The Queen's Bastard Part 19

Belinda did not want to scream.

A lifetime of training made her draw breath. Alunaer, clean and still under new snow, flashed through her vision. The flavoured memory of wood smoke in the distance, rich and sharp, tightened her throat against sound, and black-branched trees reached through ten years of survival to sink their shadows into her. She did not need to look down to see a body lying broken on the flagstones beneath her. To scream was to write an ending, as one had been written, bloodily, to end her childhood. To scream was to end studying with Javier and to move forward with revolution.

To scream was to let Javier go.

Witchpower thundered through her blood. Belinda reached out on its command, putting her fingers into Viktor's hair. It was clean, though not so clean as it had been the last time she'd seen him, when he'd knelt before her in just such a way and offered marriage and s.e.x. Recognition jolted him profoundly, any doubt at Rosa's impossible transformation swept away beneath familiar touch. Belinda dropped to her knees, hands still knotted in Viktor's hair, and swayed toward him, hungry with the grasp of power.

"You could die for touching me," she whispered, her mouth nearly against his. She spoke Khazarian, but the witchpower in her blood raged and danced, working to play tricks on the man's memory even as memories were made. He would barely know she had spoken to him, but he would do her bidding with a need bordering on mania. She would be his object of desire, not because he had known Rosa but because she was a pure and genteel creature, so far above him as to be an angel. Such was her intent, and her experiments with Nina gave her no reason to doubt that Viktor, too, would bend to her will.

"I'll let you live, in exchange for your services." She knotted her hands in his hair more tightly, forbidding herself the impulse to loosen her fingers and drive them into his pants, to have him service her in more ways than one. Her pulse beat hot in her throat, desire unlike any she'd ever known for this man aching between her legs and rattling her thoughts. He was stronger than Marius, more delicious to dominate, harder to break, but he had gotten down on his knees to make a match with her and he could not, would not, deny her will. Belinda drew herself closer, putting her teeth over the heartbeat beneath his jaw, and bit hard enough to draw a strangled sound of mixed desire and resistance.

"Love me." The command sank into his skin with a golden glow, stronger than the shields or witchlight she'd built as weapons. "Worship me." Viktor croaked agreement, shuddering beneath her mouth. "I am your queen," Belinda breathed. "You will serve me or you will die."

His acquiescing nod sent pleasure so strong it became weakness over her, and she sagged against him. His arms closed around her, solid and strong. For an instant intellect clawed through pa.s.sion, leaving Belinda gasping and chilled. Stillness felt an impossible distance away, unreachable, untouchable, alien to her. In a moment of clarity she understood that it was using the witchpower that turned her into a creature of raw desire and rough l.u.s.t, endangering everything that she was and everything that she worked for. It cannot be found out. It cannot be found out. Robert's concern made sense for a few burning seconds: if this was what she became when she touched the magic within her, she could not, should not, be trusted. Locking it behind a chypre-scented wall had been wise. Robert's concern made sense for a few burning seconds: if this was what she became when she touched the magic within her, she could not, should not, be trusted. Locking it behind a chypre-scented wall had been wise.

And arrogant. Fury shattered understanding. She was not a tool to be meddled with and played by the likes of Robert Drake. That was something he would come to understand; she would make certain of it. Belinda shoved back from Viktor's warm strength, lip curled in disdain as she studied the paroxysm of agonized need stretching his face. Less out of sympathy than the cold thrill of power, she slid her hand over the front of his breeches, felt his hardness through cloth and curled her fingers around him. One vicious jerk sent a spasm over him, heat seeping against her wrist.

Unkind delight curled her mouth again and she pushed him away, standing up in the same smooth motion. "Watch Akilina. Remember when she meets Sandalia and what they discuss. I'll come to you when I have need of you."

She stood outside Javier's door a long time, flanked by guards whose gazes looked politely through her. She did not look at them, not trusting the witchpower to lie dormant if she did. Not trusting it to not flare up and demand tribute from the unfortunate men who guarded the prince that night. They would die if she met their eyes; they would die because she would take them s.e.xually, fully, and the noise of it would bring Javier to the door, and to hold her position in his bed she would cry rape and the guards would die.

