javier gave her a sharp look, eyebrows drawn down.

“What does that mean?”

“She had the most to gain from education, my lord.” Belinda left unsaid that a street rat in love with a prince might hope innumerable languages could elevate her toward a throne; if Javier wasn’t aware of that, there was no need to draw his attention to it. “Tell me about the Khazarian woman.”

“She’s a noblewoman of some sort. They call her dvoryanin, a lady’s rank. Something like a countess. Outside the line for the throne, should something happen to Irina or Ivanova, but close to it in politics and friendship. She’s the most dangerously beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” Javier said, so frankly it made Belinda smile. “All sharp angles and dark eyes. She looks like a witch.”

Belinda’s eyebrows shot up and her hand tightened on Javier’s arm. He glanced at her and smiled, brief and faint. “I know,” he murmured. “Of all the people to say that. But I don’t know. I don’t feel anything from her, but you were the one who named us alike.”

“Is that why you really wanted me here?” Belinda asked, just as quietly. There was no censure in her question and after a moment to ascertain that, Javier dropped his head in a nod. “What’s her name?”

“Akilina Pankejeff. She goes through love-are you all right?” Javier caught Belinda’s weight as she stumbled, a moment of clumsiness, of losing control, unlike anything she’d felt in years. Her heartbeat soared and she fought down heat in her cheeks, knowing a blush could damn her. Golden witchpower seared through the back of her mind, seeking a channel for use. Belinda seized it, dominating it with her will and wrapping it around herself in stillness that shivered under the onslaught of shock.

“My ankle,” she said, the lie coming easily to lips numb with cold. “Forgive me. I’m all right now. Alikina…?”

“Akilina,” Javier corrected, but his description of the woman was lost beneath Belinda’s own knowledge.

She had only seen the woman once, briefly, in the early-morning hour before she escaped Count Gregori Kapnist’s country estates with the help of a lusty young coachman. Akilina Pankejeff had been the latest in Gregori’s stream of high-born lovers, just as he’d been the latest in hers. There was almost no chance Akilina would know her: she had not demanded to see the harlot serving girl whose sensuality had driven Gregori to his grave. Had Belinda stayed even an hour longer, with nasty-minded Ilyana waiting to make trouble, she might well have come face-to-face with the noblewoman, but as it was the raven-haired, hard beauty hadn’t so much as glanced at the help.

And Belinda was now Beatrice Irvine, a provincial noblewoman from Lanyarch, hundreds of miles away from Khazar. Lutetia was as far as Beatrice had ever travelled, or ever would; to connect her with the Rosa at Gregori’s estates was simply impossible. “I’ll do my best,” Belinda heard herself promising, and had to cast her mind back over Javier’s lecture to learn what she’d agreed to. Ah: overtures of friendship with Akilina. The Khazarian ambassador, if that’s what Akilina was, would have very little reason to be friends with Beatrice Irvine, but if Javier’s favour lay on the Lanyarchan girl, then friends Akilina would make. “Why is she here, my lord? Does Gallin treat with Khazar?” That, above all, was a question that needed answering: Gallin’s navy wasn’t well-endowed, but the Essandian navy to the south was. A treaty made with Sandalia could very easily sway Rodrigo, and that triumvirate was a dangerous combination for Aulunian prospects.

“Don’t worry about it,” Javier murmured. “Those are politics outside your concern, for now. We’ll discuss it later. For now, be charming, Beatrice. Be charming.”

A few steps ahead of them, doormen opened the way to the dining hall. Belinda, on Javier’s arm, swept into warmth and light and between a double-row of Khazarian honour guards, who, like everyone in the room, turned their gazes on the new arrivals. Training made her offer a brief, breathless smile at the guards; friends in low places were always good to have. None of them changed expression, save one, whose breath caught audibly beneath the sound of Belinda and Javier’s footsteps. Belinda’s curious gaze went to that one, and for the second time in as many minutes, a lifetime of control deserted her, sickness lurching in her belly. Vassily, Vlad, Valentine, sang through her mind.

Viktor.

She should have killed him.

The stress of running in tight corsets came back to her even now, breathlessness that had nothing to do with the rising illness in her belly. She had turned from the coachman, moving with decorum, and then gathered her skirts and run through the carefully laid-out halls of Gregori Kapnist’s estates as fast as she could. She was young and healthy and running for her life in any sense that mattered, and it had seemed mere moments before she burst into her cell, breast heaving with the effort of haste.

