The Pretender_s Crown ic-2 Read online

  Rodrigo was afraid. Afraid on more than one level: afraid of Javier's inexplicable magic, afraid of the priest's death, afraid of Marius's response. Afraid, at the end, of losing a nephew as well as a sister, and so each of those fears mounted the other until the last was all-consuming. There would be a price to pay later: the narrow hard lines around his uncle's mouth told Javier that much, but for now, the Essandian prince would neither show fear nor allow harm to come to the young Gallic king.

  “Javier,” Marius said again, but this time the name was a question, edged on desperate. He had pulled away, but his hand made a fist of itself in Javier's shirt. Rough loose wool, that shirt, not the fine stuff that befitted a prince, not at all. Witchlight twisted, giving him leave to step outside himself and see himself as clearly as he saw others. Narrow-cut black pants, the wide leather belt, the tall sturdy boots: they had suited him on the sea. He looked the part of a brigand, not a prince, and wondered that the guards had opened the gates to him, despite his raging command. Marius's hand, by comparison to the weathered fabric it gripped, seemed clean and soft and cultured.

  Javier closed his own hand over Marius's, struggling to call on ordinary human strength and not the silver power that lit everything he saw. He had little doubt he could allay any fear Marius felt or frighten him further into pretending that nothing was wrong. The idea soured in his mind, liquid silver turning black and poisonous as mercury at the thought. They had spent a lifetime together, he and Marius and Eliza and Sacha, and ever since Javier had recognised that his friends didn't share his magic, he had reined in every impulse, stepped on every opportunity, to influence them with his will. He could, if he so desired; he had learned only lately that he had, whether he willed it or no, but he would not deliberately subsume Marius's impulses, even if the cost should be scored on his own skin. Rodrigo, yes: he would do whatever necessary to survive his uncle's fears, but not Marius. Never Marius.

  “What is it?” The question was softer than the echo of his name had been, Marius's gaze and grip tight on Javier's. His voice shook as though exhaustion or pain had come to bed down with dread, leaving him nothing to control himself with. “Javier, what is it that you do to us?”

  “I call it witchpower.” Javier lowered his head over Marius's, more afraid to look away than to continue meeting the merchant lad's eyes. “When I was young I thought everyone had it. When I realised I was the only one… I've never meant to hurt you, Marius. I've tried so hard to not influence you with it. Any of you. My friends. My family.”

  “Witchpower.” Marius and Rodrigo both echoed the word, and it was Marius who continued as Rodrigo fell silent. “Witchery is the devil's work, Jav.”

  “I know.” Javier kept his gaze on Marius, trusting he would find censure in Rodrigo's face and hoping against all wisdom that there might be some hint of forgiveness in Marius's. “So perhaps I'm Hell-born, for neither my uncle nor my mother carried this power in their blood. Did my father?” He glanced up with a sharp look, and saw instantly from Rodrigo's expression that Louis of Gallin had been as ordinary a man as any. Resignation drooped his shoulders and brought regret to his voice. “I thought not.”

  “Beatrice had this power.” Comprehension was worse than condemnation, Marius's whisper knifing through Javier with its weight of pity and absolution. “That first night when I brought her to meet you, something passed between you. She defied you, Jav No one defies you.” By the time he finished, bewilderment had replaced pity, and Marius's brown eyes were wide. “My God, Javier, why didn't you just tell me? I would have understood.”

  “Would you?” Savagery drove Javier to his feet, sent him pacing away from the three men on the floor. The priest hadn't roused yet, as much cause for relief as alarm: Javier's family of blood and friendship might yet forgive his damnable magic, but a man of the cloth would do no other than call for a green oak stake and thick chains to bind him with. “Would you have understood if I said I carry power within me that forbids men to deny my will? Would you have ever trusted your thoughts with me again? You have been my friend all my life, Marius. You, Liz, Sacha. I couldn't risk that. I'd have been alone.”

