“Yes.” Eliza bumped her nose against his, amusement in her voice. “Accept it. We're complicated creatures, able to love and loathe with equal ease, even when the object of such varied emotion is a single person. I should think men can too, but that they prefer not to think about it.”
Javier opened his eyes, meeting Eliza's bright gaze. “Men, perhaps, are obliged to choose one emotion to act on. I may go into battle afraid, but I show courage, or we all lose heart.”
“I think I would rather be a woman.” Eliza smiled, making herself merely lovely, instead of the beauty she could be. “Especially a guttersnipe woman on the arm of a king. It affords me such freedom. Tell me, king of Gallin. If your witchpower is so muted as to leave you trembling and frowning at calling a little light, does that mean the woman in your lap, ungraced by God as she may be, has the better of you tonight?”
Javier groaned and sat up, gathering her in his arms as he tucked his nose against her shoulder. “You've had the best of me all along, Eliza, and if it's not God's grace that's put you by my side, then I've nowhere to lay my thanks.”
“Never fear.” Eliza slipped out of his arms and took his hand and a candle, leading him to the curtained-off area that was his private space in the battlefield tent. “I know just how and where to lay your thanks, my love, if that's the name we're giving it now. The rest will come in the morning,” she said more softly. “Explanations and battle, but for now, Javier, come to me and rest.”
C.E. Murphy
The Pretender's Crown
Not until noon, with the sun overhead and sweat pouring into his eyes, did Javier think of bridging the space between the two halves of his splintered army with witchpower.
Tomas heard his curse and glanced at him with curious concern that Javier shook off He already held shielding in place, with rare attempts at witchpower bombs aborted early by Belinda's magic. Eliza had been unable to find Sacha that morning, unable to explain Javier's tactics before the armies came together in a terrible clash. She was with the doctors now, as safe as anyone could be on a battlefield. Marius and the gondola boy were with her, and if Javier concentrated he could pick out the notes of their determination amongst all the others. It was a poor use of his attention, though, and he'd only tried it once.
As he would only try this trick once. If his luck held, Belinda wouldn't recognise what he did until it was established, and would be unable to break it. She might be his match, even his better, in power now, but he thought he could hold her off, so long as he had nothing else to do.
Witchpower extended in two shimmering walls, creating thin silver shields for his men as they struggled against the enemy and struggled toward one another. Aulunian troops made a broad river of red coats between those two banks of power, crashing against them with all their might. They were too many to hold back entirely: they found weak points and surged through, or Cordulan soldiers forced their way forward too quickly for Javier, trying to see the entire battle at once, to account for. Men died despite his efforts, but not, perhaps, in the numbers that they might have.
The fleeting idea to capture Aulun's army in a bubble danced through Javier's mind and he put it away again: they were too many, and he would have to stand against the full might of their cannons trying to bring his shields down. Better to be more clever, and perhaps reunite his army before Aulun saw what was happening. The corridor had to be a narrow one, slender enough that it would go unnoticed for a while. More than one would be better, though the thought made him wince with anticipation of difficulty One at a time, then: that would suffice.
His instinct was to shove Khazarians and Aulunians aside, actually clearing a path for his men, but he fought it, instead slithering a thin point of power across the river of redcoats toward its opposite shore. Not until his fingertips touched, making a triangle, did he realise he was building the shape with his hands even as he tried to build it in his thoughts. Physical action begot magic: he extended his hands, palms placed together to make a needle of his fingers, and when he had reached as far as he could, power melded with power and a silver line shimmered through the midst of the Aulunian army. Eyes wide on the battle below, Javier parted his hands a few inches, edging his corridor open. Keeping it permeable as best he could: they would notice, had to notice, if a sudden wall of air knocked them aside, and he wanted subtlety where it was possible. It only had to be a few shoulder-widths across to accomplish his ends.
His fingers flexed, almost uncontrolled, a surge of tension that brought the soft witchpower walls up to strength and cut off a thin red line of Aulunian soldiers from their brothers.
For long seconds, nothing changed on the battlefield: men shoved and pushed and slew, moving back and forth over small distances, and then one of the Aulunian soldiers died. Another took his place, and then another, each falling back a step as a trickle of Cordulan troops pushed their way into the corridor.
A moment later there were no more red-coated men standing within it, and Cordulan warriors roared triumph. Javier heard the same cry tear from his own throat as men began spilling through the tunnel he'd made, joining their brothers on Javier's side of the shielded battle.
It wasn't so much as a tide turning. Javier, a fist clenched in victory, reminded himself of that. He had to hold the passage and his divided army had to work its way through so they could fight together against the combined might of Aulun and Khazar. It wasn't yet anything decisive.
But it was a beginning. Breathless, elated, Javier risked opening the floodgate a little more, then bent his head to the task of keeping it strong.
ROBERT, LORD DRAKE
23 June 1588 † The Aulunian Straits
Dmitri has been at Robert's side for two days now. It shouldn't have taken Robert this long to press the matter, but it's only now, with the recognisable flavour of Javier de Castille's power pouring off the Gallic coast, that the newly named queen's consort turns to a still-disguised Khazarian envoy and says, “I never imagined Seolfor had it in him.”
Dmitri tucks his chin, black beard masking his face as well as a woman's veil might. “You sent him to Essandia, Robert. Lutetia's on the way, and Sandalia was a pretty woman.”
“Mmn.” Robert turns back to the ship's rail, examining the distance. “But it leaves the boy untrained, and for all his renegade ideas, I wouldn't have thought that in Seolfor's nature.”
“Isn't that the very definition of a renegade? Besides, you left Belinda untrained,” Dmitri says, and there's a hint of smugness in his voice. Robert stills the impulse to knock him overboard; he'd be rescued soon enough, but he would also see the action as a sign of Robert losing control.
As if Javier's existence isn't proof enough of that.
He doubts, doubts in every way, that Javier is Seolfor's son, and yet there's no other explanation that fits. Dmitri was Sandalia's faithful priest and lover for a little while, but not lucky enough to father a child on her. Robert himself never tupped that queen, no, nor Irina, either, and for the briefest moment there's a sting of genuine human envy and amusement in him. Men would count coup on those conquests, and find Dmitri the victor, with two queens to his bed and Robert having only one. Akilina wore a crown now, but to number her among the royal women Robert had bedded seemed somehow cheating.
Perhaps this is why, and how, he's come to lose control: he allows himself to tumble down streams of thought like this one, making mortal games out of what ought to be serious duty. He shakes off some of his musing and answers Dmitri with an argument, though he's not sure the other man's wrong. “She was too young when she came into her power, and did well enough shaping her own mind for its release.”
“Think what she might have been if you'd seized on her talent when she was a child.”
“Think what happens when you give children gunpowder to play with. She's of more use adult and less skilled than she would be dead from playing at witchcraft when she was nine. Or is the imperator's heir so controlled that she's hidden all signs of the power you've taught her since she was a toddler?”
Dmitri's face flushes under his beard. “She's slower to come into it than Belinda was, is all.”
“As have been our children on a hundred worlds,” Robert says, deliberately soothing. “We thought short human lives meant quick development when she hid herself in shadow, but she's probably only precocious, a fluke. Ivanova and,” he sighs, “Javier, I think, make that clear. He had no noticeable presence until lately. He's Belinda's
