Belinda’s mind danced back to the moment they’d shared at the Maglian pub, the injury she’d seen flicker through Ana’s expression when the tavern’s overwhelming emotional attack had made her draw back from the other woman rather than give in to the sweet, unbartered passion they’d both felt. To condemn Beatrice Irvine as a falsehood seemed an extraordinary retaliation for a fleeting moment’s pain, but Belinda knew too well how desire dismissed could go astray, and had no other answer to consider.
Javier’s voice, above her head, cut through the clamor, witchpower giving it strength: “Who is her father, that you make this outrageous claim and lend it his name as backing?”
Belinda thought, did not say, did not so much as breathe, no, and could not let herself close her eyes or flinch in dismay as Ana said, “Robert, Lord Drake, favoured of Lorraine in Aulun.” “Beatrice?” Javier whispered her name through the commotion rising in Sandalia’s audience hall. Belinda allowed herself a laugh, a tiny shaking sound, and turned her eyes toward the prince, helplessness in them.
“What should I say, my prince? I can’t end this farce by agreeing with them. I’ve never been beyond Lutetia, much less as far as Aria Magli. My father’s name was Robert, it’s true, but he was Robert Stewart, and held a plot of land in the highlands of Lanyarch. I don’t know why they’re doing this.” She felt distressingly exposed, as if wearing Beatrice’s too-raw emotions so openly stripped her to the skin. As if Ana had the power to undress her with words and show the Lutetian court the truth of the woman beneath Javier’s consort. She could do nothing other than hold her ground and maintain her innocence, but doing so was draining the strength from her, and she didn’t dare reach for the witchpower’s uncontrollable fire to shore herself with.
“That is all you need say.” Javier pressed his lips to her forehead, then lifted his voice. “We find this woman, these women,” he said, including Akilina in his accusations, “to be troublesome and cruel-hearted. Beatrice has done none of you any harm, and a woman’s life has already been paid for your foolish, bitter games. I know this woman whom I hold in my arms.” Passion deepened his voice and he tucked Beatrice against his chest more solidly. “She has given me more joy in the brief months I’ve courted her than a lifetime has known before. I had believed myself to be alone.” His voice gentled again and he set Belinda back, his hands on her shoulders as he gazed down at her. The grey of his eyes was bright with passion, his fingers warm against her skin where her gown had torn. His thoughts whispered to her things he wouldn’t say aloud to the gathered assembly: She’s like me, more than any of you can understand. She shares the power that I have. I will make this all right if I have to bend each and every one of you to my will, even you, Mother. I will not be left alone again.
“She’s shown me that I’m not alone,” he said, almost for her ears only. “For that gift alone I would defend her to God Himself.” He looked up again, anger darkening his face. “And I will hear no more of these accusations. We know where Beatrice Irvine is from. Ask yourselves instead what ends the Khazarian countess gains from this drama.”
The crowd turned with his speech, grumblings twisting away from Belinda to focus on Akilina. Only the scant handful at the front of the throne room held steady in their stances: Marius, for whom Belinda could do no wrong; Asselin, for whom she could do no right. Akilina’s confidence flagged not at all, and Sandalia held suspicion above any other conceit. Javier’s steadfast trust was strongest, but the walls of dissonant, strident belief from each of them battered at her, threatening the still core she dared not release.
“I don’t gain a throne from it.” Akilina’s reply was light. “You know that as well as I, Prince Javier. My aspirations reach beyond my grasp, I fear; I must learn to content myself with lesser objectives. This has nothing to do with me, my lord, and everything to do with the safety of your mother’s realm. Of your realm, your Highness. How might I convince you of this?”
“Produce Drake,” Javier spat. “Let me hear it from his own lips. Condemn Beatrice that way.”
A serpent’s smile slipped across Akilina’s mouth and she curtsied so deeply as to border on ridicule. “Viktor.”
The guard, whose eyes had never left Belinda, flinched at the sound of his name, coming to attention. Akilina nodded and he broke from formation, stomping down the cleared aisle through the courtiers. They drew back, watching him as if he were an alien thing, dangerous to them, and Belinda watched him go with a surety and a sickness rising in her. The doors at the end of the hall banged open to allow him exodus, and shut again with a final-sounding boom behind him.
