This will be fun, p.27
This Will Be Fun, page 27
“Robert,” she said without spite. “I would say I’m surprised to find you here. Except, well. You know.”
“Erm,” said Robert.
She intended the remark in jest. Robert rather looked like she’d hauled him in front of the Inquisitorial Guild. She softened her voice. “Would you like to introduce me to your . . . ?”
She did not know what word to fill in for the newcomer.
“Betrothed,” Robert provided, wincing. “Sorry.”
Beatrice shrugged, carelessness coming easily. It was marvelous, she found. “We’re past apologies, I’d say,” she remarked. “You should live your life. No mourning period needed.”
Robert smiled gratefully. She did not resent his happiness, nor did she wish him ill. She had known evil men. While Robert de Noughton was not a great man, he was not an evil man, either. With patience and the wisdom of his mistakes, he might make a decent one.
And her?
She’d never loved Robert. She couldn’t have. She needed to heal in order to let anyone into her heart.
She did not know if she had yet. Healing, she understood now, was its own quest, over uncharted ground, with demons of the heart menacing her intrepid steps. She could not know what her destination would resemble or what perils she would encounter on her way.
She knew she had started, however. Which was magical in itself.
No longer would she let the ruination of her marriage with Robert plague her path. If she’d learned anything from the costs of saving the realm, it was how short—how devastatingly fragile—life was. Devoting years to regret and mourning would get you nowhere.
Robert composed himself. With nervousness’s retreat, he looked happier. “I wish to introduce you to my betrothed,” he said. “The future Lady Marion de Noughton.”
The other woman clasped Beatrice’s outstretched hand, blushing.
“I am such a fan,” she enthused. “I hope this isn’t awkward to say, but you’re my hero. I was in university when you saved Mythria, and hearing tales of your bravery inspired me to take on leadership roles of my own in school.”
Genuinely touched, Beatrice could not help smiling. “That’s very kind. No awkwardness at all,” she reassured Marion. “I wish you every happiness.”
“Thank you, Lady Beatrice,” Marion said.
“It’s just Beatrice now,” Beatrice replied with instinct she found growing more instant. For the first time, though, it did not feel like an evasion or a rejection or a contradiction. It felt like . . . her. She was Beatrice.
It was enough. At last, it was enough.
What irony, she found herself noting. In the city where she first got used to the name Lady Beatrice de Noughton, she now let its legacy go. What happened in Vermillion Vale, stayed in Vermillion Vale, in the end. New to noblewomanhood, she’d wandered through this same inn, perhaps even the same enchanted pool deck. It was funny how retreading old roads could lead to new destinations.
“What are you doing here in the Vale?” Robert inquired.
“Oh, you know, saving the realm,” she replied honestly.
Whether welcoming her candor or presuming she was joking, Robert laughed. He laughed! Not nastily, either! Beatrice commended herself on the healing this no doubt represented. She could laugh with her ex-husband.
“It suits you,” he said warmly. “You look well. Like yourself.”
Beatrice’s smile softened.
“I know,” she said.
She started to go. Never one for the cues of concluded conversations, Robert went on cheerfully. “Well, I hope you’ll save the realm before tomorrow night. There’s this splendid banquet being thrown. Every nobleman in Mythria was invited. It’s why we’ve come.”
She stilled. Every nobleman in Mythria. “Where?”
Robert puffed up, which she did not mind. If pride induced loquacity, she welcomed his self-congratulation.
“The Night Dragon,” he informed her.
Unlike Vermillion Vale’s older establishments, the Night Dragon, she’d heard from Elgin’s younger residents, was the shiny new gem of the Vale. Fake gem, some would say, purchasing renown with gaudy luxury and constant revels.
If one were interested in promoting one’s renewed Order—or in having the realm’s most powerful people in one room for easy magical mind manipulation—and if one were the vexatious Myke Lycroft, the Night Dragon would lend the perfect flash to one’s fete.
“Thank you, Robert,” she said. “Thank you very much.”
She hurried from the conversation, knowing she’d uncovered where the resurrection of Todrick van Thorn would be held.
