The Pretender's Crown

JAVIER DE CASTILLE

It was inconceivable that Sacha could lift a blade against him. If Javier had any clear thought, it was that: Sacha could not raise a blade against him, and therefore must mean it for someone else.

Tomas, who stood at his right hand. Tomas, whose faith strengthened his; Tomas, toward whom Sacha's shoulders were squared. It was the smallest thing in the world, and yet it was everything: those few inches in difference between where Tomas stood and where Javier did. No one else could possibly see it; their stances were wrong. They would see a friend displaced by a priest, outraged at his fall in status, determined to take vengeance on the man who had belittled him. They would see a king in danger, and think nothing of those around him.

He had so very little witchpower left at his disposal, but it was enough to throw a shield around Tomas del'Abbate. It was easy, in fact, guarding a single man after days of protecting an army. Nothing, not even the largest cannon Aulun might bring against them, could shatter that shield; Tomas, standing at Javier's side, was utterly safe.

By the time Javier understood that he should have wrapped everyone in witchpower, shielded them all from one another, refused them the ability to move, it was much too late.

Marius had been no more than a few feet away; Javier knew that in the same way he knew where his right hand was. It was a mark of his own shock that he didn't know Marius would lurch forward until it was already done; clear thought might have told him he would do such a thing. It was a graceless act, desperation leaving beauty far behind, and it seemed impossible that the merchant man could move as fast as he had, or that the end result of such quickness would be a soft wet sound and a point changing the shape of his shirt in the back.

Metal rasped around the room, promise that someone would die as the price of an attempt on another life.

Sacha would die for the attempt of taking another life.

A woman had screamed in that first moment, when Sacha had thrown himself into action. Eliza, the only woman there, and out of all his old friends, she's the one Javier might have imagined could move so quickly and so smoothly. She was a guttersnipe and a thief, and needed all the grace and speed at her disposal.

Her second scream was full of pain, a wholly different sound than the first one, and it made no sense. Not until Sacha, horror stricken across his face, crashed to his knees with Marius in his arms, and Eliza, behind him, fell just a little more slowly. Two guards stood beyond her, one with a bloody blade lifted in his hand and shock greying his skin, and the other empty-handed and staring at the sword stuck through Eliza's gut as if he didn't understand how it got there.

Javier's heart went cold and still in his chest, a weight of iron bent on killing him, and soundlessness rushed through his ears. The world was nothing more than those five figures: Marius, dying. Sacha, a murderer. Eliza, dying. Two guards, bewildered, who in doing their duty in protecting their king, had surely written themselves a death sentence.

All of it, all of it, had taken perhaps three seconds, and no more.

Tomas fell to his knees as though he, too, had been gutted, but his attentions were for Marius, whom Sacha would not release. “Give him to me, give him to me,” the priest demanded, “give them both here, their last rites must be given before God takes them home.”

Javier said, “No,” and Sacha said, “Both?,” each of them in the same numb tone, and under it, Marius whispered, “Eliza,” to Sacha, pain aging his voice. He coughed blood and drew a ragged breath before whispering, “How strange, that. The two of you in rivalry over her so long, and yet it's me she'll go with at the end. Liz, oh, Liza, our sister.”

There were guards in the way, men trying to pull Sacha off Marius, trying to make order from the chaos in the room. Somewhere outside of Javier's immediate awareness he knew people still shouted, still screamed; that soldiers were flooding the tent and shoving people aside, trying to protect their king. He pushed them all away with a gentleness born from incomprehension and disbelief: witchpower rolled out of him and extended the shield he'd built for Tomas, until it encompassed king and priest and three people whose friendship lay bleeding out onto thirsty ground. Tumultuous noise faded, and, as though the sound itself had kept him on his feet, Javier knelt, far more slowly than had any of the others who had fallen.

Sacha twisted, tears tracking clean white lines through dust and mud staining his face, and gave a cry like a dying stag when he saw Eliza crumpled over a sword. He reached for her and Marius slipped in his arms, begetting another cry, and Javier, full of cool horror, put a hand on Sacha's shoulder to keep him still. Eliza seemed not to breathe, but Marius still took short, pained gasps. Tears stained his temples, too, falling back into his hair and making his eyes so bright they seemed full of life, not death. Javier bent over him, struggling for words as hot water dripped from his eyes. He ached from his very core, agony radiating out, and could only loathe the weakness that thought himself in pain when Marius lay dying.

“You have deserved so much better than what I've given you,” he managed to whisper. “I'm sorry, Marius. I'm sorry.” And then, out of weakness, because he should be looking to Marius's hurts, not salving his own, he asked, “ Why?” and wondered if he wanted to know the answer.

“My king.” Marius shuddered. “My brother. My friend. Always, Jav Always. You need… Tomas's faith. Couldn't let him die.”

Javier closed his hand on Marius's so hard it hurt even him, but Marius gave no sign of new pain, only turned his head a little toward Tomas, who whispered ancient rites even as tears spilled down his own face. “Take care of him, priest. Take…”

“Marius. Marius! Eliza!” Words turned to insensible shouts as Javier bent over Marius's still form, then in a panic released him and scrambled toward Eliza, sick with anticipation and despair. Tomas let go a hoarse cry and reached after him as though to pull him back from an even-greater blow, but his fingers slid off Javier's shirt, and Javier came, on hands and knees, to Eliza's side.

Came to find the sword taken from his lover's belly, and to find, impossibly, Belinda Primrose on her knees beside Eliza's body, her wrists bloody and forearms strained over hands hidden in Eliza's gut. She withdrew one hand from Eliza's wounds and seized his wrist with bloody fingers, rage and determination turning her hazel eyes to fiery green as she whispered, “I can save her. I can save her, Javier. Lend me your power.”