The Pretender's Crown

AKILINA DE COSTA, QUEEN OF ESSANDIA

Screams from the near distance drive Akilina from the tent she shares with Rodrigo, and good sense kept her from plunging headlong into the chaos erupting in Javier's tent. She is alone, then, as alone as a woman can be in a camp full of soldiers, when Sacha, weeping with blood, staggers from Javier's tent and breaks into a shuffling run, taking himself away from the noise and terror within that tent.

Akilina snaps “Stay here” to her guards, and because one of them is Viktor, they'll listen; Viktor has done nothing but obey the most direct and simple of orders the last six months, and will permit no one within an arm's reach to do otherwise themselves. Her second guard, an Essandian, inhales to protest, looks at the big Khazarian, and, with a sigh, lets Akilina go.

She's already gathered her skirts and begun to run, moving more lithely and quickly than Sacha. Still, they're well beyond the boundaries of the camp when she catches him; the royal tents are set up on the back edge of the line, at the greatest height, so generals and kings alike can watch the battles as they go on below. Forest backs them up, and if it were not for the thin moon in the sky, Akilina might lose Sacha entirely.

But she comes on him in a clearing, fallen to his knees and muttering in words so broken that even her excellent grasp of Gallic is frustrated by them. She breathes, “Sacha?” and touches a hand to his shoulder, as if he's a horse in need of gentling.

He flinches, and she comes around him, kneeling a few feet away, where he can't fall forward and smear blood over her. “Tell me, Sacha,” she whispers. “Tell me what's happened.”

“It was supposed to be the priest.” Sacha's words come clear, and send a sick thrill of worry into Akilina's belly. There are two people it cannot be: it cannot be Javier, and it cannot be Rodrigo. News of their deaths would have flown to her ears even while the screams still went on. The blood is beginning to dry on Sacha's sleeves and chest, and so it is neither king of Gallin nor prince of Essandia. Her heart hangs between beats, unwilling to contract again for fear the sound of doing so will overwhelm Sacha's whispers. “It was supposed to be the priest,” he says again, and impatience slams through Akilina.

Her hands claw in front of his chest as though she could pull the words from him, but she tries to keep her voice soothing and soft. “Who is it?”

“Marius,” Sacha whispers, and crumbles on himself, sobs wracking his body.

Relief sags Akilina. Marius is no one, except a king's friend. His death means nothing to her. All she needs is a certainty that Sacha won't compromise her when he confesses to the reasons behind attacking the priest.

More's the pity that she's unarmed. She might easily have made a story of how she saw Javier's oldest friend running from the chaos and out of concern followed him, only to face his killing rage and be forced to defend herself. But she reminds herself that it's better that the Essandian queen should have no blood on her hands, and instead takes another tactic in silencing his tongue. “Sacha. Sacha, listen to me. My heart aches for your loss, Sacha. I wish it had gone as we meant. But you must run or you must be prepared to face their wrath.”

“I.” Sacha spits the word through his tears. “Why not we, lady? Why should I not condemn you when I face Javier? Had you not whispered treachery against the priest in my ear-”

Akilina whispers, “Because the babe is yours, Sacha, and condemning me means your son won't sit on the Essandian throne.”

Sacha Asselin's every movement stops: he doesn't breathe, he doesn't blink, he doesn't sway where he kneels in the soft earth. He only stares at Akilina, utterly arrested, and for a moment she wonders if apoplexy will take him and he'll collapse.

Then the pulse in his throat flutters, so hard that she can see it even in the moonlight, and he draws a breath that sounds sharp as knives. “How do I know this isn't a trick to save your own neck?” Despair's gone from his voice, replaced with something so harsh that Akilina thinks her skin might disintegrate under the sound.

“You don't,” she says, trusting a raw show of truth to score him more deeply than charm or dissembling. “You don't, but you've suspected since the beginning, and the chance that I'm telling the truth is too high for you to risk damning me. You're Javier's oldest friend, and you drew on a priest, not on him. He won't have you put to death, not even if Cordula demands it. You may lose stature, but in the worst of all worlds you can become an ambassador to Essandia, and play uncle to your son. He'll love you,” she whispers, “and he'll be born to a throne. Is my denunciation worth that price?”

Sacha's shoulders slump and his expression turns dull with hatred for a moment. “Are you a witch, Akilina? Does the devil guide your steps and leave you unscathed in the worst of moments? Sandalia dead at your feet, and a crown to wear for it. Marius dead by my hand, and an heir to pay for him. Javier's power makes him weak and needy of a priest, but I wonder now if that's not a safer bargain to make than dealing with you.”

Akilina gathers her skirts and stands, wishing Sacha were not covered in blood. She would have him, otherwise, let him bury himself in her in despair and shame and desperation, and with that passion bind him to her ever more strongly. She is not a witch, not in the way of folklore, but she's a woman of strength and ambition, and that, in the end, may be the same thing. “Plead a madness of jealousy,” she says, rather than answer his questions. “You've been Javier's friend all his life, and many will sympathise with a displacement that drove you wild. Javier's guilt will hold him more closely to your side, and the priest will lose some of his hold. In the end you'll guide Javier and in time you'll guide your son, and hold power behind two Echonian thrones. Come back to the camp before dawn, Sacha. I'm sure they'll bury your friend at sunrise, and he deserves for you to be there. But tell no one I found you tonight; what we have, you and I, must be kept a secret.”

She turns and walks back through the forest, leaving Sacha Asselin alone with his thoughts.

C.E. Murphy

The Pretender's Crown