Wooing the Witch Queen (Queens of Villainy #1)

Chapter 14

14

Felix grimaced behind his mask as the First Minister of Kitvaria took his arm… not, unfortunately, for the first time.

He had never made the connection, in his conversations with Queen Saskia, between the “Mirjana” she referred to and the smoothly confident daughter of a previous Kitvarian ambassador to the Estarian court. Back then, he’d known her only under her surname, but he’d met her at least half a dozen times at various gatherings. They’d never spoken of any matter deeper than the latest opera or weather pattern, but he’d always seen the sharp intelligence in her eyes… and if he’d even imagined the possibility of serving as her escort, he would have fled the moment he recognized Mirjana’s face.

Fortunately, he still remembered the courtly rules that had been drilled into him ever since he’d learned to speak. “Your Eminence.” As he drew her smoothly across the floor, moving at just the right speed for polite bows and greetings, he asked, “Was your journey from the capital comfortable?”

“Out to these godsforsaken mountains? On those roads?” She let out a sharp laugh that was entirely unlike the diplomatic tones she’d spoken in before.

The mask shadowed his vision too much to allow a sidelong glance, but he felt the sudden tightening of her grip on his arm. When he turned, he found her looking across the crowd at Queen Saskia and her companions, her expression unreadable. She looked back too soon, catching his gaze through the mask… and he stilled at the sudden intensity in her words. “May we have a moment of privacy, Sinistro?”

Oh, Divine Elva. If she’d recognized him already behind his disguise…

He barely heard his voice over the thrumming in his ears. “Of course. Shall we?”

Smoothly, he shifted direction, aiming them towards a quiet corner of the room. She matched his steps, with no apparent urgency in her movements.

The moment they reached the corner, she released his arm and turned to hide her face from the rest of the room, doubly blocked by his cloaked figure and by Oskar on his shoulder. Felix dipped his head politely lower, so that she could speak without raising her voice.

If she accused him, he wouldn’t deny anything. He would… no, he wouldn’t run. He couldn’t shame Queen Saskia so badly in public. No, he would simply confess, but then…

“Sinistro,” said the First Minister of Kitvaria, “I will not make you choose between your loyalties to our mistress and our nation. But I must ask, for Kitvaria’s sake alone: exactly what sort of relationship does Queen Saskia have with Ailana of Nornne, in your opinion?”

“Ah… I beg your pardon?” Felix blinked behind his mask as Oskar, indifferent to low-voiced human conversations, settled in for another nap on his shoulder. “That is, I believe they are allies.”

“ Allies. ” There was an odd tension to her tone as she repeated the word. “So, has the Queen of Nornne visited our queen often, then? And in private?”

Frowning, Felix shifted backwards, careful not to let Oskar slip. “I’m afraid I couldn’t answer such a question. I am Her Majesty’s faithful servant.”

“As am I!” Passionate intensity rang in Mirjana’s voice. “That’s why I’m trying to protect her—and with her insistence on hiding out here, in the middle of nowhere, you’re the only observer I can safely ask. You must have heard the rumors by now: the Queen of Nornne’s heart is as hard as ice. Not one of the women to whom she’s shown favor has lasted longer than one night in her bed—and she’s never allowed a single one into her heart.”

She shook her head, her expression haunted. “If Ailana has taken it in mind to court our queen, I promise you it won’t be because she’s finally fallen in love. It only means she has some hidden scheme in mind, and poor Saskia’s been drawn into her web.”

Felix had relied on his instincts to stay alive every day, back in his own archducal court. All of those instincts were shouting at him now.

“I have never seen any signs of an intimate relationship between our queen and the Queen of Nornne,” he said at last.

… But he would swear in Divine Elva’s name that the woman before him had enjoyed one with Queen Saskia in the past and would like to do so again.

Her Majesty had spoken only rarely to him about her relationship with her First Minister. Most of her comments were wry references to the disappointment that she imagined she somehow posed to Mirjana, among others, in her new role as queen. Felix had never guessed at any other connection between them…

But as he looked now, as if for the first time, at Mirjana’s fine-boned, delicate beauty, he swallowed down a sigh of resignation.

