The Pretender's Crown

BELINDA WALTER

Something screamed inside Belinda, white-hot and bloody, scoring her innards and rendering them blazing streaks of pain, nothing more and nothing less. Marius Poulin should not be dead, not in any world that had any kindness to it at all, and that she, she, of all people, should think the world owed anyone a bit of kindness, said how deeply her fury ran. Not since childhood had she dreamt there were such things as fairness and unfairness, not since Lorraine the queen had ridden away from Robert's household leaving Belinda still a secret, forbidden the chance to meet the icon of the Aulunian throne. It was neither fair nor unfair: it only was, and each day of every man's existence passed in such simplicity.

But it was not fair that Marius Poulin, whose greatest sin was loving those who were unworthy of it, was dead, and Belinda Primrose would not, would not, let another confidant die from the jealousies born of an unfair world.

God, it would be better, it would be easier, with Dmitri there; with his ineffable understanding of the smallest components of human flesh, with his rich black power hers to command. She was brutish in healing; Dmitri'd told her that, and she had no reason to doubt it. Even now the ghosts of his understanding teased at the edges of her mind, incomprehensible and tantalising. He'd thought in terms of delicacy, layering one level of healing over another until the whole became whole again, and there in the dirt and blood in Javier's tent, Belinda struggled for the same light touch.

And failed. She knew little enough of failure, really: to do so now reminded her of her youth, when she'd begun the game of stillness. She'd failed more often than not in the beginning, flinching when she cut herself with her tiny dagger, crying out when fire raised a blister on her hand. Success had come over months and years of practise, but Eliza had seconds, minutes at most, and Belinda would never become the healing artist that Dmitri was, not in that time; perhaps not ever.

Stopping the flow of blood was easy, no more than capping witchpower in broken places, just another use of a shield. But then the blood backed up, mixed with things it shouldn't, and even with her hands buried in Eliza's belly Belinda couldn't imagine the fine level of detail that Dmitri had used to heal and excite her. She used great sloppy stitches instead, forcing things together and melding them, melting them, with the heat of witchpower. It would work; it had to work. She could command a storm; she had to be able to heal a single woman.

Through blood, through sweat and dirt and viscera, a familiar scent caught her attention, and, enraged, Belinda lifted her eyes to meet Javier de Castille's shocked silver gaze.

Time turned to nothing, a bolt of understanding outlining Belinda's thoughts so sharply she thought the tent might come alight with it. She was the creature of stillness, of internally focused power, and Javier the one whose lifetime of witchpower practise had taught him to overrun the will of those around him.

But she had commanded the storm, a vast and violent and profoundly external thing, and it was Javier who had learnt the subtlety of influencing people in such a way that they didn't so much as recognise what he'd done; it was Javier who had changed his own shields so they were wide and strong enough to guard an army. It was delicacy on an enormous scale, shaped in a way that even she'd been unable to break through.

Two halves of a whole, she thought, with furious clarity. Each of them with strengths the other lacked. Feeling afire with rage, she took a hand from Eliza's gut and seized Javier's wrist with bloody fingers. “I can save her. I can save her, Javier. Lend me your power.”

For the shorter part of eternity, he resisted. Belinda felt the struggle, so deep and clear that under other circumstances she might have laughed. Wisdom told Javier to command her capture and her death; but then, wisdom had loosened its hold on Javier de Castille in this time and place. His friend was dead and his lover lay dying, and intellect crumbled before the terrified hope that Belinda Primrose, creature of lies that she was, might this once be telling the truth.

Even she, manipulator and murderer, might have risked trusting herself this once, because if she failed, she'd pay for it with her life. She might well pay for success with her life, too, but with the memory of Marius's heartbreak and gentleness in her mind, she could, she would, do nothing less.

And Javier, as though he might have in turn read those thoughts and intentions from her, capitulated in totality, and opened channels of silver power to her for the taking.

Their familiarity snatched Belinda's breath, and she wasn't certain if she knew his power so well because she'd grown up in her own under his tutelage, or if she had known it from before birth, when they'd shared a small red room of safe rumblings and warmth. Memory didn't stretch so far back; no, she remembered that warm dark place as barely a dream, one from which she awoke into cold brightness and warnings that shaped her life, but the dream was only that, with no surety to it.

