“What would you have me do, Javier? Take Akilina aside and explain I can no longer listen to her counsel, because my son’s jealous heart has taken a dislike to her?” Belinda heard teasing in Sandalia’s voice, though Javier’s tight expression said he was having none of it.
“You’re the queen,” he said petulantly. “You don’t have to explain anything.”
Sandalia laughed aloud, a thing rare enough that Belinda couldn’t remember having heard her do so before. She had a much deeper laugh than expected, in contrast to her sweet soprano voice. It coloured Belinda’s viewpoint of her, enriching her into sudden humanity as her smile carved lines around her mouth and bent her toward likability. It was a striking thought: Belinda had never conceived of queens as being likable or not; that was a thing reserved for ordinary human affairs. Lorraine was a creature for veneration, and Sandalia was her rival and therefore the enemy; that was all that mattered.
Unexpectedly, unpleasantly, Belinda wondered if she wanted Sandalia to die, and the idea rained chaos in her mind, breaking cold sweat on her skin. Within an instant she drew stillness to her, beyond the witchpower she used to hide herself from the room’s other occupants. This was her childhood game, the one of not hurting and not fearing; it could be used as well to not think. Duty and desire lay on opposite sides of a vast divide; it was not her blessing or her curse to consider her own wishes as she served her queen. Duty made her the queen’s secret blade; desire, as she lifted her eyes to look at Sandalia again, seemed a foreign conceit, and as quickly as she’d wondered whether she wanted the petite Gallic queen dead, she wondered why she would not want her dead.
Javier’s sullenness had grown in the instant Belinda’s thoughts were turned aside. He cared for being laughed at no more than anyone, and perhaps less: his royal mantle saved him from it often enough. “A queen,” Sandalia told him, “can do far less as she likes than you might imagine. I will not put Akilina aside, Javier, so draw in your lip and cease your pouting. It ill becomes anyone over the age of three, especially a prince.”
Javier did as he was told, though the emotions that pooled around him and crept toward Belinda were still black. “Why won’t you rid us of her? We asked for no Khazarian contingent.”
“Nor,” Sandalia said after long moments, “did we ask for the support of Khazarian troops that Akilina and I have negotiated, to be ratified by Irina’s own hand.”
Javier’s sulk fell away as abruptly as Belinda’s interest piqued. Impulse again edged her forward, as though she might miss something if she remained more safely sequestered by the door, and she made her hands into fists, leaning toward the royal pair by the fire, but not moving further. “Mother?” Belinda could all but taste the leap of Javier’s heart, excitement suddenly pounding through him where a breath earlier there had been a childish whinge. Sandalia regarded her son another long moment before standing and gesturing for him to follow. Belinda bit her lower lip and pursued them, matching her steps to Javier’s and moving close enough to pass through the door Sandalia opened.
Sandalia paused, holding the door, forehead wrinkled at Javier as he passed in front of her and Belinda stepped to the side, holding her breath and keeping well out of the way. Javier turned back to his mother when he realised she was still at the door, curiosity tilting an eyebrow. “Perhaps you should consider rubbing up to Beatrice only at night, Javier,” Sandalia said drily. “You smell of her perfume.”
Red scalded Javier’s cheeks and Belinda pressed a hand against her stomach, caught between horrified laughter and nausea. She had thought to trick the eye, but never to try fooling the nose. She would pour out her perfumes the instant she returned to her rooms. Javier mumbled an apology that Sandalia brushed off, closing the door behind her and locking it before crossing to a writing desk that dominated the private chamber. The rest of the room was equally businesslike, the windows too small to be looked through from the outside, the chairs arranged in such a fashion as to focus on the desk; here, Sandalia could hold court among counselors, herself sitting amidst the scribes as they scribbled and sketched out treaties as voiced by the men who advised a queen.
It took more than one key to open a heavy drawer within the desk. Sandalia tucked the keys back into her bodice, a location sufficiently secure that Belinda briefly despaired of acquiring them herself, and withdrew a stack of parchment, spreading the top pages out as Javier joined her behind the desk. Belinda held herself still again, heart crashing against her ribs while Javier traced a fingertip down one sheet of parchment, murmuring written words aloud: “‘…commitment of troops toward the administration of open water passages from Khazar’s port town of Nvskya to the Essandian Straits.’ ‘Administration,’” he repeated. “A delicate word for indelicate intentions. This has your signature already, Mother. Yours and Akilina’s. Can you be certain you ally yourself with Irina, and not her duchess?”