The urge to use that power tickled the centre of her palms and itched at her until as little as she dared step into Javier's chambers so uncontrolled, she dared stay out even less.

Javier sprawled before the fire, linen nightdress falling around his knees, moon-pale legs stuck out in an ungainly fashion toward the fire. Belinda closed the door behind herself and locked it, hands tight on the bar as she leaned and stared at the casually bedecked prince. He looked up with a grin, wobbling a wine flask at her. "Akilina kept you longer than I expected. You did well, Beatrice. Even that crack about pigs f.u.c.king got a laugh. Here." He sat up, taking her in. "You look a bit disheveled. Did the Khazarian amba.s.sador have her way with you?" He gave her a raucous leer that was better suited to Sacha's face. "I miss all the fun."

"My lord, what do you feel when you use the witchpower?" Belinda's voice came beneath his, soft with something she was reluctant to call fear, but could see no other name for. Javier's drunk faded with her question, his eyebrows drawing down.

"Feel? What do you mean? Did you feel something from Akilina?" He bounded to his feet, enthusiasm suddenly rampant. "Is she one of us?"

"No." Regret's thin edge slashed through her at the disappointment in Javier's eyes, though he recovered instantly.

"No," he agreed. "It would be too much, for two women to come into my life so quickly, both bearing such power. Perhaps we're the only ones, Beatrice. But that's not so bad. At least we've found each other."

"Yes, my lord." Beatrice remained at the door, watching Javier as though he were an unfamiliar creature. "Do you feel anything?" she asked again, almost diffidently. "Do you feel...desire, the wish to...dominate?" She remembered, abruptly, the way he'd sculpted her body the first time they'd lain together, and thought that perhaps he did.

His expression, though, gave no hint of anything beyond bewilderment. "Do you?" Amus.e.m.e.nt cleared befuddlement away and he sauntered to her, deliberately leading with his hips. "Aah," he murmured. "A woman given power finds herself in the unfamiliar position of wishing to flex it, is that it? Does it excite you, Beatrice?" He crossed his wrists, laughter sparkling through his eyes. "Shall you be my cruel mistress?"

"Please." Belinda spoke the word carefully, turning her face away in order to make herself more vulnerable. She was too aware that the power running through her blood would make her words a command if she were not purposefully cautious. Javier's laughter would disappear into offense in an instant should she be that bold, and she couldn't afford to lose his attention now. Not with Viktor in the palace; not with Akilina and her unknown schedule to consider. "Please, do not mock me, my lord. This is not an easy thing to ask."

Javier uncrossed his wrists and touched Belinda's jaw, turning her face back toward his. "No," he said a few seconds later. "I can see that it isn't. I'm a man, and a prince," he added after a moment's thought. "It's natural that I should be in control, Bea. The witchpower helps to impress that on people, but...no. It doesn't waken in me a need to lord myself above others. But our stations are very different, and I think I can understand why you might chafe at the bounds of yours, when you and I both know what power you might command."

Belinda nodded, small motion, barely trusting herself to even that. Javier's fingertips felt cool against her face, as if her warmth might rise up and swallow him whole. She had let slip an opportunity to control his mother's court once this evening, shaping that chance into something new and, she hoped, something worth the risk of letting Viktor live. She could not afford to give in to hungry power and try to overwhelm Javier, not now. There would be other chances to wrest control in the court, but not if she pushed the prince so far as to fall out of his favour, even despite the witchpower.

A fleeting note of cool white slipped through golden magic, then spilled over it, the ordinary strength of her childhood stillness finally hers to command again. Witchpower faded beneath it and Belinda let it go gratefully, no longer hungry for the reading of emotions or the attempt to steal thoughts. It was a gift, for a precious few moments, to be unweighted by that power and its desires. Belinda let her head turn heavily against Javier's fingers, let herself sag against the door, and closed her eyes.

"What would you say," Javier asked in a low voice, "if I were to offer you the station that would allow you command?"

Belinda opened her eyes, bemused. Javier's hair flamed over his shoulders, firelight behind him lending it warmth that cast a golden glow to his skin. Shadows darkened his eyes to nearly black, devastating in the paleness of his face. His expression held cautious hope, so unexpected Belinda found a soft laugh to voice. "What, my lord?"