It didn't matter. What mattered was she knew his power, and he hers, and that sharing it-aye, sharing it, rather than the thieving she'd done with Dmitri's-bloomed and opened a fineness of control that Belinda'd never known with her own talent. There was so little to Javier's power that it startled her: he was worn thin, her brother, had pushed himself to the edges of what he could do, in order to keep his people safe. Belinda admired him as much as she felt disdain: even in her worst moments she forbade herself the weakness she felt in Javier now.

But their sharing went two ways, with her witchpower flooding to fill what Javier had lost. He drew a breath that seemed to make him larger, and because she came to this meeting with the intention of holding nothing back, the gold of her magic folded under and came up again silver, one need fed by another.

Javier had no more learning or understanding of healing than she did, but his implacable will had a feather-light touch to it. Teeth buried in her lip, Belinda subsumed her broad impulse beneath the delicacy of Javier's power, searching for a way to communicate what Dmitri had taught her.

The will to offer, it seemed, became the offering: Javier grasped a concept that slipped from Belinda's mind, that small things made up even the liquid of blood, and that to heal they must be bound back together. She was out of control, heat building under her hands, silver power raging through her as blood stretched and reached and stuck to itself, and then tissue and muscle and skin on top of it. It felt like the building of a wildfire, one she couldn't pull away from, and when it erupted it was with a sharp cry torn from Eliza Beaulieu's throat.

Eliza surged upward with the strength of a newborn foal, clumsy and desperate to be on her feet. Javier caught her, his voice a sob, and Eliza crushed her eyes shut as she held on for a few brief seconds. Belinda sagged, hands planted in the mud, head dropped, and disentangled herself from Javier's silver power. She knew she should draw the stillness close, cloak herself from the noisy, fascinated onlookers. Instead she sat where she was, head hanging, half-seeing Javier and Eliza pressed against each other, and seeing, far more clearly, Marius's still and silent body just beyond them.

There was another man, too, young and strong-jawed, with black curling hair and eyes that had looked too long into the sun: its golden light seemed burned into his soul. He wore a priest's cassock and an expression of both love and despair as he looked on Javier de Castille and Eliza Beaulieu. A note of sympathy struck itself and became a chord within Belinda's breast, and that was absurd enough to get a tiny, harsh laugh from her. To find herself in commiseration with a Cordulan priest over the heart of a man they were forbidden to have was too rich and bitter for words.

“Sacha?” Eliza's question, small and raw, feared the answer.

Misery twisted Javier's features as he set her back a few inches. “Alive. But Marius, Liz…”

Bewilderment struck home and Eliza pulled away to see Marius's body. The sound she made scraped Belinda's spine and took up residence at the base of her skull, a low moan of sickness that would never leave her. Belinda stuffed bloody fingers against her mouth, trying to keep from echoing it.

“He died protecting-”

“Me,” the priest said thickly. “He died protecting me.”

“And I-” Only then did the fact of her well-being raise confusion in Eliza's voice. She made a fist at her belly, fingers clutching her bloody shirt as she searched for the injuries that should have taken her life. “Javier?” Confusion edged her voice toward panic. Emotion ran raw and red over all of them until Belinda wanted to weep with it, but her eyes were dry and hot, refusing tears. One hand dropped back to the earth, scraping dirt away, as though she might dig herself a grave to lie in and let the world's misery pass her by. Marius should not be dead; it was a cruelty not even she wanted to face.

“Belinda saved you.” Javier spoke with a terrible neutrality, so calm that Belinda knew he, too, could bear no more crushing emotion and only retained the edges of sanity by refusing to look at or believe what was going on around him. She could share his pain if she wanted to, reach out with witchpower and know what he felt, but instead pulled magic into herself and held it in as small and tight a knot as she could. Her own heart felt of nails driven into flesh each time it beat; she had no need to experience that same feeling in those around her.

Eliza's delicate beauty fell to pieces beneath tears reddening her eyes and streaking her face. The expression she turned on Belinda was mystified, so confused as to forget anger; that, Belinda had no doubt, would come soon enough.

She heard herself say, “Marius was too far away,” as though it would explain everything, and opened a hand in a plea for forgiveness. That was a betraying action, a weakness, and she ought not have permitted it. But the world had been turned awry, and it was months now since she'd hidden all the things she was meant to hide. Dull with grief, she turned her gaze on Javier. “I need to speak with you, king of Gallin, soon and in private.”