Viktor had not been there. There had been no sign of him; there never was once he left, except perhaps a handful of thick black hairs sticking to the pillow. But it was early, earlier than a guardsman often needed to be up, and so to find her mattress cold and the blankets rucked and empty was a shock.

Belinda put it away almost instantly. All that mattered, all that truly mattered, was that he not be found in her chamber. It would be best if he were dead, his tongue silenced for good, but it was not necessary, and she had no time for unnecessary things. She loosened her corsets and stuffed partlets beneath them, needing enough to give her clothes the look of having changed without the risk of packing a bag that might draw attention. The coachman intended to leave within the hour. There might be time to find Viktor, to slip a knife into his kidney or across his throat and leave him bleeding in a streambed.

But Gregori’s death and Belinda’s disappearance, coupled with Viktor’s murder, might well shine too much light on the serving girl whom Ilyana had accused of witchery. Better to leave Viktor alive, out of the picture, than to play the dangerous game of silencing him.

A touch of sentiment made her shoulders tighten. It was not that he’d asked her to marry him, or made the offer as if it were a love match. That kind of weakness would be her undoing, and so it could bear no relevance on the decision to leave him alive. It was not that which stayed her hand, but raw practicality.

Belinda looked through the Khazarian guard now with the same brief and meaningless smile she’d offered all the guards, and told herself again that it had been the right choice, at the time, to let him live.

She did not, could not, would not, let the sickness in her stomach betray itself with her expression. She forbade a blush to rise, forbade any hint of recognition to light her eyes. Disbelief beetled Viktor’s eyebrows, the outrageous impossibility of his onetime lover being in Lutetia and on a prince’s arm doing more to maintain Belinda’s cover than any action she might take could do. It was simply not possible, and in that lay her only chance at safety. It had been wise to let him live then.

It would be suicide to do so now.

They were past the guards, bowing, curtseying to the table; Belinda brought her curtsey low to Akilina, almost as deferential to her as to Sandalia. Both women noticed, Sandalia with a quirked mouth that hinted just barely more at humour than offense, and Akilina as if it were no more, and possibly less, than she was due. They were seated, Javier at Akilina’s right and Belinda farther down the table, as benefited her lesser status. Pleasantries were exchanged, all in Gallic, Akilina complimenting Belinda on her accent, Belinda demurring and insisting it had improved greatly in the months she’d lived in Lutetia, but Akilina, to Belinda’s ear, sounded as if she’d been born to the tongue. Polite, meaningless, charming; all the things that Beatrice Irvine should be in the face of so much nobility, so much greater than her own, and all the while with the weight of Viktor’s gaze on her slender shoulders.

Akilina said something that brought Beatrice’s laugh to the fore. Too easy, too easy; Beatrice laughed too easily, and in such free emotion there was, had always been, danger. Belinda’s grace was not in her singing voice, but in her laugh, as she had once told a dark-haired courtesan in Parna. Viktor would know that laugh, impossible as it was, and yet to choke it back was unthinkably rude. Belinda quieted it as best she could, leaving merriment in her eyes and trusting without fail that her gaze and smile would bury true emotion so deep no one but she would ever find it. Akilina smiled at her, an open predatory expression that Belinda knew too well, and this time it was she, not her assumed persona, who wanted to laugh, almost in despair. There was safety in being a serving girl. No one saw her as a servant, no one cared or noticed, no one bothered. Belinda kept her smile in place and coiled stillness around herself, reaching back to the first days of training and remembering Robert Drake riding away, his cloak golden in the sunlight. That cloak was a thing of protection, keeping her safe, making her untouchable.

Witchlight gathered in her mind, comforting, as if its presence had always been meant to be there, and now that it was, as if it were unthinkable that it might ever have been missing. It reached through candlelight and fire for the shadows, pulling them closer, darkness soft and comforting. The amber of Belinda’s gown seemed to fade and dim, and for a sweet moment Belinda felt panic bleed out of her. She had been raised to shadows, that was where servants belonged.

Serving girls did not make themselves part of burgeoning revolution.

The thought, sharp and clear, shattered the gathering witchlight and straightened Belinda’s spine. She reached for her wineglass too hastily, nearly knocked it over, and spat a curse in Aulunian that silenced the table.

This time she let a blush come, able to stop it but unable to command it to rise, and murmured an apology in Gallic. “I’ve forgotten my tongue. I beg of you, forgive me, my lords and ladies. I’m told appalling language is a Lanyarchan trait.”

