Castles in Their Bones (Castles in Their Bones #1)

Beatriz

paces her locked bedchamber and tries to summon a plan. Daphne’s words ring in her ears, but she focuses on the ones that are actually helpful— ground apple seeds. Anyone could have put them in the king’s wine, she supposes, but there is one person she knows who had direct access to it, and who always smells of apples. And if Nicolo was the one putting them into the king’s wine, she would bet anything that Gisella was the one grinding them up.

As the sky outside her sealed stained-glass window begins to lighten, assembles the pieces of information she has into a weapon that will get her out of this mess—because contrary to what she told her sister, she would rather die than ask for her mother’s help.

Soon, King Cesare will bring her before him, to pronounce her sentence if nothing else, and she can tell him about Nicolo’s poison. She rehearses the story she will tell, how Nicolo and Gisella conspired together and threatened her if she didn’t go along with their plans, how she is simply a victim in all of this, as much as the king himself is. The king’s moods are unpredictable, but she’s managed to wrap him around her finger before, she can do it again.

The door to the room opens abruptly, and whirls around just in time to see Pasquale stumble inside, as though someone has shoved him. In seconds, she is across the room, her arms around his neck, holding him tight as her emotions go to war—relief that he is alive and rage that he is here, just as doomed as she is.

“Triz,” he says, wrapping his arms around her waist and holding her so tight she isn’t sure he’ll ever let her go—isn’t sure she wants him to.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, his voice hoarse and heavy. “I don’t know what happened—everything was fine, Lord Savelle got on the boat, he and Ambrose were just out of sight. Then the guards found me on the dock and arrested me.”

There is some sense of relief in that—Lord Savelle and Ambrose made it out. Hopefully, they will manage to get toTemarin; the wish she used should place luck on their side.

“It wasn’t your fault,” says, pulling back to look at him. “Nicolo and Gisella betrayed us.” She catches him up on everything, even telling him what her sister found in the king’s wine, though that requires even more explanations, and Pasquale listens in absolute silence as she tells him more, starting with her birth and her mother’s grand plan. She expects him to be angry, to feel betrayed, to hate her for it, but instead he looks at her with tired eyes.

“We’re all our parents’ puppets, ,” he says.

“You aren’t angry?” she asks him, blinking.

He’s quiet for a moment. “Not at you,” he says finally. “I’d be a hypocrite, wouldn’t I? To berate you for not going against your mother, when I’ve never once gone against my father.” He pauses, considering. “Well, I suppose both of us rebelled, didn’t we? And look where it’s landed us.”

bites her lip. “If Nico and Gigi have been poisoning the king, we can use that,” she says. “We can cast doubt on them, on their accusations. It won’t be easy—they caught me standing in front of Lord Savelle’s empty cell, with stardust—but perhaps we can think up a story…”

She trails off when Pasquale shakes his head and reaches for her hand, squeezing it between both of his.

“, the guards arrested me last night. After that, they took me to my father, on his deathbed,” he says.

goes still. “He’s dying?”

He shakes his head. “He died an hour ago,” he says, and though he’s discussing his father’s death, his voice is calm and level. “Before he died, he wanted to be sure I knew what a disappointment I was, how I sullied our family line, how I was weak to be manipulated by my wife—that’s what he thinks, by the way, what everyone will think, I suppose.”

“Pas—”

“I’ve been disowned,” Pasquale says. “My father decided, in his final moments, that the crown will pass to a cousin instead. And after months of loyal service as his cupbearer, plying him with wine and whispering in his ear, would you like to guess which of my many cousins he chose?”

closes her eyes tight, the pieces falling into place. She knew they’d betrayed her, but she hadn’t understood what their endgame was. “Nico is going to be king,” she says quietly.

Pasquale nods. “Which means he will be the one deciding our fate.”

—

tries not to feel bad about drugging Pasquale that afternoon and mostly succeeds. He needs the sleep, there is no arguing that, and he is unlikely to find it on his own. Luckily, the guards who combed their rooms for anything suspicious left her cosmetics case alone—inside one of the jars, disguised as eye pigment, she found a sleeping powder and slipped some of it into his tea. He fell asleep still holding the mug in his hands.

Now, alone with only the sound of his deep and steady breaths to keep her company, longs to take a dose of the sleeping powder herself. She craves the peace that would come with a blank mind, but she knows it would be a peace she doesn’t deserve. And besides, someone has to stay on guard in case a scrap of news arrives.

paces the dimly lit room, the only indication of passing time the slow dying of the fire in the hearth. She decides to take Daphne’s advice and write to her mother after all. It won’t be easy to get a letter to her under these circumstances, but surely her mother has allies in the palace, surely they will make themselves known to her soon, and she should be prepared when they do. But even the thought of begging her mother’s help leaves a bad taste in her mouth.

