The hemlock queen, p.12
The Hemlock Queen, page 12
And she was going to ask about Anton. The need had ballooned in her chest over the rest of breakfast until it pressed against her sternum, set to burst. She needed answers wherever she could get them, if only to lay her own anxieties to rest.
The curve of Bastian’s smile went sharper. “I think that sounds like a splendid idea. Tell Remaut hello from me.”
Her brows knit. “I doubt that will go over well.”
But Bastian was already out the door.
Lore let her head drop against the back of her chair. Bastian wanting to taunt Gabe was nothing new, really. Though she thought things had changed in that regard. That Bastian didn’t want to hurt him, either.
Maybe that was just her own wants talking. Her own desire for the three of them to find some sort of resolution.
She forced herself up, prepared to go spill her guts to one of the men who made her life immeasurably harder.
A bloodcoat guard stood next to one of the potted palms outside the door. Lore reeled back when she saw him—after ten years as a poison runner, the sight of guards still made her uneasy, perhaps even more than the Presque Mort did. Her time in the Citadel hadn’t done much to raise them in her estimation.
The bloodcoat said nothing. Lore cleared her throat. “Why are you here?”
The guard’s eyes cut her direction, nonplussed by her rudeness. “King’s orders,” was the clipped answer. “I’m to accompany you around the Citadel when he can’t.”
Her lips pressed together, anger building quick. “I’ve been moving through the Citadel just fine.”
The bloodcoat didn’t respond, but his eyes dipped down to Lore’s ring, then back up to her face.
Ah.
“That won’t be necessary.” She drew herself up to her full height, tried to put the weight of future queenliness into her voice. “I’ll inform the King that I relieved you of your post.”
The bloodcoat shifted on his feet but didn’t leave. “I’m afraid you can’t do that, my lady.”
Her smile was frosty. “I assure you, I can.”
“I can only be dismissed by the one who gave the order.” Dammit all, this bloodcoat had more spine than Lore had prepared for. She was used to scaring them, and the one time she wanted to use that, it wouldn’t work. The guard continued, “If you want me to call His Majesty back—”
“No.” She snapped it, turning on her heel. “No need.”
Because she wouldn’t win that argument, and she didn’t want to see the satisfaction on this man’s face when she lost.
Lore swept down the hallway toward the stairs without another word. The guard, whose name she didn’t ask for, fell in behind. She entertained fantasies of him tripping on the stairs and falling ass over feet all the way to the ground floor.
So focused was she on this particular daydream that she didn’t see Alie until she nearly ran her over.
“Hello to you, too,” Alie said, slapping her hands to Lore’s shoulders to keep her steady. There was a laugh in the words, but her eyes were jade-like, glittering and stony.
“Sorry.” Lore righted herself, cast a glance over her shoulder. The bloodcoat had stopped a few feet away, standing with his back to the wall, his hands at his sides and his eyes straight ahead. A casual enough posture, one that wouldn’t make it immediately obvious he was following Lore.
That was probably the idea.
Alie’s gaze followed Lore’s, the wariness in her face honing to a harder, flintier edge.
“Of course,” Lore said, loudly enough so that the bloodcoat could hear. “I’d be happy to accompany you to your apartment, I know how that time of the month can be such a bother.”
Confusion barely flickered over Alie’s face; she gave Lore a subtle nod, responding, “Oh, thank you, the cramps are so terrible. A cup of Brigitte’s tea would be just the thing, if you happen to have some with you.”
“Always.” Lore felt like a particularly untalented mummer putting on a morality play at a market festival, but another quick glance over her shoulder said the inelegant ploy had done its job. A look of faint distaste bent the bloodcoat’s mouth, and when she and Alie moved back to the stairs, he didn’t follow quite as close behind.
“Gods,” Alie said under her breath. “Anyone who doesn’t bleed acts like it’s catching.” She gave Lore an unreadable look. “Bastian’s orders?”
“Minutes ago, apparently.”
