“Send him in,” Isabelle said, dry mouthed. Isabelle nervously brushed her new dress smooth. Olivia opened the door and stood aside, curtsying deeply, eyes downcast.
A tall, stout gentleman, larger than Jean-Claude but of the same general shape, stepped through the door. He was clearly a man of flesh and not a translucent bloodhollow, so Isabelle reasoned he must be Hugo du Blain, the Célestial ambassador. He wore the most elaborate costume Isabelle had ever seen on a man, layers of silk and satin in Célestial blue and white, with lacy cuffs and ruffs, a broad baldric, silver frogging, and several heaping helpings of silk braid. The fact that the ensemble looked glamorous instead of ridiculous was a testament to his tailor’s genius.
Du Blain swept off a hat for which an entire flock of exotic birds had been sacrificed and announced, “His Imperial Majesty le Roi de Tonnerre, Leon XIV!”
Isabelle curtsied deeply as her imperial cousin entered. Grand Leon’s emissary was a skinny man, dressed all in white, a doublet and roomy trousers tucked into tall white boots, all stitched with silver and pearls. Her gut sickened at the sight of the bloodhollow, and she could not help but wonder by what criteria the man had been selected for this hellish fate. Jean-Claude always said that Grand Leon kept few bloodhollows and selected only the worst criminals to endure this fate, but was there truly any crime so vile as to justify the harrowing of a soul?
As the emissary came through the door, Grand Leon’s presence swelled inside it, bulging through the translucent flesh, stretching and molding it into a new shape, taller, broader of shoulder, an expression of le roi’s towering pride and indomitable will rather than his actual physical shape. The bloodhollow’s shadow turned from gray to red as Grand Leon forced his sorcery through the aperture of its flaccid soul. Any Sanguinaire sorcerer who could make a bloodhollow could inhabit its body, but for most that was as far as the transfer of power could go. As far as she knew, only Grand Leon could make his bloodhollow vessel produce a bloodshadow of its own. Even the Comte des Zephyrs at the height of his powers had not been able to achieve it. Cold comfort for those through whom he had experimented.
Isabelle’s heart hammered so loud that she could barely hear herself think, but she managed to avert her eyes and mumble, “Your Majesty. How may I serve you?”
Grand Leon said, “Rise, Princess, be at ease, and you, Artifex Kantelvar, though I should have expected to find you elsewhere, hunting down whoever attacked our cousin.”
Isabelle rose and Kantelvar said, “I cannot be everywhere at once, Majesty, and arranging to close the holes in Isabelle’s security left by the deaths of her bodyguards seemed my paramount task.”
“Indeed, though I do wonder how this debacle forwards your schemes, as all such calamities seem to do.”
Kantelvar said, “You know as well as I do that a good strategy ensures all paths lead to victory, but as it happens, in this case, the Temple’s only concern is to ensure the continuity of Aragoth’s royal line. The preservation of the saintblooded sorceries is our greatest mandate.”
Grand Leon made a curt gesture of acknowledgment, and Isabelle got the impression she’d been witness to one scene from the middle act of a much longer and more complicated play. She was very much a latecomer to her own betrothal.
Grand Leon looked Isabelle in the eyes, something men other than Jean-Claude rarely bothered to do, and asked, “Are you injured? Are you ill at heart? I would treat with you, if you are able.”
Isabelle’s throat tightened up. The very last thing in the world she wanted to do was treat with le roi. It could only lead to disaster … and yet was not treating with him any worse? She had lost Jean-Claude. No, don’t think like that. Whether Jean-Claude was dead, or alive, or standing athwart the shadow’s breach, she could not fail his faith in her by balking at the first test. If you can’t survive without me, then I have truly failed you. She would not make a failure of him, even if her heart quailed and her bowels turned to water.
She filled her lungs and said, “My heart is wounded, but it still beats. What would you have of me?”
“I would have the story of your attack from your own lips. What did you see?”
“She saw nothing, Majesty.”
Isabelle didn’t dare turn her body away from Grand Leon, but she risked a glance as her father strolled in. The Comte des Zephyrs wore Marie’s body, his face pressing out from her ghostly features. He took up a station in front of Isabelle and bowed to Grand Leon. Isabelle’s mustered courage wobbled into a familiar queasy loathing, and her tongue clove to her palate. Grand Leon might not strike her down out of pure spite, but her father would. He would silence her, punish her. He always had.
The comte filled his voice with indignation. “Isabelle was not in the coach when the attack occurred because the musketeer, of whose many offenses I have previously made you aware, compromised the integrity of Isabelle’s security arrangements by removing her from the protective perimeter. His recklessness directly resulted in the debacle during the cavalcade and the death of Isabelle’s guard captain.”
Outrage flared in Isabelle’s heart. Jean-Claude had spent his whole life watching out for her, but who would watch over him or the shade of his honor? Me.
“Lies!” she spat, as if the word were made of fire. Her father could not cast his shadow at her through Marie, but he would beat her somehow. Buoyed by her anger, quivering from expectation of the blow, she stepped around the comte so as to be on equal footing with him in regard to le roi. Facts were what she had, and so that was what she deployed. “Thanks to Jean-Claude, I was nowhere near the shooting, and even if I had been in the coach, Vincent still would have been shot. As it happened, I was sitting a horse in the cavalcade and had a very good view. The shot came from a second-story window along the left-hand side of the road. The bullet punched all the way through an alchemetal breastplate, Vincent’s chest, and an inch of ironwood. The only thing I missed by not being there was getting sprayed with blood. I also saw Jean-Claude leap from the back of a running horse into the window from which the shot had come, and I saw the room explode, and I saw him lying facedown on the ground afterward. After the coach stopped, I pulled the bullet out, but it was apparently an espejismo because it vanished shortly thereafter.”
The comte said, “Sire, please forgive my daughter’s temper. She is overwrought and not thinking clearly. May I suggest she be allowed to retire while we discuss these important matters?”