The Pretender's Crown

JAVIER, KING OF GALLIN

The courtesans, not one of them believing Javier was in truth the king of Gallin, left in a drove, scattering to the canals to tell tales of how the king of Gallin had come to make love to an impoverished but beautiful woman under their watch. Truth hardly mattered; it was the delight of the story they wanted to share.

When they were gone Eliza came into her courtyard and caught first Javier, then Marius, and then both men together, into a hug with strength enough to belie the softness of her gown and long shining hair. None of them spoke for long minutes, until Eliza finally took back a few steps and pulled her wig off to rake her fingers through short matted locks.

Her hair had grown out in the months since he'd seen her last; had grown out considerably since she'd begun her business under Beatrice's tutelage, but it was still too short to be anything but a man's cut. Even that couldn't take away from the delicacy of her face and the largeness of her eyes. Given a crown, she could stir men's hearts to wonders, and it was a wonder to Javier that he had never seen it. Unaware of Javier's thoughts, though, she gestured to her gown, muttered, “I feel ridiculous in this,” and fled upstairs to change.

Bemused, Javier watched her go; watched her leave behind the vestiges of softness that had shaped her moments ago. He thought it strange, that she could be soft and feminine more easily when surrounded by strangers, but when her family of friends arrived she fell back into more masculine ways, making herself hard and practical. If that was what their friendship cost, then the three men who were her near-brothers had done her a disservice.

She returned in clothes that were familiar to him, lightweight pants and a loose linen shirt, cinched at the waist with a belt of leather and metal. There was a dagger at her hip, a new addition; she had not needed one in Lutetia, even dressing as she did, not with all the city knowing she was under Javier's protection. With it, she looked the part of a pirate, soft boots and all, though no pirate had such curves, and his straining memory couldn't remember seeing the shadow of her breasts so clearly before.

Tomas, at his side, made a sound of dismay. Eliza's eyes flashed to him, then darkened and came back to Javier. “Don't tell me you've brought a priest to mend my wicked ways.”

“Not unless he'll mend them by marrying you to me,” Javier replied, and felt ice slide down his spine at the weight of both Tomas and Eliza's gazes.

Tomas recovered first, if barely, hissing, “She wears men's clothes, my lord, and shows her body without-”

Javier snapped a hand up, cutting off his words. “She always has, and always may, so far as the king of Gallin cares. Do not condemn her, not in my hearing nor out.”

Tomas's jaw tensed, but Eliza curled a smile and glanced from Javier to Marius, then beyond the priest. “Sacha?”

“In Gallin still, searching for you, the last I knew.” Javier came up a few steps toward her and offered his hand.

Eliza's faint smile stayed in place as she put her hand in Javier's, though her gaze went to Marius again. “So you're the one who betrayed me, are you?”

“Sacha didn't know where you'd gone.” Marius arched an eyebrow at Eliza's hand in Javier's. “And I think you're not as betrayed as you might pretend, Liz. Tell me you didn't want us to come after you.”

Eliza shrugged, a small tight motion that said even more than her words did. “I didn't believe you would.”

Javier tugged her closer, pulling her off-balance on the steps and catching her weight when she might otherwise have fallen. “I will always come for you, and I beg forgiveness that it's taken this long. I was a fool, Liz. I've always been one.”

Eliza put her hands on his chest and pushed herself back, one eyebrow cocked dubiously. “Marius, who is this man? He looks and sounds like Javier de Castille, but my prince only apologises when he's drunk.”

“There have been some dramatic changes these past months,” Marius said drily, then glanced at Javier and made a face. “Let him explain, and when you think you're as mad as he is, come have a flask of wine with us and be told that we all are.”

“My curiosity is piqued,” Eliza said, and laughed as Javier turned her around with his hands at her waist. “I can turn myself about, my prince. You need only ask.” But she went upstairs with her hips swaying, a more provocative sight than Javier had ever noticed. He looked back, dropping a wink at Marius, whose expression was a mix of pleasure and melancholy, but who nodded them off with a gentle smile.

Eliza led him into what had to be her own bedroom, open and airy, windows flung wide to let in sounds of the canal, but with gauzy curtains that forbade anyone from glancing inside with too much casual ease. Only the neighbours might, but the neighbours unquestionably would. He caught her waist and tried to pull her to the bed, but she smacked his hand as if he were an unruly child, and went to close first the shutters, then the door, against sound and light alike.

