He ought not have scoffed at Belinda for her terrors.
Only when he was certain the witchpower was controlled, no longer desiring Marius's acquiescence, did Javier dare speak. “Fear? Of me?”
“Fear that you have found that necessary innocence in another.” Marius's voice was soft, so soft it could betray nothing of envy, of doubt; not even of fear: so soft it revealed all of those things in its attempts to keep them hidden.
“Tomas,” Javier said, and in the saying knew he should have said “the priest.” A quirk ran over Marius's mouth, commentary enough, and Javier pressed his eyes shut, reveling for a moment in denying the world.
But doing so brought Tomas's golden gaze to his mind's eye. Forthright, honest, faithful, full of challenge and confidence that only became murky when Javier exerted his will and bent the priest's thoughts away from the thing they both held to be true: that Javier was devilspawn, and his gifts a danger that ought to be turned away from, not embraced.
“He's my confessor, Marius, nothing more.” Javier had no strength to put behind the assurance, his answer as soft as Marius's own voiced fears.
“What he is,” Marius said unexpectedly, “is beautiful. And he bends beneath your power, Javier, but he doesn't break. I saw it in that first moment in your uncle's chambers. He doesn't have Beatr-Belinda's strength to stand before you and hold her own, but he has some of that, and it draws you. I suppose if I was certain everyone would bow to my whim I, too, would hunger for those few who didn't.”
“He cannot replace what you are to me.”
“Nor can I be what he is to you,” Marius murmured all too insightfully. “Will you take him with you when you go, Jav?”
“Yes.” The answer came too easily, and with it came regrets for how his certainty would make Marius feel. “When I go, it will be to call an army. I'll need Cordula's support, and I can find little better assurance of that than Primo Abbate's son, a priest of the church, riding at my side. I'll still need you,” Javier added more quietly. “If Sacha has always tried to be my impetus, you, Marius, have always been my steady right hand.”
“And Eliza your heart?” Marius wondered aloud. A note in his voice said he knew he treaded dangerous ground, and said as surely that he'd cast caution to the wind for these few moments of time stolen with his prince.
“Eliza is Gallin, Marius. She is of the people, and if she is my heart, if I am hers, then I have the people behind me and we cannot fail in Aulun.” Sudden clarity rang in the words, making a path through torpor and reluctance. “I have to find her.”
“My lord?”
“I have to find Eliza.” Understanding came in bursts, clarion calls that brought the first vestiges of joy and enthusiasm back to his life. “With her at my side, Gallin will support me and we'll take Aulun before winter. It hinges on her, Marius. I'm a fool for not seeing it before.” Javier turned to his friend, seizing the merchant's broad shoulders. “I let Belinda turn me from pursuing Liz as fast and far as I needed. She'll be my angel, my icon. I cannot do this without her.”
Something dark filled Marius's eyes, so rare as to be unrecogniseable. “Your angel and your icon, standing at your side. That's a queen's role, Javier, not a friend's. Will you marry her?”
Javier swayed, regret taking the strength from his body. “I can't, Marius. I can't, even if I would. She's barren. A king must have heirs.”
Darkness deepened in Marius's eyes, finally making a name for itself: bitterness-and that was not an emotion Javier's friend was given to. Incongruously, Tomas's golden gaze leapt to Javier's mind, washing over Marius's familiar features and wiping away disillusion. Repelled, Javier released Marius and stepped back, struggling to understand whether his revulsion was born from putting Tomas in Marius's place, or from the acid look in his friend's face. “Do not look at me so, Marius. I cannot help being what I am.”
“A king, or cruel?” Discontent marked Marius's features a few more long seconds. “She deserves better, Jav If you'll make her an icon, make her a queen as well. Get a bastard child on some serving wench and give him the throne, if you must, but let Eliza have her due.”
“You would make me Henry of Aulun?” Javier snapped.
Exasperation flickered over Marius's face. “Yes, my lord. I would have you bed and wed half a dozen women, get girl children or sickly boys on all of them, and give up Cordula and Ecumenic faith for the Reformation. I would have your only strong heir be a woman as redheaded as yourself, and I would watch her rule Gallin and Essandia both for thirty years with her iron fist. Javier, forgive me. I love you, but I wonder if this witchpower isn't addling your mind. Henry had one strong son out of marriage, and would have made that son king had the lad not died a- hunting. Eliza would understand that decision. I don't know that she'd be willing to play the part of your angel of battle without a taste of something sweeter to carry her along. You know they already call her the prince's whore.”
A fist flashed out and knocked Marius aside, so fast his cry was as much astonished as pained. He fell back with his hand against a bleeding lip and stared at Javier, who stared at his own betraying hand in turn. “Marius, I…”
“It is of no matter, majesty. I spoke too boldly, and beg your pardon.” With grace powered by infinite hurt, Marius knelt.
“Don't. Please, Mar, don't.” Javier reached out to draw Marius upward, but the merchant man offered no extended hand, no gesture of peace. Nor did Javier deserve one, but Marius's refusal sparked infantile pique. Grinding his teeth against doing further damage, he muttered, “I didn't know, and had never dreamt of hearing such vile words come from your lips, even in the form of reporting them. My hand flew quicker than my thoughts. It doesn't matter anyway,” he added desperately. “Liz has been gone for weeks, and no one knows where she is.”
“I know.” Marius spoke to the flagstones, a wonderful precision in his words. Cutting precision, Javier thought: damning precision. That was the price, then, of Javier's thoughtless action: he would be mocked with knowledge he didn't share, mocked with the end of innocence, for once upon a time Marius knew nothing of keeping secrets.
Anger flared again, this time with less physical intent, but far greater heat. “How can you know? Did she tell you where she was going? Why have you not said so?”
Marius, still with exquisite precision, said, “No one asked me, my king.”
“I shouldn't have had to ask!”
Marius looked up, careful picture of mild surprise. “One friend's confidences ought not be broken at the unspoken whim of another's, my king.”
Javier, through his teeth, said, “Stop calling me that.”
“Yes, your majesty.”
He had learned, Javier thought through a hazy tide of silver fury. Marius had, in the last weeks or months, learned to play a game of politics that had been beyond him. Had learned to use words as weapons, and not the blunt heavy ones that Javier might have expected, but subtle as a blade slipping between the ribs. And if his once- sweet Marius could make such a play on words now… suspicion snagged him, bursting forth in a demand: “Did you bed Belinda?”
That same black bitterness slid over Marius's face. “Never.”
“You're lying!”
“There's no purpose in lying to a man with your talents, majesty. Any truths you want of me you'll have.” Resignation and regret were in Marius's voice, creating a weariness that alluded the death of something Javier didn't want to see die, and felt powerless to save. Marius should be kinder than that: Marius should be the rock he had always been, and make an allowance for Javier's loss, his fear, his unwelcome gifts.
All of Javier's hurt and anger rolled together into the same question, demanded again: “Did you sleep with Belinda?” It was necessary that he know, more necessary than abiding by the rules of friendship he'd imposed on himself a lifetime ago. He let his silver-stained willpower roll toward Marius, certain that it, at least, could pull truth from his friend's lips, if all the years of friendship could not.
And, as with everyone save two-three, including the priest's knack for brief resistance-he felt Marius's will sunder to his own. It was not a breaking, but a softening; an agreement, willing or not, to do Javier's bidding. He was unaccustomed to using his gifts to draw answers out; usually it was enough, more than enough, to have
