Born Assassin Saga Box Set

by Jacqueline Pawl

  Where is the man whose eyes had lit up every time his wife had entered the room? King Alaric had married for love as much as for strategy, and not one person in Sandori had ever had reason to doubt it. Ghyslain had seen the way his mother’s smile had shifted into something more special—something infinitely more intimate—for his father. He’d noticed the way the king always sat closer to the queen than many of the noblemen sit to their wives. Alaric always found little excuses to touch her or make her laugh. After more than thirty years, they had still loved each other as much as they had the day they married.

  Where is that man now?

  He had left them, left Ghyslain empty and his mother so full of sorrow it never seems to leak out of her—not always in tears, but in the way her eyes sometimes go distant in the middle of a conversation or her fingers absently twirl her wedding band until she rubs little blisters into her skin from the friction.

  The second the soldiers lift the king’s coffin to carry it outside, everyone in the Church pews stands to watch the slow procession. Ghyslain stares at his mother. She’s trembling, biting her lower lip to keep it from quivering, her eyes locked on the box containing the body of her love. Her handmaids are clustered around her. They whisper their sympathies and praise her for being so courageous. When his gaze wanders back to his father’s coffin, the impact of his father’s death—the permanence of it—strikes him anew. The wave of accompanying grief is so strong it makes his stomach roil and his knees weak.

  No one in the Church notices when the soon-to-be king slips out of the pew and darts from the room.

  Ghyslain chokes back tears as he races down a long hallway. He passes several small prayer rooms and priestesses’ bedchambers before he turns into an empty kitchen and falls to his knees on the cold stone floor. His fingers find an iron pot on a nearby shelf and he pulls it to his chest just as he retches into it, sobbing. He wants to scrub his clothes of the scents of the holy oils, flush the image of his father’s waxy skin from his mind, throw that Creator-damned heavy crown from the top of the castle’s tallest tower. He doesn’t want any of it. He wants his father back.

  Footsteps tap down the hallway and he freezes, gasping in surprise. He clutches the pot closer and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. The footsteps stop a few feet behind him.

  “Do not be alarmed, Your Highness,” the High Priestess murmurs, “and do not feel ashamed of your grief. Today is a dark day for our nation, but I see a ray of sunshine in our midst.” She kneels beside Ghyslain and gently tugs the pot from him, her face showing no hint of disgust at the contents as she pushes it aside. Her skin is a dark ebony, almost as black as her mourning gown. She smiles sadly at him. When he glances away, unable to meet her kind, dark eyes, she places her fingertips under his chin and tilts his head up.

  “Are you going to tell me to be strong, as well?” he whispers. “Because that’s all the advisors have been saying to me for days.”

  She shakes her head. “Listen to me, child. Shutting one’s eyes against love for fear of losing it is not strength. Your father was a great man and a wise king, and the country will mourn him for a long time. I cannot promise that it will be easy to live without him, but I can promise it will become easier.” She pauses and studies him for a moment. “May I ask, Your Highness, how old you are?”

  “S-Seventeen. Almost eighteen.” He feels like a fool immediately upon admitting it, like an adult caught playing with a child’s toy. He should be better than this—he should be stronger than this. When she opens her mouth to respond, he continues, “Let me guess—you’re going to tell me that there is no reason to be sad because the Creator willed this to happen? That the Creator has a plan for all of us, and it would be best if we blindly submit to his wishes, knowing it will all work out in the end?”

  “I could, but I have no desire to waste your time on pretty words. The truth is, child, that even I don’t know what the Creator has in store for us. My Sight only offers me a tiny glimpse of his plan, but it’s enough for me to know that you have a special path in this world, one you must walk alone. Let the memories of those you have loved and lost fill you with strength, with courage, with love. Allow yourself to become a better person because of them. From this day onward, your actions affect not only yourself, but the people of this whole country. Let your love for them guide everything you do, rule with a firm but compassionate hand, and you will have nothing to fear from death.”

