Treacherous Witch

—how the barbaric Severhine killed all her friends and left her for dead.

He sits back in his chair, crossing his long limbs. "The queen was last seen around this border. Do you know anything about that?"

"No, I…" She tries not to look too hopeful. "She's alive?"

"Not for long."

There's nothing she can say to that. Instead, she fiddles with a loose thread on her tunic. "What about me?"

*

He wasn't dead.

As Valerie knelt down and checked Titus's pulse, the beat of his heart filled her with relief. Her spell wasn't designed to be lethal, only to shock anyone with hostile intentions. Murdering Avon's political rival at the Patriarch's party would have caused quite the mess.

But what to do with him? She couldn't leave him here. Someone else would find him, or he'd wake up himself and scream witchcraft to the entire palace. She brushed her fingers over his wrist, feeling the pull of the glyph pulsing beneath his skin. How easy it would be to slip into his body.

If she possessed him, would that convince him that she was telling the truth? It would certainly scare him. But she had no proof that the Patriarch had put that mark on him. More than likely, Titus would believe the curse to be of her making. It didn't help that she'd already lied about the mark before.

No, she needed to regain his trust. A gentler approach, then. She let healing magic seep through her fingertips and into his skin. The bruise at his temple vanished. He stirred, groaning, and Valerie sat back on her haunches as Titus awoke.

As soon as he saw her, he scrabbled back, cowering against the wash basin. His breaths came shallow and fast. His pupils were dilated. If she had been a wyvern, she felt sure she would have smelled his fear.

She wasn't used to being in this position, the predator cornering her prey. She had to admit, it felt good.

Titus stared up at her. "What did you do to me?"

"Nothing that'll leave a scar. You shouldn't have touched me." She paused. "Look, I don't want to hurt you. But I can't help you win either. The Patriarch wants you to be the Chancellor, and whatever he's up to, it can't be good for us."

"You can't tell me to give up."

Well, I could. But cornered beasts had a habit of lashing out. She didn't want that.

"We can find another way," she offered instead. "If Avon wins the election, we'll take you and Priska with us back to Maskamere. That's what you want, isn't it? To go home?"

It was the same promise he'd made to her. Surely he would look churlish if he turned it down.

Apparently, Titus disagreed. "Avon doesn't deserve it," he spat. "I do. I have royal blood. I won't become Chancellor of Maskamere. I'll be king."

King? She looked at him again, the burning anger in his eyes, sea-green like the queen's. He'd claimed before that he was related to the royal family. She believed it. His sob story about returning home with his family disguised his true ambition. He nursed some delusional fantasy of claiming the crown for himself.

And because of this fantasy, he'd let the Patriarch manipulate him into becoming his stooge. Idiot.

"You sound just like Bakra." She let the disdain show in her voice. "He wouldn't listen to me either, and you know how that turned out. Did the Patriarch promise to put a crown on your head? He's using you, Titus. They don't give a damn about us. They don't care about our sovereignty. They want to make us puppets. That's all they've ever wanted, and the truth is, he's been using you so long that you've forgotten what he really is."

Tears pricked her eyes as she spoke. Maska, she'd almost convinced herself.

"Become my queen."

Yes, she knew what it was like to be lured in by the Drakonian promise of power. She remembered kissing Avon, the sweet taste of the promise on his lips. Hollow words, she thought, from the man she was now propping up so that he could regain his power over her country. The man who had not hesitated to kill her the moment she posed a real threat.

But unlike the Patriarch, Avon wasn't lying to her.

"I know what you're thinking," she went on. "Avon's using me too. I'm not pretending otherwise, but at least with him, you'll live."

Titus ought to know something about survival, she thought. He had betrayed his country, curried favour with the Drakonians, sabotaged her with a stolen letter, all to further his ambition. He would not have gotten far in this court without a sharp sense of self-preservation.

Had she convinced him? The fear in his eyes had faded. But his face was pinched, closed off. She did not know Titus well, had not learned to read him in the same way she read Avon. She wondered where all his rage came from. Would she have to threaten him? That would be her final resort…

"How do I know you'll keep your promise?" he asked.

Thank Maska. He'd made the right choice. She held out her hand, claws and all, and he let her pull him up.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"You don't. But I don't know that you'll keep yours either. I do know that no one else is going to look out for us. If we can't help each other, who will?"

He snorted. She sensed that anger in him again, simmering beneath the surface.

"Please," she added. "If not for me, then for your sister."

After a long moment during which her heart plummeted, he finally nodded. "Fine. We do as we must. Good luck."

A stalemate, then. She supposed that was the best she would get.

"Good luck," she echoed.

She didn't tell him to keep this conversation between them. Nor did he. But the secret hung unspoken in the air. What he'd do with it, she didn't know.

Titus departed first. Valerie lingered for a few minutes longer, to avoid any further scandal should they be discovered together. She felt neither fear nor relief, but instead an uneasy kind of limbo. There was no obvious threat. She'd dealt with Titus as best she could. But he was still very much a dangling thread, and where his role would fit in this larger tapestry, she didn't know.

Onwards, then. She relieved herself in one of the stalls—an ungainly effort in her gown—and checked the state of her plumage in the mirror before returning to the ballroom.

Half an hour later, she felt less like a magnificent wyvern and more like a grumpy stork. The Patriarch and the Emperor were nowhere to be seen. Nor could she find Rufus or Avon. She imagined that they were all holed up in some dark little men's room together, and that annoyed her even more.

She kept half an eye on Titus, who was chatting away with various members of the Gideon family, including a prim-looking Lady Juliana. Poor Ophelia had been given the task of managing her stepmother. Valerie stayed well away. Right now, she was failing at her primary mission.

