A gasping silence answered her first, and Gaela gripped her husband’s neck, wishing for battle, hoping the men chose poorly, that she would be forced to throw Astore’s body to the ground and let her rage free. To let herself go, to finally unleash and fight until triumphant or dead.
Her smile was fearsome to behold.
Astore held on to her hips, face pressed to her side. She stroked his hair, tugged it in the way she’d learned he liked, during their long marriage. But he was past such desire; he slid forward, blood spattering the packed earth as he slowly fell, but caught himself on his palms. His body shook with effort; Astore collapsed.
Several cries of sorrow rang out, but none leapt forward to attack.
More of Gaela’s retainers had by now pushed into the forecourt, pressing hard and crowding.
“Gaela Lear!” yelled Dig in his bearish roar.
“Gaela Lear!”
“Gaela Lear!”
She held up her hand for silence. It fell, swollen and ready to burst again with further violence. Gaela shook her head in mock sadness.
Finally, one of the duke’s first captains knelt, drawing his sword. He held the blade in one gloved hand, then kissed its guard. “Gaela of Astore and Lear!” he said, opening devoted eyes to her.
Gaela nodded regally, then crouched to grasp her husband’s shoulder and roll him onto his back. He groaned. Blood coated his front and side. His chest hardly rose. Gaela touched his mouth gently, brushed her knuckles along his jaw. Strange how numb she felt, though a recognizable flutter of angry grief waited behind the coursing thrill in her heart. She would feel it soon: a sorrow of necessity, a lost ally. Men were fools, with backward priorities always turning their heads. Astore would have gained everything by letting Gaela reign as she wished, if only he had curbed his own desires.
Then the duke of Astore died, and his wife placed the knife that had done it across his heart.
SEVEN YEARS AGO, ASTORA
COL HAD BEEN the duke of Astore since he was twelve years old, when his father died from a broken back during routine military exercises. It meant Col had been Astore a mere two years fewer than Lear had been king. He remembered the clear morning at the Summer Seat when the prophecy had been read, foretelling both the arrival and doom of Lear’s true queen. And Col remembered his first sight of Dalat, her gentle warmth and lovely joy seeming so alien to the harsh moors of Innis Lear. He remembered her swaying walk as she left the star chapel, a wife and queen, and Col remembered where he had stood when he heard that her first daughter had arrived.
Even at fifteen years old, he’d known the screaming firstborn Gaela was his best avenue toward more power. Astore only needed to be patient and wait for her, discover what sort of woman she’d be, how best to use her, and then how best to win her to his side. Prop or partner, vessel or queen, Col held all options open as she grew. He was always generous with Gaela and friendly, ushering her toward Astore, though never too overtly, lest some other (particularly her father the king) think him despicable.
Initially he did not want her for himself, outside his heated ambitions for the crown. That at least proved that, while his vices might be numerous, desiring a child in his bed was not among them. No, it was only when her mother died, when Gaela came to Astora as a furious young woman, that he very suddenly and violently recognized her carnal appeal. So for half a decade more he’d worked with the information he gathered on her likes and dislikes, biding his time, teaching Gaela as a mentor, welcoming her to his retainers, waiting for her to approach him.
Tonight, she’d asked to speak with him privately, coming up at the end of the morning’s training. Sweat had melted dust from the practice ground along the edges of her hairline, and she breathed hard from her sport. Her breasts heaved against the leather armor buckled across her front, and her eyes were wide and bright, a brown so deep and vivid Astore saw them in his dreams. When Gaela tilted her chin up and said, “I would have dinner with you tonight, alone, Col Astore, to discuss the future,” he’d kept his smile tame, despite the immediate desire and triumph, crackling up and down his spine.
“I’ll be honored,” he said, knowing what she wanted.
Gaela Lear had turned twenty-one that winter, and it was time for her to be married.
Astore expected to be her husband. They’d not explicitly agreed upon it when she came to his lands, but there had been an understanding that in return for allowing her full access to his warrior retainers, to live with them and learn what they had to teach her of battle and weaponry, Gaela would one day owe him in kind.
As he was the duke of the largest, strongest domain in all of Innis Lear, the only way to pay him back would be to make Col king alongside her—as befitted her stars, which destined her to be reliant on another’s strength.
So he met her as a king would, in his private dining room. Ready for her to submit to him, to repay his magnanimous patronage with a display of gratitude. Bold stone walls, decorated only with stately salmon banners; a warm, roaring fire in a hearth wide enough to roast a pig; long wooden table smoothly gleaming; two high-backed benches to either side of the
