by Morgan Rice
“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. There was one card he could play here that didn’t sit well with him, but might be his best option to stay safe. “I am the heir to my mother’s throne, and you are threatening me. Lower your weapons at once!”
“Is that why you did it?” the guards’ leader demanded, in a tone that held more hatred than Sebastian had heard in his life. “Did you want to be the heir?”
“Is that why I did what?” Sebastian shot back. “What is happening here? When my mother hears of this—”
“There’s no point in playing innocent,” the guard captain said. “We know you’re the one who murdered the Dowager.”
“Murdered…” It was as though the world stopped in that moment. Sebastian stood there open-mouthed, his sword clattering from nerveless fingers as the shock of it hit him. Someone had murdered the Dowager? His mother was dead?
Grief poured into him, the sheer horror of what had happened filling him. His mother was dead? She couldn’t be. She’d always been there, as immovable as rock, and now… she was gone, torn away in an instant.
Instantly, men rushed in to grab him, arms fastening onto his from either side. Sebastian was too numb to even struggle. He couldn’t believe it. He’d thought that his mother would outlast everyone else in the kingdom. He’d thought her so strong, so cunning, that nothing would be able to bring her to an end. Now someone had murdered her.
No, not someone. There was only one person it was likely to be.
“Rupert did this,” Sebastian said. “Rupert is the one who—”
“Stop your lies,” the guard captain said. “I’m to believe that it’s a coincidence that we’ve found you running armed through the palace so soon after your mother’s death? Prince Sebastian of the House of Flamberg, I am arresting you for the murder of your mother. Take him to one of the towers, lads. I expect they’ll want to try him for this before they execute him as the traitor he is.”
CHAPTER TWO
Angelica sat primly in the drawing room of Rupert’s townhouse, as perfectly arranged as the flowers sitting on the mantelpiece, listening to the realm’s elder prince panic while trying not to show any of her distain.
“I killed her!” he shouted, spreading his arms wide as he paced back and forth. “I actually killed her.”
“Shout it a little louder, my prince,” Angelica said, unable to keep at least a little of the disdain she felt from seeping through. “I think there are some people in the next building who might not have heard you.”
“Don’t make fun of me!” Rupert said, pointing at her. “You… you put me up to this.”
A faint trickle of fear rose in Angelica at that. She had no wish to be the target of Rupert’s anger.
“And yet you are the one covered in the Dowager’s blood,” Angelica said, with a faint hint of disgust. Not at the killing; the old bat had deserved that. It was simply disgust at the inelegance of it all, and the stupidity of her husband-to-be.
Rupert’s expression flashed with anger, but then he looked down at himself as if seeing the blood on his shirt for the first time, staining it crimson to match his coat. His expression returned to something distraught as he did it. Strange, Angelica thought, was it possible that they’d found one person Rupert actually regretted hurting?
“They’ll kill me for it,” Rupert said. “I killed my mother. I walked through the palace with her blood on me. People saw me.”
Possibly half of Ashton saw him, given the way he’d probably gone through the streets with it. The best that could be said was that at least he’d had a cloak wrapped around him for that part of the journey. As for the rest… well, Angelica would deal with it.
“Take your shirt off,” she ordered.
“You do not command me!” Rupert said, rounding on her.
Angelica stood firm, but made her tone gentler, trying to soothe Rupert the way he so obviously wanted. “Take your shirt off, Rupert. We need to get you cleaned up.”
He did it, throwing off his coat as well. Angelica dabbed at the blood spots that remained with a kerchief and a bowl of water, erasing what she could of the traces of violence. She rang a small bell and a waiting servant came in with fresh clothes, taking the old ones away.
“There,” Angelica said as Rupert dressed, “doesn’t that feel better?”
To her surprise, Rupert shook his head. “It doesn’t take away what happened. It doesn’t take away what I see in here, in here!” He struck at the side of his head with a flat palm.
Angelica caught his hand, kissing his brow as gently as a mother with a child. “You mustn’t hurt yourself. You’re too precious to me for that.”
Precious was one word for it. Necessary might be another. Angelica needed Rupert alive and well, at least for now. He was the key to unlock the doors of power, and he needed to be intact to do it. Controlling him had proved so easy before, but all of this was… unexpected.
“You’ll lose me soon,” Rupert said. “When they find out what I did…”
“Rupert, I’ve never seen a death affect you like this before,” Angelica said. “You’ve fought in battles. You’ve commanded armies that have killed thousands.”
He’d fought and killed in less obviously necessary causes, too. He’d hurt more than his share of people in his life. From what Angelica had heard, he’d done things that would turn most people’s stomachs, hidden away from the world. Why should one more death be a problem?
“This was my mother,” Rupert said, as if that made it obvious. “She wasn’t some peasant. She was my mother, and the queen.”
“The mother who was going to steal your birthright,” Angelica pointed out. “The queen who was going to exile you.”
“Even so—” Rupert began.