"I could offer you a duchy." Javier took a breath and held it, then exhaled. "I could offer you a crown."

Amus.e.m.e.nt burgeoned and Belinda straightened, a full smile on her lips. "Your mother would have a fit, Javier." Her smile edged its way toward a grin, a broad expression unfamiliar to her, but welcome as she reached for his wine flask. "She'd have apoplexy just at hearing you tease me with the idea. Give me that. Whatever you're drinking is fine stuff indeed. I want to try it."

Javier stepped back, holding the flask out of reach with what looked like a childish pout, though there was too much astonishment in his gaze for it to work. "I've already spoken to her, Beatrice."

"And I'm the queen of Cor..." Humour drained from her voice as surely as blood drained from her face as she took in Javier's growing insult. "Holy Maire, Mother of G.o.d. Javier, you're not-Javier?" Witchpower lay out of reach, dormant beneath the cloak of stillness that wrapped her mind. That habit had won over power was a relief now, for her untouchable core seemed shaken, doing nothing to slow her racing heart or the colour that reversed itself and began to climb her cheeks. Something was wrong with her hands: they trembled with cold emotion that strove to take her breath away. Tears stung at her throat and eyes, bewilderingly at odds with a fierce hope that burned her. Tears did not belong in the height of an emotion so extreme she was at a loss to name it. Neither excitement nor happiness went far enough; it harkened back to childhood and the moments of believing that Robert, in hosting Lorraine's court for a month, would introduce young Belinda to the queen. She had known the name of that emotion once; it had, perhaps, been joy. Surely tears didn't belong to joy, no more than such violent jubilation should belong to Belinda at all. Her heart's beat filled her chest too fully, taking her breath and threatening to knock itself out of her body. "Javier?"

"For all that Mother's the queen of the country, Lanyarchan lands are hard to offer you. They would be best, for it would spite the Red b.i.t.c.h, but I could offer you grounds in Brittany," Javier whispered. "Enough to be landed gentry; enough to command a certain power yourself." He took a breath, still holding the wine flask out, away from his body, away from Belinda. "Enough to make coming to the crown more than a pauper's walk."

A smile found Belinda's mouth and turned it half up long before Javier finished his plea. "To spite the t.i.tian b.i.t.c.h," she echoed. Her heart hurt, sending spikes of pain through her arms and into her palms, down her belly and to the soles of her feet. The heart should not be able to make pain in such far reaches of the body, she thought, but it did, as surely as it had taken up all the room for air in her lungs. "A Lanyarchan lady strengthening Prince Javier's claim to that throne. Throwing Cordula's faith in Lorraine's teeth, a warning that we will stand together. It is-" She had to swallow to loosen the knot that her throat had become. "It is an excellent ploy, my lord prince."

"It is not," Javier said with great care, "only a gambit."

Pain lanced through Belinda's chest again, forcing a laugh. "Is it not? What would your queen mother say to that?"

"Nothing flattering." Javier dared a smile that looked to hurt as much as Belinda's breath did. "I would make you my wife, Beatrice." He cast the wine away, coming toward her to take her hands. "I may not be allowed to." The frankness there deepened his voice and made raw cuts of it. "But I will if I can. Yes, what I presented to my mother is a game, but she doesn't know about your power. Our power. I have no intention of putting aside a woman who could be the heart and centre of my reign in ways no one else could ever understand. Forgive me for the method of it, Beatrice, but I beg of you, will you play this game with me?"

For the second time in her life a man got down on his knees, as if he were to make a love match, and asked her to marry him. And for the second time Belinda put shaking fingers into his hair, and whispered, "Yes."

13

BELINDA PRIMROSE / BEATRICE IRVINE

13 November 1587 Lutetia

"You wanted movement, my lord a.s.selin." Belinda spoke the words carefully, not out of respect for Sacha but out of respect for her own swollen jaw.

