No, was he really thinking of this?
This was Fleur’s life.
This was the mother of his child, the only woman he’d ever loved, and he was debating whether he wanted to lose his magic?
But…
Who would he be without it?
He’d lived for one goal ever since he was quite small. No one had ever paid much attention to little Prince Remy. Cedric was the heir, and everyone in his family was obsessed with power. His mother wanted it. His father was interested in making sure he kept it. Cedric gloried in it.
It was all that was important, wasn’t it?
So without power, who would he be?
Maybe he was no one anyway. Hadn’t she said it herself? He was nothing.
He couldn’t even count on being hers if he saved her. She was impossible to predict. Even saving her life wouldn’t necessarily mean she’d want him.
No, if he did this, it would be jettisoning everything. It terrified him.
But he was already unraveling the power, he realized. He was already gently tugging out its knots and setting it free, pushing it into her body.
In the end, he wasn’t hesitating after all.
He grunted.
It didn’t hurt, not exactly, but it wasn’t easy either. He was starting to feel quite tired, so very, very tired.
He pulled the last strand of his magic free, and he felt it flow out of him and into Fleur.
She sucked in a breath, a rasping gasp. She coughed against him.
But her eyes stayed closed.
He closed his eyes too. He felt the dark tugging him down.
He felt lighter without the magic.
But the weight of Fleur’s warm body against his and the reassuring feeling of her chest rising with her breath, it was good.
He drifted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The sun was in my eyes.
I stirred.
Wait…
How was this happening? Where was I? I had been finished, done, folded into the sweet bosom of Mother Darkness, and now—
I opened my eyes, and I realized I was in Remy’s arms. We were leaning against the stone railing of the turret in the north part of the castle, and he looked pasty. His lips had a white tinge to them and there were dark circles around his eyes.
I had a horrible feeling he was dead.
I nudged him.
He grunted.
Not dead.
But something was wrong with him.
I shook him. “Remy?”
His eyes fluttered open. “Fleur.” He smiled at me.
“What…?” I was very confused. “What did you do?” I reached out with my magic. It was still there. It might have even been stronger than it had been before. I reached out for the fires in Islaigne, but they were out. What I’d done, it had worked, and they were completely doused. There wasn’t even smoke or smolder left.
“I told you I wanted to kill you,” he said. His voice had a scratchy quality to it. “Do you remember that? Back when I was attacking Islaigne? Why would you think I’d let you do it yourself?”
“How did you…?”
“I don’t know exactly.” He shut his eyes again, sighing. He looked wrecked. “I don’t have my magic anymore. It… wanted to go into you. When I touched you, it just started flowing into you. I gave it all to you.”
I drew back. “What?” And then, I reached out and touched him, and I felt the truth of it. The raging power that always roared beneath his skin, it wasn’t there. He didn’t have any magic anymore. “But if you don’t have your magic, what will you do?”
“I don’t know.” He didn’t open his eyes, but he smiled a little. “Certainly, though, almost conquering the known world should count for something, right?”
GUILLAME
Guillame blinked away sleep from his eyes, struggling to sit up in bed.
His valet was at the door to his bedchamber, looking uncomfortable. Ever since he’d discovered Atlas in Guillame’s bed in the mornings, he’d been refusing to come in and wake Guillame properly. He would stand at the doorway and call in to Guillame.
Guillame had to bring his clothes out to the valet for help dressing. He’d spoken to the man about it, and the man had gotten extremely frightened, trying to explain to Guillame that he didn’t find men attractive.
Guillame wasn’t sure whether to assure the valet he wasn’t going to molest him and neither was Atlas, or if he should send the man off without a reference for his behavior. He knew it would be nice to be reassuring, but he was angry with the valet, and he had an urge to punish him.
The valet saw that Guillame was awake. “Oh, good, sir, you’re up.” He shut the door, retreating.
Guillame scooted up into a sitting position, staring daggers at the door.
Beside him, Atlas groaned. “Why do you always get up so early in the morning? Can’t you stay here with me in bed this morning?”
“No,” said Guillame. “I can’t. The kingdom is in an uproar. We went to war with Islaigne, but now we’re sheltering the queen and her daughter. There’s been no explanation of this to the court, and they aren’t pleased. There are rumors that the king is going to divorce Queen Coralie and remarry Queen Fleur, and no one likes her, especially not now that she nearly burned down the castle. Not to mention the fact that Fleur herself is completely wrapped up in reconnecting with her daughter and won’t meet with me for a conversation on affairs of state, or that Remy’s moping around after her like a lovesick puppy. I have a lot on my plate right now.”
Atlas yawned. “Yes, but you love it.”
Guillame looked down at him, furrowing his brow. “Does it sound like I’m enjoying myself?”
Atlas chuckled, reaching up to caress his cheek. “I know you, Guillame. You’re in your element. You’re not happy when there aren’t problems to solve. And your son’s coming back to court soon. You’ll want to see him.”
“Of course I’ll want to see him.”
“You belong here. Your place is here. But my place… well, I’ve never dreamed of living at court.”
Guillame gave him a sharp look. “What are you saying? You’re leaving? I thought you’d at least stay and meet Beau. I don’t want you to leave.”