It isn’t for her own benefit, she reminds herself as she walks toward the desk, it’s for Pasquale’s. might rather die than ask her mother for help, but she won’t resign Pasquale to the same fate.

A quiet knock interrupts her thoughts, and she stops short in the middle of the room. The knock isn’t coming from the door—the sound is too thin, the sound of knuckles against glass. She turns toward the stained glass and crosses toward it, making out the vague outline of a body on the other side. She hears the sound of a key turning in a lock, and with her heart pounding in her chest, she yanks the window open, causing Nicolo to lose his balance and nearly tumble into her room, catching himself on the frame at the last minute.

For a moment, only stares at him, and, for his part, he refuses to meet her eyes, instead keeping his gaze on the stone floor.

“We need to talk,” he says finally.

A few moments ago, agreed with that sentiment. Over the last few hours, she’s had countless conversations with him in her mind, she’s railed at him and screamed and called him all manner of names. She’s demanded answers and then slapped him before he ever got a chance to give them to her. She’s thought of a dozen cutting remarks, each worse than the last but none of them quite awful enough.

Now, though, with him crouching before her in the window, his knuckles blanched where he grips the frame tight in his hands, the words leave her. Instead of telling him all the things she’s rehearsed in her mind, she takes hold of the open window again and slams it closed, catching his fingers in the process and making him cry out in pain.

The sound makes her feel a bit better, but that lasts only an instant before the window pushes open again and Nicolo is still standing there, balanced precariously on the sill.

“We need to talk,” he says again, and this time hears the slur of his words.

“You’re drunk,” she says, biting out the words. “But I suppose you’ve been celebrating, Your Majesty. ”

“Triz—”

She moves toward him quickly, grabbing him by the shoulders. “I could shove you out the window.”

He doesn’t look alarmed, doesn’t even go tense, just appraises her with calm, cool eyes.

“Not unless you’re keen on adding regicide to your charges,” he points out.

doesn’t loosen her grip. “You reek of liquor,” she tells him. “Any sane person would assume you fell to your death attempting something foolish.”

“And you consider the members of the court sane?” he asks, his smile turning mocking.

“I think I’d like to test the theory.”

She pushes him back, and his hands grip the window frame tighter. Fear flashes in his eyes, and feels a jolt of triumph rocket through her. She could watch him die, she thinks. Not a full day ago she was kissing him, and now she’s tempted to kill him with her own hands. How quickly everything can change.

“At least let me explain—”

“I assure you, I’m not so stupid I haven’t figured out the gist of it myself.”

“Gigi decided—”

’s eyebrows arch up. “Hiding behind your sister now? How brave.”

He shakes his head, finally lifting his eyes to meet hers. “I didn’t come here to make excuses, Triz—”

“Don’t call me that,” she snaps.

He lets out a long breath before trying again. “I came here to fix it.”

squares her shoulders and crosses her arms over her chest. “Oh?” she asks. “How exactly do you propose to do that? Let Pas and me go free? Relinquish the throne you stole to the person who belongs on it?”

It gives her some satisfaction to see him flush with shame. He forces himself to continue.

“Your marriage was never consummated,” he continues. “If you annul it and marry me instead—”

“You must be joking.” laughs, then glances at where Pasquale is still sleeping and lowers her voice. “I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last person in this wretched country.”

He doesn’t say anything for a long moment, but she can tell she’s wounded him. Good.

“It’s the only way you can make it through this. We can spin it, say your marriage to Pas was a sham and you were desperate. How none of this was your idea. How he used you.”

didn’t think there was anything Nicolo could say that would anger her more, she thought her temper had reached its limit. She was wrong.

“Let me see if I understand this,” she says slowly. “You would have me push all blame onto Pas in order to save myself?”

“There’s no saving him,” Nicolo says, shaking his head. “There are already powerful people at court who want him on the throne; pardoning him is too dangerous for me.”

’s stomach tightens. “You’ll execute him, then,” she says.

He pauses, just long enough to let her know he’s considered it. “No,” he says. “It wouldn’t do to make a martyr of him. He’ll be exiled to the mountains. There’s a Fraternia there that will take him. He’ll be stripped of his title, his name even, and spend the rest of his days studying scripture and reflecting on his spiritual redemption within their walls.”

Not death, thinks, but Pasquale won’t find it much better. She’s heard stories about Cellarian Fraternias and Sororias—cold, minimalistic structures stripped of all comforts and luxuries, where the only entertainment to be found is in the pages of scriptures and the only conversation allowed is when a Brother or Sister says the nightly prayers to the stars. They have Fraternias and Sororias in Bessemia as well, where men and women devote themselves to the stars and the reading of them, deciding to live a life without personal or material attachments, but they aren’t quite the same. Deciding being the main difference, she supposes. Perhaps some people choose the Sororia or Fraternia in Cellaria, but for most it’s used as a punishment. Just like now.