“What did it mean?” Akilina asked after a moment, and laughter restored itself around the table as Belinda made a still-blushing confession to the mating habits of swine. She made a show of holding on to her wineglass too carefully from then on, earning amused looks and once, a mocking round of applause for managing to accept a newly poured cupful. None of the banter went beyond the surface, not only for Belinda, but at the table as a whole: it didn’t take the witchpower to see judgment beneath smiling eyes, or the thoughtful perusal of the high-born blood seating placement. Javier, at Akilina’s elbow, could easily be placed there as more than just a polite sop to a visiting guest; it could be read as potential, as a promise: the young prince might be wed to a powerful woman from the Khazarian empire, making an alliance there that would strengthen Gallin and alarm Aulun.

Unwilling to allow her body to betray herself again, Belinda didn’t shift positions at the idea, but memory of a thought stolen from Sacha rose: she intended to marry a king, not a prince. Belinda had thought he meant Eliza, but the possibility that the stocky young lord’s reach stretched beyond Gallin’s borders arose as she studied Akilina. There had been guilt and anger both in Asselin’s reaction to her pressure, and if his patron was making her way to Gallin, expecting results…the idea was intriguing.

From the distance down the table, even with her witchpower extended toward the black-haired Khazarian woman, Belinda caught no sense of plotting or turmoil. Nor should she, she thought; the fine meal and the company were intended for pleasure and the first forays into casual intimacy. That it also served to allow insight into some of Sandalia’s court alliances was inevitable, and that Akilina should pay attention to those alliances was only to be expected.

And it set Belinda herself firmly in her place: four or five men and women separated her from the head of the table and the guest of honour. Eliza was even farther down the table, and caught Belinda’s eye momentarily as Belinda looked over the gathering. They exchanged brief smiles, both aware of their positions literally and figuratively, and then Eliza turned her attention back to the heavily bearded Khazarian man beside her. He, like most of Akilina’s people, was a minor dignitary, part of an entourage that was intended as a show of support rather than any expectation that they would do anything. Belinda caught a murmur of Aria Magli from Eliza’s conversation, and turned to the man at her side, offering a smile of her own. “Do I understand that you travelled through Parna, then? You must have left Khazar early in the summer, to make so much travelling worthwhile.”

He stared at her as if she’d said something unpleasant, and stuffed a joint of lamb into his mouth, blood drooling down his beard. Belinda, repulsed and startled, drew back, earning Akilina’s laughter. “Forgive my men, Lady Irvine,” she said, loudly enough to be heard. “Their manners are cruder than even the worst tales of a Lanyarchan’s. I visited Aria Magli,” she acknowledged, “but only with a handful of retainers. This honour guard caught me on my journey east. It appears I was embarrassing my imperatrix by travelling as lightly as I did. Have you ever been to Aria Magli, Lady Irvine?”

“Lutetia is the farthest I’ve ever been from home.” Belinda let the Lanyarchan burr come through more strongly in her voice, then deliberately corrected it, trusting the show of provinciality to be considered charming. “I’ve heard that Aria Magli is the most beautiful city in Echon and the most vile. Is it possible that it could be both?”

“Oh, yes,” Akilina said without hesitation. “I think the smell would be appalling in the heat of summer, and yet the music on the canals and the life of the city is irresistible. And, of course, there are the courtesans, who may be the breaking point for villainousness or perfection, depending on your opinion of them. What is yours, Lady Irvine?”

Belinda dropped her eyes to hide a laugh, her evident shyness garnering amusement from Akilina. “Is that a terrible question to ask a young Ecumenic woman?” she asked without remorse. “Can you even imagine such a life, Lady Irvine? Trained in pleasure, educated on all manner of topics-is it freedom, do you think, or is it Hell?”

“I believe we should not be so bold as to define Hell as an earthly conceit,” Belinda murmured, and lifted her eyes. “Nor is freedom found in anything but walking God’s path and casting off our sins to be welcomed in Heaven at the end of our days. I cannot say that I approve of a woman selling her body for money, but I wouldn’t presume to say God had no reason for asking her to do so. My lady.”

Akilina’s dark eyebrows shot up and she leaned back to clap her hands together thrice, lazy staccato sounds. “The provincial has teeth,” she said with an edge of admiration. “I think I see why Your Majesty holds such fondness for the country of her first crown, now. Forgive me, Lady Irvine.” She leaned forward again to give Belinda a frank and appraising look. “I baited you, and you’ve set me in my place. Shall we be friends from here on out?”