“Maybe if you stayed in bed with me, you could use your powers of persuasion on me.” Atlas winked at him.
Guillame arched an eyebrow. “You think that would work?”
“I don’t know, but I do know you’re good at finding solutions, so…” Atlas walked his fingers up Guillame’s bare arm. “Put your brain to work on how I get to have my farm in the woods, retired, and you get to be the king’s counselor, and we get to see each other.”
Guillame furrowed his brow. “That doesn’t sound possible.”
“I’ve heard that it’s best to allow your subconscious to go to work on problems. You should concentrate on something else, like kissing me.” Atlas tugged him down.
Guillame’s lips moved against Atlas’s.
The other man was warm and solid and it was easy to let himself be distracted.
Later, when he left his bedchamber, his valet was cowering in the antechamber, scandalized, having heard the noises they were making.
Guillame shook his head at him. “Do we have a problem?”
“Sir?” said the valet, unable to meet his eyes.
“Perhaps you’d like to be free to seek out another position elsewhere,” said Guillame.
The valet’s eyes widened. “You’re dismissing me?”
“Do I need to?” said Guillame.
The valet’s expression went stony. “I am quite capable of doing my job.”
“See that you do, then,” said Guillame. “Now, help me dress. I’m going to speak to the king.”
But when Guillame arrived at Remy’s chambers, nearly a half hour later, Remy wasn’t there. Remy’s valet said that Remy had not come to bed the night before. He was the king, and he was allowed to do as he pleased, so the valet had not gone loo
king for him.
Guillame knew where he was.
He left the king’s chambers and went to Fleur’s chambers.
But Fleur wasn’t there either, and her daughter Margo was pouting in her mother’s antechamber, apparently expecting to have breakfast with her mother.
Where were they?
Guillame went to speak to their guards, but they’d all been dismissed and told not to follow them. Bisset said that he had not seen Fleur since early evening the night before after she’d put the princess to sleep.
Remy’s guards said that the last time they’d seen the king, he’d been going down a hallway towards the north wing of the castle.
Guillame headed that way, and as he was walking down the hallway, he came upon the both of them.
Remy was leaning against Fleur, and they were laboriously making their way toward him.
Guillame ran forward to take the king’s weight away from Fleur. “What happened?”
“Oh, Dubois, it’s you,” said Remy, collapsing against him. He laughed a little. “How appropriate, don’t you think?”
“The king needs to rest,” said Fleur. “He’s been through an ordeal.”
Remy just laughed again.
“What ordeal?” said Guillame.
“Before I rest,” said Remy, “I want food. Are you hungry, Fleur?”
“Oh, famished,” she said.
“What happened?” demanded Guillame.
“Breakfast, Dubois,” said Remy, grinning at him. “Breakfast.”
* * *
Guillame was pacing and thinking about shooting both of them in the head, because both Remy and Fleur were ignoring him. They were spending all their time talking to Princess Margo, who was telling them a long and involved story about some dream she’d had involving dragons.
The three of them were in Remy’s sitting room, and the breakfast they’d ordered had required an extra table brought into the king’s rooms to hold all the food. There were meats and eggs and an assortment of breads, plus a selection of fruit and cheese.
Remy was assembling a sort of sandwich with eggs and cheese and meat. “Well, did you kill the dragon, then, Margo?”
“No,” said Margo. “No, I decided that maybe he only wanted a friend, so I asked him if wanted to play instead, and he said he did, and then we played hide and seek, and he turned into my pet dragon, and he let me ride on his back, and we went all over the place, flying around.”
“Oh, well, that’s lovely, then,” said Fleur, smiling at her daughter.
“Yes, very politic of you,” said Remy. “I’m sure Dubois would approve.”
Guillame stopped pacing and glared at him. “Oh, you’re acknowledging my presence now?”
“Aren’t you hungry, Dubois?” said Remy, gesturing to the food.
Guillame seethed.
“Do you remember when you were organizing those dinners with fiefs?” said Remy, taking a bite of his sandwich.
“Of course,” said Guillame.
Remy chewed and swallowed. “Was it working? Could you do something like that again, somehow make the Dumonte nobility like me?”
“They don’t need to like you,” said Guillame. “You’ve conquered everyone and now we’re all rich because of all the taxes they pay us.”
“Yes, well, about that,” said Remy. “I don’t imagine it will be too long before everyone rallies behind Fonte and tries to attack us, and without my magic, I’m not sure exactly—”
“What happened to your magic?” said Guillame.
“I’m so sorry, Remy,” said Fleur, reaching over and taking his hand. “I know how much it meant to you. It was all you ever talked about.”
Remy looked at her mildly. “Yes, I suppose so. The thing about being king is that it’s really less fun than you’d think, though. Mostly, it’s boring.”
Fleur thought about this. “Maybe I see where you’re coming from. Ruling Islaigne was never boring, but then I was always running about, putting out explosions.”
“Which you won’t be doing anymore,” said Remy.
“Yes, it might get boring.” She made a rueful face.
Remy took another bite of his sandwich.