“Would you have me use seizure and control? We tread dangerous enough waters as it is,” Sandalia said shortly. “The details of ratification are at the top. Read carefully, Javier. Akilina acts in Irina’s name or not at all.”
“Does my uncle Rodrigo know?”
A lance of guilt spiked from Sandalia, though her words didn’t betray it: “Irina still dances with him on a treaty. Their sexes suggest treaties should be made by marriage, and Irina wants that no more than any of us.” Belinda knew she spoke of the reigning queens of Echon, an unusual sisterhood endlessly threatened by the men around them. Javier allowed himself a brief laugh.
“Does something make the imperatrix think that Rodrigo’s eager for marriage? He’s managed to avoid it for thirty years.”
“My brother prefers to make his conquests peacefully,” Sandalia said. “It’s why he still treats with Lorraine, and why Irina should be cautious.”
“Lorraine will die before she gives her hand and throne in marriage,” Javier said. Sandalia lifted her eyes, pretty face carved with an animal smile.
“Yes. She will.”
The threat’s weight settled over Belinda’s skin like a cloak, wrapping her tightly in it. Her fingers drifted to the small of her back, where her tiny dagger lay hidden beneath clothes and corsets. It would be very easy to end it now, to slip forward unseen and drive the blade into Sandalia’s throat. Javier would not be able to save her, or raise an alarm quickly enough to save his own life. There was no other choice, if she were to kill the queen now: it must be both of them, so no one was left for a pretender’s crown. She could take the papers that Sandalia and Javier now gloated over and return to Aulun; the treaty would prove her right to have acted as she did. Lorraine’s reluctance to put another regent to death would be mitigated by proof positive of plots against her, and with the witchpower helping her, no one would ever know Belinda had done the deed that saved her queen.
She found her skirts already gathered high, a hand twisted behind her back to snake its way beneath her corset in search of the blade she was never without.
“Akilina came as an ambassador in truth, then,” Javier half-asked, still studying the treaty. “A woman.”
Sandalia let a shoulder rise and fall. “Who better to trust than another woman, rather than the men who insist we are too weak to rule in our own right? There’s a price, Javier.” She turned a page, parchment whispering against itself. “This treaty has a price.”
“They all do,” Javier said mildly. His fingertips stopped their wandering, pressed against the sheet Sandalia had uncovered, and he read for a few seconds before breathing, “Ah. This cannot be what Akilina wanted, Mother. She came to Gallin in search of a throne.” He chuckled, another soft sound, as Sandalia glanced at him in surprise. “I’m not that blind to reality, Mother, even with this match made to Beatrice.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Steel crept into the queen’s voice, then faded again as she touched the papers above Javier’s hand. “And you’re right, it isn’t. But she cannot protest overmuch, or she’ll lose her standing as an ambassador. And it benefits her, if not as thoroughly as she might like.”
“She wants public adoration. But failing that, yes, standing behind the throne might do.” Javier took a breath. “So you’ll wed me to the Khazarian heir after all.”
Cold sluiced through Belinda, chilling her fingers against the small of her back. Ivanova Durova, Irina’s daughter. Dmitri’s daughter. Belinda clenched her hand and let her skirts fall again, heart hammering once more. Neither Dmitri nor Robert would allow the engagement of Khazar to Gallin if they did not tacitly approve; Belinda’s hasty action in taking Javier’s life along with his mother’s could easily disrupt Robert’s plans. She set her teeth together, a new flush of anger running over her. Hers had been a lifetime of servitude, never asking why, but this once, set loose in the Lutetian court, understanding her father’s ultimate purpose might have been useful. Securing Lorraine’s throne was the obvious end game, but allying the massive eastern country of Khazar to tiny Gallin had to go beyond that. Perhaps that alliance might end in a victory for Aulun that Belinda couldn’t yet see. She would have
