Chapter 45
Chapter Forty-Five
Bastien
L ooking up at Aurelia sprawled across Raul's body and dozing in the aftermath of our shared passion, I can't stop a pang of jealousy from rippling through my chest.
The passion was shared, so why should he have her nearly all to himself right now?
I know the thought isn’t entirely fair, but I don't see anything wrong with reminding her just how much I'm still here with her too.
With a nudge of my gift, I will a wisp of a breeze to coil around her slack ankle and onward up her leg. I'm expecting to have to gather a thicker current before she realizes it's more than an errant draft, but after just a few seconds, she adjusts her head against Raul's chest so she can gaze over at me.
The fondness in her dark blue eyes and the little smile that curves her lips, as if it's a secret just for us, wrap around my heart like a taut thread. As if she's stitched together with the core of my being as surely as the bound pages of a book.
My throat constricts. Everything that happened tonight was indescribably fantastic and yet also not. How can it even be all right ?
We had this fleeting moment of cherishing her, as Aurelia so accurately put it, and tomorrow we send her to her doom, whether her death or consigning her to Marclinus's whims for the rest of her life.
It is what it is. It's why she traveled to Dariu in the first place.
But she couldn't have anticipated just how awful her betrothed would prove himself to be. I grew up with the prick, and even I wouldn't have imagined Marclinus would treat the ladies vying for his favor quite so sadistically.
It’s clear Tarquin has raised his son to match him in cruelty.
I don't know if I can handle seeing Aurelia’s resilience and spirit ground down until she's nothing but a shell of the woman she's meant to be. Until the earnest compassion that comes so naturally to her wilts on the barren ground he'll offer.
I won't be around to see most of it, of course. I'll get to return to Cotea within a few years, to find a match among the local nobles and set myself up in a position to provide some small help to my family and our kingdom closer at hand.
It seems ridiculous that I once resented the princess for the time she had before she was sent here. As if those early years of freedom will do anything but make the bars of her new, impenetrable cage glare more sharply.
The hopeless ache that's spreading through my chest brings me back to the moments after Pavel exploded with fury, while Emperor Tarquin barked seething commands and the guards wrestled my foster brother into submission. While I stood by grasping out and finding only empty space, scrambling for something I could do or say that might save him.
Wondering what signs I missed, what mistakes I made that led to the catastrophe.
Am I going to simply watch while another person I care about is destroyed in front of me?
Aurelia shifts and starts to get up. Raul adjusts his position with her, keeping his arm around her waist as she sits next to him on the settee.
I automatically move to take a seat at her other side and slip my hand around her elbow.The smattering of purple scars stand out against the tanned skin of her forearm as a reminder that there’s so much more to this remarkable woman than just a beautiful body.
Lorenzo looks perfectly content to remain on the floor, tipping his head against her knee. When she runs her fingers over his hair, his eyelids dip. You'd think he's about to purr like a cat.
But when our gazes lock, the same worries running through my mind shadow his dark brown eyes.
Aurelia reaches to twine her hand with mine while leaning against Raul’s shoulder. There’s a melancholy note in her voice that I’m not used to. “I’m glad we were able to have this.”
Raul presses a kiss to the top of her head. “Don’t assume we can’t have it again.”
As if that cocky statement will give her much comfort. Does he think a thorough fucking every few weeks will keep her safe from everything Marclinus will make her endure ?
It seems Aurelia’s concerns relate to events much closer at hand. Her gaze drops, and she lets out a hollow laugh. “If I’m even around for us to consider the possibilities. I saw Lady Fausta and Vicerine Bianca conspiring after dinner… Bianca brought her something secretly.”
I sit up straighter with a jolt of apprehension. “You think it had to do with the last trial?”
“I don’t know what it was, but I can’t imagine Fausta doesn’t have some kind of sabotage planned for tomorrow’s trial. She’s shown she’ll do anything to ruin my chances. And this will be her last opportunity. She won’t hold back.”
Every particle of my body tenses in denial. “She won’t get away with anything significant. Tarquin will have the trial set up so the court can watch—he always has so far.”
Entertaining his nobles while he castigates them for their presumption. No one could ever accuse the emperor of failing to multi-task.
It does mean that the worst Fausta’s attempted during a trial is caustic words Aurelia can shrug off.
The princess shrugs. “This time, she might not care if people see. She could gamble that Emperor Tarquin and Marclinus won’t disqualify her for publicly harming me at this stage—or she might think the chance at taking me out of the game is worth any risk. Or whatever she’s planning may be so stealthy she thinks she can accomplish it under their noses.”
An edge of a growl creeps into Raul’s voice. “She can’t keep anything from me. We’ll be in the audience—I’ll check her for anything threatening she’s hiding. We can intervene if we notice her about to go at you.”
Lorenzo nods emphatically.
My own conviction grips me harder. “We’ll make sure we notice. We’ll watch her every move. ”
That vindictive shrew isn’t harming one more hair on our princess’s body.
Aurelia’s fingers tighten around mine. “Thank you.”
Her head has drooped against Raul again. My sense of the time prickles through my body. “We should get you back to your room. You’ll need all the sleep you can get to be alert for tomorrow.”
As do we, if we’re going to defend her.
We pull on our clothes, Lorenzo moving to help Aurelia with her gown. Seeing the affection shining in his face as he sets his hands on her waist afterward, the unhampered joy with which he kisses her, I find myself smiling despite everything that’s wrong.
She’s brought a lot of rightness into our lives too. Started to mend the cracks that’d formed inside each of us.
We’d better be able to do the same for her.