He had already known that his hopeless infatuation could never lead to anything. But that theoretically understood impossibility had never felt quite so tangible as it did now, gazing at Queen Saskia’s beautiful and effortlessly powerful former partner, who had clearly been born ready and eager to manage a nation… and who, just as clearly, saw only one potential romantic rival in this crowded ballroom.

“I thank you for your honesty and your discretion.” Taking a deep breath, Mirjana resettled her slim shoulders. Her smile as she looked up into his mask was perfectly polished. “Kitvaria appreciates your service—and if you ever find that our queen no longer requires you in her own private library, you may always look to me for assistance.”

“You’re too kind.” Felix’s lips felt numb as he shaped the expected words. “Shall we return to the others?”

“Of course. I’m so glad we understand one another.” She placed one hand lightly on his cloaked arm, and they stepped back into the crowd together.

With Ailana and Lorelei flanking her rounds of the ballroom like flamboyantly lethal tour guides, Saskia endured the rest of the formal introductions with minimal amounts of agony. Better yet, within half an hour, it was time for everyone to stop talking and assemble into the traditional patterns of expanding circles. As the ritual of Winter’s Turning finally began, she swallowed down a sigh of relief.

Even she didn’t dare to break this trembling silence. The whole room had fallen silent and still with the torchlit entrance of the priests and priestesses. Now, all of the most brash and scandal-hunting rulers bowed their heads in a hush that might have been sincerely reverent… in less sophisticated company.

Mirjana stood once more at Saskia’s side for the presentation of the priests, her head piously bowed. In a quick, sidelong glance, though, Saskia had seen her First Minister’s gaze darting busily around the gathered circles of guests, taking in every detail and storing it up for later. Knowing what she did about her fellow rulers, Saskia was certain that Mirjana was not alone in feeling obligation rather than exaltation at the enactment of the divine ritual.

Personally, Saskia had never felt any great attachment to the ancient gods and goddesses who’d shaped the world so long ago. Whether or not They somehow still existed, vast and invisible to mere mortal eyes, she had more than enough pressing concerns of her own without bothering about Their divine squabbles.

However, her parents had followed the Empire’s single good example by accepting all faiths in their kingdom. She wouldn’t fail in their example now, even if the sight of Divine Elva’s priestess did make her teeth clench uncontrollably.

Stepping to the center of the innermost circle, the priestess raised her antlered staff with a throbbing, deep-pitched chant of offering, and Saskia aimed a slitted glance upwards in sheer irritation.

Oh. Her mouth dropped open. The priestess was staring directly at her… but not with human eyes.

Saskia didn’t have to be an expert in the divine to know exactly what those glowing, golden eyes signified. She’d seen the real woman beneath the goddess a minute earlier, with a dark, shadowed human gaze beneath that giant fur headdress. Now, a different face had been transposed over those human features, an overlaid mask so bright with radiance that Saskia’s eyes stung with the contact… but she couldn’t look away.

As the antlered staff rose even higher in the air, Saskia’s chest pulsed with the pressure of the golden light that shot out from it, like the heat of the sun itself.

Saskia couldn’t breathe as that infinite golden gaze swallowed hers, absorbing everything she was and ever had been. The helpless, overwhelming immersion lasted forever and ever… and then the goddess finally turned Her avatar’s head, and Saskia fell free, gasping for air.

Her relief lasted only an instant. Then she followed the divine gaze.

Oh, no.

Golden radiance shot through the air between Her staff and the tall, cloaked and hooded figure who stood in the second rung of the circle with a rumpled-looking crow snoring on his shoulder. The figure’s masked face was hidden from view, but his hands were clasped before him in what looked like true worship… and he had no idea of what was aiming at him.

Fabian! Saskia stepped forward with a jerk, breaking the inner circle of worship.

The priestess’s head whipped around. Summoning all of her power— useless, pitiful against a goddess —Saskia braced herself for divine fury and retribution.

Instead, Divine Elva gave her a smile of pure, undiluted, jaw-dropping mischief…

And then She was gone.

Shaking, Saskia fell back into place. Through the ringing in her ears, she could make out the priestess’s ongoing—unbroken?—chant as it finally drew to a close. The woman’s age-lined face was serene as she sang, her posture unshifted from her original pose.

“Saskia?” Mirjana hissed into her ear. “What’s wrong?”

“I…” Saskia shook her head, wordless. Across the circle, Fabian’s hood was still bowed.