  “But—”

  “No buts,” she says softly. “You are a king today.” She stands, then offers him a hand up, which he accepts. “Remember this day not as an end, Your Highness, but the beginning of a new chapter.”

  “Thank you, High Priestess.”

  “Please, call me Ilissia.” She sweeps into a graceful bow. When she stands, she smiles. “You’d best be off now, Your Highness. Your mother—and your country—await.”

  “Ghyslain? Darling?” Queen Guinevere’s voice echoes down the stone hallway just as Ghyslain steps out of the kitchen, Ilissia trailing behind him. “Where are you?”

  “I’m here, Mother.”

  One second later, she rounds the corner, her handmaids close on her heels. When she sees him, her face crumples and she pulls him into another bone-crushing embrace.

  “Oh, my sweet boy,” she whispers so only he can hear. “My sweet, sweet son.” Her voice is raw, her fingers digging into his back as she clutches him close. The familiar scent of her floral perfume fills his nose. As she buries her face in his chest—he’s half a head taller than she and still growing—he notices for the first time how thin she has become since the king’s death; he can feel each of her ribs through her silk mourning gown.

  “Mother—” he begins. She must hear the alarm in his voice, for she quickly backs out of his hug and runs her hands over imaginary wrinkles in her dress. For once, she’s not crying. Her face is freshly powdered, but it doesn’t quite cover the pink tracks her tears had left in her makeup that morning after they had left the castle. Even so, the effort she had made to hide her pain touches him. He steels himself. For her, he can be strong. For her, he’ll do anything.

  “How long until the coronation?” he asks.

  “Two hours,” one of the queen’s handmaids answers. “Oliver Cain and his guards have secured a carriage for you and have done what they can to keep the route to the castle clear. It’s waiting out front, Your Highness.”

  “Well,” he sighs, “let’s go, then.” He reaches for his mother’s hand. She grips it like a lifeline. He smiles at her. “We’ll see Father buried, then you’ll get to watch your son become king.”

  3

  Twenty minutes.

  Ghyslain stares at his reflection in the polished metal mirror atop his vanity, trying to imagine what it will be like to be king. Will he feel different? Will Pierce and his few other friends in the castle suddenly grow distant, colder, now that he will be their ruler? His father had always said that ruling a kingdom is the loneliest job in the world. Before, Ghyslain had never understood that—the castle was constantly filled with visiting royalty, foreign dignitaries, military leaders, courtiers and advisors eager to meet with the king or queen—but now he’s beginning to see what his father had been trying to teach him. He had never fully grasped that a king must keep himself separate from his citizens; he must care for them, but he is not one of them. The only person he can trust with his innermost thoughts—who understands exactly how he feels—is his mother. And yet, after seeing how frail she has become these past few days, he fears she may not be around to guide him much longer.

  Nineteen minutes.

  He sweeps his hair back and ties it into a low ponytail at the nape of his neck. When he had returned to his chambers after watching his father placed in the crypt below the castle, the outfit for his coronation had already been laid out for him. The gold embroidery on his purple doublet shimmers under the light from the lantern sitting on his vanity table. His black pants are tucked into fine leather boots, and a ma
tching purple-and-gold cloak tumbles from the clasp at his neck to the floor. Every piece is perfectly tailored to fit him; the entire ensemble must have cost a fortune.

  Eighteen minutes.

  A rap at the door startles him.

  “Come in,” he calls warily, half expecting another advisor insistent on talking him through the ceremony for the hundredth time to open the door. Or perhaps it’s his mother, come to chastise him for scaring off the slaves she had sent to help him prepare for the ceremony.

  When the door swings open, he lets out a sigh of relief.