Where in the name of Maska was Lady Melody?

Plastering on a smile, Valerie made her way over to the gaggle of young ladies the Patriarch had pointed to during his speech. Their numbers had dwindled since the ball's opening. Presumably Drakardia's so-called eligible bachelors picked them off as the night wore on. The half dozen remaining were either less desirable or more picky—she wasn't sure which. They looked much the same to her, dressed in floral-themed gowns, and all with yellow ribbons tied around their wrists. A few of them gasped when she approached. No one greeted her.

Well, that wasn't very polite, was it?

"Hello there," she said. "I'm looking for Lady Melody. Have any of you seen her?"

One of the girls lifted her chin, her blue eyes narrowed behind a leafy green mask. "We don't know a Lady Melody."

"What? She's the hostess! She planned this ball."

"My mother is the hostess," the girl answered frostily. "Not some whore."

Mother? This was a Gideon-hosted ball, which meant one of the Gideon ladies must be the official hostess, which meant leaf girl here was also a Gideon. Wonderful. And there was that other word the Drakonians used as an insult: whore. Valerie had been called that before. She'd heard Lady Melody called that too. Frankly, she was tired of it.

"Lady Melody isn't some whore," she retorted. "What does that even mean anyway?"

"You don't know?"

Several of the girls whispered to each other. One tittered. The mood had turned scornful. She sensed that in her ignorance she had committed a faux pas.

"It just means you're a beautiful woman." The Gideon girl's leaf mask didn't hide her smirk. "Does Lord Avon call you that too? I expect he does."

That provoked outright giggles, and Valerie flushed behind her mask. She had lost control of the conversation. She tried to think of a response—

Avon's hand descended on her shoulder. "You expect I call Lady Valerie… what, pray tell?"

That silenced them. Six masks looked up at Avon, transfixed.

"Beau-beautiful, my lord," the Gideon girl stammered.

"That she is," he agreed. "Excuse us."

He slid her arm into the crook of his, and Valerie flashed a smile at the red-faced Gideon girl.

"My lord! Aren't you going to dance?"

"Later," Avon called over his shoulder.

He led her to the ballroom floor. Valerie glowed with smugness; she could hardly contain it. She drank in the seething jealousy of her peers with glee. Let them stare. From the tips of her toes to the last pinion in her hair, she felt sleek and beautiful and alive. She settled into hold and took pleasure in gazing into Avon's pretty blue eyes.

"I see you're making friends," he observed.

"They hated me. Don't dance with that Gideon girl."

"I shudder at the thought."

She smiled. "How's your evening going?"

Their conversation on the floor, surrounded by other couples, would obviously be limited. The music helped, a lilting melody that gave rhythm to the waltz. But they couldn't say anything they didn't want to be overheard.

"Well enough," he said lightly. "The Patriarch is a generous host. I also spoke with my father."

She nearly lost her step. "Your father? You spoke to the Emperor without me?"

"Of course." A slight note of irritation slipped into his voice. "I have good news. He's endorsed me."

"He—he has?"

She was almost too astonished to get the words out. She had thought the Emperor a lost cause.

"He'll make the closing speech. You'll hear it then."

"Are you sure?"

She didn't like all these closed door conversations. The Emperor was too sly, too calculating, for her to easily believe that he would change his mind. She wanted to see it for herself.

"Manners," he chided her gently. "Everyone here will know it before the speech. We—"

Abruptly, the music stopped. A knot of tension formed in her stomach. Valerie stopped in her tracks too, the pair of them turning to the stage along with every other couple on the ballroom floor. Onstage, the trumpeter stood up and blew his instrument.

"Ladies and gentleman!" A man dressed in butler's livery bowed on the floor in front of the stage. "Please kneel before His Excellency, Emperor Reinard, Commander of the Drakonian Empire and Chancellor of the Republic of Drakon!"

In walked the Emperor, flanked by four imperial guards. He did not wear a mask; he was clad in his uniform of state. He crossed the ballroom floor, and every man and woman knelt before him. Valerie dropped to her knees too, Avon beside her. The room seemed to hold its breath. She felt the Emperor's power like a tangible thing, a great wave or force or pressure—something that those with the blessing could take and use, if only it belonged to them.

Power greater than the Patriarch's, even in his own home. How galling that must be.

She searched for the Patriarch in the crowd and found him kneeling too, his expression fathomless, his great belly almost brushing the floor.

She wondered how Avon's conversation with him had really gone. Their plan was simple enough: threaten mutual ruin. If the Patriarch revealed the truth of Avon's family history, Avon would make sure to expose the Gideons too. No more listening to the Patriarch's demands. The Emperor would be free to endorse their pursuit of magic.

Which, apparently, he had. She switched her attention back to Reinard, who had stopped in front of the stage.

"Thank you." The Emperor raised a single hand. "Continue."

And with that, the music restarted, the guests got to their feet, and the chatter resumed. The tension in the air dissolved into relief, but Valerie didn't feel it. Her eyes met Avon's, and he frowned.

"What is it?"

"No emergency," she said hastily. "It's just…"

He needed to know what she had learned, like Frask the Drakonian spymaster being another sorcerer's vessel. That changed the equation here. And Titus's royal ambitions could pose a problem even if the Patriarch didn't back him.

Before she could suggest they find somewhere private to talk, however, a woman approached them. She was dressed in austere auburn, a matching veil pulled up over her dark hair, revealing a perfectly made up face, sharp, intelligent eyes and strong brows.

The final variable she'd been hunting for, the person she was counting on to understand the Patriarch's true game.

Lady Melody.