Belinda smiled, an open and delighted expression, and thought that friendship was not made on words even as she murmured, “It would be an honour, my lady.” A near-commoner from Lanyarch did not refuse Khazarian nobility when the latter said, “Walk with me, Beatrice,” regardless of her feelings on the matter, or even the surreptitious glance given by her high-born lover. Javier nodded, one barely visible dip of his chin; Belinda thought she might not have seen it, had she not been looking to the prince for a cue. Dinner was over, sweet wine drunk by the bottleful after it, and the polite discussion that lingered was Akilina’s and Sandalia’s to end. The duchess watched Sandalia for weariness, and shortly after Belinda herself would have begged off, did so with grace and self-effacing apology. Sandalia granted the Khazarian contingent their leave, and only then did Akilina turn her hawk’s smile on Belinda and extend her invitation. The bells had run the first small hour of the morning a long time since, and Belinda, as much as anyone, longed for her bed. That Akilina knew it she had no doubt, but while the Khazarian countess might not dare put out a queen, she had no such qualms about inconveniencing Belinda.

“What do you think of us, Beatrice?” Akilina tucked her arm through Belinda’s and dawdled down the hall outside the dining chambers, in no more rush to sleep than the moon was.

“I think all those beards must itch,” Belinda said promptly, and earned a laugh for her efforts.

“Lanyarchan men wear beards, don’t they?”

“They do, so I have confidence that I’m right.” Belinda offered a smile and Akilina squeezed her arm with pleasure.

“What else do you think? I’ve never met a Lanyarchan, so I want to hear everything. It’s my small way of understanding the world, in seeing how others see us.” Akilina’s explanation was guileless, her expression open, and Belinda smiled again.

“Surely you’re not old enough to be so wise, my lady.”

“Surely you’re not old enough to be so skilled at flattery.” Akilina laughed again, more easily than even Beatrice did, and Belinda, walking so close to her, thought that there was no artifice to her humour. Witchpower whispered of Akilina’s curiosity about the Lanyarchan provincial who’d captured Javier’s eye-for clearly she had, if he’d entered the dining hall with her-and a certain glee in keeping Beatrice from Javier’s bed, even if only for a short while. There was more mischief than malice in the emotion, though beneath it all ran a river of intent. It flavoured Akilina’s laugh, but lay deep enough that without touching her skin, Belinda couldn’t read its meaning. “You watched us all very carefully during dinner,” Akilina accused good-naturedly. “You must have come to some conclusions. Besides the beards.”

“You laugh much more easily than rumour has it, my lady,” Belinda said with absolute honesty. “The stories one hears of Khazar are all of dark and dour people, as if the long winter days have pressed the joy out of you. And you don’t dress as I’d imagined. I think of somber colours when I think of Khazar, but-” She broke off briefly to gesture at Akilina’s gown, so deep a red as to be heart’s blood. “And the guards with their bristly hats and broad shoulders all done in such blues, with the yellow epaulettes. The eye wishes to drink your clothing down. It’s wonderful,” she added with a girlish enthusiasm more heartfelt than she expected, and almost laughed at herself. The serving maid role she’d played at Gregori’s manor had never cared for the colours or costumes of the men and women she was surrounded with, and nor should she have; for Rosa those things were merely part of the patchwork of life. Beatrice’s observations and excitement were charming, in a dangerous way.

“Perhaps I’ll have a dress made for you. Your skin is very fair, and would look well in a strong tone.” Akilina’s offer masked a ploy so deliberate Belinda didn’t need the witchpower to uncover it. A gift to the prince’s paramour was a way to draw his attention without being unbearably obvious. Belinda glanced at the amber of her current gown and arched an eyebrow at Akilina, who threw her head back and laughed again.

“That was not an insult,” she promised. “You know what looks good on you. Forgive me, my lady, if you think I’m that crude.”

“I believe I hold the prize for crudity this evening, my lady,” Belinda said diplomatically. “I would be delighted with a Khazarian-style gown, if your kindness extends so far. And perhaps I can introduce you to Eliza, who sets fashion here in Lutetia.”

“The extraordinary woman at the far end of the table,” Akilina said without hesitation. “She is a friend of his highness’s, da?”