Rage, underlying, too familiar, scented of chypre in the back of Belinda’s mind.
“Do forgive me his condition, my prince,” Akilina murmured to the silent hall. “He’s been most reluctant to cooperate.”
Belinda trembled in Javier’s grip, not from fear but from fury. Akilina’s smugness, her utter pleasure in the situation, was truth enough as to who would be dragged through the doors when they opened again. Belinda wanted, even without seeing Robert, to fall to her knees, to cry aloud and shriek her horror and dismay. She wanted her hard-learned stillness to desert her, to be allowed to be a child abandoned and forgotten but still seeking approval; to break away from what she and her father had made of her and be nothing more than an ordinary woman in a trying position.
Like everyone else, she flinched when the doors banged open again. The tiny reaction felt like her single nod to humanity, for she could not allow herself to fall into despair as Viktor and another man dragged Robert Drake’s broken and bleeding form down the audience chamber aisle.
She did permit herself a cry of dismay, fingers pressed against her mouth, eyes round with horror. Beatrice Irvine was a gentle woman, and a man broken under torture was far from a sight she was prepared to see. She turned away, painful abrupt movement, to hide her face against Javier’s chest, a plea shaking her voice: “My lord, I don’t know this man. What have they done to him? Surely we’re not such monsters…?” Witchpower raged beneath her skin, searching for a weakness that would permit it to burst forth and act, though what form that action might take, Belinda didn’t know. She only knew she wanted to lash out, and that she felt a marrow-deep resentment of the training that forbade it as powerfully as she felt reassurance at that training’s strength.
Grimness filled Javier’s response, more in feeling than in words. “I believe I would know the Aulunian queen’s consort anywhere, even as badly treated as he has been. Akilina, you will explain this.” Sandalia, at his side, sparked with a curious blend of resentment and relief that her son seemed finally willing to take a leading position. He was too much like his uncle, Belinda thought abruptly, and wondered once more at the father who’d gotten Javier on Sandalia. The distraction, however brief, was a welcome one, diverting some of the edged fury elsewhere. Sandalia, just within Belinda’s line of sight, said nothing as she turned to the Khazarian countess, awaiting answers to Javier’s demand.
“Viktor and Ilyana both spoke of this woman.” Akilina gestured with her hands as she spoke, graceful motion encompassing first where Ilyana’s blood patterned the rugs, giving the name to the dead girl, then including Belinda as a woman unworthy of naming. “They knew her as Rosa, on a Khazarian estate north of Khazan. My lover Gregori Kapnist died there and on that same day this woman fled.” She all but wove a spell with her words, speaking softly enough that everyone leaned in to hear. “Tell me, Prince Javier, does your woman wear a knife at the small of her back?”
Javier’s expression became nonplussed, turning from Akilina to Belinda and back again. “Not that I’ve seen.” He offered a faint smile, suggesting, “If you like I could take her away from here and investigate in private.”
A voice distorted with lust and envy came out of the crowd: “Strip the whore here and let us all see you’re not bespelled, Red Prince.”
Javier turned shocked eyes toward the courtiers, who tightened ranks rather than fall apart and expose the speaker. Belinda tried to call a blush and failed, anger at her inability bringing colour to her cheeks a moment later. Javier set his jaw and returned his attention to Akilina, whose unimpeachable confidence had faded a notch at his confession. “I had her journey traced,” the countess said, voice lowered further. “To Aria Magli, where she met this woman and this man, whom I know myself. She was sent here from Parna, Your Highnesses, to bring down your throne.”
“Drake has confirmed this?” Javier scraped the words out, earning Akilina’s laugh.
“Not yet, my lord prince, but he will. Or perhaps Belinda could spare him the pain, and tell us all the truth.”
“My name is Beatrice Irvine!” Belinda cried her reply with all the passion she could muster, frustration bringing tears to her eyes. Emotion leapt in Robert, sharp spike of pride that all but undid her, making tears more real than they had reason to be. “I do not know this man or this woman! They mean nothing to me, and I have no way to prove myself to you!”
“You do,” Akilina said, full of liquid delight. Beatrice turned to her, hands spread beseechingly, and Akilina