She had not come traipsing home to tell of Javier's proposal with a light heart, nor had she needed to. Eliza met her at the door with a fist balled so hard Belinda was certain she'd heard the other woman's knuckles crack when the hit landed. It had been Eliza's only comment; Belinda hadn't seen her in the two days since, nor did she expect to for some time yet. Belinda had opted to remain at home in the interim, as much to give the city time to spread gossip as to let the bruise fade. It had been, she ungrudgingly admitted, a magnificent hit. And she should have seen it coming. That she hadn't struck a note of discordant humour in her, and she spent entirely too much time studying the knuckle-shaped bruise along her jaw.

Sacha, the lag-behind-for Marius had visited as well, expression bleak and tempered only with the faint hope Belinda realised Javier must have given him, that she could not possibly be expected to actually wed wed the prince-Sacha had only come around after two days, and his outrage was as plain, if less physical in nature, as Eliza's had been. He, who had been quite free with laying his hands on Belinda's person, was a study in avoiding doing so now, although his fists clenched and opened as he stalked her parlour. the prince-Sacha had only come around after two days, and his outrage was as plain, if less physical in nature, as Eliza's had been. He, who had been quite free with laying his hands on Belinda's person, was a study in avoiding doing so now, although his fists clenched and opened as he stalked her parlour.

"I wanted movement, Irvine, not our friendship shattered! Have you seen Eliza?"

"She left." Belinda worked her jaw carefully, putting cool fingers against the bruise. "I a.s.sume she went to you or Marius until her temper pa.s.ses. Her things are still here."

"She's gone gone, Irvine. No one has seen her. Not since Tuesday morning."

Belinda turned toward the stocky lord with genuine horror clenching her stomach. "Gone?"

"Marius is holed up sick as a dog, all the spirit kicked out of him, and Liz is gone. You call that movement, Irvine?"

"You didn't ask me to protect your friendship." Belinda turned away again, startled by the ache cutting through her body. "I'm Lanyarchan. Lorraine won't like this at all." She had taken her bruised jaw and retreated to her bedroom after Eliza stormed out, writing a hasty letter to her "dearest Jayne" that warned him of the Gallic prince's clever plan. Lorraine would be a fool to act on the empty threat presented by Belinda's unexpected engagement, but the act could be made, and a trap laid in which to catch a queen. "Surely Eliza could see it was a ploy. Doesn't she know Javier better than that?"

"Eliza's not looking with her eyes."

"Are you?" Belinda cast the question without expecting an answer. Sacha growled, so low and deep for a moment she thought an animal was indeed locked in the room with her.

"You're a nothing, Irvine. A backwater n.o.ble-"

"From a country Lorraine struggles to dominate, whose faith is backed by Cordula's power and therefore the possibility of Essandia and Gallin's armies. You wanted movement, my lord a.s.selin," Belinda repeated. "I am attempting to provide it."

"You've done nothing. This was Javier's idea."

"Are you sure?" Belinda asked, but shrugged. "Does it matter? Without me there would be no alliance to dream up. What," she asked more pointedly, "do you want want of me, a.s.selin?" of me, a.s.selin?"

"I want your word that you won't go through with this farce."

Belinda barked laughter, then winced, putting her hand against her jaw. "It is not the provenance of a minor n.o.ble from Northern Aulun to determine whether she will or will not marry the prince of Gallin, Sacha." She used his name deliberately, a reminder that in comparison to a prince's rank, he was barely more than she. "Would you have me standing at the altar and refusing my vows?"

"If necessary," Sacha snapped. "He can't marry you, Irvine."

"I think you and Her Majesty are in accord on that topic. Her objection I understand, but your motivations make me curious. I'd think I would make a less offensive choice than a carefully bred pureblood who could never accept Javier's casual friendship with Eliza or the importance of you and Marius in his life." She hadn't seen Akilina since the night Javier had proposed, and curiosity ate at her. It would be easy to learn from Viktor whether his mistress was infuriated over the development, but Belinda was reluctant to face the palace with Eliza's handiwork still visible on her face. Cosmetics could cover the bruise, but a keen eye would see it regardless, and it smacked of a weakness Belinda was unwilling to show.

"Perhaps I simply want him to marry Eliza, so our quartet isn't disrupted."