No one else in the room seemed to have been affected. Apparently, that divine visitation had been reserved for her alone… as had that message.

What in the world had Divine Elva been playing at by pointing Fabian out to Saskia in such a way? She might think She was an all-knowing goddess, but if She was deluded enough to imagine that Saskia didn’t already notice her librarian every single day and dream far too often of him at night… especially of that moment, weeks ago, when his cloaked body had curved around hers and his warm fingers had closed around her own and if she’d only turned her head—

Wait.

Saskia’s racing thoughts slammed to a sudden, horrified halt. She did know one thing about this particular goddess, didn’t she? Divine Elva had been the patron deity of Estarion back when it was still an independent nation, before the new Serafin Empire had been formed and swept up all those individual deities from across the continent into a single Imperial pantheon.

… And it was the godsdamned Archduke of Estarion who had ordered Yaroslav to be named a holy paladin of Divine Elva.

When Saskia remembered the way Fabian had flinched at her mention of the Archduke on his first night here…

How close a patron was Divine Elva to the hateful current archduke? Would She work to advance his plans even here?

Perhaps Elva had appeared tonight in kindly warning to stand back, away from oncoming danger—but if She expected Saskia to accommodate any schemes that threatened Kadaric Castle’s gentle, kind-hearted, and thoroughly off-limits librarian, She had no idea of just how wicked a queen Saskia could be.

She had already defied her uncle, the Empire, and all the respectable folk of the continent. She was more than ready to defy the gods, too.

As her fingers curled into fists by her side, Saskia ignored Mirjana’s speculative looks and endured the rest of the ritual with a throbbing pulse. This evening couldn’t end quickly enough.

She needed to get back to her laboratory and then the castle library… this time, for a wholly different search.

Sheltered by his hood and mask, Felix counted down the minutes of the lavish Winter’s Turning feast. How long until he could safely slip away from the gathering?

Thank Elva for the ritual that had come beforehand; the peace and stillness granted by Her priestess’s familiar, comforting chants had given him the time and space he’d needed to settle his rioting emotions. All he wanted now was to fall into bed and stay there, in the dark, until he could finally forget all of the deluded hopes that had been dashed earlier this night.

Still, his assigned mission, once released from escort duty, was to loom in a menacing manner, so loom he did as the guests devoured their midnight feast over bright gossip and daggerlike political maneuvering. For once, it was no challenge to go without any food of his own. Even if he hadn’t been wearing the inhibiting silver mask, he wouldn’t have been able to summon any appetite.

Queen Saskia sat between her First Minister and King Hravic, who looked far less intoxicated and more alert than he had at Felix’s last Winter’s Turning celebration. Still, Felix wasn’t surprised that Mirjana had felt secure enough to give Hravic that place beside her queen. Saskia wasn’t bothering to even pretend any interest in his rambling discourse about the exploits of his favorite hunting dogs. Instead, her face had drawn tight with fierce contemplation, her body poised like an arrow waiting to be shot—and even as Felix halted, caught by the sheer intensity of her focus, she lunged to her feet, her chair scraping noisily against stone.

“A happy Winter’s Turning to you all, and good night!” Without further ado, she turned and strode to the farthest door. It flung itself open before her with a crack like thunder. Emitting a raucous chorus of triumph, her crows and bats—who had been perched around the hall and ceiling through the feast—soared after her in a dark, shifting wave, leaving the room behind them echoing with shock.

… Until the Fae Queen of Balravia broke the silence with a clap of delight. “Well! I do like an early night sometimes. Don’t you? So much more time to—”

“Ahem.” Mirjana rose smoothly to her feet, clearing her throat. “Honored guests. Her Majesty would like me to convey…”

But Felix didn’t stop to find out which polite reassurances and thanks Mirjana wished her queen had thought to add to that farewell. Released from duty, he strode for the closest servants’ door. His steps sped up with every passing moment as he took each twist and turn that led to the safety of his tower room. He didn’t even stop to gather up any light before lunging into the cool air of the narrow, twisting staircase, finding his way up the uneven stone steps by no more than feel and memory.

He needed the privacy of his room. He couldn’t wear this mask or cloak even a minute longer. He needed to push open his window and breathe in the cold, high mountain air. He needed—

“Oh, how delightful! I’d been hoping to find a moment alone with you.”

