She took my hand and placed it over her heart. I’d expected it to be racing, as mine was, but Aline’s was slow and steady. That’s when the fear tightened around my gut.
Aline spoke to me calmly, almost reassuringly. ‘Duchess Ossia is old now, Falcio. Her hands shake sometimes just from holding her teacup. She couldn’t trust her blade alone.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘No. You don’t know anything about—’
Aline closed her eyes for a moment. ‘It doesn’t hurt, not even a little bit. I don’t think she wanted him to suffer.’
‘Stop,’ I said, shaking her until she was looking at me again. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. Death and dying are my expertise. I’m a proper duellist and you’re just a little girl who dresses up like a Queen and pretends she knows things when really she’s no wiser than her fool of a father.’
‘I wish I’d met him. The priests say we can only meet those in the next life who we’ve met in this one. That’s not fair, is it?’
‘Priests don’t know what they’re talking about either, remember? They’re the ones who thought the Gods made us.’
A giggle, like the little silver bell they use in Pulnam to declare the end of a fencing match.
‘And besides,’ I said, ‘even if you were poisoned, which you’re not, the only poison I know of which is truly painless is neatha, and if I survived it, so can you.’
She gave me a wan smile, the corners of her mouth only moving a little. ‘You inhaled Duchess Patriana’s poison, Falcio. Do you suppose it’s stronger or weaker when it goes into your blood on the edge of a blade?’
‘Get me a doctor, damn you all!’ I shouted, willing my voice to carry over the sounds of the fighting.
In between clanging sounds I heard Kest say, ‘Doctor Pasquine is on her way.’
The touch of Aline’s fingers on my cheek made me turn back to her. ‘I need to tell you something, Falcio.’
‘Tell me later, when you’re better.’
She locked eyes with me, her gaze hardening even as her words struggled to find voice. ‘Falcio val Mond, First Cantor of the -Greatcoats, called the King’s Heart, I am Aline, daughter of Paelis the First, heir to the throne of Tristia. You will heed me now.’
Some part of me, the part that was fighting to break through the thick layers of self-deception I was trying to wrap around my breaking heart, forced me to say, ‘I’m here. I’m listening.’
‘Before my father died he gave you a mission, Falcio. Will you accept mine?’
I felt a hand on my shoulder and nearly reached back to break it when I realised it was Brasti. I glanced around and saw that the fighting had ended. Duchess Ossia’s troops had surrendered. The woman herself was kneeling on the floor like some penitent beggar.
‘Let me pass,’ a fiery voice called out and the Aramor guardsmen parted to allow Doctor Pasquine to make her way to us.
‘Falcio, listen to me,’ Aline said.
‘The doctor is here, she’ll—’
‘Please.’ And when I reluctantly nodded, she whispered, ‘Once I asked you to bury me near my father’s grave on that little hill in Pulnam. Will you do that for me?’
Doctor Pasquine knelt down on the other side of Aline, eyes on the slash wound and two fingers already on the side of her throat, feeling her pulse.
‘Save her,’ I said.
The doctor ignored me, pulling out a thin metal instrument from her pack and pressing it down on the wound. The blood that oozed out was so dark it was almost black. ‘My lady,’ she said, ‘the flesh is already necrotising. You are dying.’
My hand reached up of its own accord and wrapped around -Pasquine’s neck, squeezing hard enough to draw a broken gasp from her. ‘Damn you! Would you take away hope from a child?’
Something painful struck a nerve in my wrist and my hand came loose. The doctor had jabbed me with her instrument. ‘She isn’t a child and you’re not my patient. I owe her the truth.’
‘Stop,’ Aline said to me. She tried to reach out to me but her arm drifted back to the floor. ‘Falcio, please, don’t take this away from me.’
Stupid girl – after all this time she still didn’t have any clue about life and death. ‘What is left to take away?’
Her eyes went to Pasquine. ‘I can’t feel anything in my limbs. Does that mean . . . ?’
‘Only moments now, my lady.’ The doctor leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. ‘I would have been proud to call you my Queen.’
Pasquine rose and motioned for the others to step away, leaving Aline and me as alone as two people could be in the midst of a crowd.
‘It’s strange,’ Aline said, ‘to not feel anything.’
I was so angry, so broken and empty, and yet at the same time I was filling up inside with a rage that was demanding payment for this: to smash everything around me, to destroy every person who dared stand upon this earth as she left it. The only thing holding me back was the fear I now saw dawning in Aline’s eyes.
I reached down and wrapped my arms around her, lifting her to hold her close to me. With my cheek against hers, I asked, ‘Can you feel this?’
She whispered in my ear, ‘I can feel your tears on my face.’
‘It’s sweat, silly girl. Haven’t you noticed how hot it is in here?’
A light chuckle, more a tiny gasping of breath than anything else, but she found the strength to speak. ‘I wish you could know how much I love you for what you gave me, Falcio.’
That was too much for me. ‘I failed you.’
A breath, cool against my ear. ‘I was supposed to die in Rijou. You . . . you gave me the chance to fight for my country, for my people. I saved my brother’s life, Falcio. What more could I . . . ?’
The words were getting softer and softer. It was getting hard to hear anything, even the sounds of breathing all around me were overpowering her, like ocean waves drowning out the sound of the breeze. Yet still Aline went on, ‘I want you to be the . . .’ she began.
‘Be the what?’ I asked.
In the stories, there’s always just enough time for those dying to give some last commandment, some last words of wisdom to the living. But neatha attacks the nerves, smothering them, taking away movement and sensation, leaving behind endless black.
I held Aline in my arms even as I felt her body cooling, my mind so desperately wanting to hear her voice that I imagined all the things she might have wanted to say to me.
Be the man who saved me and not the one who killed those who tried to murder me.
Be the Greatcoat, and not the Duellist.
Bury me next to my father.
I would have kept holding her all night, resisting any attempts to take her from me. I could have held her like that until my last ounce of strength failed me, ignoring the murmurs and cries around me, ignoring Brasti’s words of condolence and Kest’s of reassurance. I could have ignored them all.
It was the laughter that I couldn’t take.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Regicide