“So are those my choices, then? Marry you or I’ll…what? Be sent to the neighboring Sororia? I can see why Cesare chose you to succeed him—banishing a girl to that place for rejecting him seems like something he would do.”

Nicolo flinches. “I’m not trying to give you an ultimatum, but Pasquale is capable of protecting himself. He doesn’t need you suffering alongside him.”

presses her lips into a thin line. “I want to make myself perfectly clear, Nico. I would rather be suffering alongside him than reigning beside you.”

Nicolo deflates, sagging against the window frame like a sail losing its wind.

“I tried,” he says after a moment. “Remember that.”

“I don’t think there’s any chance I will ever forget this moment,” tells him. “I’ll remember it until my last breath. They say boredom is a constant companion in a Sororia, but I don’t know that I’ll ever be bored, not when I recall the memory of you showing up in my bedroom—drunk, desperate, and disappointed. A pathetic excuse for a person, playing at being a king. I daresay the memory will bring me joy even in my darkest moments. Now get out, before I shout for the guards. What would they say, to find their new king sneaking into the room of accused traitors?”

For a moment, she thinks he will call her bluff, but eventually he turns away, climbing back onto the window ledge without another word. When he’s gone, slams the window shut, the sound echoing through the bedchamber.

“Triz,” Pasquale says softly from the bed.

She winces. “How much of that did you hear?”

“Enough to know you just made a mistake. You should have taken his offer.”

shakes her head, sitting down on the bed beside him. “No,” she says. “We are in this together, Pas, and we will find our way out of it together.”

Pasquale falls quiet for a moment. “You didn’t tell him you knew about the poison,” he says.

“No, that would have been foolish,” she says. “Just now we’re inconvenient, but if he knows we hold that secret, we go from inconvenient to dangerous.”

Pasquale nods slowly, his brow furrowed. “Cosella,” he says after a moment.

frowns, and it takes her a minute to remember the winery she asked him about.

“What about it?”

“When Gigi and Nico were children, neither of them ever spent a moment without the other—Cosella was their collective nickname. Nicolo and Gisella combined. I’d forgotten all about that, but it’s why it sounded familiar when you asked.”

closes her eyes, trying to make sense of this new information. It’s remarkably easy—of course King Cesare was never conspiring with his sister; had already suspected he didn’t have the mental capacity for it. But Sophronia’s information was valid after all. Nicolo must have used his position as cupbearer to intercept the letters. She’s unsure whether Queen Eugenia knew who she was really corresponding with, but she supposes it doesn’t matter now. It’s more information that won’t save her and Pasquale, and she doubts she’ll be able to get a letter to Sophronia.

Pasquale looks at her again and attempts a smile. “Part of me is glad you didn’t take Nico’s offer, selfish as that might make me.”

bites her lip. “Well, part of me was glad you didn’t sail off with Ambrose, so it seems we’re both selfish.”

—

When the sleeping powder drags Pas back to sleep, she tiptoes out of the bedroom and into the adjoining parlor, sitting down at her desk. She takes a sheet of parchment from the drawer and dips her quill into the inkpot before beginning to write.

Dear Mama,

I would rather die than ask for your assistance

She crumples up the letter and throws it into the fire.

Dear Mama,

I find myself in terrible trouble because of you

With a groan, crumples and burns that letter as well. She takes a steadying breath and tries again.

Dear Mama,

I know that we have had our differences in the past and that I have not always been the most dutiful of daughters. I find myself now in a horrible mess of my own making, accused of treason along with Prince Pasquale. I fear for our lives and I beg your help.

stares at the words, her stomach turning until she thinks she might be sick. It’s too over-the-top, she thinks, her mother won’t believe it. As she crumples that letter and adds it to the fire as well, she realizes what the problem is—her mother will not be moved by emotion or begging. She picks up her quill.

Dear Mama,

Our plans have gone awry and everything you’ve worked for is in danger. If you help us now, I will be forever in your debt.

Writing those words makes her sick too, but she knows that if anything will sway her mother, it will be that. She sets the letter aside and brings up a new sheet of paper, staring at it for a long moment and tapping the feather of the quill against her cheek.

She carefully transcribes the letter, using her mother’s favorite code, the Delonghier Shuffle, to hide it within a simpering letter in which she begs her mother to maintain the treaty with Cellaria even in the face of her arrest.

When she’s done, she seals the letter and burns the original before sitting back in her chair and letting out a long sigh.

The empress will come, she tells herself. She repeats the thought over and over again until she almost believes it.