“Hmm.” If Alie had any insight, she didn’t offer it.
The bloodcoat followed them back up the first flight of stairs, down the hallway to Alie’s door—rather than potted ferns, like Bastian’s, Alie’s door was instead bordered with a climbing pothos vine, growing riotously in the light through the window across the hall.
“Won’t be a moment.” Lore followed Alie inside and shut the door behind her. They both paused, staring at the handle to see if it would turn. It didn’t; apparently, the bloodcoat was content to wait outside while they discussed the matter of monthly bleeding.
Alie’s apartments were much smaller than Bastian’s, on par with the rooms Lore and Gabe had stayed in while she pretended to be Eldelore Remaut, though much more finely decorated and maintained. The door opened on a small sitting room with a white marble fireplace and a whole wall of windows looking out on the northern Citadel green. A propped-open door at the back of the room showed a sliver of plush, unmade bed, and an open archway led to a small study, housing a velvet-upholstered chair and a desk scattered with books and letters.
But Lore didn’t have much chance to study the apartment. Alie whirled to her. “What,” she said, clipped and hard, “in all the myriad hells are you doing, Lore?”
Lore’s mouth opened, closed again. She hadn’t been prepared to be interrogated. But Alie was looking at her almost like an enemy, her copper-brown cheeks flushed and her eyes sparking, her arms crossed tightly over her chest.
One near-white brow rose over Alie’s eye, her gaze going pointedly to the ring on Lore’s finger.
Ah, Lore thought again. So Bastian had done this without speaking to anyone first. One more important decision he’d undertaken completely on his own.
She let out a shaky breath and twisted the diamond into her palm, like she could hide it. “That’s the thing,” she said. “I don’t really know.”
Alie sighed, her shoulders slumping, arms loosening. “Well, that makes two of us.” She crossed to her couch; Lore followed, the both of them sitting down in a whump of chiffon and silk. “Did he ask you about it? Before he did it, I mean?”
“No.” Lore barked a weak laugh. “I had no idea. We’ve never talked about anything like that before.”
But was that true, really? Bastian had said over and over how he would keep her safe. Keep her close. In his mind, maybe this had been a natural progression.
Alie was looking at her like she had three heads. “And you just went along with it? Even though you’d never discussed marriage to an Arceneaux King? That’s not something to take lightly.”
“What exactly was I supposed to do, Alie? Just say thanks but no thanks in the middle of a royal ball, with the fucking Kirytheans watching? They’re reporting everything back to Jax—that’s the entire reason Bastian invited them. Word of the Sainted King’s deathwitch turning down his marriage proposal isn’t going to make us seem like paragons of stability.”
Another deep sigh from Alie. “You’re right.” She rubbed at her forehead. “Malcolm and I were completely blindsided, but we assumed he’d at least spoken to you. Did he tell you why?”
They all knew this wasn’t just because he cared for her. It stung, a little. Lore shrugged. “To keep me safe, he said. To show the Kirytheans that I’m a permanent fixture, that I’m not going anywhere.”
To see who I chose. But she kept that part to herself.
“Seems more like he put a target on your back,” Alie muttered.
“Thus the guard, I think.”
“Still. I don’t understand…” Alie trailed off before finishing, but it wasn’t a statement that needed an end. Neither of them really understood. It was becoming the common thread when it came to Bastian’s actions. And what could they do about it? He was the King.
“Something is wrong,” Lore said finally, quietly. She didn’t realize she was gripping her hands to fists until she felt the ring digging into the meat of her palm; she rotated it back around, slow and deliberate, and stared at it as she spoke. “Inviting the Kirytheans, proposing to me, channeling so much magic. He’s being irrational.”
Alie’s lips pressed flat. “Probably just the stress of becoming King, though Bastian and rationality have never shared close quarters, especially when it comes to things he wants.”
