The Pretender's Crown (33 page)

The raging storm comes to a stop inside that moment, and a single thin line of entwined gold and silver unfurls itself through time, whispering of hope as it goes. Gold and silver and crimson: that slim thread carries Belinda's heart's blood with it, too, against her will and with it all at once.

Then it twists back, becoming wire, becoming a garrotte, and the cut it makes is around Belinda's heart, slashing it to pieces and leaving an aching hole inside her. Javier sees no pretty pictures in their tangled futures, and false dreams aside, Belinda has known that's how it must be. She did, after all, murder his mother.

Somehow there's humour in that thought. It enrages Javier and releases Belinda from her sorrow, leaving them a war to fight again. On the cliffs, Belinda gets to her feet again, slow joint by joint rising that's an act of defiance and necessity. Javier expects her to be on her knees; standing, she throws everything that she is into his teeth, and Belinda takes pride in that.

What she does not know is the storm has ripped her hair from its tight bindings, that it has torn her clothes and left her clearly a woman standing alone on the cliff's edge. What she does not know is that first one, then another, and now thousands of Aulunian soldiers have seen her, black-haired in the rain, white-skinned, lit by gold: an unearthly creature with her hands and face raised to the storm. What she does not know is that they have whispered it amongst themselves already, and that their story burns like fire through the ranks.

God, they say, may have lent Javier de Castille a gift of power, but He has sent the Holy Mother herself to watch over Aulun and her people.

Belinda, who would laugh at the idea, is blessedly unaware, and when Javier strikes at her again with his silver magic, she only lets a
tsk
of dismay through the shield she has created. She could fight the Gallic prince to a standstill, could dominate and destroy him, but wisdom, though it's come lately, has at least come to her. Her shield may be gold, soft rich metal that it is, but it's heavy and solid, and the more time Javier wastes trying to pick his way through it, the more time she has to pull his fleet down around him. She ignores his own bright boat for the moment, so as to give him no reason to stop trying to destroy her, and instead turns her attention to the ships doing battle with her own in the belly of the storm.

Most of them will never know what happened. Belinda's hands claw, and so does the wind-whipped surface of the sea. Heavy planks shatter under water shaped with human intent, holes smashed beneath the waterlines. A dozen ships are sunk before the others start to realise something is wrong.

She cannot drown them all. The armada is too vast, too spread out, but many of their ships are at the centre of the fight and the heart of the tempest. Belinda reaches for those closest to Javier's, following his latticework, and comes upon a familiar presence.

Marius Poulin is on board one of those ships, and his terror is fresh and strong. A cramp seizes Belinda's heart, taking her breath and proving there's weakness in her after all. Marius has been badly used, both by herself and by his king. Whether it's mercy or foolishness, sympathy stings through her, and she releases his ship from the
gold-laced network that drags the armada into the sea. Marius deserves better than a death by drowning, and that much, at least, she can give him. She can do nothing about the guilt that surges through him when his ship crashes to the top of the waves while others around it are drawn inexorably down, but there's the price of war: no matter how and no matter why, those who survive will bear a burden of self-inflicted censure.

Another price is paid for that moment of mercy: Javier's realised what she's doing, and has unleashed his awareness of the other ships the better to focus on keeping his afloat. It's hardly a heroic response, but Belinda finds it commendable: he's the serpent's head, and without him the amassed Cordulan army will wither and die.

He is also the particular threat to Lorraine's throne, and so Belinda stands, indecisive, for what feels like hours in the lashing rain. But in the end there's more damage to be done to his army's morale, and more safety for Aulun, if the armada is destroyed. She has a sense of her own navy's ships now, having singled them out as the ones not connected by Javier's awareness, and she can continue to lash out and sink the invading ships without fearing for her own.

Whether it's the storm that loses strength in time or herself, she's not sure, but a block of sunlight falls through clouds that are white from releasing rain. Shocked by the brightness, she lets witchpower fall away from herself, and only a lifetime of stubborn practise keeps her from staggering with exhaustion. She stands where she is, wishing she had a staff to lean on, and watches the Aulunian navy sail back to harbour. Their cheers are audible from a half-mile away, and she lifts a fatigued gaze to the horizon, as if she could see the armada's remains limping back to Gallin. Javier has survived, but his fleet has not. It's a victory worth bringing home to Lorraine.

Weary beyond belief, Belinda turns from the view and hobbles away from the cliffs, entirely unaware that she's leaving behind a legend in the making.

†
in Alania

It's with an old man's chuckle that he kicks his feet off the stump they're resting on and hitches himself upright with the help of his staff. By evening he's packed mules and carts, chortling all the while, and by sunset, he's making his slow shuffling way out of the village that has been his home for forty years, to finally begin shaping this small blue world.

4 June 1588
†
Gallin's northern shore

There were too many drowning men to save.

The
Cordoglio
had tried, pulling those she could to the safety of her decks. One such had been Sacha Asselin, so rudely snatched from Poseidon's clutches that he had vomited seawater when they dragged him on board, and whose cough still sounded wet and pathetic. Javier had refused to leave his side until he was delivered into a physician's hands, and had agitated until assured that so long as Sacha kept warm and dry, no illness should set into his lungs. Even then he'd not wanted to leave, and sat for a long time with an arm around Sacha, as if he could keep death away with a firm hand.

Marius and Eliza had come to shore safely as well, their ship unscathed, though Javier'd only half-heard the story of their escape while they all huddled around Sacha. When sleep took the stocky young lord, Javier left his friends, returning to the beaches to stare down their length as afternoon turned to evening and the storm faded away.