  Elisora smiles at him. The small gesture is so stunning that, for a moment, he forgets to breathe. She leans against the doorframe and crosses her arms over her chest, taking her time as she looks him up and down. “You look like a proper royal,” she finally croons. She pushes off the wall and shuts the door behind her before meeting Ghyslain in the center of the room. Her fingers trace the line of his jaw before slipping down and straightening the gold clasp of his cloak. “Well, now you do.”

  He catches her hand and presses a kiss to her knuckles. “What would I do without you?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s pray you never find out.” She winks, her full lips parting into another heart-stopping grin. When she turns to examine the various bottles and jars of makeup Orson had left on the vanity that morning, her silky blonde hair catches the light streaming through the windows, sparkling like liquid gold. She prides herself on her hair, he knows—in all the years he has known her, she has worn it the exact same way: waist-length in loose curls, with little braids pinned like a crown atop her head. When they were children, she had insisted she would become queen someday despite her family not having a noble title. Little did she know, her dream would one day come true.

  “What will be your first action as king, Your Majesty?” Elisora perches on the edge of his vanity table and cocks her head at him, her blue eyes sparkling.

  “Marry you, of course.” He hooks his fingers into the waistband of her skirt and tugs her closer. She lets out a surprised squeak when she nearly slides off the vanity.

  “Ghyslain!”

  “Don’t you want to be queen?”

  When he ducks to kiss her, she places a hand on his chest and pushes him back. “Don’t you worry what the others will say? Wouldn’t it be more proper for you to choose a bride from one of the noble families? My father is but a merchant.”

  “A rich merchant.”

  Elisora laughs. “If you weren’t the prince, I’d accuse you of wanting to marry me solely for my family’s money.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. That’s only one of the reasons.”

  “Ghyslain, come on. Be serious. You know the nobility resent my father because you had the audacity to choose the daughter of a man without a title. They were livid at the announcement of our betrothal.”

  He raises a brow. “So the king must now seek the approval of the commoners before he weds? What else must he do? Shall I ask their permission every time I must use the chamber pot?” When she makes a disgusted noise and tries to pull away, Ghyslain continues softly, “I don’t care what the nobles say. I love you, my father loved you, and our subjects will learn to love you, as well.”

  “But—”

  Ghyslain cuts her off with a kiss. “You worry too much, my dear,” he murmurs when he pulls back. “You’ll be a wonderful queen.”

  She toys with one of the jars of makeup beside her. “I hope so,” she whispers. Then she spots the time on the grandfather clock in the corner and starts. “You’re going to be late.”

  He looks back and flinches. Seven minutes. His mother must be pacing a hole through the floor outside the throne room. She has always nagged him about being punctual. He steps back and holds his arms out to the side, turning in a slow circle. “How do I look?”

  “Like a king.” Elisora hops off the vanity and straightens his cloak. “Like a king who dressed himself,” she amends as she starts toward the door. “See you in the throne room, Your Majesty.” She offers him a theatrical curtsy, sweeping the long, flowing skirt of her gown out wide, before straightening and shooting him a crooked grin. They had long since moved past the need for honorifics and court manners, but she still likes to tease him.

  “I’ll see you there.”

  Elisora pauses on the threshold, opens her mouth, then appears to think better of whatever she had been about to say. She starts to close the door, but Ghyslain catches it before she can escape.

  “What is it?”

  She blushes. “Will you . . . tell me again . . . how you feel about me?”

  He stares at her, dumbfounded, while she sheepishly bites her lip. “I love you,” he repeats, more of a question than a statement. How is it possible that she doesn’t know? How is it possible that she doesn’t see it in his eyes every time he looks at her? How can she not feel it every time they touch? “I’ve loved you since the day I met you.”

  “You don’t remember the day we met,” she scoffs.

  “Of course, I do. We were five. I was sitting by my father’s side at the New Year’s feast when your family walked in. You hid behind your mother’s legs the whole way to your table because you were too shy to talk to anyone. Then Drake pulled the bow from your hair and you immediately forgot everyone else was in the room. You chased him right up to the head table and wrested it from his hands in front of all the nobility.” He grins. “I thought your father might die of embarrassment.”