“I don’t think that’s—”
“How well do you know him, Lore?” Alie turned to face her, chin lifted and expression stoic. “I know you have this… this magic connection, but the fact is that you’ve only known Bastian for a few months. You aren’t exactly the best person to be making judgments on what’s normal for him or not. This isn’t outside the realm of what we expected, when Bastian became King. He’s always put more stock in his own opinion than anyone else’s.”
Lore stared at her, wanting to defend Bastian but unable to completely disregard the sentiment. If she was selfish, so was Bastian. Both of them had rejected what Anton and August wanted that night. Both of them had told the greater good to go hang. “Then what are we supposed to do about it?”
Alie stood, crossed to the teapot on her marble hearth. She stuck a poker with a gilded handle in the fire, stirred up the embers, hung the teapot over the first flickers of the fire. It was too hot for such a thing; she fanned herself with her hand, billowing the white curls of her hair. “You,” she said finally, “don’t need to do anything.”
A subtle emphasis on that you. Unease pricked along the back of her neck. “Are you planning something, Alie?”
The teapot began to steam; Alie pulled it off the hanger and poured hot water into a mug, not bothering with tea leaves, for bleeding cramps or otherwise. “He has a council,” she said quietly. “Even if he seems to forget. Trust that we will be weighing all our options.”
“What options?”
“There are always options.” Alie’s eyes flickered her way, peering at her through the steam of her teacup. “Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there.” She paused, her next words quieter. “Have you talked to Gabe?”
The question caught Lore off guard. “That’s where I was headed when I saw you.”
Alie nodded, watching the water as it cooled. “So you haven’t really chosen between them yet.”
Talking about Gabe with Alie—talking about him in this context—made discomfort coil in Lore’s stomach, a serpent waiting to strike. She knew Alie still cared for him, but wasn’t sure exactly what it looked like. Whether it was the way Lore cared, or something softer, a leftover love that hadn’t died but wouldn’t grow again.
“I don’t want to,” Lore whispered.
Alie chewed on the corner of her lip. After a moment, she nodded.
The air sat strange. Lore shifted on the couch again. “Alie, I…” But she didn’t know how to follow that, changed direction. “You and Gabe…”
“Don’t worry about me and Gabe.” Alie watched steam rise from the lip of the teacup. “I’ll always care about him. He’ll always care about me, presumptuous though that may be to say.” Her lip quirked. “But it was never going to be him and me, Lore. Things were never going to be that simple. Not for any of us.”
She picked up the steaming cup of tea and went to open the door.
The bloodcoat stood across the hall at military attention. Alie inclined her head his direction, then turned to Lore, taking her hand and steering her over the threshold. “Thank you so much for the tea, I’m sure I’ll feel better in no t—”
But it wasn’t just Lore’s new guard at the door.
Caius stood with his hands clasped behind his back, almost the same stance the bloodcoat took. The light in the window behind him flushed his edges and made him hard to look at directly, but when he stepped forward, his expression was easy to see.
Eager.
“Alienor,” he said, ignoring Lore entirely.
Confusion creased Alie’s brow, but only for a moment. She slipped into her diplomat self as easily as a well-worn cloak. “Caius. How lovely to see you again, especially now that the court knows who you are.”
She said it playfully, but there was a splinter she couldn’t quite sand away. A place where that well-worn cloak had gone threadbare.
Caius grinned. It was not the kind that would set a person at ease. “You would never have been so fooled. You seem like someone who knows when trickery is afoot.”
Lore didn’t think she had ever heard someone use the word afoot unironically. She also couldn’t believe how easily this was going—was the whole court accepting the presence of the Kirytheans as if it were nothing? Even her guard seemed nonplussed.
Yes, she thought, answering her own question. Yes, she supposed they were. Auverraine was desperate to avoid a war and all the costs associated; this gesture of peace, strange as it seemed, would hold up the illusion that everything would be fine. And the illusion was all they needed.
Alie smiled back, but her eyes stayed shrewd. “I do admit that I didn’t quite buy your story about being a distant nephew of an ill viscount, but I can’t say I expected the truth. I suppose I should have; it’s not the first time a new acquaintance has come to me through such means.”
