Beatriz has it all planned—she will wander close to Lord Savelle, then stumble over a stone and pretend to turn her ankle. She considered actually turning it for the sake of authenticity, but there is no stardust to heal her quickly here. Lord Savelle will be obligated to escort her back to the palace—maybe even carry her. It will be only too easy to bat her eyelashes and thank him profusely for his help. She’ll have him wrapped around her finger before they make it to the palace entrance, and it will be easy enough to use him to fuel a war with Temarin. The hardest part, it seems, is finding him.
But as she searches for Lord Savelle, she feels the gaze of the courtiers on her. The looks burn against her skin, but she tries to ignore them.
Are they wondering why she is here alone, and where her new husband is? She doesn’t blame them. She’s seen newlyweds before, how they are always at each other’s side for at least a few weeks after their wedding, how oftentimes they rarely leave their rooms. She supposes she, too, would be wondering if something was amiss.
Pasquale has been nothing but polite, though in the few days since they wed he has still insisted on sleeping on the sofa in their room, only climbing in beside her a moment before the servants arrive in the morning, to keep them from whispering. It can’t be comfortable—she always makes sure she stays awake later than him so she can put her drops in her eyes, and even in sleep he looks miserable. They don’t speak any more about it, or about their first morning together. She doesn’t mention the way she saw him looking at that boy.
Ambrose is his name, she found out later. No title, just Ambrose. The nephew and heir of a minor lord and Pasquale’s favorite friend at court. From what she’s gathered, they’ve been close since they were children, all but inseparable.
Beatriz tries to put it from her mind. After all, she doesn’t know what she saw—Pasquale smiling? Why shouldn’t he smile at his friend? In that moment, she thought she saw something pass between them, a look, an energy, but the more she thinks on it, the more she thinks she might have misinterpreted it. After all, a crown prince’s preference for other men would have emerged in a rumor or two at least, but her mother’s spies have never reported anything of the sort.
Perhaps it’s only her pride, latching on to an easy excuse as to why he’s shown so little interest in her. She knows there are men who prefer other men; in Bessemia there were a handful of lords and earls who were known to have male paramours. And it wasn’t only men—there were women, too, who preferred other women. Back home, it was commonplace enough, and couples could marry regardless of gender, but beneath the thick veneer of lushness and sensuality, Cellaria is deeply prudish, not just devoted to the stars, but fearful of them. The stars see all, her tutor told her, and Cellarians believe they judge and punish the sins they see. It was the opposite of what she’d grown up with in Bessemia, where the stars were not there to judge and punish, but to bless and reward. Yet she read Cellarian scriptures as part of her lessons, and she distantly remembers one of the many sins being something about men lying with men.
Of course, there were also proclamations against women showing their bare shoulders and people having affairs, and she’s seen both of those things happen often enough in the last week without any kind of consequence from the stars or anyone. A country of hypocrites, as her tutor used to call it.
“Your Highness!” a high-pitched voice calls out behind her, and Beatriz turns toward it.
It takes her a moment to recognize the girl from her wedding—Pasquale’s cousin. The fruit wine really went to Beatriz’s head that night, and most of it is such a blur now. She can’t quite remember the girl’s name.
The girl is walking toward her, the train of her bright orange gown trailing over the wet sand, her slippers dangling from her fingertips. In the golden afternoon light, her blond hair almost glows, pulled into a long plait that dangles over her left shoulder.
A few steps behind her is her brother. Beatriz’s mind was too fuzzy before to see him properly, but now that she is sober, she sees that he’s handsome, with the same blond hair as his sister, though his face is far more angular, with a strong, square jaw, high cheekbones, and dark brown eyes. He’s rolled his trousers up to his knees, like most of the men in the sea garden, and he’s taken off his jacket as well, folding it over his arm, leaving him in a white tunic that is simple, though it looks well made.
“Hello,” Beatriz says, lifting her hand to shield her eyes so that she can see them better. The other courtiers watch their approach, though they pretend not to. Many of the girls, in particular, let their gazes linger a little longer than necessary on the boy, not that Beatriz can hold that against them.
Shameless, Daphne’s voice whispers through her mind.
“What brings the two of you out here?” Beatriz asks, hoping they’ll call each other by name at some point so she doesn’t have to admit she’s forgotten them.
The girl shrugs. “It seemed a good day to get a bit of sun,” she says with a bright smile. “The castle gets so stuffy sometimes.”
“Not that it’s much different here,” the boy adds, glancing around at the courtiers milling about the sea garden. “But at least the air is a bit fresher.”
The girl lets out a snort that draws several more disapproving stares. “For now, at least,” she says. “We’ll have to head indoors soon. It’s a Burning Day.”
Beatriz frowns. “Burning Day?”
The two exchange a look, but it’s the girl who eventually answers.
“For the heretics,” she says. “It happens once every fortnight. Anyone who’s been found to be practicing magic, or breaking any number of other laws, is put to death.”
And in Cellaria, burning is the preferred method of execution, Beatriz remembers from her studies, feeling her stomach sour. It is not lost on her that she wears a wish around her wrist at this very moment.
“I didn’t realize it happened so often,” she says, trying not to look as unsettled as she feels. Every fortnight. How many must be sentenced to death to make that necessary? “After all, magic has been outlawed since King Cesare took the throne, hasn’t it? It isn’t a new law, and people do know the punishment.”
“Ah,” the boy says, the corner of his mouth hitching up in a droll smile. “But desperate people do desperate things, and there are always rebels who think the law unfair.”
“It’s really nothing to concern yourself with,” the girl adds, waving a hand. “But the smell does make the air rather unpleasant for a few hours afterward, so I would recommend heading indoors soon. Nicolo and I will escort you,” she says, shooting a grin at her brother. Nico for short, Beatriz presumes, the name dimly familiar.
“Gisella is dramatic,” Nicolo says. “You get used to the smell before too long.”
Beatriz can’t imagine she will ever get used to the smell of burning flesh, but she knows better than to say as much, lest she be thought sympathetic toward heretics. Instead, she forces a smile, looking from one of them to the other.