“Are you mad?” Eliza's despair turned to anger inside a heartbeat, so swift Belinda felt envy: she would give much to have a target to lash out at, a target such as she herself provided for Eliza and no doubt would for Javier. “You come here, here, after what you've done, and you think any of us will let you be alone with Javier? Why not cut his throat ourselves?” Her lovely face blotched as her eyes swelled with tears born as much from rage as sorrow. “Why not just let Sacha-” She broke then, sobs hiccuping through her speech.

Belinda lowered her gaze, acknowledging Eliza's rightness, then looked back at Javier. They were all still kneeling in the mud, kings and royal heirs and street rats alike, all of them brought low and made level by the one constant companion Belinda had known since her twelfth year. Death gave no quarter and no care, coming for all of them in its own time.

“Please,” she said, and wondered when the last time she'd said that word outside of playing a role had been. Not within easy memory, and that may well have meant never at all. “You know I wouldn't be here if I didn't have to be, Javier.”

Javier whispered, “That name is not yours to call me by,” but there was no conviction in his anger, sorrow still too heavy upon him. “You will be my prisoner,” he said, and then, bitterly, “Can I keep you?” which, not long ago and asked another way, might have spasmed hope through Belinda's heart.

Now, though, she only shrugged and shook her head. “Perhaps, if it's all you were given over to doing, but I haven't come to offer you that kind of challenge. Put me in chains if you wish. The only thing I won't let you do is take my life.”

She looked to Marius and closed her eyes against his death, as though doing so might wipe away her knowledge of it. “I would…” It took a second try, a wetting of her lips and a rough hurtful clearing of her throat, to whisper, “I would stand at his grave while he's buried, if you'd let me. I… cared for him, Javier. I would not have seen this done.”

“No.” Javier's harsh reply lanced misery through Belinda's belly. He had every right, every reason, to turn her away from Marius's grave, and yet somehow she'd imagined he would show her that small compassion.

It was a mercy she'd in no way earned. Sandalia's petite form swam behind Belinda's eyelids, vivacious and full of life; she would have been stricken and blue with pain, fingers clawed at her throat and eyes bulged with poison, when she died. No, Belinda deserved no quarter and no kindness, not in any way that Javier could take from her. She was lucky to still be living, lucky that no overeager guard had stricken her down in the moments of chaos after she arrived, or had taken her head from her shoulders when she'd knelt by Eliza's dying form.

Lucky, in fact, that no one did so now, out of misbegotten or honest duty to their king. Belinda looked up slowly, aware of the noise surrounding them but also, finally, aware that it was heard at a remove, as if all the people pressing so close were in truth a hundred feet away.

Only then, with the searching for it, did she see the silver sheen of witchpower that kept everyone away from the foursome huddled on the floor. It had been there all along, had to have been, in order to keep their conversation and actions untroubled by those around them, and a discordant note shimmered through Belinda's own power. After days of being trapped at the army's leading edge, she'd crossed Javier's witchpower boundary without a whisper of trouble when she'd moved to save Eliza's life. If intent informed Javier of what he would and would not let pass, it seemed strange that she, who had had no plans to cause harm, had been forbidden to come closer to the Cordulan camps.

Javier said “No” again, shaking her from her thoughts, and making her meet his eyes. “I think you wouldn't have seen this done. I think if you had no abhorrence of what's happened here that Eliza would lie dead now, too. For that,” he grated, “for that you have your stay of execution, and for Marius's sake you may come to his grave and say your good-byes when the rest of us are done. He would like that, and so for him, I'll give you a last few minutes at his side. And then we'll talk, Belinda Walter. Then we shall have words.”

He got to his feet with all the stiffness of an old man. His clothes were ruined, black and red with blood, and he put a hand out for Eliza, whose rise was tremulous and relied on his support. “Take her away from here,” he said softly, and no one doubted he spoke of Belinda, not Eliza. “Don't bother binding her. Just take her away, and give her somewhere decent to rest.” His mouth curled against the words, as though they were unsavoury but he too much the gentleman to say otherwise. “If you give me cause to regret this…”

Belinda bowed her head and let herself be hauled to her feet by two guards, who jostled her roughly, perhaps trying to make up for having failed Javier already today. Pins and needles stung her feet as she was taken away, and the last she heard from the king of Gallin was a weary, miserable question: “Where has Sacha gone?”