“Da,” Belinda echoed, deliberately awkward. “That’s one of the two Khazarian words I know. The other is nit.” She made the word into a scrape in her throat, forcing it into unfamiliarity, and Akilina’s laughter rose again.

“Nyet,” she corrected. “Your Gallic is very good, so you do know how to make the nasal sounds. Nyet,” she repeated, and Belinda imitated her again, retaining the I rather than the proper pronunciation. Viktor was somewhere behind them in the ranks of guards, and she had no intention of making her voice any more familiar to him than it must be.

“I’ll practise,” she promised. “Gallic didn’t come easily to me. I fear I have little gift for language.”

“What are your gifts, then?” Akilina asked lightly, but ice slid in beneath the question. Belinda flickered an empty smile down the hall, thinking of the answers she couldn’t give. Loyalty. A talent for death. An ability to belong wherever she stopped moving, at least long enough to wreak mayhem and move on. And most freshly, of course, the witchpower, a gift she barely allowed herself to consider in Akilina’s presence. She had no sense of indomitable will from the woman as she had from Javier, no recognition of power shared, but caution was a better path to follow when it came to a magic that could see her burned at the stake.

“Passion, I suppose,” she murmured. “But even that burns out in time.” She was not speaking of herself, and she knew it; so, too, did Akilina. The black-haired woman exhaled a short breath of satisfaction and squeezed Belinda’s arm again.

“At least you have the intelligence to see that,” she said magnanimously. “Intelligence sees us further in life than either passion or beauty, Beatrice. Remember that, and you’ll do well.”

Belinda all but bobbed a curtsey even as she remained on Akilina’s arm, then slowed at a cross-hall and looked around, suddenly cheerful. “Now, tell me, Lady Akilina, shall I leave you to wander the palace halls all night, or do you know where you are?” “Rosa.”

There was no too-quick heartbeat of betrayal this time; Belinda had expected Viktor’s voice to come after her once she’d escorted Akilina to her rooms. She was nearly back at Javier’s chambers when the Khazarian guardsman spoke; he’d been waiting some discreet distance, not following her, not drawing attention to himself.

She ignored him, walking past the alcove he waited in, her gait unfaltering. He stepped out behind her, repeating the name with more urgency, though just as quietly: “Rosa.”

There was no one else in the hall, no one else he could possibly be speaking to. For that reason alone Belinda turned, eyebrows wrinkled curiously. “M’sieur?” Her performances always had to be perfect, but quiet urgency swilled in Belinda’s stomach this time. It was impossible that she could be both Lady Beatrice Irvine and Rosa the serving maid. Viktor knew it, but suspicion rode so heavily on him that he couldn’t let it go. Damnable sympathy for the man rose in Belinda’s breast, complicating everything.

“Rosa, is it you?” He spoke Khazarian, of course; Belinda didn’t think he had any more Gallic than her assumed persona had Khazarian. She offered an uncertain smile, and shook her head in apology.

“I’m sorry, m’sieur. I don’t speak Khazarian.” Unexpected memory rose in perfect clarity: Dmitri’s exasperation at Rosa’s guise of incomprehension, and the bruise he’d left on her cheek for playing her part so well. Belinda would not allow herself to lift a hand to the memory of that bruise, but instead dipped a nervous curtsey and turned away again.

Recklessness drove Viktor forward to catch her arm. Belinda yelped, small soft sound of terror, trembling as she tried to pull away. Viktor would know nothing of the soft noblewoman’s fear in her eyes, not from the Rosa he knew. He knew ardor and weariness, those being the primary emotions she had let show as the serving girl, and common strength. Rosa might have fought back; Beatrice cowered, tears already marking her cheeks. “No-no, you can’t, you-please, don’t hurt me, don’t-”

Viktor, who had never understood the need to hurt a woman, let go with a look of horror and fell to his knees, offering apologies. Laying hands on a noblewoman, especially a prince’s doxy, could far too easily lead to his own death.

Could, and should. It was by far the easiest way to protect herself: one single scream would have Javier’s guards at her side in a few seconds; one babbled accusation would have Viktor in chains or dead. It would mar the relations between the newly arrived Khazarian contingent and Gallin, and that could only be to Aulun’s favour. It was an opportunity to seize subtle control in Sandalia’s court, gently crafted and offered up to her. Robert himself could not have planned it more perfectly.

Belinda did not want to scream.

