A Dance of Shadows (The Royal Spares #3)
Chapter 1
Chapter One
Aurelia
O ne moment, I’m staring at the man I believed was my husband. The next, with a violent lurch of my stomach, I have to shove myself away from him.
I scramble into the bathing room as fast as my wobbly legs will carry me, just in time. My stomach heaves again, and I vomit the remains of my celebratory feasting into the marble bowl of the toilet.
Acid burns my throat. As I sputter and spit, my cheeks flush with a similar burn, as if I have anything to be embarrassed about.
There are some scenarios the body simply isn’t equipped to handle. Having your supposed husband tell you you’ve actually been married to two men and that he wants your help murdering his twin brother? That’s clearly one of them.
The lingering nausea of my pregnancy won’t have helped matters either. At least I can use that as an excuse for my reaction.
Marclinus—no, just Marc , if he’s to be believed—has followed me into the bathing room. As I sink onto the polished tiles, he bends over me, tucking my hair back from my face with a gentleness I still find startling.
Perhaps I shouldn’t. While it’s clear that both sides I’ve seen of Marclinus contain plenty of brutality, he offered me tenderness or warmth several times in the past.
I thought those softer moments amid the cruelty merely reflected the shifting moods of an infuriatingly capricious man. If what he’s saying is true, it’s more likely that they reflect one twin being capable of some shred of compassion while the other lacks it entirely.
I suppose I should be grateful the one who’s capable of it is the one making the confession.
Marc wets a cloth and crouches next to me to bring the damp fabric to my face. My blush deepens. He’s cleaning me up like a maid with a feeble mistress.
I touch his arm. “You don’t need to?—”
He clicks his tongue at me. “You’re my wife. You’re carrying my child. Of course I’ll tend to you.”
I’m too shaky to raise more protest.
Sprite, my new kitten, bumps her head into my hand with a soft mew, and I stroke my fingers over her soft fur reflexively. The motion helps ground me.
We still have quite a conversation ahead of us.
Gods help me, Elox hinted at this revelation in some of the visions he sent me, didn’t he? My godlen showed me two lambs racing away, one bird breaking free from another…
My husband has been my greatest enemy these past few months. Now I might have two equally powerful—and equally dangerous—foes.
None of this kindness will last if Marc finds out just how far I’ve gone to secure my place as empress.
When he’s finished with his brief ministrations, he tosses the cloth onto the side of the bathtub. His pale gray eyes study me, his striking face set in one of its cool expressions that I find unreadable.
“I hope the pregnancy won’t be too hard on you,” he says. Apparently he’s taking my illness as entirely due to my condition and not his confession—or his murderous request.
I adjust my weight to get to my feet, scooping up Sprite as I do. “I haven’t been faring too badly so far. I think perhaps—when there’s a particular shock?—”
He has to at least understand that much.
Marc grips my elbow to help me up, standing alongside me. He gives me a mild smile, crooked around the edges. “I did say it would be a lot to grasp. But you needed to know.”
I’d imagine I am better off knowing than not, as difficult as the news has been to swallow.
On steadier feet, I walk with my sort-of husband back into the bedroom. I pour myself a glass of water from the pitcher on a side table so I can wash the sourness from my mouth before returning to the sofa where he made his confession. With Sprite nestled on my lap, I pet her back in a reassuring rhythm.
As my queasiness subsides, questions whirl in my head. Is he even telling the truth? Marclinus has come up with all kinds of elaborate ways of testing and tormenting me in the past. What if this mad story is simply another of them, a reminder of just how dangerous an enemy even one man can be?
My gaze flicks to his pale, chiseled features—to the pink notch through the left side of his upper lip. I touch my own mouth in the same spot. “You’ve always had that scar.” I’d have noticed if it’d temporarily vanished.
Marc makes a quick grimace. “When we were four, Linus got his hands on a razor and thought he’d ‘shave’ himself like the barber did for Father. I’m lucky the nursemaid caught him before he cut himself more. Father had to nick me the same way so we’d still match.”
