The Exile's Curse

by M. J. Scott

  "Take your time," Sejerin Neni said. "I appreciate that it is unlikely you will get the tattoos. You'll be home in Illvya before there's time for that, but it's still important that these symbols mean something to you."

  Chloe was tempted to ask what Lucien had chosen. But that seemed like cheating. She looked down at her hands, toyed with the ring on her finger. The light through the window caught the engraving. She held it up. "Lord Castaigne's family have this on their banners. A tower—well, a castle, really, and the stars. Would those be appropriate?" She pulled the ring off and passed it to Mila, pointing at the signet.

  Mila held the ring up to inspect it. "Yes. That's a good choice. And for yourself?"

  She didn't really have a family symbol. Henri, though he was respected and influential due to his position and his magic, wasn’t from a noble family. The de Montesse arms, well, they weren’t appropriate to carry in a new marriage, no matter how temporary it may be. It occurred to her then that she would be leaving that name in truth. She would be Lady Castaigne. For a short time, the Marquesse of Castaigne. A true lady. It seemed ridiculous. And ridiculous to try and choose something that would have any chance of representing all the complications of this wedding. Or her feelings for Lucien.

  So maybe she should just pick something that felt like her. "A raven," she said suddenly. "That's the symbol of the Academe. And magic in Lumia. That will do."

  Ravens were smart and tough. Survivors. And they had wings to fly away if they chose. She didn't want a tame, tethered bird. She'd been tethered to Charl and then tethered to Anglion. She might be bonded to Lucien now, but she didn't intend for anyone or anything to truly chain her down again. Which perhaps was an entirely inappropriate thought for a symbol that was supposed to represent her commitment to marriage. But it felt right for her commitment to her. To the person she wanted to be. "A raven in flight," she said firmly.

  Mila's eyebrows lifted, one side of her mouth quirking.

  "Is that wrong?" Chloe asked. "Inappropriate?"

  Mila shook her head. "No, my lady. It's just that it is almost exactly what Lord Castaigne chose."

  It was? Lucien had chosen a raven to represent her?

  Neni finally smiled. "A good sign, at least. The two of you must be well suited.”

  Mila began to sketch, her hand moving quickly and without hesitation. She held up the drawing. "Something like this?"

  Chloe blinked at the image. It wasn't large, only a few inches high and wide, but it was striking. A tower ringed with stars and a raven stylized but unmistakable above the stones. For the way Mila had drawn the wings, it could be either taking off or preparing to land. Free to stay or go. She smiled. "That's perfect."

  "Very well. I will mix the dye if you'll unbutton your dress." Mila handed several more indigo cloths to Katiya. "Your Majesty, perhaps you can show Lady De Montesse how to drape these?”

  The Andalyssian dress had buttons down the bodice. It was a looser style than worn in Lumia, less structured. It was actually quite comfortable, the layers fine light wools and silks. Even the vest wasn't as difficult to manage as she had thought it might be. And the button front made sense for the purpose of the day. It allowed her to ease the dress away from her shoulder and bare the patch of skin above her right breast. Katiya tucked the indigo cloths into the top of her corset and around the shoulder.

  "To catch any drips," she said. "I always thought they should just make us wear indigo dresses for the ceremony, but apparently white is more bridal."

  Chloe grinned at that. Katiya had a practical streak underneath the well-bred lady. Another good quality in a queen. Queen Sophia had it, too. The ability to think clearly and make sensible decisions was useful for someone with power.

  Mila wiped a cloth dipped in what smelled like some form of alcohol across Chloe's skin. It didn't take long to dry.

  "Hold still, my lady." She set to work with her brushes. The indigo dye smelled earthy and rich, not unpleasant but strong. But it didn't take Mila much longer to complete her work than it had for her to draw the sketch. The Tintzmach clearly was very good at her job.

  Katiya handed Chloe a small gold-set mirror as Mila straightened. "Take a look.” The deep blue was very dark against her skin, but it was a perfect reproduction of the sketch Mila had drawn. She had a sudden flash of a similar image decorating the hard planes of Lucien's chest, and her mouth turned dry.

