armies are greater than the ones Cordula commands, my lord. We all of us need Khazar, and loathe though I may be to admit it, I am our best bargaining piece there. Irina has a daughter.”
“She's fourteen.”
“As was my mother when she was first wed,” Javier whispered, remembering too clearly playing the Caesar's role in the same conversation with Sandalia. He shook himself, putting away sorrow for politics, and passed a hand over his eyes in a moment of genuine weariness. “If we are swift with our divine mercy upon Aulun, I will never need marry the girl at all, and might turn my eyes to where my heart more closely lies. But until then, I must view myself as a game piece to be bartered, and for all our sakes, look to Khazan and the imperator's heir.” Agree, he whispered silently, and felt witch-power flex before he reined it back in a spurt of panic. Surely the Caesar would see sense; surely Javier had no need to coerce a fellow king, not with war on the horizon and a plain need for troops. Agree, he thought again, and wondered how many times unvoiced desire on his part had shaped the actions of his friends and others around him.
Gaspero regarded him a long moment, then fell to walking again. “You are either very clever or very foolish, Javier of Gallin. I think all of Echon waits with interest to see which it is. I will give you my support and my troops for a single season without a marriage contract to bind it, and that because the Pappas and his Primes will hound me without mercy if I don't. Win the summer season and prove to me your alliances with Khazar are solid, and I'll give you a second year, but I'll have the contract in hand by your twenty-fifth birthday or Parna will leave you to your holy war, and return to its wine and women. Do we have a bargain?”
“A very fair one, I think,” Javier said softly. Two years was time enough; in two years everything could change. Silver washed through him, too subtle for him to know if it had set the Caesar on the path Javier needed him to walk. But if it had, it was with God's blessing: Javier clung to that thought, trying to believe. The witch- power was a gift, welcomed by the Pappas and the church; if it influenced Gaspero, then that, too, was God's will. A hand knotted against his own uncertainty, Javier ducked his head and whispered, “You're generous, my lord.”
“I am. Don't forget it, boy, or the cost will come out of your royal hide.”
Welcome or not, witchpower flared more sharply, giving shape to an offence Javier was just wise enough not to voice. Instead he bowed, taking his leave and his temper from the Parnan Caesar before low-boiling witchpower tempted him too far.
He might have spent the night-might have spent weeks, for all of that-in Cordula's streets, admired by the people, drowning himself in drink and burying himself in women. It was a pretty thought, seductive, but harsh reality scratched at the insides of his mind, pulling him away from revelry and back toward the expensive inn he and his men were housed at. Once Tomas was convinced that Javier's magic was God-given, not the devil's tool, they would travel to Aria Magli and find Eliza.
Guilt slid through Javier's belly, looking for a place to stick, but found nowhere and slipped out again, leaving nothing more than a cool space where it had been. Eliza, even more than Ivanova of Khazar, would bring him the people. Marius was right: she deserved better than to be a symbol, when she could be a queen. The marriage would have to take place quietly, to allow Javier room to negotiate with Khazar, but Parna had given him two years, and that was enough time to change the world. Before those long months were over, he would hold Aulun in his palm, would hold his wife's hand in the open, and would, with Rodrigo, turn his eyes to Reussland and Prussia and the far Khazarian empire. God was with him; Javier knew that now, and all his doubts were faded.
Three times: three times now he had denied the witchpower in coercing a man. First Rodrigo, then Tomas this morning, and now Gaspero. He was the master of his magic, and needed only to convince Tomas to hold his tongue.
Marius was in the common room, gambling; he, unlike the others at his table, rose when Javier came in, his eye more for the door than the game. He dug for coins to pay off his bet, but Javier waved a hand, stopping him, and hurried up to their room.
It stood empty. Javier turned a curious eyebrow to the guard at the door, who shrugged: he was paid to watch over the prince, not the priest. Annoyed, Javier returned to the common room and slipped up to Marius's side. “Tomas?”
Marius shrugged as well, but more helpfully. “I think he's gone to pray. Here, lend me a bit of coin, Jav, I'm losing.”
“All the more reason why I shouldn't,” Javier said, but dropped a handful of coppers into Marius's palm before slapping his shoulder and turning for the door.
There were churches a-plenty in Cordula, the nearest a surprisingly modest thing at the foot of their street. The kind of place the poor went, Javier imagined, and took himself in on the thought that Tomas might well wish for simple surroundings in which to wrestle with his conscience.
Indeed, he was there, knelt at the altar with others, some of whom recognised Javier and sent a whisper stirring about the church. He spread his fingers, palms down, to silence them, and made some show of crossing himself so that they might see he was as they were, devout and in search of answers. Unlike the worshippers, though, his answers could come from mortal lips, and he knelt at Tomas's side, whispering, “Have you in your heart condemned me, then?”
Tomas shot him a glance full of daggers and turned his attention back to the bleeding Son before them all. Javier counselled himself with patience and lowered his gaze to the mosaic floor, tracing its patterns and idly impressed at the artwork in even this poor church. Then again, so close to the palace, perhaps it was only modest, and not so poor at all.
His knees were bruised and the witchpower rolling with impatience when Tomas finally rose from his devotions. Javier scrambled to his feet as well, more than half certain if he hadn't joined him, that the priest would have been on his knees all night, seeking guidance. When Tomas turned toward the doors, Javier caught his arm, full of hope. “Come, let us whisper amongst ourselves here, my friend. Surely I cannot foreswear myself in God's house. Please, Tomas,” he added at the other man's surly expression. “Can we not discuss this?”
“There is nothing to discuss. The devil may quote scripture to his own ends, Javier. How am I to know you haven't bent the Pappas's mind as you did mine?” Despite the refusal, Tomas went with Javier as he tugged him toward a side chapel.
Determined to speak in privacy, Javier willed the smaller room empty, and was caught between delight and alarm when two older men and a beautiful girl exited it as they approached. Subtle influence: that much, he could live with, though a dagger of guilt found a home in him and lanced back to a night in Lutetia. His curiosity about Beatrice Irvine had driven his friends to make excuses and stay away from what had been meant as a night at the opera for them all. He could shape the world, and so must learn to take care to do it only with intent, and for the best of reasons.
Tomas watched the three leave and turned an accusing gaze on Javier, who lifted his hands in admission and apology. “I am trying, Tomas. I truly am. It's a part of me, and I rarely mean to push people into doing my bidding with it.” He gestured after the trio, then caught Tomas's hands, surprised at how cool they were. His own felt hot, as though the magic within him had turned his blood molten. “I need guidance on this path, that I do not overstep my boundaries.”
“As you already have done with me.” Tomas kept his voice to a murmur, but the words were sharp. “I must go to the Pappas with this. He's wiser than I, and will lay my concerns to rest.”
“Or take up your banner,” Javier said with low intensity. The back of his skull began to throb, every heartbeat pulsing incandescent light through it, molten blood turning to silver fire. He clenched his jaw, struggling to use reason over power. “Tomas, you trusted me this morning. I beg that you do so now.”
“You've become easier with begging, when it's your soul you fear for. Had you pled in Isidro instead of commanded, we might not be here now. I am sorry,” the priest said firmly. “I will visit with the Pappas in the morning.”
Javier whispered, “I can't let you.”
“If you stop me, then we'll both know that I'm right. That this power is the devil's, and that you're on a path to Hell.” Challenge lit Tomas's golden gaze. “Are you God's creature, king of Gallin, or are you the devil's spawn?”
Javier seized Tomas's arms, a grip hard enough to make his own hands hurt; harder, it felt, than any mortal should be able to hold something. There would be bruises left at the least, warning to the bold priest that he
