C. Murphy - The Queen_s Bastard

Akilina Pankejeff is very fond of power.

Nearly all the pieces are in place to expose Beatrice. Akilina considers, briefly, sparing the prince his lover’s exposй, but there’s a part of her wedded to drama, if not cruelty. Her search for Viktor’s Rosa has led her to fascinating discoveries; discoveries she has not yet shared with even Sandalia. Javier will regret, too late, being swayed by Beatrice’s spell rather than standing at Marius’s side. He’s fortunate he’s the prince; a lesser man would lose all status at the coup d’йtat that Akilina intends to present. If Javier is wise he’ll accept that he has, indeed, been under a spell, and that Beatrice Irvine is a witch best meant for the burning.

Akilina meets Beatrice’s eyes just briefly, and for a wonder, the young woman neither curtseys nor so much as inclines her head in acknowledgment. Her gaze is steady, cool hazel as she dares, at least for a moment, to hold herself equal to a countess.

Akilina likes this girl.

She’ll like bringing her down even more.

A smile curving her lips, she graces Beatrice with one small nod, an admission of challenge, and then she gathers her skirts and slips away from the garden, eager to deepen the game.

4 January 1588 Lutetia “You look at me as if you’re no longer certain of me, my lord.” Beatrice kept her voice soft, putting sorrow into it instead of accusation. Javier twitched, the first movement save breathing he’d made since Marius’s departure. He hadn’t so much as watched Akilina go, his gaze fixed wholly on Belinda.

“Marius has never spoken to me so,” he said roughly, when another moment had passed. “How is it that you’ve lain a barrier between us all, Beatrice? Eliza is gone and Sacha will barely speak to me when he’s not searching for her. Marius, my gentle Marius, has become brittle as ice. We four, who have been together since childhood, disrupted by one woman. How have you done this?”

“It was your own power that persuaded them to stay away from the opera.” Belinda spoke carefully, wanting only reminder in the words, not blame. “Perhaps…” She hesitated, not for effect but out of genuine uncertainty, then exhaled a sigh. “Perhaps it was, or is, time for childhood to be left behind, my lord. They-”

“I will never give them up,” Javier snapped. Belinda lifted her hands in apology, shaking her head.

“I meant no such thing. But friendships change, don’t they? Nothing remains the same. I don’t at all mean that you should lose them, Javier, but a reckoning, a redefining, may be at hand. It’s inevitable, isn’t it? You’ll all marry, one way or another. You’ll all have families and duties and responsibilities beyond those to one another. Perhaps I’m a harbinger.” Belinda smiled faintly. “An ill omen.”

“No.” Javier sounded desperate as he stepped forward to take Belinda’s hands, squeezing them until her bones ached from it. “You’re the only one like me,” he all but whispered. “You’re not, you can’t be, an ill omen. Marius is-” Desperation broke his words a second time and Belinda shifted his grip, so they held each other’s hands.

“Marius fell in love with me, Javier, and you took me from him. His mother might have agreed to me marrying him, but she’s neither privy to your plans nor a fool. I’m no longer a viable interest, and she thinks it’s time he’s wed, so Sarah Asselin it shall be. He’s hurt and angry and I hope he’ll forgive you. I hope you’ll forgive him,” she added more quietly. “I did not mean for any of this to happen.”

That it had, and that it increased Javier’s reliance on her, was a gift she hadn’t looked for. Without his childhood friends at hand, Belinda thought the prince more likely to buck Sandalia’s whim, and seek Belinda herself out when he was supposed to be otherwise occupied. It might lead him to share secrets that weren’t his to share; Belinda would try to work that from him. Flat acknowledgment rose in her: she had been avoiding moving too abruptly within the court as much to keep eyes off her as to steal moments with Javier; it wouldn’t be long before what time they had together came inevitably to an end. It was shocking sentiment to want to stretch that time out, and as well that neither Robert nor she dared communication while she was so publicly in the court’s eye; Robert would be thoroughly displeased with her reticence, and Belinda would have no legitimate grounds on which to defend herself.

“I know you didn’t.” Forgiveness lightened Javier’s voice, before reluctance deepened it again. “I should see Mother before the countess does. God knows what she’ll tell her.”

“That I’m a harlot not good enough for the royal house, so she should marry you herself,” Belinda said drily. “Go. I’ll take myself back to embroidering.”

Javier quirked a brief, unhappy smile, then stepped closer to kiss her. “Don’t abandon me, Beatrice,” he murmured against her mouth. “I’m bereft on all sides. Without you, I lose hope.”

“Never lose hope, my lord prince,” Belinda replied. Javier broke from her, touching his knuckles to her cheek, then spun and strode away, sodden earth marking his passage through the garden.

Belinda exhaled, standing alone in the wind and chill, then made fists of her hands and called stillness to herself. Witchpower flared, golden light drawing shadows close until she felt the freedom of invisibility.

Thus wrapped, she threw caution to the side and went to seek out the secrets shared by Countess Akilina Pankejeff and Sandalia de Costa, queen and regent.

Anger propelled Belinda through the palace halls. Anger at herself for dallying with Javier, for luxuriating in the life of nobility; for allowing herself to lose focus. Anger, too, at Javier, for playing Marius so clumsily; as a prince he should have more ability with people than that, though perhaps inevitably royalty failed to understand its effect on the common man.

Anger, most exquisite anger, at Akilina Pankejeff. If her purpose were to split Belinda from Javier, she’d failed, but that she was willing to make such a blatant attempt at it rang caution through Belinda’s soul. That very blatancy might have helped Belinda in defusing Javier’s anger, though Marius’s careful play with words had gone much further in doing that than anything Belinda had or hadn’t said. Still Javier was no fool, and Akilina arranging for him to catch Belinda and Marius together smacked of a deliberation that the prince might have resented, had that card been necessary to play. Belinda didn’t know the raven-haired countess well, but such an obvious hand seemed unlike her. And if it was, then she’d had a greater plan in bringing Javier to the young lovers in the bower, and not knowing that plan angered Belinda, too.

It was easy to stalk through the palace, hidden in plain sight, with anger to fuel the witchpower. It burned away the usual heady wash of sexual desire that using her magic carried; that, beyond anything else, was useful to know. If the impulsive, idiotic actions brought on by too much use of power could be headed off by focusing on rage instead of want, it was much the better for Belinda.

Tempestuous emotion allowed her to walk through Sandalia’s audience chambers a few steps behind Javier, slipping through the doors before the guards closed them again without anyone being the wiser. It let her follow the prince, unseen, into the private dayrooms beyond the formal courtroom, where she had the presence of mind to stop just inside the doors, while Javier walked ahead. He didn’t seem to share her gift for recognizing when witchpower was being used around him, unless it stood directly in conflict with what he wanted. But angry or not, there was no use in pushing the boundaries further than she had. A few feet of distance felt safer, even through the turmoil of frustration, and both prince and queen were well within viewing and hearing range.