  Marius rubbed his shoulder as he sat up, then dropped his head, strong fingers lacing through his dark hair. “It's easy to say I would've understood, Jav. Maybe I wouldn't have, but I knew the boy you were and the man you are. You're a prince, my lord. A king, now.” His voice shook with the recollection, but he freed his hands and looked up at Javier. “Even as children we all knew who we played with. It didn't matter that much, not to me, because I was still stronger than you, and you never cried mercy on your rank when we wrestled. It was only as we got older that I realised I should have let you win.” A fragile smile skirted his mouth, then fell away again. “I thought no one stood in your path because you were heir to the throne, Jav. That was mystical enough for me. You've had a lifetime in which you could have used this witchpower to be cruel, and you've never done it.” Hesitation followed the last words, highlighted by a blanch Marius failed to hide.

  “Except to you,” Javier said softly, putting voice to the thought he knew had burdened Marius's mind. “Except to you, in the matter of Beatrice.”

  “Aye, my prince. But I think I would have understood.”

  The fire left Javier as suddenly as it had come on, leaving him drained all over again. It was no longer witchpower, he thought, plying his emotions, but simple human fear and misery. His mother was dead, his friends scattered, his uncle wisely wary of him. Even a man accustomed to heavy burdens would buckle under such a weight, and for a bitter instant, Javier recognised that he was not at all accustomed to bearing difficulties on his princely shoulders. “You might have,” he whispered. “Perhaps I've done even more badly by you than I knew, my friend, and I have known that I have done badly by you indeed. But without you I'm alone. You three, my only true friends. And then Beatrice… Belinda,” he corrected himself wearily. “Belinda came to you, to me, to us all, with her own power, and I was no longer lonely in spirit or in body. I had thought to give up the throne.”

  He lifted his gaze beyond the palace walls, turning it north, toward Gallin; toward, in the end, Aulun, the country of Belinda's birth and heart. “I must have seemed very foolish to her,” he said quietly “So eager to give up so much, all so I would no longer be alone.”

  “It is not a choice we are given, Javier.” Rodrigo rose from beside the fallen priest. “We who are born to these families are born to serve, not to choose selfishly. Your mother knew that, and married twice for God and peace and power, and it is your duty now to follow her.”

  “For God and peace and power?” Iron: the words were iron in his mouth, flat and hideous on his tongue.

  “Oh, yes.”

  Javier had never heard his uncle sound so, and turned to see calculation on his handsome face. “Oh, yes, Javier. For God, for peace, and with this magic you bear, oh, most certainly for power. I think you've named your gift poorly, nephew. I know you to be a good and godly boy, and I will not believe that this talent has been granted by the fallen one.” Calculation turned to avarice, driven by grief and anger. “I believe it is a gift from God. Call it so: call it God's power, not witchpower, and with it we might at last retrieve Aulun from its unholy church and return its people to Ecumenic arms and Cordula's wisdom. And if there is so much as a whisper that Aulun's hand guided Sandalia's to a poisoned cup, then we will raze its throne, its nobility, its very heart and soul to the earth, and when the new sun rises we will crown you king over the western islands and a bold new banner for our faith.”

  Power wrenched Javier's heart, brightening his eyes with tears. He dropped to one knee, head lowered and hands outraised to honour Rodrigo's passionate vision. “Aulun's hand will have tipped that cup, my lord prince. I have no doubt of it,” he grated through a throat gone tight with emotion. “Belinda Primrose, called Bea trice Irvine, is the daughter of Robert Drake, the Red Queen's courtier. I saw the truth of it in the witchpower I shared with he
r, and that she shared with Drake. I had hoped I would see that same power in you, uncle, or you would tell me it had ridden my father Louis.”

  “No,” Rodrigo whispered. “More proof that it's God's gift, nephew, our holy father preparing you to stand against a black and terrible magic born from the Reformation church's devilish ways. Trust in God, Javier. Trust in your gift. We will exact our vengeance together, in God's name.

  “Do not kneel to me.” Rodrigo drew Javier to his feet. “Do not kneel to me, for you are a king now, and bend knee to no man. Instead stand beside me and allow my age and wisdom to guide your youth and talent. Do this and our sister, your mother, will be avenged, and you will wear the crown she had long since sought for you. Some measure of vengeance has been taken already,” he offered. “Marius tells me this Belinda Primrose is dead, and Robert Drake ransomed at a handsome price. These were Sandalia's final acts.”