Angelica took hold of his shoulders, wishing she could get away with shaking some sense into him. “There is no even so,” she said. “She was going to take everything from you. She was going to destroy you to give everything to her son—”
“I am her son!” Rupert shouted, pushing Angelica back. Angelica knew she should have been afraid of him in that moment, but the truth was that she wasn’t. For the moment, at least, she was the one in control.
“Yes, you are,” Angelica said. “Her son, and her heir, and she tried to take all of that from you. She tried to give it to someone who would have hurt you. It was practically self-defense.”
Rupert shook his head. “People won’t… they won’t see it like that. When they learn what I have done…”
“Why should they learn that?” Angelica asked, in a perfectly reasonable tone that pretended not to understand. She moved over to one of the couches there, sitting and taking a cup of chilled wine. She gestured for Rupert to do the same, and he drank his at a speed that suggested he barely tasted it.
“People will have seen me,” Rupert said. “They will guess where the blood came from.”
Angelica hadn’t thought Rupert was that stupid. She’d thought he was a fool, obviously, even a dangerous fool, but not that much of one.
“People can be bought, or threatened, or killed,” she said. “They can be distracted by rumors, or even persuaded that they were wrong. I have people listening for hints that people are speaking up against you, and any who are will be either silenced or made to look like fools, so that they are ignored.”
“Even so—” Rupert began.
“There you go again, my love,” Angelica said. “You are a strong man, a confident man. Why are you second-guessing yourself with this?”
“Because there are so many ways it can go wrong,” Rupert said. “I am not a fool. I know what people think of me. If rumors start, they will believe them.”
“Then I shall see that they do not start,” Angelica said, “or that a more suitable target for them is found.” She reached out to take one of his hands in hers. “When you have bedded some noble’s daughter in the past and been too rough with her, did you worry about their wrath?”
Rupert shook his head.
“I have never—”
“Lying is your first tool in this,” Angelica said, calmly. She knew exactly what Rupert had done in the past, and to whom. She’d made it her business to know every small detail, so that she would be able to use it if she had to. Originally, the plan had been to destroy the prince when she married Sebastian, but it could be just as useful now.
“I don’t know why you’re bringing this up,” Rupert said. “It isn’t relevant. It’s—”
“Distraction is your second,” Angelica said. “We will find better things for the people to focus on.”
She saw Rupert flush with anger.
“I will be your king,” he snapped.
“And that is your third tool,” Angelica whispered, moving in to kiss him. “You are safe. Do you understand, my love? Or you will be. The trick now is to shore up your position.”
She watched Rupert relax visibly as the idea started to sink in. However deeply killing his mother had touched him, he knew how to get away with whatever he did. He’d been doing it for long enough, after all. Or maybe it was the prospect of power that calmed him, the thought of what would follow.
“I have already spoken to my allies,” Rupert said.
“And now it is time to get them to act,” Angelica replied. “Make them a part of this from the start. The Dowager’s death is already rumor for the city, and it will be announced formally soon enough. Things must move quickly now.” She drew him to his feet. “All kinds of things.”
“Which things?” Rupert asked. Angelica put it down to the shock.
“Our wedding, Rupert,” she said. “It must happen before people have a chance to argue. We must present them with a stable front, a settled royal dynasty to follow.”
Rupert moved surprisingly quickly when he grabbed her by the throat, the anger there rising up again with dangerous rapidity.
“Don’t tell me what I must do,” he said. “My mother tried to do that.”
“I am not your mother,” Angelica replied, trying not to wince at the strength of the grip. “But I would like to be your wife before the day is done. I thought we’d discussed that, Rupert. I thought it was what you wanted.”
Rupert let go of her. “I don’t know. I don’t… none of this is what I planned.”
“Isn’t it?” Angelica asked. “You planned to take the throne. Surely you knew what sacrifices that would involve? Although I’d like to think that marrying me is hardly that much of a hardship.”
She moved back from him. “If you like, it is not too late to call things off. Tell me to leave, and I will vacate Ashton for my family’s estates. Choose to wait, and we will wait. Of course, then you would not have my family’s strength, or their allies. And there would be no one to help you to contain all those… difficult rumors.”
“You’re threatening me?” Rupert demanded. Angelica knew how dangerous a game that was. Even so, she was going to play it, because the real game she was playing was far more dangerous.
“I’m simply pointing out the advantages you gain by going through with it, my love,” Angelica said. “Marry me, and I can make all of this so much easier for you. It is better to do it today than a month from now. If I can act as your wife, I have a reason to protect you from the world.”
Rupert stood there for several seconds, and for a moment Angelica thought she might have misjudged all of this. That he might walk away after all. Then he gave a single, terse nod.
“Very well,” he said. “If it matters to you, we will do it today. Now, I’m going to get some air and start contacting our allies.”
He turned and walked out. Angelica suspected that he was more likely to seek out wine than their allies, but that didn’t matter. It was probably even to their benefit. She would soon have them doing all that they should, sending messages on behalf of her husband.
She rang the bell for a servant.
“See that the clothes Prince Rupert was wearing when he came in are burned,” she said to the girl who came in. “Then fetch a priestess of the Masked Goddess, and invite the members of the Dowager’s inner council to meet at the palace. Oh, and send someone along to my dressmaker. There should be a wedding dress waiting for me by now.”