  "It needs to dry for a few minutes, my lady. Then you can go. It will wear away naturally over the next month or two, but it won't be troubled by water or soap. So you don't need to make any allowances."

  "Thank you." Chloe watched as Mila packed up her supplies again and left with the sejerin. She looked at the mark again in the mirror. Her fingers strayed upward, itching to touch, but she restrained herself.

  "It looks good," Katiya said. "Those two symbols work well together."

  Was that a hint that she thought Chloe and Lucien were a good match? But Katiya knew the truth of the situation. As Chloe did. This wasn't a real marriage, just a convenient way to avoid trouble.

  But still, marriage. She fanned herself with the mirror, suddenly overly warm.

  "It should be dry enough now," Katiya said. Then she frowned. "Do you feel unwell?"

  "It's just a little warm," Chloe said. "And all of this...the last few days have been—"

  "Why don't you go out in the garden, get some fresh air?" Katiya gestured toward the windows. "There's a door there, so you don't have to go through the other room. I can stay in here a while longer, and they'll all just think you're still drying off. No one will notice if you take some time to yourself."

  "Cool air sounds nice," Chloe said. "I won't take too long."

  Katiya just smiled and waved her toward the door. Perhaps she also wanted some time alone. Queens, from what Chloe had seen, didn't get much of that. Always surrounded by servants and ladies-in-waiting and courtiers and such.

  The air outside was cold but refreshing. The garden stretched in both directions along the terrace, green with shrubs and beds of hardy plants, and dotted with a few small clusters of trees. Not many flowers so high in the mountains and closing in on winter, but the effect was still pretty, all the shades of green soothing. She walked away from the door, turning right so as to be out of view of the others waiting in the outer room, and took a path that wound through the beds until it reached the high wall of the section. An iron gate set in the stone gave her a view into the next part of the terrace, which seemed to be another garden. Just as empty as this one.

  Which made sense. The terrace ran along the royal wing. No one would be allowed in without permission. Safe enough to venture a little farther. There would be guards somewhere at the perimeter, but she couldn't see any yet, and she wasn't ready to go back inside. Curious, she pushed the gate's handle. Not locked. She pulled it open and slipped through.

  On the other side, the garden was planted to appear wilder. Taller shrubs and more trees, softening the hard stone of the palace wall and the outer wall. Curious, she walked to the edge wall. There were small gaps in the stone, and, stretching up on her toes, she could just look down on the four terraces below, alternating bands of greenery and paving. Only the lowest level, which sat just inside the wall separating the palace from the town, showed any signs of life, with guards and servants and courtiers going about their business. None of them looked up, and she doubted they could have seen her if they did. The gardens were designed to give the royal family some privacy.

  Deephilm didn't have space for the kind of large parklands that surrounded the palaces in Lumia and Kingswell. It would be claustrophobic in winter when the weather prevented travel through the mountains and passes to anywhere that offered more space. The terraced gardens were a clever solution to provide some outdoor spaces to everyone who lived in the palace.

  She was almost halfway to the next wall across the terrace when a man stepped out from a shaded group of trees.

  The man from the party. She stopped
, wary.

  "Lady de Montesse."

  "Yes?" How had he gotten into this section of the garden?

  Think. Last time she had been too startled to look for magic. This time she knew better. She drew a trickle of power, just enough to let her see the glow around him and hear an odd dissonance in the air.

  Not like any other magic she'd heard.

  So, he was using magic. To disguise himself? That would require a strong illusion. The kind an Andalyssian shouldn't be able to wield. The kind she couldn't necessarily break. She'd never been good with illusion. And while she might have access to Lucien's power, she didn't how to use it. The sense of truth she'd gotten from him the day before had been more instinctive. Maybe she could use that.

  "My lady, I need to speak with you again." He sounded hurried, not quite desperate but eager in the wrong sort of way. The strange note of his magic grew sharper.