She’d done it.
Now she just needed to find her friends. Clare, she discovered promptly, made the task very easy. There he was, on the rock waterfall directly in front of her, courting guests. It was very Clare. His idea of espionage was finding the nearest crowd to impress.
Impress them he did, in fine form, orating with one hand on his belt. He’d undone the top ties of the white tunic he rode in wearing. Flush with the thrill of her discovery—not to mention the exhilarating confidence of finally knowing herself—she rushed up to him.
His back was to her. When she pulled on his bicep, he turned, smiling in surprised delight.
The sight, Clare with the turquoise of the waterfall surrounding him, was enchanting. His smile made his familiar features wonderfully boyish, his blue eyes brightening in the light.
Certainty of every sort raged in Beatrice.
“I know we said we should split up, but I’ve changed my mind,” she declared.
Then, feeling daring—no, feeling fucking heroic—she kissed him.
He paused, stunned. When he kissed her back, it was fiercely. His embrace swept her to his chest. His lips were hungry, passionate, consuming with the fervency of longing. For one perfect moment, it was everything.
Until she noticed Clare . . . did not smell like Clare.
She should have found herself wrapped in the morning mist of the Galibrand Straits, ocean water scented with sunlight.
She wasn’t. Instead, the kiss smelled like perfume oils. Pinroses overhung with sweat. Which meant . . .
Oh, Ghosts no.
She withdrew in horror. The Clare impersonator she’d just smooched smiled, oblivious to the misunderstanding. Not only did he share Clare’s height and dress, she noticed now the strange immateriality of his features. He possessed, she realized, some manner of hand magic allowing him to manipulate his face to resemble the real Clare’s.
She needed to get free from the crowd of people who’d just cheered their kiss. She started to bow, pretending she was just performing, here for the Clare Convention. It was working, guests clapping while she retreated hastily, when—
Her eyes locked with Clare’s.
The real Clare.
He’d just entered the pool grounds with Hugh. From the confusion warping his features, he’d definitely just watched her kiss someone else—someone she thought was him.
Beatrice wished the hroxen from Vandra’s memories could swallow her whole.
Alas, with no hroxen in sight, she settled for running away. She fled through the pool deck, embarrassment overwhelming her. It was ridiculous! Knowing Clare was following her, wanting to make fun, or gloat, or whatever Clare reaction he would have, she continued like the Deathrose Guild itself was pursuing her.
Her mind racing like her steps, she knew her only chance was to venture from the path. Except . . . what surrounded the path were luxurious pools.
Very well, then.
Refusing to lose her nerve, she ducked directly into the nearest waterfall she saw. The water was indeed magically warmed. How lovely. Within seconds, she was utterly drenched.
Nevertheless, the measure worked. Past the curtain of water, she watched. No Clare emerged. Finally, feeling unwelcomely like she was undertaking the Castle Corpus raid herself, she concluded she was safe to venture out.
Despite her clothes dripping, she held her head high as she reentered the casino. She needed refuge, some manner of—
Elowen.
No complicated history could vanquish her relief when she noticed the other woman sitting at one of the nearest gaming tables.
Upon glimpsing Beatrice’s sopping state, Elowen startled. “Beatrice! Were you attacked?”
“Much worse, I’m afraid,” Beatrice replied, sitting heavily on the open seat. She ignored the dealer’s look of disapproval. “I have been humiliated.”
Elowen evaluated her—no doubt preparing some means to jeer or further rub Beatrice’s face in her shame.
Instead, Elowen burst out laughing.
Beatrice glowered. “It is not funny.”
“It very much is,” Elowen confirmed. “What did you do? Oh, don’t tell me it has to do with the Clares running around everywhere.”
Deception, Beatrice knew, would get her nowhere with Elowen. She settled for sitting silently. Yet even quiet was confession, she realized from the change in Elowen’s scrutiny. She’d handed over emotions of dread or regret to Elowen’s heart magic, she guessed.
“Oh, Beatrice. What did you do?” Elowen repeated.
“I kissed one!” Beatrice exclaimed.