Quietude settled over the room with the shadows, taking some of Javier's good mood with it. Eliza stood in front of the door, arms folded under her breasts, and glowered at him: not at all the expression he wanted to see on a woman he intended to marry. Befuddled, hopeful, feeling more than a little foolish, he asked, “What's wrong?”

Eliza snorted. “Where to start? Four months ago you'd all but broken with all of us over Beatrice Irvine, and today you're here pleading love and marriage, which are words I've waited my whole life to hear and which make no sense to my ears now that I do hear them.”

Javier clenched his teeth. “Beatrice-Belinda-was a mistake. I'm sorry, Liz. I was a fool.”

“And he apologises again.” There was no pleasure in Eliza at his modesty. “I could start there, too. What's come over you?”

“God's light.” That was not what he'd intended to say, not at all how he'd meant for this conversation to go, but Eliza's anger was greater than he'd imagined it would be.

Her glower hardened further. “Is that a curse or an answer, Javier? Has the priest addled your brains? He's pretty enough.”

“Eliza, you need not speak to me so.” Too much tension leaked into the words, his jaw aching with it, but a note of recognition and satisfaction leapt into Eliza's eyes.

“There's my king,” she said, though a note of mockery seemed to hang in the word. “My sullen prince.”

“If all you want is to rail at me,” Javier said tightly, “why do you still wear that ring?”

Caught out, she glanced down, then covered her left hand with her right, as though the pale stone might disappear if it couldn't be seen. A long time passed before she whispered, “Because a boy I loved gave it to me, Jav All right. All right, you have my ears, I am listening.”

“God has given me a gift. Please don't scream.”

“Scream? I've yet to see a gift God's given a man that made me want to scream. Laugh, perhaps-”

The dimness in the room was a gift now, too, as Javier cupped his hands and called the witchlight. Silver spilled through his fingers and down to the floor, crawling over itself, pushing motes of sunlit dust out of its path as it swirled toward Eliza. She caught her breath, then scrambled away, jumping onto the bed and staring first at the dancing witchlight, then at Javier, and back again. He remained where he was, letting the magic flow, watching it, watching her; most especially, watching her.

“All my life I've feared it was the devil's power, Liz. It's what's kept me remote from everything. From you. But I knelt before the Pappas to be crowned and the power leapt at his touch, and he welcomed it. A holy man would know if I were the devil's get, and has told me instead that I'm blessed.”

“I don't understand.” The intensity of Eliza's voice pushed the witchpower back, almost frightening Javier. “What is it? How-Javier, it's-”

“It's just light,” Javier whispered. Didn't dare lift his voice louder, as though soft tones might keep her from bolting. “This part of it, it's just light. Perhaps a little warmth. Touch it, you'll see.”

“Touch it?” Their eyes met, and a memory rose in Javier's mind, a day not very long after they'd met. His arm was still broken, and a toad of preposterous ugliness had made its way into the garden pond. He wanted it, and Eliza's hands were the only ones he could rely on to catch the monster. She had said the same thing then, in much the same tone, and after a few seconds of horrified staring at him, she broke into laughter.

“Dammit, now I'm ten years old and you're a toad, Jav This will never do.” Cautiously-more cautiously than she'd approached the toad some fifteen years earlier-she leaned forward, watching the dancing witchpower warily. Javier reined in the impulse to let it wash over her, afraid he'd send her skittering again, and eventually she put a hand toward the light and it rose from the floor to greet her. Barely audible, she muttered, “How like a man,” then twisted her hand to see if she could swirl it, too.

Light wrapped around her wrist; fathomless caress that brought unexpected heat to Javier's loins. Belinda had never stroked his power so, and he had no expectation of its response or how it brought sensation back to him. “It's warm,” Eliza murmured. “Alive.”

“It is my will,” Javier said. “I have… done things with it that I'm not proud of, Liz. It's why the priest travels with us, to help guide me. But I need you even more. You are honest and blunt and beautiful, and you are the Gallic people. You've stood beside me all my life and I've never seen that. I can only hope I haven't come to it too late.”

Eliza lifted her hands, wreathed in silver power. It trickled down her arms, shaping her sleeves beneath the weight of careful intent. There was no colour in her hair to bring out; silver simply reflected there, reflected in her eyes, and made her skin moon-pale. “You were too late years ago, Jav, when the fever took me. I've told you I can't bear children, and you can't have a barren queen. I would make a fine rich man's mistress,” she said for the second time that Javier knew of, but this time, curled in light, there was no bitterness or false levity in her voice. It was merely a fact, spoken as gently as she could.