Bloated bodies washed up every minute or two. It would be the same across the straits, with soldiers rolling against the cliffs and deposited on sandy stretches, there to rot. Cordulan survivors, if there were any, would count themselves lucky to disappear into the Aulunian populace; most would likely end up in prison, awaiting
the end of a war that Javier had meant to begin so decisively that its end would be brief and inevitable.

“You've done your duty in mourning and watching the sea for survivors. Attend the mass for their souls, but we have a war to fight, Javier. The weather turned against us this time, and Aulun will come on the storm's heels, bringing the fight to us.”

“It wasn't the storm.” Javier kept his eyes on the sea, surprised to hear his uncle's voice, surprised it had taken a full six hours from the
Cordoglio
staggering back to port before Rodrigo came to remind him of his duty.

Now the Essandian prince stepped up beside him, no longer pretending the diffidence that had kept him behind Javier and out of sight. “The woman, then?” He sounded unexpectedly calm, while fear and fury rose in Javier's breast.

“Yes,
the woman.
Belinda. Witchbreed bitch. That storm was hers to command.”

“Had you meant it to be yours?” Genuine curiosity coloured Rodrigo's voice, no censure and no concern. “I hadn't known it was in your power.”

Black rage burnt a line behind Javier's breastbone, filling his breath with bitterness. “Nor had I. It had not been my intent.” He spat the admission, hating it. “I—”

“Then our enemy has a weapon for which we were not prepared,” Rodrigo murmured. “This is war, Javier. This is the way of war. Your own attacks, were they effective?”

“No.” Bile in the answer, loathing so deep Javier couldn't say whether it was for Belinda Primrose or for himself. “She shielded against them. She ought not have been able!”

Rodrigo's silence drew out long enough for Javier to know it was measured, that the Essandian prince was choosing his words carefully. Useless anger beat inside him, that Rodrigo should have to, and yet had his uncle spoken carelessly he would have struck at him, his own impotence so vast as to need an outlet.

“You've spent these last months extending your gift's aspects. So, it seems, has she. We shouldn't be surprised.”

Javier whispered “But her strength” with more despair than he
wanted to own to. “I was stronger than she, in Lutetia, uncle. She fell easily then. She is only a woman.”

“Words your mother would slap you for,” Rodrigo said drily. “You taught her. She was still new to her magic, but it's been almost a year, has it not? Since you began with her?”

Javier nodded, a sullen jerk of motion, then lifted a hand to his face. His fingers were still cold and swollen with water; warmth, if it ever returned, seemed a long time coming. “She sees her power—saw it—as internal, a thing that benefits a woman. I had not imagined it might … expand.”

A flush heated his face, making his hand feel colder still. His own magic had changed in the past months, giving him hints of the emotions in those around him. Clarity deepened his blush: such a development could all too easily be considered a womanly thing, appropriate to the fairer sex. If he could learn that, then he ought to have anticipated Belinda might better herself in active uses of the witchpower. He mumbled, “I'm a fool,” and to his irritation and surprise, Rodrigo chuckled.

“War and women make fools of all men, nephew.”

Javier's embarrassment fled, replaced by a more righteous anger. “How can you laugh? We've taken devastating losses.”

“I'm old,” Rodrigo said, droll once again. Then, less so, he added, “And laughter diffuses the rage that makes clarity difficult to achieve. Aulun will come for us, Javier. We must ready the army, and move them.”

“Move them?” Javier snapped a hand toward the straits. “They'll come across the water. We can meet them here on the shore, and burn their ships with fire-arrows and cannon. We'll slaughter them before they're past the beaches.” Silver certainty rose in his mind, making him loosen his sword as though the Aulunian army already approached.

“They know we have an army gathered here, Javier.” Rodrigo found a stick and drew in the sand, idle sketches that became the shape of the two countries' coastlines. A mark slashed their location before Rodrigo stabbed holes in the earth, one to the north, where the straits were narrowest, and one to the south, where another sharp jut of land brought the two countries close together before
the straits ended and turned to open sea. “They'll come there or there, and make for Lutetia as we would have made for Alunaer.”

Javier kicked sand over the lower point, scoffing. “It's ten days' journey from Brittany into the capital if you're feeding an army. They'll want to ride their victory directly into battle, not waste time marching.”

“They'll want to win. They're outnumbered and know it, so chasing us here is a tactical disaster. You were taught tactics, were you not?” Rodrigo might have been born of desert sands, so dry was his voice. Insult coloured Javier's cheeks again, but he made himself scowl at the rough map in the sand.

“It's a losing tactic for them regardless of what they choose. We could split our forces and still meet them with even odds at either of those places. Or we could wait here until we know where they're coming from, and meet them in battle outside Lutetia.” Javier sucked his cheeks in, still sullen. “That would be to our tactical advantage.”

“So you
were
paying attention. The army rides under Cordula's banner, but they're yours to command. What's your will?”

Guilt surged through Javier, burning away insult and sourness alike. Rodrigo's expression gave no hint that his words were meant to be loaded, and Javier wished, briefly, that the small skill he'd developed in sensing emotion might burgeon, so he wouldn't have to grasp his uncle's shoulder to see if that innocence was real. Asking him his will, after months of struggling to leave men their own, seemed a purposeful cruelty. Javier made a fist, and his voice, when he spoke, was rough and tight. “I'll hear the mass for the dead before I decide.”

Hear the mass for the dead, and bend a penitent knee to Tomas so he might hear the priest's advice. He was king, and his will meant to be law, and yet the thought of it stated so directly sent hummingbird wings of fear fluttering in his chest. His will must be that, and nothing more: his, without bending others to it, not even if the Pappas had graced him with God's blessing. It was a test, as every moment of his life had been a test. He had failed a few bitter times, but not again. Tomas would guide him. Tomas would tell him what to do.