Elowen’s eyes went uncommonly round. “Did you know—?”
“Of course I didn’t,” Beatrice replied miserably. “Worse, Clare saw. Our Clare,” she clarified. Oddly, sharing her misfortune was easing the jumble in her head somewhat. She faced Elowen, ready for her reaction.
Elowen had ceased laughing. Real sympathy entered her expression. It was like seeing a sunrise, Beatrice found. Not pleasurable, exactly. Yet lovely in its rarity, its profundity, nonetheless.
Elowen stood. “Come,” she said. “I can’t help with the humiliation, but I can help you to our rooms so you can change out of your very wet clothing.”
Without hesitation, she rounded on her heel, leading the way.
Beatrice followed her best friend.
“I’m—I’m sorry,” she said. Yes, chasing impulses had gotten her into this disaster. Perhaps, however, it could make something of the catastrophe.
Reaching the lifts where powerful enchantments ferried guests from floor to floor, Elowen glanced over her shoulder. “For what?”
Oh, what a question. Beatrice was sorry for so many things, she did not know where to start. How could she apologize for the death of a brother? She couldn’t. She hoped Elowen understood the unspoken sorrows filling the futile silence. “For pulling you from your cards,” she managed.
In the long gaze Elowen gave her, Beatrice knew she heard everything unsaid.
Elowen looked up finally, into the lighted shaft where the lifts rose high above them. “I was losing anyway,” Elowen informed her. She paused. “It’s . . . okay.”
Beatrice nearly wept. For everything was not okay, she knew. She did not deserve Elowen’s forgiveness. The words were false mercy, the uncommonest of graces from Elowen. Yet selfishly, she was happy to pretend for just a while.
The lift lowered to their feet. Beatrice stepped on, standing where she never expected she would again—at Elowen’s side.
27
Clare
Without hesitating, Clare punched himself in the face.
He’d stormed up to the impersonator, enraged, not stopping to consider the crowd watching him or the possible consequences of punching someone in the midst of Vermillion Vale’s finest luxury inn. Public considerations had never stopped him from punching other men in the past. Why start now?
The impersonator reeled, perhaps expecting stage-fighting instead of the devastating slug to the jaw he received. Clare—the real Clare—found the punch did not ease the pain in his chest. Neither did the distraction of the shock to his knuckles, nor the instant red mark forming on the other man’s cheek, unsettling the enchanted symmetry of the impersonator’s face.
The other man shook off the shot, stunned, until his eyes fell on Clare himself. Delight sprang onto the impersonator’s features. The opportunity to fight in front of the growing crowd, it seemed, was worth the wound.
Perhaps this was what Clare impersonators often did in front of audiences. Clare wouldn’t know. With hurt vibrating in his heart, the entire Clare Convention, which until the very past moments had delighted him, felt impossibly misguided.
Who would ever want to be him?
He was consumed. The man in front of him had just kissed Beatrice. Pure rage powered him. Clare crouched into his customary fighting stance, the one depicted in his non-deluxe Hero Card and with which he’d fended off Leonor the Overlord, former horseball guarder and the Order’s onetime main enforcer.
The other man did the same.
Clare lashed out, jabbing with his left fist, his preferred opener.
The other man did the same.
Both punches connected. Clare found himself to be the one reeling now. If punching himself in the face offered him no joy, he enjoyed this even less.
He reached instinctually for his usual countermove, using his foot to sweep out the opponent’s legs. When the impersonator matched his move exactly, the clash resulted in their feet connecting, sending both men crashing to the ground. The crowd cheered with laughter, of course.
“You’re very good,” the impersonator commented. “You’ve studied Clare’s moves.”
“Didn’t need to study them,” Clare replied.
Past the fog of rage, the complication of the duel was emerging. In every formidable fight, the idiosyncrasies of Clare’s enemy shaped his strategy—regional customs, psychological maladies, personality streaks. You could read much about an opponent’s life in their fighting style, he’d learned. Where one grew up, whether one wrestled with older siblings or cowered from parents or fought for money or survival or sport. It was poetic, Clare found in his contemplative modes.