"Then you're far more of a fool than I'd thought," Belinda said. "He couldn't even if he wanted to, and not just for the station she was born to." Eliza's confession to Javier on the bridge hung in Belinda's ears, and the spasm of anger that crossed a.s.selin's face said he, too, remembered why their gutter-born friend could never aspire to the throne. That Belinda had reminded him of Eliza's flaw was clearly no kindness, and she moved to soften his temper with quiet words: "I hope she comes back soon, Lord a.s.selin. Does Javier know she's gone?"

Fresh irritation curled his lip, her sop a failure except in redirecting his anger. "Javier's been cloistered with his mother for two days. Haggling out the details of your wedding, I'm sure. He won't hear me, and he twists with guilt every time he looks at Marius. You've destroyed us, Irvine."

"You won't believe me when I say that was not my intent." Belinda gathered her skirts and lifted her chin, displaying the bruise to full effect. "Perhaps I can distract him from his mother for a little while. I'll tell him about Eliza, my lord. It's the best I can do."

"No." Sacha's gaze turned ugly. "It's the least you can do."

Belinda pulled stillness around herself, hiding in plain sight in the thin November sun. It would be easy-appropriate, perhaps-to enter the palace with fanfare and pomp, but she found herself shivering with distaste at the idea.

She wondered, too late now, what Robert would say to the hand she'd played. An engagement to a prince meant portraits, drawings, discussions of her face and figure across the breadth of Echon. It meant the ordinary prettiness she'd hidden in would no longer be a disguise, her anonymity gone. She might still move among the lower ranks without fear of discovery, but a placement in a household like Gregori's might be forever out of her reach again. It was a thought that should have come to her before she agreed to Javier's mad plan.

And yet. And yet, had she thought, she would have chosen the same path she now walked, separate and in shadows, because from within she could more closely monitor Javier and his mother. Could more closely direct them into dangerous waters, all to Aulun's benefit.

Besides, her complexion could be roughened, weight gained or lost, her hair darkened or lightened. Those things could lend her anonymity again, if such measures were even necessary. Belinda stood aside as a gaggle of court ladies pa.s.sed in a rush of perfume and giggles. They looked through her, no more seeing her than they might see the air they breathed, and she watched as they disappeared down the hall in a flurry of bright colours and shining hair. Mundane disguises faltered and fell before the witchpower-granted ability to stand amidst a gathering and go unseen. The only danger there was in avoiding those who could see through her magic, and thus far, the only ones who could were on her side.

The thought slowed her as she approached Javier's chambers. Robert worked for the love of his queen, but Khazarian-born Dmitri-if indeed he were born of that northern country; his accent when he'd accosted her in the Count Kapnist's estates had been flawlessly Aulunian-had no such tie to Lorraine. Belinda stepped into an alcove, holding her breath as she conjured memory, the distant voices of her father and Dmitri as they climbed the stairs to Robert's sitting rooms. Dmitri's, low and marked with the Khazarian accent: "-begun. The imperatrix is with child-" "-begun. The imperatrix is with child-"

And amus.e.m.e.nt from her father: "That was quickly done." "That was quickly done."

"As it had to be," Dmitri agreed. Dmitri agreed. "With the imperator's wars, that Irina has even a chance of childbearing is-" "With the imperator's wars, that Irina has even a chance of childbearing is-"

"A blessing to us all," Robert's tone, sanctimonious, garnered a staccato laugh from Dmitri, one that cut through the stillness surrounding Belinda even now. She half-focused across the hall, understanding coming to the woman where the child had seen no meaning at all. Robert's tone, sanctimonious, garnered a staccato laugh from Dmitri, one that cut through the stillness surrounding Belinda even now. She half-focused across the hall, understanding coming to the woman where the child had seen no meaning at all.

Ivanova Durova was no more the Imperator Fodor's daughter than Belinda herself was. Dmitri had lain with Irina and gotten a child on her, and as much as Robert had, guided that child's growth to adulthood. Like herself, like Javier, Ivanova was witchbreed.

Sudden coolness poured down Belinda's insides, chilling the shadows that held her safe. Robert was her father, and Dmitri Ivanova's. Sandalia showed no signs of witchpower, and the king whose name Javier bore was long dead.

Belinda found that she did not, for an instant, believe that Louis IV of Gallin had carried the witchpower in his blood.

