way.
He feels that madness has come on him, a grief that tears up from the bottom of his soul with the intent to strangle him. His body is by turns cold and hot, his hands shaking even as they're pressed together in prayer. He has failed Javier and failed God, and he's no longer certain which distresses him more.
There is a way out, a terrible way out, and Tomas both shies from thinking on it and pursues it with all vigour. One more death, a death where God intended no life anyway, might turn Javier back to him, and save the king's soul besides. It's a sin, specifically against one of God's great commandments, but for Javier's sake Tomas must consider it. For Echon's sake, he must consider it: Eliza is an inappropriate bride, and the Parnan Caesar has daughters a-plenty to choose from.
Dread certainty fills his heart. Tomas lowers his gaze, whispers a thanks to God for showing him a clear path, and looks up once more to gather strength from the crucifix and the image of God's only son, whom He sacrificed out of love for Man.
A shaft of light spills through the tent, quick brilliance that says another has entered. It turns the jewel- encrusted cross to fire, and the ivory Son to blinding white, and there's an instant where an unusual and clear thought stands out in Tomas's mind: he ought not have knelt with his back to the door.
Then pain sets in, pain so astonishing it might be God's own touch, reached down from the heavens to grace His beautiful son. To burn him where he kneels, immolation in a moment of piety, but instead of God's face, instead of an angel lifting him to Heaven, Tomas feels a brush of lips against his ear, and hears a woman's voice whisper, “Sacha Asselin is dead, priest, and I have no other recourse to hold Javier's ear but to force him to turn to family. A pity. You were so lovely.”
He twists, spurring agony through his back, but he can't lift a hand to pull the knife away, nor to mark his murderer in any way. The earth's pull takes him, and he's falling clumsily, toppling backward as soothing blackness begins to overcome the pain, and the last thing in this world that Tomas del'Abbate sees is Akilina Pankejeff's razor smile fading into darkness.
C.E. Murphy
The Pretender's Crown
BELINDA WALTER
4 July 1588 † Brittany; the Gallic camp
Raging witchpower woke her half a breath before Javier's hand in her hair pulled her from the cot and flung her to the floor. Her own power lashed back and she tamped it, training far older than the magic making her small and vulnerable beneath a man's wrath. Instinct made her breathless, wide-eyed, lips parted with fear and excitement as she cowered as prettily as she knew how.
It was the wrong reaction: the wiser part of her knew that, knew she was better fighting than making herself pluckable, most especially in this place, with this man. But this was a game she'd been trained in since she was a child, and for a few seconds all she could do was gaze up at Javier de Castille in half-real terror and utter supplication.
He kicked her, which was unusual for a man superior to her. Even through a red burst of pain in her ribs Belinda was grateful: it helped shake her from her instincts. She rolled back, hiding under the cot, and dug her fingers into the ground, trying to drag her thoughts into a semblance of order. Trying, most especially, to neither make herself an object of desire nor to hit back with magic: there would be a reason for Javier's attack, and fighting back would only convince him he was right in whatever matter had infuriated him. Neither seductress nor witch-that left Belinda with nothing but the woman, and the role was a strange one to her.
Javier flipped the cot away and kicked her again, and this time Belinda screamed, shock as potent as pain. “What? What have I done?” That, at least, was born of honesty, not seduction, and helped bring her further from that place which, should Javier's mind clear enough to see it, would very likely end in Belinda's death. She would have no forgiveness for her wiles in his position, not even under the most serene of circumstances.
She scrambled back from another kick, and finally saw that tears streaked the king's face, marks as wild as the fury he indulged in. Belinda lurched to her feet and stumbled to the thrown cot's far side, trying to put something, regardless of how insubstantial, between herself and Javier. He'd been dry-eyed over Sacha, that wound too deep to bleed; this was something else. His magic felt shattered, streaked with black despair, and below his rage, despair boiled over. Impossible loss, so bleak it left a chasm in him; Belinda's heart spasmed in sympathy above her fear and confusion. “What's happened?”
A bolt of thunderous power slammed into her, barely deflected by golden witchpower that seemed to know better than she did that an attack was coming. A gasp knocked free of Belinda's lungs, the charge of shared magic with Javier as strong as it had ever been. She clenched her teeth against desire, refuting it; the magic wasn't stronger than she was, and base needs were things to be put away. There would be other men to satisfy herself with: this man would condemn her soul to Hell.
The next blow she caught more easily, and the next more easily still, until Javier lobbed magic at her with all the finesse of a screaming child, and she only stood deflecting his power as it gradually lost strength. She would not fight; would not, no matter the cost. In time Javier slumped, then fell to his knees and bent forward against the earth to scream out rage and frustration. Only then did Belinda gather her nerve and approach him, crouching to hover her hands above his back, not knowing if a touch would earn her another beating. “Is it Eliza?” Genuine fear broke her voice: she was certain her own life would be forfeit if Eliza Beaulieu was dead.
Javier shoved her away, but without the heart of his earlier blows. “As if you don't know.”
“I swear on my mother's name that I don't. I can't lie to you, Javier, not anymore. I don't know what's happened.”
“It's Tomas,” Javier whispered. “Murdered, and with him any hope of salvation for my soul.”
“Tomas?” Belinda frowned, then dropped her chin to her chest, eyes closed. “The priest.” She had no more words after that, protestations of her innocence seeming gauche, and expressions of sorrow alien to her.
“Why would anyone kill him?” Javier's voice cracked. Belinda put a hand out again, then let it fall, more uncomfortable with offering solace than with his pain.
“To remove your inner circle,” she answered, though she doubted he wanted a response at all. “To make you vulnerable, king of Gallin. There are very few who've been so close to you, and most of them are dead now. If I intended on weakening you, it's how I would do it. Marius and Sacha, now Tomas. The only one left is Eliza. Protect her, Javier. Give up your quest for the Aulunian throne, if you must. Don't let her die, too.”
Javier lifted eyes gone black with hate to meet Belinda's gaze. “If you intended on weakening me. You would know. Is this what you planned, when you were Beatrice?”
“I thought it would make you too fragile,” she said coolly. That was necessary, the icy exterior, for below it she felt Javier's loss, tearing at him until it tore at her as well. Better by far to be the untouchable bitch he thought her than to break beneath the weight of his sorrow. “I considered it, yes, and if it had become necessary I might have taken one of them from you. Not two, not three. Taking one would have made you cling harder to those who were left, and I numbered among them then. This many dead is a waste.”
“Who stands to gain from my weakness?” Desperation filled the question, as though the young king of Gallin truly had no answers. Belinda stared at him, then got to her feet and went to ruck through the ramshackled tent in search of wine.
“Aulun, most obviously. Could Robert Drake have done this?” She found wine, poured it, and returned to Javier, standing over him as he drained the cup.
“No,” he said less hoarsely when the drink was gone. “I left him and rode straight to Tomas, to seek his advice on what to do with you. Your father's unwilling to bargain for you,” he added shortly. “His heir's in Alunaer and her avatar can be replaced.”
Worry seized Belinda's gut and forced her to sit, still reserve too distant to support her. Threads of plots came unravelled before her eyes, replaced by grim certainty. “Then he knows what I'm doing.”
“What?” Javier turned his own hollow gaze on her and Belinda took his cup away, pouring more wine and drinking it herself. “How can he know?”
“I don't know.” Belinda flattened her fingers over her belly, staring beyond Javier. “Lorraine knew, too. About