“These last few months I've learned that this power doesn't begin and end with the witchlight, Liz. I can shield. I can fight. I can bend men to my will, if I must, though I believe it's wrong and I am trying so hard not to fall on that path. Perhaps I can do more.” Tendrils crept up her arms to follow the exposed line of her throat, to push her shirt's collar open and trace her collarbones: the things he wished to do, made manifest with the witchlight.

Eliza's eyes were smoky in the magical light, humour and desire and curiosity roughening her voice. “Are you bending my will now, my prince?”

Javier whispered, “Never,” and she smiled, then tilted her head under the witchlight's caress. The laces were open at her collar, showing him a spill of breast; with witchpower alone he found a nipple and played it, moving closer himself as Eliza gasped and arched under the power's touch. Then she laughed, trembling sound, and breathed, “This is, yes, more, Javier.”

“But not what I was thinking. If I can destroy with this gift, perhaps I can heal as well.” He was close enough to reach for the heavy belt that cinched her waist, to unfasten its buckles and let it fall away. Her breathing deepened, eyes unfocused as she put a hand out toward him, but he moved back, smiling, to loosen her boots and put them aside. She watched, amused, and pointed her toes daintily as he exposed her feet, then reached toward him again. Javier shook his head and stepped back again, as enamoured of exploration with his magic as he was of the woman reclining on the bed.

Once it was loosened from the belt, it was easy to edge her shirt out of the way with power; easy to strip her trousers and discover she wore nothing under them. She became shy then, closing her thighs, twisting away from him and tossing a coquettish glance over her shoulder. Bathed in witchlight, glowing with it, even her short hair looked feminine, soft and touchable. Magic tousled it, then ran down her spine, sending her into another arch that exposed more of her body to him.

He knew that she was beautifully formed, had always known it, but knowing and seeing, knowing and feeling, with the intimacy of his magic, were different things entirely. He clung to the bedpost, dizzy with his own want and delighted with Eliza's: witchpower teased her nipples and parted her lips like a lover's tongue might, spilled down her belly and nestled in the dark curls between her thighs, then secreted itself in hidden places closed too tightly for fingers to go. Witchpower gave him the shape of her, as clear to his mind as if he could see her, and guided by his own excitement and her growing need he stroked and circled increasingly desperate flesh until desire overcame shyness and her legs parted again, wanton and hungry.

Javier's low rough laugh was for himself, was for the strength of will it took to keep from diving forward into offered sweetness. He ached, cock swollen as though he'd stroked and teased himself, not Eliza, but one thought clawed its way to coherency and remained with him: he could do damage so easily with his powers; to give pleasure with them, and them alone, surely made a weight against the horror of what he could too easily become.

And if there was another gift to himself in giving Eliza all she could desire without ever touching her, it was in seeing her body so clearly as she gasped and shuddered under his magic's touch. Her knees were spread wide, hips rising to meet magic and falling again when he eased off, unwilling to bring her to a final climax so soon. Her stomach clenched and trembled with little deaths, and her hands fisted in the covers as she flung her head back, making her throat long and beautiful. Witchpower traced the delicate hollow there, plucked at her nipples and found the tender spots behind her ears. Kissed her thighs and licked her mound, and spread her with finger's-width touches, all at once. There was beauty in that, in the overwhelming sensation he could offer with the touch of his witchpower, and the high flushed colour in Eliza's cheeks, the unexpected whimpers and soft keens that she kept clenched behind her teeth, told him that there was wonder in being so inundated.

When he finally took her it was with magic still, her body softening and accepting him as though he lay above her. Heat washed back to him, surrounded him as it rode the witchpower, and filled him with the same base pleasure that drew a groan from between Eliza's teeth. She drove herself toward the power he filled her with, and gave over to an incredulous cry as, heaving for concentration, he turned the magic to all the same sweet points of bliss he'd learned on her already.

The wave that swept her took him along with her, no surprise but for his inability, in its wake, to retain any grip at all on the witchpower. Eliza let go a tiny sound of dismay while Javier fell at the bed's foot, silent laughter of chagrin shaking his body. “Forgive me, Liz,” he finally mumbled from his lowly place. “I had no idea it would all fall apart at the end.”

She appeared above him, flushed and bright-eyed, and put out a hand to him for the third time. Finally, he accepted it, and let her draw him into the bed, the better to explore possibility and passion as one.