She threaded her arm chummily through Lore’s. There was a slight tremble in it.
“Seems more like a friend than an acquaintance,” Caius said, with another one of those sharp half smiles. “I hope it can be the same for us, in time. Bastian speaks so highly of you.”
Lore patted Alie’s arm. “Go rest, Alie,” she said, trying to sound light and breezy. “I know your time pains you.”
“Don’t let me interrupt your plans.” He was an operative for an enemy government, but at least Caius was polite. “I came to see if you would take a turn with me through the gardens, but if you’re not feeling well…”
“She isn’t.” Lore gave him a tight smile and nudged Alie back over the threshold of her apartments. “But it is so nice to see you, Caius.” Then, because she couldn’t leave well enough alone, “Bastian and I hope you’ve enjoyed what you’ve seen of Auverraine so far.”
“It’s certainly been impressive.” With one more glance at Alie, he turned the full weight of that predator smile on Lore. “And a late congratulations to you, my lady. We are all anxious to see the kind of Queen you will become.”
He inclined his head, not as deeply as one should to a lady and the future Queen, and disappeared down the stairs.
Lore let out a shaky breath and whirled to Alie. “Are you—”
“Fine,” she said faintly. “Go see Gabe.”
Then she shut the door.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
There is no path thornier than that between two people who once grew love.
—Emilie Beligne, Auverrani poet
The sun beat down with heated fists on Lore’s hair as she crossed the Citadel green, entered the heavy doors of the Church. She kept a brisk pace and didn’t look to see if her guard was following as she stalked down the corridor of stained-glass windows.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that Bastian wanted Caius to spend time with Alie. She was their best diplomat, able to pull information out of anyone before they realized they’d let it go. Still, this was one more thing he hadn’t discussed with her, and it made irritation flare, made her teeth clench.
But she wasn’t surprised. No, Bastian doing what Bastian thought best was nothing new. It felt like an ingrained truth, now, something that hadn’t shocked her before and shouldn’t shock her again.
Alie was right. How well did she know him, really?
Lore twisted her ring around and around her finger, rubbing the skin raw.
She approached the doors to the unused confessional room, and her guard found his place against the wall a polite distance away. “The Sainted King ordered it,” he said in response to her skeptical brow. “You’re to have privacy when you meet with the Priest Exalted.”
Lore didn’t press that bit of luck. With a nod, she slipped into the confessional room, closed the door behind her. A moment, then she turned the lock, just to be sure.
She didn’t want any part of this conversation to be overheard.
Hurrying down the aisle, flicking aside the curtain, letting it fall behind her. But Lore didn’t sit on the bench, instead striding right up to where the lattice kept them apart, pressing as close to it as she could without touching. “I need to talk to you.”
The shadows moved over the floor as Gabe sat down on the other side of the lattice, bisected by delicately twisted metal and the wavering light of the single sconce. “Excellent news,” he rumbled, exhaustion and irritation mingling in his tone. “You’re doing that right now.”
“Don’t be an asshole, Gabe.” Lore reached up and hooked her fingers in the curving metal, as if making him see her skin could somehow imbue her voice with urgency. His shadow stiffened; it worked. “I mean about…”
She didn’t finish, but her fingers tightened in the lattice, curled like she could tear the metal out herself, make him look at her.
A sigh from the other side. “Fine,” Gabe said wearily, his head lolling back against the wall. “Talk.”
And when she did, it wasn’t to ask about Anton. Not yet. “I’m still dreaming.”
“We’ve discussed that. As long as your defenses—”
“No,” she cut in. “They still don’t feel like the dreams I had with Anton, they feel… solid. They feel almost like memories. But not mine.”
Silence from the other side, though she saw him shift. Lore had never asked him what he still believed about Apollius, Nyxara, about her power being the harbinger of the world’s end. Bastian had taken the lack of apocalypse as a sign that Anton was wrong, but he’d never really believed to begin with. Gabe had. Gabe had believed so much.