Who was Javier's father?

Laughter trilled in her throat, more desperation than humour. Belinda pressed herself against the walls, folded her hands against her mouth and winced as she found the bruise again. Its ache soothed her and she increased the pressure against it, ignoring pain until it faded. The impulse to flee the Lutetian palace, all the way back to Aulun, so she could put the question to Robert Drake in person filled her. It was not a question to be asked in a letter, even to dearest Jayne; those, while cryptic, could be discovered and decoded. A hint, even the slightest hint, that Javier, like herself, was a queen's b.a.s.t.a.r.d, would send Gallin flying apart and shame both Sandalia and Cordula to no end.

Belinda's heart crashed once against her ribs and held there, emptiness in her chest that thrummed through her veins until it felt that she might erupt from negative pressure within her.

It would send Gallin flying apart and shame Sandalia and Cordula to no end.

Javier's ties to Lanyarch would be shattered. Sandalia was only heir by marriage, not blood, and for her son to have come from the wrong side of a marriage bed would break his claim to that long-empty throne. Likewise, his mother was regent in Gallin, holding the throne for her son.

Her son. Not Louis's son. Javier, as a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, had no right to Gallin's throne. Only his heirship to Essandia would be legitimate, coming through his uncle to his mother to himself, and Rodrigo, for all his fondness toward Sandalia, might well not be able to see past a b.a.s.t.a.r.d child. Not when his faith in his church was so much to him that he himself had never wed and fathered an heir. His piety, Belinda thought, must have been a frustration to Robert and Dmitri, who now seemed to her intent on littering Echon's royal families with witchbreed b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. son. Not Louis's son. Javier, as a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, had no right to Gallin's throne. Only his heirship to Essandia would be legitimate, coming through his uncle to his mother to himself, and Rodrigo, for all his fondness toward Sandalia, might well not be able to see past a b.a.s.t.a.r.d child. Not when his faith in his church was so much to him that he himself had never wed and fathered an heir. His piety, Belinda thought, must have been a frustration to Robert and Dmitri, who now seemed to her intent on littering Echon's royal families with witchbreed b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

Yes. If it was their plot, then Dmitri had to be Javier's father, though the look of the ginger-haired prince held nothing in common with the hawk-faced man at all. Perhaps his pale skin and slim build, nothing more, certainly not the narrowness of his grey eyes or his long jaw.

Uncertainty washed through her. Javier looked far more like the washed-out blond king who was his father by law than like Dmitri or even his own mother. Maybe witchbreed magic was less rare than either she or Javier thought, and slept unnoticed through most generations, only sparking from time to time in certain families.

But then her own father should not have the power that he did, and perhaps then Ivanova, daugher of Irena of Khazar, had no power at all. But had Dmitri and Robert not been certain of that gift arising, then the circ.u.mstances of Ivanova's birth made little difference to anyone. Belinda quelled the urge to clutch her temples, as if she'd try to hold her thoughts together. No, witchbreed parents knew what they had when they made a child, and Robert would know, must know, who Javier's father was. Perhaps not Dmitri after all, his sharp features and darkness clearly not inherited by the witchbreed prince. Someone else, then, a user of witchpower outside of Belinda's realm of knowledge. Someone at court who could guide Javier in the development of his skills.

No.

Javier had told her she was the only one like himself. Belinda had recognized almost immediately that her father, too, was like them, but Javier had spoken freely of having no guidance, only his own sense of self to show him the way.

Robert didn't know. The thought came with startling clarity. Her father, who seemed to Belinda to be always in control, The thought came with startling clarity. Her father, who seemed to Belinda to be always in control, did not know did not know that the prince of Gallin was witchbreed. Had he known, he would have influenced Sandalia through her son rather than insert Belinda into the realm. It was what Belinda herself would have done, and her father was far more calculating than she. Javier lay outside Robert's realm of influence, and that meant he, even more than Sandalia and her ambitions, stood as a threat to Aulun. that the prince of Gallin was witchbreed. Had he known, he would have influenced Sandalia through her son rather than insert Belinda into the realm. It was what Belinda herself would have done, and her father was far more calculating than she. Javier lay outside Robert's realm of influence, and that meant he, even more than Sandalia and her ambitions, stood as a threat to Aulun.