My gut lists again. I already knew the late Emperor Tarquin was a terror of a man. Forcing his sons to live only half a life each, slicing one open as little more than a babe to maintain that scheme—in Marc’s story, his father is even more of a monster than I could have guessed.
And he raised not one but two monsters to continue his legacy.
I’ve been through so much with Marclinus that our entire short but fraught history together is overwhelming to contemplate. I grope back through my memories for certainty to center me. “When we spoke in the carriage about your initial response to the Lavirian uprising—when you said you’d have the local authorities crack down on the traitors—that was you. And it was your brother who changed plans and berated me over it.”
Marc’s grimace returns. He runs his hand through his unruly golden-blond curls. “I told you Linus made a mess of things. It turned out all right in the end, but if we’d started with a stronger strategy…”
He lets out a huff of breath. “I also told you he doesn’t trust you. It upset him to think you’d had any influence over our decisions at all. He was trying to ensure you didn’t interfere in the future.”
He might have been successful if I was a less patient woman.
I wet my lips. “And you approved of my joining in the confirmation rites, while he didn’t?”
Marc nods. “I want a wife who can hold her own with our people. Linus doesn’t like having any of his glory ‘stolen.’ Or for anyone else to see you as a ruler in your own right.”
But that means it was also Marc who refused to tell me any of the key details he was privy to ahead of time. Whether it was him or his brother navigating Estera’s maze, treading through Prospira’s vicious goldglobe vines, or ascending Creaden’s obelisk, he knew the key to making it through each ceremony unscathed.
He let me go into each of those potentially fatal scenarios unprepared so that he could make sure I held my own—even though he didn’t have to.
I pause, but it seems important to know: “Which of you did I actually marry? Who was in the temple with me before the cleric?”
Marc’s expression darkens. “Linus was there for the ceremony—but it counted for both of us.” He rubs the gold marriage band around his wrist, which I assume he must have obtained through other means. “He wanted to enjoy the festivities. I was the one whose hand you took at the end of the final trial. You ran through the fire to me .”
His mention of the trials stirs up all sorts of other uncomfortable memories. “I suppose the two of you planned those tests together, along with your father.”
“We had rather different ideas about what qualities it was most important to evaluate.” Marc’s eyes narrow as they flick toward the bathing room. “I wouldn’t have put you in a position where you were forced to overindulge and vomit. Or paraded you around the palace unclothed. If Linus is worried about any of the noblemen of the court having lustful thoughts about you, it’s his own damned fault.”
From what he said earlier, Linus is the twin most concerned with his own lusts. The pawing and groping, the public display of ownership in that waystation when he all but forced himself on me—those must have been him.
But what is Marc more concerned with? He said he prefers to focus on “strategy and practical action.”
“You normally handle matters involving the military,” I venture. “Both from a distance and in the field? You fought the prisoner from Lavira in Sabrelle’s rite.”
Marc’s satisfied smile answers my question before his words do. “I happen to think the ability to defend our empire is more important than romping with the court. Although obviously keeping the nobles happy is vital as well.”
Presumably the man in front of me is also the one who led the army into battle against the rebels in Rione several years ago. And the one who threw knives and shot arrows at me and his other potential brides during the trials.
Was he the twin who evaluated our forbearance by watching us scald our hands on hot serving dishes while we starved? Who expected us to dance on bleeding feet alongside the panther who killed my one friend in court, Lady Rochelle?
No doubt he designed the course the final three of us ran through, that tripped and scraped and nearly drowned us. That sent Lady Fausta, my main rival, tumbling to her death.
I don’t know how to confirm any of that without my resentment of those trials seeping into my tone, but it doesn’t really matter. Every one of the tests we endured was akin to torture. Marclinus observed us struggling through all of them without a hint of concern or regret.
Even if I can’t blame this man for the absolute worst of the horrors I’ve endured, he’s responsible for a sizeable portion. There’s no version of this story where he comes out the hero and his twin the sole villain.