“My lady?” the girl said.
“Am I not speaking clearly enough?” Angelica asked. “My dressmaker. Go.”
The girl went. It was strange how stupid people could be sometimes. The servant had obviously assumed that Angelica would have made no preparations for her own wedding. Instead, she’d begun sending messages out for the preparations almost as soon as she got the idea to have Rupert marry her. It was important that this wedding looked as much like one as possible given the short notice.
It was a shame that there would be no opportunity to have a bigger ceremony later, but there was one obvious impediment to that: Rupert would be dead by then.
Today had shown the necessity of that more clearly than Angelica could have believed. She’d thought Rupert a man as much in control of himself as she was of herself, yet he remained as changeable as the wind. No, the plan she’d put in place was the way to go. She would marry Rupert tonight, kill him by morning, and be crowned queen before his body was even in the ground.
Ashton would have the queen it needed then. Angelica would rule, and the kingdom would be better for it. Everything was going to turn out right. She could feel it.
CHAPTER THREE
Sophia could only wait as the fleet advanced on Ashton. As her fleet advanced. Even here and now, after everything that had happened, it was hard to remember that all of this was hers. Every life on the ships around her, every lord who sent men, every piece of land from which they came, was her responsibility.
“There’s a lot to take responsibility for,” Sophia whispered to Sienne, the forest cat purring as she brushed against Sophia’s legs, winding around her with her own impatience.
There had been a fleet’s worth of ships anyway as they left Ishjemme, but since then more and more vessels had joined them, coming in down Ishjemme’s coasts or from the small islands along the way, even coming out from the Dowager’s kingdom as those loyal to her came to join in the assault.
There were so many soldiers there with her now. Enough soldiers to maybe win this war. Enough soldiers to wipe Ashton from the map, if she chose it.
It will be all right, Lucas sent across to her, obviously sensing her disquiet.
People will die, Sophia sent back.
But they are here because they choose to be, Lucas replied. He walked up to put a hand on her shoulder. Honor them by not throwing those lives away, but do not lessen what they offer by holding back.
“I think it’s one of those things that’s easier to say than to do,” Sophia said aloud. She reached down to ruffle Sienne’s ears automatically.
“Possibly,” Lucas admitted. He looked ready for war in a way that Sophia did not, a blade by his side and pistols set at his belt. Sophia guessed that she just looked impossibly round with the weight of her unborn child, unarmed and unarmored as she stood there.
But not unready, Lucas sent. He gestured to the rear of the ship. “Our commanders await.”
Mostly, that meant her cousins and her uncle. They held this together as surely as Sophia did, but there were other men there too: clan chiefs and minor lords, hard men who still offered bows as Sophia approached, her brother and her forest cat by her side.
“Are we ready?” she asked, looking over to her uncle and trying to look like the queen that they all needed her to be.
“There are still decisions to make,” Lars Skyddar said. “We know what we are trying to achieve, but now we need to decide on the specifics.”
“What’s to decide?” her cousin Ulf demanded, in his usual bluff tone. “We get the men together, pound the walls with cannon, then charge in.”
“This explains a lot about the way you hunt,” Ulf’s sister Frig said, with a wolf-like smile. “We should encircle the city like a noose, closing in.”
“We need
to be ready for a siege,” Hans said, cautious as ever.
It seemed that everyone had their own idea of how it should go, and a part of Sophia wished that she could stand back, leaving all of this to those with wiser heads, more knowledge of war. She knew she couldn’t, though, and that the cousins would argue forever if she let them do it. That meant the only way to do this was to choose.
“When will we reach the city?” she asked, trying to think.
“Probably dusk,” her uncle said.
“It’s too late for a simple assault then,” she said, thinking of the time she’d spent in the city at night. “I know Ashton’s streets. Trust me, if we try to charge through them in the dark, it won’t end well.”
“A siege then,” Hans said, seeming pleased by the prospect, or maybe just that his plan was the one being chosen.
Sophia shook her head. “A siege hurts the wrong people, and doesn’t help the right ones. The city’s old walls only protect the inner part of the city, and you can bet that the Dowager would starve the poorest to feed herself. Meanwhile, every moment we wait, Sebastian is in danger.”
“What then?” her uncle asked. “Do you have a plan, Sophia?”
“We will anchor in front of Ashton when we get there,” she said. “We will send out messages for them to surrender.”
“They won’t do it,” Hans said. “Even if we offer them quarter.”
Sophia shook her head. She knew that much. “The Dowager won’t believe that anyone else would have more mercy than her. But the illusion that we are giving them time to surrender will buy us time for half our men to move around to the landward side of the city. They will take the outskirts quietly. The people there have no love for the Dowager.”
“Do they have any more for an invader?” Lucas asked.
It was a good question, but then, her brother had a knack for asking good questions.
“I hope so,” Sophia said. “I hope they’ll remember who we are, and what things were like before the Dowager.” She looked over to Hans. “You’ll lead the forces there. I need someone who can keep the men disciplined, and not slaughter ordinary people.”