  Her back crawled, and it was an effort not to step back and put more distance between them. But Lucien had said to keep him talking should he appear again. To find out more. If she let him see she was scared, he might vanish again.

  "I'm listening. But I don't have long. The others I’m with will come to look for me." There. That let him know she wasn't alone, at least. There was no sign of a weapon, but that was one of the problems with Andalyssian robes. Difficult to see what lay beneath them. The stranger's clothes were relatively plain again, still in shades of deep blues. Who was he?

  He frowned at that. "It's true, then? You are here in the royal wing before you marry Lord Castaigne?"

  Who had told him that? To get to this part of the palace, he had connections to the court, but she still didn't think he was an actual courtier. A poor relation or a member of a lesser house, perhaps? Perhaps one that wanted to replace Elannon? "I am to marry Lord Castaigne tomorrow, yes."

  He looked somewhat horrified, eyes widening. "My lady. You cannot. Not Lord Castaigne. He killed your husband. He is a dangerous man."

  That rang true. He believed it. So, how best to play this? Act the reluctant bride, caught up in things beyond her control? That may well string him along. "I do not have any choice in the matter. Your sejerin declare it necessary for balance."

  He scowled. "Balance. They are playing games. Rushing to restore Elannon. It is not the true way."

  That rang true, too. "You don't think they should be restored? Why?"

  "They are a failed house. They should be replaced."

  Failed? Why? Because they had been disgraced, or because the Ashmeister had failed to kill the empress and bring about whatever he wanted to achieve through her death? War? Chaos? She didn't know.

  Lucien might. She really needed to talk to him.

  "Well, regardless, I have to marry Lord Castaigne."

  "We could help you."

  She doubted she wanted any kind of help he could offer. "We? Who is we? Can't you at least tell me your name?"

  A violent head shake. "It is not safe, my lady. Not yet." His face cleared. "You could come with me. We could get you out of the kingdom. You could return to Illvya."

  Maybe she was a better actress than she thought if she’d convinced him she’d take up such an offer from a complete stranger with a taste for treason. Or maybe he was growing more desperate. Which meant she needed to find a way to get away from him before he did something to convince her.

  "No.” She moved back a half step. Not enough to alarm him but enough that she was out of reach. “They would only come looking for me. That would only harm the cause." She needed to make sure he still believed she was sympathetic to his cause.

  "But Lord Castaigne...my lady, he is working for Elannon. And the emperor who should not be."

  He stepped toward her, one hand outstretched. She stepped back again, not wanting him to touch her, as the grating hum of his magic flared again, making her want to shake her head to clear it.

  From behind her came a scrape of metal and the sound of voices. She glanced over her shoulder and saw a pair of palace guards walking through the gate she’d come through.

  "The guard," she hissed at him. "You shouldn't be seen."

  His hand stretched closer as though he was considering grabbing her and taking her with him. But then he stepped back, his magic screeched for an instant, and her senses blurred.

  When the feeling left her, he was gone.

  Chapter 26

  The rest of the afternoon lasted an eternity, as she smiled and tried to act as though nothing alarming had happened. Irina and Katiya seemed determined not to leave her alone for an instant, giving her no chance to send a note to Lucien, and she smiled and pretended to pay attention until they finally took her back to her room after a long dinner.

  After they left, she pressed her ear to the door, listening to their voices grow faint before she turned to write Lucien a note. The difficulty was how to phrase it so as not to give things away should it be read in transit. Eventually she limited herself to a comment that she had seen someone who had asked after their mutual friend again and buried it in innocuous pre-wedding nonsense before she sealed it with the signet and sent Allita to take it to Lucien.

  While she waited for Allita to return, she changed into her night things—it was easier to get out of Andalyssian clothing without assistance than Illyvan—and lay down on the covers, wondering how she was going to fall asleep.

  Tomorrow she'd be married again.

  To Lucien.

  It seemed impossible.

  She closed her eyes, determined to at least rest if she couldn't sleep.