  “No.” Javier's voice cracked. “Not Belinda. Someone else in her place, perhaps, but I… took her from the oubliette. She was like me,” he whispered again. “She bears the same gift I do, and so, too, does Robert Drake. I raised no hand to save him, but I couldn't let her die. I was a fool.” Rage cold enough to turn grief to ice rose in him, closing his throat against more words. His weakness had brought his mother's death to pass, an unforgivable offence.

  Rodrigo went silent for long and deadly seconds, absorbing that. “Any man can be bewitched,” he finally breathed. “If she's free, it's a mistake we'll set to right, and if she has power, we can be certain it's a gift from a false and dark god. We will prevail, and she will burn as befits a witch.”

  Despite fury, despite loss, sickness lurched Javier's stomach as a childhood terror came real in Rodrigo's threat. Pale skin blackening, the stench of burning hair, screams of horror and pain: he had seen them come to pass in his dreams. For all Belinda deserved such a fate, it came too close to how his own life might end, even with Rodrigo's confidence and trust at his side. “I would have her made mine to deal with,” he whispered, and wondered if it was sentiment or self-preservation. “I have, I think, been cut more deeply than any by her ways.”

  “So shall it be.” Rodrigo drew Javier into a hard embrace, then loosened the grip, hands remaining on his shoulders. “We have a great deal to do, Javier. The armada will sail come spring, but before then we must learn the depths of your ability, and train.” Rage and sorrow flitted across his face. “And even before that, we must put our beloved Sandalia to rest. It will call the Gallic people to arms, Javier, and where Gallin rides, so, too, does Essandia.”

  “And where our brother countries go, so, too, does Cordula,” Javier whispered. “Cordula, and the might of all the Ecumenic armies it can call to bear.”

  “Aulun will be ours.” Rodrigo tightened his hands on Javier's shoulders. “In time, if we are bold, all of Echon will be ours, brought safe into the fold of our church and its wise fathers.” A dark smile creased his face. “You're young and unwed. Perhaps we might look farther than even Echon's borders.”

  The thought lifted a shudder on Javier's skin, even as he said the words Rodrigo didn't: “We might look as far as Khazar.”

  “In time,” his uncle said with satisfaction. “In time.”

  “Your majesties, forgive me.” Marius's voice broke through the rising tide of ambition. “Forgive me, but I think the priest is waking.”

  C.E. Murphy

  The Pretender's Crown

  TOMAS DEL'ABBATE

  “I'll see to him.” It's the silver prince's voice, gentled by what a half-conscious mind hears as resignation. Tomas forces his eyes open to see Marius leaving his side; to watch the youth join Rodrigo and the pair of them move away abandoning Tomas where he lies. He tries to push up and finds pain: something is wrong with his arm, his shoulder unable to support him. He hears a whimper, and realises, with shame, that it's his own. Surely God might expect him to show more bravery in the face of injury, even when that injury has been given in such a peculiar way.

  For he remembers, and wishes he didn't. There's silence as Javier kneels at his side, and Tomas is terribly aware that whatever has transpired here, he's the only witness not bound by blood or lifelong friendship, and that Marius and Rodrigo have chosen to turn their backs on what is about to happen. There's a great deal about the world he doesn't know, but only a fool wouldn't see the danger, and Tomas is an innocent, not a fool.

  “Highness,” he whispers, then remembers himself: “Majesty.” A strange taste fills the back of his throat, uncomfortably familiar for all that he's sure he's never tasted it before. He swallows convulsively, learning it for what it is: blood. A wave of relief washes through him on that red flavour. It means he's broken inside, and that he will not much longer be witness to the terrible, wonderful events that he's been privy to. Since that's so, he swallows again and dares to ask, “Will you tell my father I died well, my lord?”

  Silver rises in Javier's eyes again. They are grey to begin with, Tomas thinks, and the silver is brought on by his passion. That such passion should be turned to God's work, oh! There would be a wonder indeed. The young Gallic king's expression deepens into an uncomfortable mix of rage and compassion.

