Her hands claw in front of his chest as though she could pull the words from him, but she tries to keep her voice soothing and soft. “Who is it?”
“Marius,” Sacha whispers, and crumbles on himself, sobs wracking his body.
Relief sags Akilina. Marius is no one, except a king's friend. His death means nothing to her. All she needs is a certainty that Sacha won't compromise her when he confesses to the reasons behind attacking the priest.
More's the pity that she's unarmed. She might easily have made a story of how she saw Javier's oldest friend running from the chaos and out of concern followed him, only to face his killing rage and be forced to defend herself. But she reminds herself that it's better that the Essandian queen should have no blood on her hands, and instead takes another tactic in silencing his tongue. “Sacha. Sacha, listen to me. My heart aches for your loss, Sacha. I wish it had gone as we meant. But you must run or you must be prepared to face their wrath.”
“I.” Sacha spits the word through his tears. “Why not we, lady? Why should I not condemn you when I face Javier? Had you not whispered treachery against the priest in my ear-”
Akilina whispers, “Because the babe is yours, Sacha, and condemning me means your son won't sit on the Essandian throne.”
Sacha Asselin's every movement stops: he doesn't breathe, he doesn't blink, he doesn't sway where he kneels in the soft earth. He only stares at Akilina, utterly arrested, and for a moment she wonders if apoplexy will take him and he'll collapse.
Then the pulse in his throat flutters, so hard that she can see it even in the moonlight, and he draws a breath that sounds sharp as knives. “How do I know this isn't a trick to save your own neck?” Despair's gone from his voice, replaced with something so harsh that Akilina thinks her skin might disintegrate under the sound.
“You don't,” she says, trusting a raw show of truth to score him more deeply than charm or dissembling. “You don't, but you've suspected since the beginning, and the chance that I'm telling the truth is too high for you to risk damning me. You're Javier's oldest friend, and you drew on a priest, not on him. He won't have you put to death, not even if Cordula demands it. You may lose stature, but in the worst of all worlds you can become an ambassador to Essandia, and play uncle to your son. He'll love you,” she whispers, “and he'll be born to a throne. Is my denunciation worth that price?”
Sacha's shoulders slump and his expression turns dull with hatred for a moment. “Are you a witch, Akilina? Does the devil guide your steps and leave you unscathed in the worst of moments? Sandalia dead at your feet, and a crown to wear for it. Marius dead by my hand, and an heir to pay for him. Javier's power makes him weak and needy of a priest, but I wonder now if that's not a safer bargain to make than dealing with you.”
Akilina gathers her skirts and stands, wishing Sacha were not covered in blood. She would have him, otherwise, let him bury himself in her in despair and shame and desperation, and with that passion bind him to her ever more strongly. She is not a witch, not in the way of folklore, but she's a woman of strength and ambition, and that, in the end, may be the same thing. “Plead a madness of jealousy,” she says, rather than answer his questions. “You've been Javier's friend all his life, and many will sympathise with a displacement that drove you wild. Javier's guilt will hold him more closely to your side, and the priest will lose some of his hold. In the end you'll guide Javier and in time you'll guide your son, and hold power behind two Echonian thrones. Come back to the camp before dawn, Sacha. I'm sure they'll bury your friend at sunrise, and he deserves for you to be there. But tell no one I found you tonight; what we have, you and I, must be kept a secret.”
She turns and walks back through the forest, leaving Sacha Asselin alone with his thoughts.
C.E. Murphy
The Pretender's Crown
JAVIER DE CASTILLE, KING OF GALLIN
25 June 1588 † Brittany; the Gallic camp
Cannon roared with the first light of dawn, lead balls smashing through troops on both sides of the war, and for the first time in days, Javier did nothing to mitigate their strength or damage.