A lifetime of training made her draw breath. Alunaer, clean and still under new snow, flashed through her vision. The flavoured memory of wood smoke in the distance, rich and sharp, tightened her throat against sound, and black-branched trees reached through ten years of survival to sink their shadows into her. She did not need to look down to see a body lying broken on the flagstones beneath her. To scream was to write an ending, as one had been written, bloodily, to end her childhood. To scream was to end studying with Javier and to move forward with revolution.

To scream was to let Javier go.

Witchpower thundered through her blood. Belinda reached out on its command, putting her fingers into Viktor’s hair. It was clean, though not so clean as it had been the last time she’d seen him, when he’d knelt before her in just such a way and offered marriage and sex. Recognition jolted him profoundly, any doubt at Rosa’s impossible transformation swept away beneath familiar touch. Belinda dropped to her knees, hands still knotted in Viktor’s hair, and swayed toward him, hungry with the grasp of power.

“You could die for touching me,” she whispered, her mouth nearly against his. She spoke Khazarian, but the witchpower in her blood raged and danced, working to play tricks on the man’s memory even as memories were made. He would barely know she had spoken to him, but he would do her bidding with a need bordering on mania. She would be his object of desire, not because he had known Rosa but because she was a pure and genteel creature, so far above him as to be an angel. Such was her intent, and her experiments with Nina gave her no reason to doubt that Viktor, too, would bend to her will.

“I’ll let you live, in exchange for your services.” She knotted her hands in his hair more tightly, forbidding herself the impulse to loosen her fingers and drive them into his pants, to have him service her in more ways than one. Her pulse beat hot in her throat, desire unlike any she’d ever known for this man aching between her legs and rattling her thoughts. He was stronger than Marius, more delicious to dominate, harder to break, but he had gotten down on his knees to make a match with her and he could not, would not, deny her will. Belinda drew herself closer, putting her teeth over the heartbeat beneath his jaw, and bit hard enough to draw a strangled sound of mixed desire and resistance.

“Love me.” The command sank into his skin with a golden glow, stronger than the shields or witchlight she’d built as weapons. “Worship me.” Viktor croaked agreement, shuddering beneath her mouth. “I am your queen,” Belinda breathed. “You will serve me or you will die.”

His acquiescing nod sent pleasure so strong it became weakness over her, and she sagged against him. His arms closed around her, solid and strong. For an instant intellect clawed through passion, leaving Belinda gasping and chilled. Stillness felt an impossible distance away, unreachable, untouchable, alien to her. In a moment of clarity she understood that it was using the witchpower that turned her into a creature of raw desire and rough lust, endangering everything that she was and everything that she worked for. It cannot be found out. Robert’s concern made sense for a few burning seconds: if this was what she became when she touched the magic within her, she could not, should not, be trusted. Locking it behind a chypre-scented wall had been wise.

And arrogant. Fury shattered understanding. She was not a tool to be meddled with and played by the likes of Robert Drake. That was something he would come to understand; she would make certain of it. Belinda shoved back from Viktor’s warm strength, lip curled in disdain as she studied the paroxysm of agonized need stretching his face. Less out of sympathy than the cold thrill of power, she slid her hand over the front of his breeches, felt his hardness through cloth and curled her fingers around him. One vicious jerk sent a spasm over him, heat seeping against her wrist.

Unkind delight curled her mouth again and she pushed him away, standing up in the same smooth motion. “Watch Akilina. Remember when she meets Sandalia and what they discuss. I’ll come to you when I have need of you.” She stood outside Javier’s door a long time, flanked by guards whose gazes looked politely through her. She did not look at them, not trusting the witchpower to lie dormant if she did. Not trusting it to not flare up and demand tribute from the unfortunate men who guarded the prince that night. They would die if she met their eyes; they would die because she would take them sexually, fully, and the noise of it would bring Javier to the door, and to hold her position in his bed she would cry rape and the guards would die.

The urge to use that power tickled the centre of her palms and itched at her until as little as she dared step into Javier’s chambers so uncontrolled, she dared stay out even less.

Javier sprawled before the fire, linen nightdress falling around his knees, moon-pale legs stuck out in an ungainly fashion toward the fire. Belinda closed the door behind herself and locked it, hands tight on the bar as she leaned and stared at the casually bedecked prince. He looked up with a grin, wobbling a wine flask at her. “Akilina kept you longer than I expected. You did well, Beatrice. Even that crack about pigs fucking got a laugh. Here.” He sat up, taking her in. “You look a bit disheveled. Did the Khazarian ambassador have her way with you?” He gave her a raucous leer that was better suited to Sacha’s face. “I miss all the fun.”

