“You would put me aside in favor of drooling babies?” she murmured. “Choose children of your own line over ambition and a crown? Oh, I misjudged you, Col.”
“Yes, you did. I have ever wanted that crown, and I mean to fight for it, still. But what is the point of a crown without a legacy?”
“Power, together, to make a legacy for every child on this island, Col.” The depth of her disappointment in him surprised her, and that surprise stirred matching anger.
“You lied to me from the beginning. You never wanted me. You have never wanted any man. Though you professed to want a king. What kind of partnership is that, to have worked together based on such a lie?”
Baring her teeth in a mean smile, Gaela said, “I wanted a king—that much was true. But I have always intended to be that king myself, and toward that, on this cursed island, my stars provided a singular path. I have what I needed from you now, you foolish man, and I can finish the rest myself, without the need to share my crown.”
“I loved you,” he snarled, as if it would make a difference to her.
Gaela ended her smile. “I respected you, but no more.”
His face blazed red with his outrage, and he yelled again, “Seize this woman!”
Gaela eyed his retainers. She met their gazes with her own severity. “No one here has the authority to arrest the ascendant queen of Innis Lear, Col Astore, but she can challenge you herself.”
He put his hand again on the pommel of his sword. “I would die before I let you drag me down.”
“Same, husband.” Gaela reached, and the soldier Dig was at her side, putting her sword in her hand.
She did not wait, but swung it instantly, and with all the strength of her body. Astore barely blocked in time, stumbling. Gaela followed through with her shoulder, knocking him aside. He grunted, and before he could react, she drew the knife from her belt and stabbed it expertly between the buckles of steel plate, directly under his arm.
Astore’s mouth gaped open, and he looked down at her hand on the hilt.
Gaela pulled the knife free. Blood gushed through the quilted wool of his gambeson, pouring red and hot. She had learned from him, that very first year, how to always find a mortal stab.
“You misjudged me, too, Col,” Gaela murmured, opening her arm for him to slump against her. She caught him under his opposite shoulder, and carefully lowered Astore to his knees. “You always underestimated my ambition and my commitment. I would do anything for my crown and island, even let you paw at me, let you put your seed in me, thinking that it might ever take root. You’ve looked at me since I was a little girl like I was the thing to bring you what you wanted. But always you were the tool to bring me mine. I married you, and then I became you. Remember that as you die. Your honor is to have made the strongest king Innis Lear has ever seen.”
Breath wheezed from his lips, but Astore couldn’t catch enough air to speak.
“Men of Astore and Lear!” Gaela cried, standing with her dying husband against her hip, the murder weapon brandished and dripping a single long line of blood onto her wrist. “You have until his blood stops running to choose. Against me, and there will be a massacre here today, all the legacy of the fine Astore spirit become one of death and waste. Or with me, and we will ride out this afternoon to take all of Astore’s ancient lands back in the name of our duke, husband to the new king of Innis Lear.”
A gasping silence answered her first, and Gaela gripped her husband’s neck, wishing for battle, hoping the men chose poorly, that she would be forced to throw Astore’s body to the ground and let her rage free. To let herself go, to finally unleash and fight until triumphant or dead.
Her smile was fearsome to behold.
Astore held on to her hips, face pressed to her side. She stroked his hair, tugged it in the way she’d learned he liked, during their long marriage. But he was past such desire; he slid forward, blood spattering the packed earth as he slowly fell, but caught himself on his palms. His body shook with effort; Astore collapsed.
Several cries of sorrow rang out, but none leapt forward to attack.
More of Gaela’s retainers had by now pushed into the forecourt, pressing hard and crowding.
“Gaela Lear!” yelled Dig in his bearish roar.
“Gaela Lear!”
“Gaela Lear!”
She held up her hand for silence. It fell, swollen and ready to burst again with further violence. Gaela shook her head in mock sadness.
Finally, one of the duke’s first captains knelt, drawing his sword. He held the blade in one gloved hand, then kissed its guard. “Gaela of Astore and Lear!” he said, opening devoted eyes to her.
Gaela nodded regally, then crouched to grasp her husband’s shoulder and roll him onto his back. He groaned. Blood coated his front and side. His chest hardly rose. Gaela touched his mouth gently, brushed her knuckles along his jaw. Strange how numb she felt, though a recognizable flutter of angry grief waited behind the coursing thrill in her heart. She would feel it soon: a sorrow of necessity, a lost ally. Men were fools, with backward priorities always turning their heads. Astore would have gained everything by letting Gaela reign as she wished, if only he had curbed his own desires.
Then the duke of Astore died, and his wife placed the knife that had done it across his heart.
SEVEN YEARS AGO, ASTORA
COL HAD BEEN the duke of Astore since he was twelve years old, when his father died from a broken back during routine military exercises. It meant Col had been Astore a mere two years fewer than Lear had been king. He remembered the clear morning at the Summer Seat when the prophecy had been read, foretelling both the arrival and doom of Lear’s true queen. And Col remembered his first sight of Dalat, her gentle warmth and lovely joy seeming so alien to the harsh moors of Innis Lear. He remembered her swaying walk as she left the star chapel, a wife and queen, and Col remembered where he had stood when he heard that her first daughter had arrived.
Even at fifteen years old, he’d known the screaming firstborn Gaela was his best avenue toward more power. Astore only needed to be patient and wait for her, discover what sort of woman she’d be, how best to use her, and then how best to win her to his side. Prop or partner, vessel or queen, Col held all options open as she grew. He was always generous with Gaela and friendly, ushering her toward Astore, though never too overtly, lest some other (particularly her father the king) think him despicable.
Initially he did not want her for himself, outside his heated ambitions for the crown. That at least proved that, while his vices might be numerous, desiring a child in his bed was not among them. No, it was only when her mother died, when Gaela came to Astora as a furious young woman, that he very suddenly and violently recognized her carnal appeal. So for half a decade more he’d worked with the information he gathered on her likes and dislikes, biding his time, teaching Gaela as a mentor, welcoming her to his retainers, waiting for her to approach him.
Tonight, she’d asked to speak with him privately, coming up at the end of the morning’s training. Sweat had melted dust from the practice ground along the edges of her hairline, and she breathed hard from her sport. Her breasts heaved against the leather armor buckled across her front, and her eyes were wide and bright, a brown so deep and vivid Astore saw them in his dreams. When Gaela tilted her chin up and said, “I would have dinner with you tonight, alone, Col Astore, to discuss the future,” he’d kept his smile tame, despite the immediate desire and triumph, crackling up and down his spine.
“I’ll be honored,” he said, knowing what she wanted.
Gaela Lear had turned twenty-one that winter, and it was time for her to be married.