We guide her through the hidden passages back to her room, where Raul extends his gift into the shadows to confirm that no one’s arrived in her absence. Aurelia offers us all one more brief kiss before slipping away from us into the darkness of her chambers.
Silence hangs over us on our trek back to our own bedrooms. Even Raul, for all he got to show off his sensual prowess tonight, seems more brooding than triumphant.
I’ve had my conflicts with the prince of Lavira—the sense of unity between us fractured with Pavel’s death, and I lost most of my patience for his posturing. I shouldn’t have let our differing approaches distract me from the fact that we’re all on the same side. All three of us still know what matters most.
When we emerge from the unused bedroom into the hall, my pulse stutters. Neven is standing outside the door to my chambers, his mouth slanted at an uneasy angle .
As we hurry over to him, he turns to meet us. Relief lights in his bright brown eyes but doesn’t wash away the tension on his face.
“There you are.” He drops his voice to a hush. “I saw something—I thought you might want to know.”
My heart thumps faster. “What?”
He jerks his thumb toward the back end of the palace. “I took a run through the woods and then was walking back to cool off, and I saw a bunch of workers tramping out toward the wall with carts of stone and wood and who knows what else. What would they be building out there in the middle of the night?”
Raul scowls. “Something for the trial tomorrow.”
I don’t even need to think about it. I motion for the others to follow me. “We’d better take a look and figure out as much as we can.”
Some of the nobles who don’t have to worry about competing for their lives tomorrow are still enjoying themselves in the hall of entertainments. Music and laughter tinkles through the hallways as we make our way to the nearest staircase.
We amble out into the night as if we’re simply taking a casual stroll. When we reach the edge of the woods, Raul peers into the darkness and sweeps his hand through the air.
The shadows thicken around us. We walk on, cloaked by his gift, even our footsteps muffled by a layer of condensed darkness.
Neven points us most of the way. I can tell when we’re close enough to the workers for Raul to sense them because his expression tightens with concentration.
Voices start to reach us through the woods. It takes several more steps before we can make out the figures between the tree trunks .
At least a dozen workers bustle around by the high stone wall that surrounds the palace grounds, lit by a few lanterns resting on the ground nearby. They’re definitely building something—they’ve already constructed part of what looks like a ramp veering up higher than the wall.
As I watch, one woman uses her gift to send a slab of metal flying up toward the top of the ramp, its edges gleaming wickedly in the lantern-light.
They aren’t talking much, and when they do, they’re mostly keeping their voices low. I only make out a phrase here and there:
“…make sure the angle…”
“…over by the river…”
“…careful of the edge…”
Nothing I overheard tells me the purpose of this structure or what else they might be planning to construct out here. I exchange glances with my foster brothers, but they look similarly puzzled.
Whatever task the emperor has set his people to, it must be part of tomorrow’s trial. And it looks as if he and Marclinus are upping the ante by several measures.
Naturally they’d want an epic finale to their sick competition.
I ease a little closer, but the comments my ears catch are only focused on the immediate concerns of putting the structure together. No one remarks about what the ladies it’s presumably for might have to do on it.
Or what it might do to them.
Apprehension congeals in my gut. I motion the others farther away until I’m sure we can speak unnoticed.
“Whatever they’re planning, they obviously intend for it to be the biggest spectacle of all. ”
Lorenzo frowns and makes a rough motion with his hand. And very bad for Aurelia.
Raul bares his teeth around a snarl. “Haven’t those psychopaths put her through enough already?”
I inhale slowly, gathering my thoughts. We know more than we did an hour ago. The trial is going to take place outside. It’s going to bring the prospective brides all the way out here.
Amid the trees, there’ll be so many places Lady Fausta might be able to launch a surreptitious attack. We’ll have to keep our eyes on her, have our gifts ready to whip out the instant she acts—and make sure we’re far enough away from Tarquin and his guards that no one will pick up on our magic.
Neven wasn’t part of our earlier discussion. His tanned face has paled in the dimness. “Is there any way we can help her? I?—”
He turns his head with an abashed expression. “Maybe it’s stupid, but it feels like she’s one of us. We should stick with her, shouldn’t we? She’s… she’s part of our weird little family of people who don’t belong here in Dariu but didn’t have any choice about it.”
Our family. His words hit me with more impact than he could have intended. My breath snags in my chest.
By almost every measure that counts, the three princes standing around me are more my family than my parents and brother back home could be.
It’s the same for all of us, isn’t it? Our parents might not have had much choice, but they let us go. They sent us off as playing chips in the game Tarquin and the emperors before him have been orchestrating for centuries.
We weren’t first born, so we weren’t worth fighting for.
Why should we keep imagining that one day we might finally have the chance to fight for them ? Why not take whatever chances we can to make the family we’ve formed here as strong as it could be?
Neven’s right: Aurelia is one of us. She came from Accasy as an offering to appease the empire, a hostage to be used as a point of leverage. Even if she wins tomorrow…
As long as any of us dwell within these walls, we might as well be shackled to them.
The bits of conversation I overheard whirl through my mind. I suck in a startled breath. “They’re taking the trial beyond the walls. The workers said something about the river.”
Raul knits his brow at me. “So?”
I open my mouth and close it again, hesitation locking my jaw.
The proposal I want to make could be total insanity. It’d be throwing away everything we still have?—
Except for each other. Don’t all the things we stand to gain matter that much more?
I’ve spent so long encouraging caution. Sticking to the most practical path with whatever security it could offer.
What has that accomplished for us?
We never got to take the one gamble we sacrificed so much for. This could be our one chance to take another that would mean nearly as much—to us, if not to the rest of the empire.
The image of Pavel’s struggling body passes through my mind again, and my tongue loosens.
“I have an idea that I think could help all of us…”