He had slept, but only because his body was weak: his heart wanted to stay awake, as if refusing sleep would somehow refuse the truth of Marius's death. As if, if he faced the morning without rest, he would be rewarded for vigilance by Marius's return. But neither had happened; he'd slumped over Marius's body, tears staining the shroud until exhaustion claimed him, and when he woke it was to his friend's cold, unmoving form, and to his own lack of stomach for further war.
A pity, that, and he knew it, for what he'd set in motion wasn't going to end with an easy suit for peace. It would go on until either the Aulunian crown sat on his head, or he was dead. A numb place sat inside him where ambition had burned: nothing was worth this cost, not even Sandalia's vengeance, and yet now the price was paid, and nothing could be done but to carry on.
Eliza was curled at his side, a weary ball of heat, like a kitten searching for comfort, but he had none to offer her. He'd wakened her with a touch to her hair, and before he earned so much as an early-morning smile, tears filled her eyes and she put her nose into his ribs, each of them holding on as though answers or relief might be found in clinging to each other.
Tomas found them that way when he came for Marius. They three and Rodrigo, who joined them as the sun broke the horizon, lifted the shrouded body together, and went a silent, heartbroken trudge to the hilltop grave that had been dug in the night. Akilina waited there at a respectful distance, present but not intruding on a grief she wasn't fool enough to pretend was her own. The gondola boy, unexpectedly, was nearby as well, unrelenting misery twisting his features, though he'd clearly forbidden himself permission to cry. Javier's heart knocked as though he'd been hit, suddenly close to coming undone by a child determined to be a man in the face of sorrow.
He looked away from the boy to find Tomas waiting on him, waiting for a signal that Javier couldn't yet give. He turned half-blind eyes to the hills and the horizon, waiting himself, waiting for a thing he wasn't certain would come to pass.
“There.” Eliza's voice came softly, little in it but grief and exhaustion. Javier looked for the shadow she saw and found it: Sacha, whose arrival tore at Javier's heart. He should be there; he should be there because Marius was his friend and for penance, and at the same time a black rage rose up in Javier that he dared to attend. Eliza touched his hand, and he loosened the fist it had made. Loosened it, because he feared what a fist might do when Sacha got too close, and because Marius wouldn't want them fighting over his grave. Marius wouldn't harbour the rage that clenched Javier's own heart; Marius would call it all a mistake, and find a way to forgive. Javier couldn't bring that much kindness to the fore, and only gave Tomas a fractured nod, inviting, commanding, him to begin.
There was no comfort in ancient words of ritual, or in the quiet recitation of the things that had made up Marius Poulin's life. Tears burned Javier's eyes and made his stomach sick, but wouldn't fall; he could not, it seemed, allow himself that weakness in face of morning's light. Marius would have cried; Marius had always been softer. Eliza stood beside him silently; only her quick gasps for steady breaths told him her tears fell. Sacha, standing a little distance away, was dry-eyed and haunted, and that, Javier thought, was as it should be. And Rodrigo, well, Rodrigo was there out of respect, and his expression was steady and grim. No one else attended; no one else had the right, so far as Javier was concerned.
He bent to cast the first handful of dirt into the grave himself, its thump and rattle the most final and dreadful sound he'd ever encountered. They worked together then, two monarchs and a priest and a guttersnipe, to fill in Marius's grave, and all the while Javier felt Sacha's aching gaze on his back. Even if Javier'd made the offer, there weren't enough shovels: this was not a duty their friendship's fourth would be allowed to participate in. That was a cost of what he'd done, and Javier counted it low enough indeed.
When the grave was fresh earth mounded high, Rodrigo put a hand on Javier's shoulder, not trying to make words fit a space where silence said enough. Then he called Tomas to him and walked away, joining Akilina before taking their leave of the three remaining friends. The gondola boy walked a few steps with them, head lifted as if he were royalty's equal, then took himself in another direction. Only when they were gone did Sacha edge forward, uncertain of his welcome.
“You should have been with us last night, to sit vigil.” Javier spoke to the raw dirt, and barely knew his own