“When I tell you I’m bored, you tell me I should go ask my nurse for some chores,” piped up Margo.
Remy chuckled. “Oh, that’s clever, Fleur. I like that.”
Fleur smiled at him. “Well, I did have an idea once, but this was a long time ago, when I was a little girl. You know, the ocean borders the south of Islaigne, but to the north, the land keeps on going past Islaigne’s borders. And as far as I know, there’s no one there. I mean, there could be. I don’t know what’s there. So, I sometimes thought that maybe I’d lead an expedition to the north.”
Remy was chewing again, but gazing at her intently. He looked intrigued.
“That might be something to do in order to ease the boredom,” she said. “You could come along if you wanted.”
Remy swallowed. “Truly? You’d want me with you? I thought you loathed everything about me.” He sounded faintly amused by this, in his typical unemotional way.
“Oh, you know I didn’t mean that,” said Fleur.
He took another bite of his sandwich and chewed and then swallowed. “Of course I knew that.” He turned to Guillame. “What do you think? If I went on an expedition to Islaigne, could you handle running Dumonte in my stead?”
Guillame spread his hands. “I don’t understand anything right now.”
“Of course he could,” said Fleur. “Guillame’s practically been running the country these past four years, hasn’t he?”
“He has,” said Remy, nodding.
“Then it’s settled,” said Fleur, beaming at him. “It’ll be an adventure, you and me. It’s not burning the entire world down, but it’s exciting, don’t you think?”
“I do,” said Remy, never taking his eyes from her face.
Guillame buried his face in his hands, sighing heavily.
FIVE YEARS LATER...
When Guillame arrived at the castle, he was greeted by Beau, as he was every morning. He didn’t live in the castle anymore. Instead, he went home at night to a nearby farm on the river, just a short horseback ride away, where he lived with Atlas.
The arrangement suited them both well.
They cared for each other, but they each had an independent streak. Atlas had once been the pirate king, after all. He needed to have his own dominion, and that dominion was the farm. He controlled everything in his small plot of land, seeing to each and every aspect of it.
And Guillame, well he ran Dumonte.
It hadn’t been easy in the wake of Remy losing his fire magic and immediately disappearing to Islaigne with Fleur and her daughter, but Guillame had managed to negotiate peace with Fonte, and he’d kept the other countries from going to war with Dumonte by loosening their taxation agreements.
Thus far, Briganne and Lareiss and Allemande all remained under Dumonte rule, only because Dumonte continued to be the official head of the Order. Once, long ago, Guillame had believed that without magic in the world, people would not have hope, but it had turned out that magic had only brought destruction and pain.
The Order no longer claimed that the musquets contained living flame, and now others besides the musqueteers could have firearms.
And since the Order had been restructured, a great deal of other changes had come about in its wake, most notably allowing members to marry if they so chose.
So, Guillame supposed he’d been wrong. Magic had needed to die in order for progress to take hold. He felt as if the world he would be leaving to his son would be a better world.
Of course, it wasn’t as if magic was completely dead. There was still Cyrille, the firestarter in Fonte, but without a war to fight, the man’s power was no longer causing fear or destruction. Without living flame in Islaigne, there would be no more mutations. Cyrille would be the last of his kind.
Beau had just turned ten years old. He was wait
ing at the entrance to the castle as he did every morning.
Guillame gave the boy a hug. “Good morning to you, Your Majesty.”
“Good morning,” said Beau. He knew the truth of his parentage now. Remy had insisted the boy be told before he left the first time for Islaigne, saying it wasn’t fair for the boy to know anything otherwise. Beau had taken it a bit badly at first. He had been confused, wondering if he was really the doffine or an imposter, if he should step down from the throne. But Guillame had convinced him that he should not, because there were no other members of the Toussaint line to step up. And Remy had assured the boy that he was the doffine and should act like one.
“How is your mother?” said Guillame, something he always asked.
“Quite well,” said Beau. Coralie had a lover now, Guillame understood, and she wasn’t very discreet about it, but no one seemed to blame her too much, considering her husband had been gone most of the time for the better part of five years. There had been one or two trips back, Remy sweeping into the castle with Fleur and little Margo in tow, but they never stayed long.
“Well, that’s good then,” said Guillame.
“There’s been a letter,” said Beau. “From the king.”
“Oh?” said Guillame.
Beau drew it out of his pocket and handed it to Guillame. “I opened it. I hope that’s all right.”
“You are the doffine,” said Guillame. “Of course you can open it.” He slowly scanned the letter. “Typical,” he muttered.
“Do you think he’s ever going to come back?” said Beau.
“For good?” said Guillame. “No, I don’t. I think he’s happy where he is. It’s probably better if he doesn’t come back, anyway. There are some who have animosity towards him for all the things he did.”
“You mean conquering all those countries?”
“Exactly that.”
“Well, when I’m king, I’m going to be like you and try to make people happy,” said Beau. “Being a king is about serving the people, after all.”
“Yes,” said Guillame. “Just so. Serving them by making them do whatever it is that you know is best for them.” He clapped a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Shall we go inside, then?”
Throne Shaker (The Clash and the Heat Book 3) Page 24