A chill of curiosity lifted b.u.mps on Belinda's skin as she thought of other royal scions, and wondered how many of them were their father's children, and what purpose they served if they were not. Her Her purpose was clear: as the hidden daughter of Aulun, she was a secret weapon, trained to protect a throne that stood on the faith of a new religion. Ivanova, openly Irina's daughter, could hold no such position in her mother's court; she had been born in wedlock, if on the wrong side of the sheets, and no one would question her heirship. But that in itself could be a purpose, if Ivanova could be controlled and influenced through witchpower. An unbreachable Khazarian alliance would strengthen Aulun immeasurably. purpose was clear: as the hidden daughter of Aulun, she was a secret weapon, trained to protect a throne that stood on the faith of a new religion. Ivanova, openly Irina's daughter, could hold no such position in her mother's court; she had been born in wedlock, if on the wrong side of the sheets, and no one would question her heirship. But that in itself could be a purpose, if Ivanova could be controlled and influenced through witchpower. An unbreachable Khazarian alliance would strengthen Aulun immeasurably.

Belinda shuddered in a breath through her fingers, then spread her hands wide, staring at her palms. Echon's fate lay in her hands more thoroughly than even Robert imagined.

Excitement darted through her, testing her external stillness like a hummingbird in search of life-giving nectar. She kept it locked within, golden witchpower cloaking her against all comers as she considered her needs. Foremost, always foremost, was to find proof of a plan against the Aulunian throne, but beneath that now lay the task of discovering who had fathered Javier de Castille. To learn, in short, what other players influenced Echon's royal families by way of the base side of a marriage bed. It cannot be found out It cannot be found out thrummed in the back of her mind, her father's lifelong warning, and she thought that even if she had the means to ask, Robert might withhold that answer from her. She had often asked questions and rarely had them answered-that lesson had been learned early on. Better to discover what she could on her own and, armed with knowledge, come to her father with details that shone light on Sandalia's indiscretions and shattered Javier's claim to a trio of thrones. thrummed in the back of her mind, her father's lifelong warning, and she thought that even if she had the means to ask, Robert might withhold that answer from her. She had often asked questions and rarely had them answered-that lesson had been learned early on. Better to discover what she could on her own and, armed with knowledge, come to her father with details that shone light on Sandalia's indiscretions and shattered Javier's claim to a trio of thrones.

To do otherwise was to question her own existence, focused and purposeful as it had been, and even with power growing inside her with its own ambition for dominance, Belinda did not doubt herself or her place in the world. And even if-alien thought, difficult to so much as endure, much less truly consider-even if she were somehow to be brought into the light as her mother's daughter, every step toward securing Aulun's future secured her own. The truth of Javier's heritage would inevitably help fashion that security.

It would take more than a hint. Belinda's head spun, glee rushing through her veins in sparks of golden light. The extraordinary potential of what lay before her threatened to burst her self-imposed calm, and she didn't care. It would take more than whispers to properly bring down the Gallic regent and her son. She would need proof of Sandalia's infidelities, and a wise queen would have done away with proof.

Belinda uncurled a slow smile at her palms. Sandalia had let one shred of proof go: Javier himself. Knowing what to look for, the rest could be done. Not by anyone, perhaps, but by Belinda, with her burgeoning gift for stealing thoughts and influencing emotion. It could be done, and when it was done, Ec.u.menic Echon would be in shambles, and Lorraine's Reformation throne safe for years to come.

Javier would never forgive her. Belinda swayed at the thought, letting her hands close into loose fists again. He, who had unleashed her witchpower and her heart, he who believed that above all Belinda wished to see him safely enstated on the Lanyarchan throne, he who was heir to half of Echon, would not forgive her if she so utterly destroyed his world. Nor should he. Belinda closed her eyes, regret lancing through delight until her heart hung in her chest again, aching with unfamiliar choice. Her duty was obvious.

And she would not shirk it. Nails dug into her palms and she let go a soft cry, deliberately forgoing stillness to revel in brief pain. To serve Aulun, to serve Lorraine, she would destroy Javier and with him the precious sense of belonging.