  “I will not,” Javier says. Tomas thinks to correct him in several ways: first, that with Sandalia dead, Javier should be we, not I, but then the priest thinks, no, I am dying, I will enjoy a moment of equality with a king. That might bring a smile to his lips if it were not for the other way in which he wishes to correct Javier. The new king has just refused a dying man his final wish, an unforgiveable offence. “I will not,” Javier says again, “because no one is going to die here today. Your shoulder is out of joint, and I think you've half bitten off your tongue, but these are not harbingers of death.”

  “They must be,” Tomas responds with a regretful clarity. “They must, my lord. I've seen what you can do, and you cannot trust a man of the church to hold a secret of witchcraft.”

  “No, not any man,” Javier agrees. “Not any man, but I can trust you, can I not, Tomas?” Suddenly his voice seems both much farther away and much more intimate, as though he speaks into an echoing cave, but whispers promises of desire. His gaze is locked on Tomas's, and there is an expectation in his eyes.

  Tomas has never seen anything like it, is not sure he wishes to now see it, but it brings a pulse up in his throat, high and fast as a butterfly's wings. He is damaged, his body a thing of betrayals, but those betrayals die beneath an exposure of new failings: it seems that every fibre of his being responds to Javier's eyes. There is blood in Tomas's mouth; with that taste so clear, it is wrong that his cock should jolt to erection, that a sting of want should turn his belly molten and his knees weak, for all that there's no weight on them. Hot silver in Javier's gaze demands everything and promises nothing, but for that promise, Tomas fears he would do anything.

  Inexorable will is in the weight of that look. The command is all but spoken in Tomas's mind: you will not speak of this. My secret is yours to keep and you shall not betray me. It is as though God has offered a single searing touch, and Tomas trembles with it.

  Then protest whispers in the back of his mind: God is a kind God, and has given unto Man free will. It is not God's intention that one man should seize another's mind with his heated and hungry gaze and charge him hold his tongue on secrets of deviltry. Tomas catches his breath, tastes blood, pleads for God's strength, and rallies against the Gallic king's call.

  Confidence fills him, soft and warm, soothing all the aches of his body. The taste of blood fades, and the jutting desire in his loins lessens. Such is the power of faith; such is the power of God. Javier falters, astonishment replacing expectation in his face. For a heady moment Tomas understands that he and this young king are equals, in God's eyes if not in man's, and that understanding fills him with joy.

  Then new things come into Javier's expression, and with the first of those things, with the devastating hope that lights Javier's eyes, Tomas's heart catches. God is good
and God is kind, but God is not kneeling at his side in all-too-mortal glory looking at him as though he might be a saviour himself. He tries to sit up, but his arm fails him, denying an urge to capture the king in his arms and make a promise of his own, that somehow all will yet be well.

  Before he rallies, hope sluices from Javier's face, and after it washes anger, fear, desperation, all the sentiments of a man who has been deluded by hope in the past. Tomas, lying so close, can feel the change in Javier's body, the staunch clenching of muscle that precedes an onslaught of will, as though domination of his physical aspect can lend strength to his desires.

  And perhaps it can, for though Tomas whispers “Don't” it's too late. The gentle assurance of God's love fails beneath mortal demand. He reaches for it, scrabbles in the confines of his own mind and arches his body to remain close, but Javier's determination cascades into its place. Under that princely power, the arch of his body becomes something else entirely, a sensual act, and now, only now, does Javier catch Tomas in his arms after all. He is hot, his heart crashing through his shirt as his chest presses against Tomas's, and there is fire where they touch, wanton liquid flame.

  Nothing should soften in Tomas, nothing should acquiesce, and yet his will bends beneath Javier's. He feels Javier's breath on his lips as the king whispers a benediction that is also a damnation: “I will not see you come to harm, priest, but I cannot let your tongue run loose, for my own sake, for my people's sake, for the sake of my sweet murdered mother. You must be mine, and may God have mercy on us both.”

  God, for the first time in Tomas's life, is very far away.

  IVANOVA, THE IMPERATOR'S HEIR

  25 January 1588 † Khazan, capital of Khazar, north and east of Echon