“Oh?” King Cesare says, sitting up straighter. “You would like to confess something, Princess Beatriz? I understand, coming as you do from a land like Bessemia, that it might be difficult to acquaint yourself with our customs. Confess, and I will show mercy.” He doesn’t even bother trying to make the words sound convincing. No doubt he believes mercy will constitute watching her burn.
“Your Majesty,” Beatriz says. “I’m certain that you also find it odd that this stardust would simply appear on my windowsill like this, barely a week after I’ve arrived. I know that there are many in your court who disapprove of my marrying Pasquale, many who believe that I carry the same heathen stain as my mother and sisters. I’d hoped, in time, I would be able to prove them wrong, but I simply cannot wrap my mind around the fact that someone was so desperate to be rid of me that they would obtain stardust themselves and plant it on my windowsill. I cannot believe it.”
“It is…unfathomable,” King Cesare says.
“And yet, I must believe it’s the truth,” Beatriz says, offering another dramatic sigh. “What would the alternative be, Your Majesty? That I’ve come into your court, married your son and heir, as a scheming empyrea, set on destroying Cellaria with stardust and wishes?” She laughs, the sound loud and full, and a few courtiers join in, even as others glare at her. Even the king smiles, fleeting though his smile is. “Surely, you cannot believe that to be the case—if I were an empyrea, don’t you think I would know better than to leave stardust around where anyone could find it? No, I believe it was planted, in an attempt to bring suspicion on me.” Here, she affects a wounded look, letting her bottom lip tremble as she casts her gaze upward, as if to keep from crying. “It hurts me, Your Majesty, that there are those in your court who must hate me so much as to break your laws like this.” She blinks quickly, letting a couple of artfully summoned tears trace down her cheeks.
Tears are a weapon, Beatriz’s mother is fond of saying. But they must be carefully wielded—too many and you are hysterical, too few and you will be overlooked. But the right amount…the right amount will make a man so uncomfortable he will do whatever is necessary to stop them.
Beatriz seems to have hit the right balance. King Cesare shifts on his throne, casting a gaze around the room. He motions for his wine again, and Nicolo steps forward to offer him his cup, but this time, Nicolo’s eyes meet Beatriz’s. He doesn’t seem discomfited by her tears, she notices, merely appraising. He offers her a small smile before taking the king’s cup back and retreating behind the throne.
“Princess Beatriz,” King Cesare says, leaning forward. “I hope you will accept my apology, and the court’s apology as well. If you feel you have been…mistreated…well, that is no one’s intent, I’m sure. If you should continue to feel that way, I pray you will tell me of your troubles so I can handle them,” he adds before looking beyond her, to the crowd of courtiers. “Princess Beatriz is family. Should I get word that anyone is treating her ill, I will deal with you swiftly and harshly.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” the courtiers murmur, almost in unison.
Beatriz is slightly taken aback by his reaction. She hoped to be believed, of course, but the speed with which King Cesare has gone from being ready to try her for sorcery to threatening his court on her behalf is enough to give her whiplash.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Beatriz says, dipping into another low curtsy. When she rises again, she sees the servant girl still standing, shackled, between the guards. King Cesare’s eyes follow her gaze.
“Never fear, Princess Beatriz, she will be sent to the dungeon to await the next Burning Day—we have no tolerance for heretics here,” he says.
“Please, Your Majesty,” the girl calls out. “Please, I didn’t even know what it was—I only pocketed the dust because I thought it was pretty.”
King Cesare ignores her, his eyes remaining on Beatriz, who is careful not to let her sympathy for the girl be seen. Though she would like nothing better than to ask King Cesare to show the girl mercy, she’s heard enough stories from her mother’s spies to know that all that will accomplish is Beatriz burning beside her. Pasquale must feel her waver, because he steps forward, placing a hand on her back.
“Thank you, Father,” he says, bowing again to the king. “I hope that whoever is responsible for framing my wife is found soon and meets the same fate.”
King Cesare nods, but he is already distracted, calling for more wine as the guards drag the crying servant girl away. Beatriz notes that her tears don’t do her any good.
* * *
—
Beatriz clings to Pasquale’s arm as he escorts her from the throne room, though she can feel it trembling beneath her grip. He guides her down the crowded hall and around the corner to an empty corridor. As soon as they are alone, Beatriz lets go of him and doubles over. She wants to retch but knows that nothing will come up. The nausea doesn’t abate, though, even when she forces herself to take deep breaths. Through it all, she feels Pasquale’s hand on her back, rubbing soothing circles.
“It’s all right,” he says, though he seems uneasy with this show of comfort.
“It isn’t,” Beatriz says, straightening up. She can’t stop shaking all over. “I thought he was going to have me killed—on some level, I was certain of it.”
She expects him to reassure her, to tell her she was never in any danger, but he doesn’t. “I was too,” he admits softly.
“And that girl!” she says, keeping her voice to a whisper in case anyone wanders by. “She’s going to die for picking up a bit of sparkly dust.”
Pasquale nods, glancing away. “She won’t be the first, or the last. There was a boy just last month, the son of my former tutor, barely twelve—executed because one of his friends said he was talking about stardust. That’s all it took, the word of a child, and he died for it. They killed his father, too, because he’d given the boy a book on the subject.”
Beatriz feels sick all over again. She knew about Cellaria’s intolerance for magic, about King Cesare’s temper. But it is one thing to hear gossip and read reports, it is another thing to experience it firsthand.
“Did you…,” Pasquale starts, but then trails off. “Beatriz, you know my secret. If you have a secret as well, I hope you know that I’ll protect it.”
Beatriz almost wants to laugh at the thought. She has so many secrets, but none of them what he means. She is no empyrea, just a spy and saboteur here to bring his country to ruin. For a second, though, she wonders if he would protect that secret as well—he clearly has no love for his father or the way he rules Cellaria. And Beatriz’s complicated feelings about her own mother aside, she can’t deny that the empress would be a far better ruler than Cesare. When Cellaria is her domain, there will be no more Burning Days, no more children arrested for heresy, no more walking on eggshells to appease a mad king. Perhaps, if she told Pasquale all that, he would agree.