Felix rocked to a halt only just in time as the Queen of Balravia appeared on the darkened staircase just above him in an ecstatic shower of colored light.

Oskar shot to his feet, squawking in panic.

“Your Majesty!” As the tips of Oskar’s unguarded claws pierced his shoulder, Felix nearly squawked as well. Clearing his throat, he bent into as deep and respectful a bow as he could manage without either knocking Oskar from his perch or physically crashing into Lorelei. With the fae queen’s shimmering magic lighting the narrow stairway, the stone walls suddenly felt far too close around them. He took a clumsy, lurching step backwards, to a lower step, as he straightened from his bow. “Forgive me if I missed a royal summons or—”

“Oh, no, I meant to find you in just this way, I promise. It is so much easier to talk in private, don’t you think?” She batted long, blonde eyelashes over implausibly innocent blue eyes, shedding sparkles across her cheeks. “Of course, any man who wears a mask so often must understand having secrets to keep!”

Smiling enticingly, she leaned closer to him in her gauzy, swirling, changeable gown…

And Felix took another firm step downward. “In that case, we had better go to the library.”

“Oh, no, really?” She gave him a theatrical pout, but her eyes shone with unhidden mischief. Without further complaint, she followed him down the steps and through the darkened private passageways, far from the guests’ brightly lit wing. “You are clever, aren’t you? It’s no wonder Saskia is so possessive of you.”

Felix’s foot halted mid-step for a perilous instant… but then, with a grimace, he forced himself to keep going. He hadn’t survived all of his years at the Estarian court to give in to shameless manipulation now.

The tension in his shoulders eased slightly as he stepped into the comfortably familiar clutter of the library, where he had at least some pretense of control. Stacks of books still formed a maze across the floor, and the fire had been long since banked for the night, but the colorful light cast by Lorelei herself was enough to guide him down the familiar paths to the sideboard where an oil lamp sat. The fae queen waited in the doorway, but Felix could feel her watching his every move.

“ So careful,” she mused as he lit the lamp. “No flamboyant spells to make this whole room bright as day, to impress Saskia’s honored guest?”

Felix winced. “I’d never dare cast any spells in this library before it’s fully catalogued.” He might not be a true dark wizard, but he’d read more than enough magical texts by now to know the dangers of recklessness. A magic-worker as powerful as Queen Saskia needn’t concern herself with such issues, but the more he’d read, the more he’d come to understand just how rare the queen’s level of power truly was.

“Mmm. Fair enough, I suppose.” As she picked her way delicately through the paths between the books, her speculative gaze swept across the room. “And yet, I truly can’t recall any other dark wizard ever openly admitting to any sort of fear or weakness.”

“I’d call it caution, ” Felix said as evenly as possible, “and I’d add that some of us have nothing to prove. If you’ll forgive me, Your Majesty, I believe my own employer has already decided my qualifications more than sufficed.” The words sent a sharp pang of guilt through his chest; he stiffened his shoulders, forcing it down.

“Darling Saskia certainly has… which, of course, is why I wanted so badly to speak to you.” Reaching the sideboard where he stood, Lorelei beamed up at him. “I’m just so interested in your work! I can’t have any dark wizards in my own court for tedious political reasons— you know we fae haven’t always had the easiest of relations with your kind—but visiting Saskia’s library left me so curious about the sorts of spells you cast.” She clasped her hands before her chest as she tipped her head back to look up at him. “Won’t you tell me all about them? How do written spells even work?”

Her blue eyes were wide, her enthusiasm infectious… and Felix felt a cold sliver of unease run down his spine. Carefully, he took a half-step backwards, breathing slowly. Oskar had already flapped off to an empty shelf and buried his beak in his feathers. There was no one Felix could look to for support. “Of course I can explain how they function,” he said, “but for a deeper understanding, I would happily ask Queen Saskia for permission to loan you an introductory text, or…”

“Oh, no, I’m not here to read dry old texts!” Rolling her eyes, Lorelei waved off the idea. Then she stepped even closer, until her shimmering skirts brushed against his legs and her small hands were pressed against his chest, curling around the fabric of his cloak. “I want you to tell me everything, and then—”

This time, Felix didn’t even hear the door open.

“ Lorelei. ” Queen Saskia enunciated every syllable with icy clarity. “I want you to remove your hands from my librarian. Now. ”