  “You can’t possibly remember all that,” she objects, but now she’s smiling, too.

  “But I do. You were wearing a gold dress with pink bows in your hair, and little pink slippers with gold beads on the toes. I remember thinking you were the prettiest girl I had ever seen.” Now it’s Ghyslain’s turn to be sheepish. “I still think that. I knew then and there that I loved you.”

  Elisora looks down at her hands, at the shimmering diamond ring Ghyslain had given her when they had announced their betrothal the year before. “Thank you,” she whispers, and she closes the door behind her on her way out. It doesn’t escape his notice that she hadn’t reciprocated his feelings.

  Ghyslain lets out a shaky breath. Three minutes. His mother is going to kill him.

  By the time he opens the door and steps out into the hallway, Elisora is nowhere in sight. I love her, he thinks as he starts toward the throne room. He lets those words steady him, fill him with courage, as he strides down the stairs to the main floor of the castle and across the great hall. Through a short hallway leading to the throne room, portraits of his ancestors frown down at him from the walls. He pauses before the portrait of his father, painted when Alaric was thirty years younger and newly coronated. It strikes him how unlike his father he looks: where Alaric had had a sharp profile and pronounced features, Ghyslain’s are smooth, like his mother’s. The only physical resemblance Ghyslain and his father share is their dark, slightly hooded eyes, so deep a brown they almost appear black.

  When he turns to the double doors leading into the throne room, the guards stationed outside open them wide for him. They bow to him as he straightens his doublet and clears his throat. He’s late, and he’s certainly going to get an earful from his mother about it later.

  “Your Highness?” one of the guards says.

  “Yes, I—Yes.” He frowns, shoots another glance at his father’s portrait and walks into the throne room.

  4

  The room is more full than Ghyslain has ever seen it. He recognizes the Rivosi royal seals on the lapel pins of the dignitaries standing in the corner, speaking to the lesser members of his father’s—soon his—council. They spot him first, and, to his amazement, drop to a knee in one fluid motion, fists pressed to their chests directly over their hearts. The group of nobles beside them notice and do the same, and soon it’s a wave cascading through the room. One after another, the nobles, courtiers, and commoners on either side of the center aisle kneel. It’s remarkable—they move as if choreographed, and it’s all for him. All t
o witness him become king.

  Ghyslain stands at the back of the room, gaping at his father’s throne which sits atop the raised dais several yards ahead of him. His mother stands beside it in a dazzling gold gown and a smile which doesn’t meet her eyes; she raises her brows and mouths, Move.

  “Right,” he mumbles, then immediately blushes. By the Creator, was Father’s coronation this excruciating? He’s likely to die of awkwardness and mortification before he makes it anywhere near the throne.

  He takes a deep breath and strides toward his mother, reminding himself with every step to keep his head high, posture straight, eyes up, hands loose by his sides. His footsteps echo through the room, which is suddenly so silent that he could close his eyes and trick himself into thinking he’s alone. As he passes, the people in the crowd dip their heads in respect. When he walks up the steps to the dais and stops before the queen, they rise.

  His mother’s smile grows, her pride winning out over her disappointment at his tardiness. “You look so handsome,” she whispers. Her eyes sparkle with sudden tears. “My little king.”

  I’d give it all up if it would bring Father back.

  As if sensing his thoughts, her expression turns sad. She reaches out and squeezes his hand once before stepping back to her place beside the throne.

  A door on the side of the dais opens and High Priestess Ilissia steps through. She has changed from her black mourning gown to one of a deep burgundy. Silver flowers are embroidered across the bodice and hem, and little crystals sparkle on the veil which hangs over her head and shoulders. The end of her thick black braid brushes the floor when she walks across the platform and curtsies to Ghyslain. “Hello again, Your Highness.”