“My lord, what do you feel when you use the witchpower?” Belinda’s voice came beneath his, soft with something she was reluctant to call fear, but could see no other name for. Javier’s drunk faded with her question, his eyebrows drawing down.

“Feel? What do you mean? Did you feel something from Akilina?” He bounded to his feet, enthusiasm suddenly rampant. “Is she one of us?”

“No.” Regret’s thin edge slashed through her at the disappointment in Javier’s eyes, though he recovered instantly.

“No,” he agreed. “It would be too much, for two women to come into my life so quickly, both bearing such power. Perhaps we’re the only ones, Beatrice. But that’s not so bad. At least we’ve found each other.”

“Yes, my lord.” Beatrice remained at the door, watching Javier as though he were an unfamiliar creature. “Do you feel anything?” she asked again, almost diffidently. “Do you feel…desire, the wish to…dominate?” She remembered, abruptly, the way he’d sculpted her body the first time they’d lain together, and thought that perhaps he did.

His expression, though, gave no hint of anything beyond bewilderment. “Do you?” Amusement cleared befuddlement away and he sauntered to her, deliberately leading with his hips. “Aah,” he murmured. “A woman given power finds herself in the unfamiliar position of wishing to flex it, is that it? Does it excite you, Beatrice?” He crossed his wrists, laughter sparkling through his eyes. “Shall you be my cruel mistress?”

“Please.” Belinda spoke the word carefully, turning her face away in order to make herself more vulnerable. She was too aware that the power running through her blood would make her words a command if she were not purposefully cautious. Javier’s laughter would disappear into offense in an instant should she be that bold, and she couldn’t afford to lose his attention now. Not with Viktor in the palace; not with Akilina and her unknown schedule to consider. “Please, do not mock me, my lord. This is not an easy thing to ask.”

Javier uncrossed his wrists and touched Belinda’s jaw, turning her face back toward his. “No,” he said a few seconds later. “I can see that it isn’t. I’m a man, and a prince,” he added after a moment’s thought. “It’s natural that I should be in control, Bea. The witchpower helps to impress that on people, but…no. It doesn’t waken in me a need to lord myself above others. But our stations are very different, and I think I can understand why you might chafe at the bounds of yours, when you and I both know what power you might command.”

Belinda nodded, small motion, barely trusting herself to even that. Javier’s fingertips felt cool against her face, as if her warmth might rise up and swallow him whole. She had let slip an opportunity to control his mother’s court once this evening, shaping that chance into something new and, she hoped, something worth the risk of letting Viktor live. She could not afford to give in to hungry power and try to overwhelm Javier, not now. There would be other chances to wrest control in the court, but not if she pushed the prince so far as to fall out of his favour, even despite the witchpower.

A fleeting note of cool white slipped through golden magic, then spilled over it, the ordinary strength of her childhood stillness finally hers to command again. Witchpower faded beneath it and Belinda let it go gratefully, no longer hungry for the reading of emotions or the attempt to steal thoughts. It was a gift, for a precious few moments, to be unweighted by that power and its desires. Belinda let her head turn heavily against Javier’s fingers, let herself sag against the door, and closed her eyes.

“What would you say,” Javier asked in a low voice, “if I were to offer you the station that would allow you command?”

Belinda opened her eyes, bemused. Javier’s hair flamed over his shoulders, firelight behind him lending it warmth that cast a golden glow to his skin. Shadows darkened his eyes to nearly black, devastating in the paleness of his face. His expression held cautious hope, so unexpected Belinda found a soft laugh to voice. “What, my lord?”

“I could offer you a duchy.” Javier took a breath and held it, then exhaled. “I could offer you a crown.”

Amusement burgeoned and Belinda straightened, a full smile on her lips. “Your mother would have a fit, Javier.” Her smile edged its way toward a grin, a broad expression unfamiliar to her, but welcome as she reached for his wine flask. “She’d have apoplexy just at hearing you tease me with the idea. Give me that. Whatever you’re drinking is fine stuff indeed. I want to try it.”

Javier stepped back, holding the flask out of reach with what looked like a childish pout, though there was too much astonishment in his gaze for it to work. “I’ve already spoken to her, Beatrice.”

“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.”