Have the princes who’ve been his foster brothers for most of their lives ever suspected the duplicity? Raul, Bastien, and Lorenzo haven’t mentioned any strangeness from their childhood with the imperial heir.
I need to speak to the men I love as soon as possible. As soon as I can reach out to them without my husband or our guards catching wind.
In my silence, Marc clasps my hand. “I can handle the full role of emperor, the frivolities as well as the practicalities. I could have from the start. Sharing the authority with Linus is hurting our rule more than helping it now. That’s why I need your help.”
I start to suppress a shiver and then realize it’s better if I let him see it. “To murder him.”
“Yes.” Marc squeezes my hand and then gets up. He paces back and forth in front of me. “I might have focused more on my military training, but Linus isn’t a slouch. If I try to eliminate him through physical combat, it may not be quick. And our guards would sense any weapons wielded aggressively or other significant signs of struggle…”
He spins toward me and motions to the small knife tucked in its sheath on my belt behind my carry-pouch. “That blade I gave you wouldn’t get you very far, but the medics often use potions and the like to dull the senses or completely knock out a person when they’re in pain. Surely with your gift, you could concoct something similar to leave him incapable of defending himself?”
A fresh wave of nausea sweeps through me. Does Marc suspect that I’ve already done as much to him and his brother in the past? Is this the real purpose of his confession—to prompt one of my own so he can accuse me of treachery?
“I’d imagine such a thing would be possible,” I say quietly, letting my horror continue to show. “But to use my gift for that purpose… I’m dedicated to healing, not doing harm. Surely there’s some way to reason and compromise with your brother, an approach that wouldn’t require ending his life.”
Fuck. I wanted to end Marclinus’s life—and now that may mean I have to murder two men. Just the one seemed nearly impossible.
Marc makes a vague gesture of dismissal. “I’ve tried, believe me. He’s only gotten more wound up in his paranoid delusions. I have no idea what else he might do, how far he might go if he realizes I’m aiming to take over as sole emperor. It needs to be done as soon as possible.”
And how much more paranoia will I stir up if I show any willingness to orchestrate a murder?
I shrink against the sofa. “I can’t— You’re asking me to help kill the man I married.”
Marc frowns. “You stabbed a man to death in the arena this morning. You’ve spoken for the punishment of those who deserve it. Isn’t protecting the empire enough justification?”
I grapple with my answer. “The prisoner was a traitor. It’s hard to see what your brother has done in the same light. And it was difficult for me to carry out that act with my own hands as it was.”
I didn’t actually kill the man. I schemed to get him out of the arena alive, but my husband doesn’t know that. He’d probably murder me if he did.
Marc gazes down at me, his jaw tight, his eyes gone cold. “I don’t think you understand how much danger you’re in. Most of Linus’s paranoia has been focused on you. He’s already lashed out in small ways… He may go even farther, regardless of your pregnancy. I can only do so much to moderate his decisions.”
Uneasiness prickles over my skin, but I can’t see how agreeing to his plot when I’m still so unsure of the situation could possibly work in my favor. If it’s a test, I’ll be proving Linus’s misgivings right. If the man in front of me is serious…
He’s quite possibly just as if not more dangerous than the twin he wants to murder.
Better that I continue to play the lamb so neither of them wonder if I’ve ever been more.
I spread my hands helplessly. “I’m sorry. I swore to support you—but those vows were to him too. I have to try for peace as long as there’s any chance of it.”
Marc opens his mouth and then closes it alongside a clench of his hands. “I’ve laid a lot on you tonight. You must be exhausted. When you’ve had time to think about it— I have to go back and assure him that the child is mine. Please consider what I said. And be careful. I’d prefer not to lose you.”
He leans in to touch my cheek in a fleeting caress and strides out of the room. I watch the door shut behind him in a daze, his last words echoing in my head alongside my disbelief.
How did my life come to this?