  "Chloe." A man's voice.

  Lucien.

  Her eyes flew open, and she struggled to sit. The lamps in the room were still alight, as was the fire. But she'd clearly fallen asleep. Because Lucien was sitting in a chair by her bed.

  "What are you doing here?" she asked in a furious whisper. "You're not supposed to see me."

  "I bribed someone to tell me where they were hiding you," Lucien said. "Told them I wanted to arrange a surprise for you. Apparently gold and grand romantic gestures are effective."

  "People could see you."

  He lifted a brow, smiling. "One day you'll remember that I'm an illusioner. We're sneaky."

  He was the very definition of not sneaky. Too honorable to sneak. Except when it came to seeing her, it seemed. The thought set up a small, pleased glow in her stomach that she didn't want to think too hard about.

  "Also, we're good at concealment illusions," he continued. "And most Andalyssians aren't good at seeing through them. So here we are. You didn't think I'd want to talk to you after that note?"

  "I thought you'd wait until after the wedding." She glanced across the room to the clock set on the mantel above the fireplace. After midnight. At least he'd waited long enough that the hallways of the palace should be relatively empty.

  "You seemed upset. Tell me what happened. Was it the same man as before?"

  Upset? How had he known that? She’d been careful to keep any hint of alarm out of the message.

  There was no time to waste. She needed to tell him what happened and then send him on his way. "I think so. I was in the garden in the royal wing, and he found me," she admitted. "I think he was using an illusion of some kind, but the magic felt...odd. But I don’t see any other way he could have gotten into that part of the terraces. So some Andalyssians, at least, must be good at illusions."

  "Or they have help from someone who is," Lucien said.

  "Perhaps. He was using some magic, at least. And whoever he is, and whatever magic he has, he wasn't pleased that we are marrying. Told me I was making a mistake to ally myself with the wrong side, that you were dangerous."

  "Me?"

  "I don't think he's on the side of House Elannon. He didn't seem to want them restored. He seemed to think you were going to clear them—so maybe that is useful information. Maybe they are sincere if there are others who want to stop them. I tried to convince him I’m still sympathetic to their cause, but I'm not sure h
e was satisfied. He seemed...anxious. A guard patrol interrupted us, and he vanished.”

  “What do you mean, vanished?”

  “Another illusion, perhaps. His magic felt very strange.” She clasped her hands around her knees, remembering the look on the man's face before he'd run, his hand reaching for her, and shivered. But she didn't tell Lucien how scared she'd been in that instant. Of being taken. Forced to go somewhere against her will.

  But she didn't need to. He moved to the bed and reached for her hand. She let him take it, allowing herself the comfort. With him, with the sense of the bond between them clear, there was safety and comfort. And, as the awareness of his fingers on her skin flared, something more.

  "No one is going to hurt you, Chloe. You can trust me on that. I'll talk to Honore in the morning. We need to be on alert if these people are growing reckless. There will be sanctii watching you when you're not with me. It's a pity you don't have one of your own, but there's not much we can do about that. After the wedding, we'll talk to Mikvel. Trust me. I won't let anything happen to you."

  He couldn’t guarantee that, of course, but she knew he would do as much as humanly possible to keep his word. If he said he would do something, it got done. He'd always been that way. "Thank you."

  "It would be helpful," he said with another smile, "if you locked your door."

  "I was expecting Allita back," she said. "And I didn't intend to fall asleep. I didn't think I’d be able to sleep."

  "So excited by the prospect of marrying me that you can't sleep. Just as it should be." He smiled, but something lurked in the depths of his eyes that told her he didn't find it entirely amusing.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "This is not how you hoped your marriage would be, I'm sure."

  Did his fingers tighten fractionally on hers?

  "Not entirely, no," he said. "I had rather expected my family would be in attendance, and that there'd be a wedding night, at least."

  His thumb stroked over her knuckles. Paused on the signet ring. The caress shivered over her skin. And she knew she wanted him again.