In this moment, he found it irritating.
Squaring off with someone impersonating his own moves, he was effectively playing Ogre’s Chess against himself. Recognizing what the fight required, Clare was forced to reevaluate. He would have to do everything opposite his own instincts, doing what he ordinarily never would.
He would have to go rogue.
The predicament’s one gift was his innate knowledge of the not-Clare’s next move. He ducked the blow he knew was coming, then struck forth himself, fast and sloppy—the desperate move of inexperienced fighters, impulsivity he grew out of early in his hardscrabble youth. It worked, sort of. He connected with the impersonator’s cheek, nearly breaking his own thumb because his fist was not closed properly.
The sting did not stop him. What did stop him was the not-Clare’s boot bludgeoning into his gut. The blow knocked the wind out of him, sending him crashing to his hands and knees in the puddles on the waterfall’s rock.
Grudgingly, he recognized the kick for what he probably would have done in the face of his own flailing previous punch. Ghosts, the guy was good. The crowd roared. “Clare versus Clare!” the impersonator crowed, exciting them further. “Who will prevail? The ultimate showdown!”
The showiness discouraged Clare. His opponent would not want to be outdone, which would make the fight harder.
Yet he did not have what the real Clare did. Fury, fresh-wounded.
The real Clare’s fists, like the Sword of Souls itself, were weapons forged in pain, for he had just watched someone else kiss Beatrice. The other man could not possibly feel the wrath Clare did, for he was only putting on a spectacle. No one could know the envious rage he felt.
Okay, that’s not entirely true, he corrected himself. He was quite certain plenty of people in Mythria considered themselves to be in love with Beatrice of the Four.
None of them knew the depth of Clare’s devotion, however. He recalled the way Beatrice had looked in this man’s arms. She had wanted to kiss him, he knew. He couldn’t make out what she’d said, but when she’d comprehended she had kissed an impersonator and saw the real him watching, she’d fled, realizing her mistake. Which meant the odds of her wanting to kiss the real him now were . . . low.
This man had stolen the one fucking kiss he might have gotten from Beatrice.
He’d spent ten years dreaming of her lips. Ten years of trying to forget every memory of Beatrice and yet waking up with her face first in his mind. Ten years of—he could now concede—slime-ish longing.
All for the one chance he might have had with her to be stolen by a two-bit performer in a costume. The man needed to pay. Clare hauled himself to his feet.
“You owe me a kiss,” Clare ground out.
“I— What?” the impersonator replied, startled.
The remark had made more sense in Clare’s head. Never mind it. He weaponized the man’s distraction, surging forth, tackling the impersonator to the ground. They rolled on the wet flagstones of the pool grounds, wrestling for the upper hand. The display looked very dignified, Clare felt certain. Very heroic. When the man headlocked him, hard, Clare escaped only by bending his opponent’s fingers close to breaking.
He fought free, panting, his tunic soaked, hair mussed. On the ground, his own likeness struggled to recover. “She didn’t want to kiss you, you fool!” Clare roared down.
Only hearing the furious emphasis of his words did he understand how much he meant them. How the sight of this man dressed like himself, reckless and wretched on the ground, summoned them. Of course she regretted the kiss. He was not the man she deserved or could ever want. Not the hero anyone could ever want. He felt stripped raw.
“You don’t deserve her,” he spat, lower.
The impersonator’s eyes narrowed. He hauled himself up warily, understanding this was so not about him anymore.
Which it was not. Clare, who had wrestled with fear and with desire, faced now the newest of his heart’s rogues—rage. Visiting his despair on one who simply looked like him was meaningless, but he did not care. It did not register in his fury-racked head, which saw only the perfect opportunity for reifying self-loathing into pounding fists.
He did not know how he would ever cease. He would pulp his opponent to weeping pieces in the name of punishing himself. Ghosts, the hatred was filling him up. The unfathomable, indefatigable knowledge he’d fucked up the past decade, which he could have spent repairing his relationship with the woman who held his heart. Of course she’d fled—he hadn’t done anything to make her want to kiss him. To stay.
