Beatriz

The first thing Beatriz becomes aware of is the scent of sea air—Cellarian air, she knows right away. She resists the urge to open her eyes and alert anyone around her to the fact that she's awake, instead taking an inventory of her body and surroundings. Distantly, she remembers coming to consciousness several times before, brief stabs of awareness—a rocking carriage, Gisella's intent face, trying and failing to speak before the darkness dragged her back under.

Now everything is still. She is no longer in a carriage but in a room. Listening closely, she hears birdsong telling her it's daytime, and the faint crashing of waves against the shore. Her head feels like it is stuffed with cotton, but slowly events trickle back to her. She remembers standing in her mother's bedchamber as the empress told her she'd be leaving for Cellaria to marry Nicolo. She remembers escaping the Bessemian palace through a secret tunnel with Pasquale, Ambrose, and Gisella in tow. She remembers Daphne using stardust to communicate with her and Beatriz promising her they'd be reunited in Friv soon.

But she isn't in Friv—she's in Cellaria. She sifts through more hazy memories—staying the night at an inn and sharing a room with Gisella, the world turning fuzzy and the dim sound of Gisella's voice: For what it's worth, I am sorry.

Beatriz can draw constellations from those dots—Gisella was working with the empress; she poisoned Beatriz and brought her back to Cellaria on the empress's orders. Once again, Gisella betrayed Beatriz because of course she did. Beatriz had been a fool to expect any different.

Without opening her eyes, Beatriz knows exactly where she is—back in the Cellarian palace, just as her mother told her she would be, though her mother didn't tell her the whole truth of the reason she needs Beatriz here. Her mother's empyrea, Nigellus, did, though. When he started training her to use the magic that made her an empyrea as well, he let slip the truth of the wish her mother made before she and her sisters were born, and the condition placed upon it. In order for the empress to take control of all of Vesteria, her daughters would need to die on the soil of the lands she wished to conquer, by the hand of someone who called that land home.

Sophronia was killed by Temarinian hands on Temarinian soil.

Daphne would need to be killed by Frivian hands, in Friv.

And Beatriz…she needed to die here, in Cellaria, at the hands of any number of people who must want her dead.

But there is a piece of the empress's plan missing, and when Beatriz realizes what it is, her stomach drops. Pasquale. Pasquale already is Beatriz's husband, even if in name only, and if her mother intends for her to marry Nicolo, she'll need Pasquale dead. The last time Beatriz saw him, he and his paramour, Ambrose, were disappearing into a second room at the inn, but if Gisella poisoned her on the empress's orders, she must have gone to their room next and…the thought makes Beatriz's stomach lurch. No, even for Gisella, that is too far. Pasquale is her cousin and Beatriz knows she loves him, even if she did betray him, too, turning both Pasquale and Beatriz in to Pasquale's father, the late King Cesare, so that Nicolo, Gisella's twin brother, could be named Cesare's heir in Pasquale's stead. But stealing a throne is different from stealing a life, isn't it? Surely there is a line even Gisella won't cross? Even as she thinks it, though, Beatriz fears she's wrong and that she is, once again, giving Gisella far more credit than she deserves.

"I know you're awake."

The voice cuts through the lingering fog of Beatriz's mind and she opens her eyes, staring at the white canopy hanging over her bed, then taking in the room around her—ornately decorated with carved oak furniture, polished to a gleam, red-and-gold brocade textiles, and gold-framed paintings of the Cellarian seaside adorning the walls. Only after taking in each detail of the room does she allow herself to look at Nicolo.

He's slouched in a chair near the door, blond head propped up on an elbow and dark brown eyes resting heavily on her. He appears to be more sober than the last time she saw him, when she spoke to him after wishing on a star in Bessemia, but otherwise he looks much the same. Still handsome, still haughty, still looking at her like he knows exactly what she's thinking.

He doesn't, of course, but Beatriz knows it's better to let him assume as much.

"Barely," she says, blinking around the room and letting uncertainty flicker over her face. "Where am I?" she asks. She might know, but the less capable he believes her to be, the easier it will be to escape. She needs to get out of Cellaria, she needs to find Pasquale and Ambrose—because they cannot be dead—and she needs to get to Daphne in Friv.

"Come, Beatriz," Nicolo says with a knowing smile. "Do you think I didn't see you take in your surroundings, even before you opened your eyes? You know exactly where youare."

It's true. Even if Beatriz hasn't been in this room before, she can guess where it is and what it's for. Who it's for.

"The queen's chambers in the Cellarian palace," Beatriz says, sitting up. Very well, if playing the oblivious fool doesn't suit her, perhaps she can bluster her way through. "Have you surrendered, then? Is Pasquale fast asleep in the king's chambers, as he should be?"

A small, amused smile flickers at Nicolo's mouth. "Unfortunately not," he said. "Cellaria has reached an…agreement with Bessemia."

Beatriz raises her eyebrows. "My mother intimated as much the last time I spoke to her," she admits. "But I didn't think you foolish enough to believe I'm content to be traded like a rare coin."

"Your contentment hardly matters," Nicolo says with a shrug.

Beatriz tightens her jaw and looks at him, the clever boy she thought herself falling for turned ruthless king who's kidnapped her, who intends to marry her against her will. If he won't hear no as an answer now, what will happen when she's forced into their marriage bed? That isn't the Nicolo she knew. Many things about him might have been proven a lie, but that?

"And you?" she asks, lifting her chin. "You once risked your own safety to save me from your uncle's forced attentions. I thought that noble of you, but perhaps you're more like him than I realized."

That gets a reaction. Nicolo's hands grip the armrests of his chair and his eyes flash. "You know better than that, Beatriz," he says, his voice low.

"Do I?" she asks, letting out a harsh laugh, though inside she's taking note of what, exactly, Nicolo's triggers are so that she can use them against him. "All I know, Nicolo, is that you're kidnapping me and forcing me into a marriage I do not want."

His eyes flash again, but after a second he takes a breath and gets to his feet, reclaiming his cool facade. "It won't be the first time you married someone because you had to," he points out. "That one was unconsummated as well, just as ours will be until you choose otherwise."

"Oh, how magnanimous of you," Beatriz snaps. "Allow me to extend a courtesy of my own—my mother is not your ally; whatever agreements she's made with you were broken before she finished uttering them. And if I didn't find myself thrust into the middle of it, I would relish seeing her destroy you and your snake of a sister."

Nicolo only laughs, making his way out of the bedroom and into what Beatriz sees is a sitting room. She cranes her neck to watch him open the door that must lead to the hallway, giving her a glimpse of the guards standing outside. "You're still underestimating me, Beatriz," Nicolo says. "You really ought to know better by now."

Beatriz is not a stranger to being under house arrest in the Cellarian castle, though this time the decree isn't official. When she tried to leave the room shortly after Nicolo, they told her that the king had instructed she remain inside for her safety. She isn't sure whether they truly believe that or not, but she knows she can't get past them by force.

Luckily, she doesn't need to.

She paces the suite of rooms, inspecting the bedroom, the sitting room furnished with two brocade sofas, a low-burning fireplace, and a writing desk, and the adjoining dining room intimately decorated with a small, round table and two high-backed chairs.

While the décor is lavish, it strikes Beatriz as a blank slate, lacking any personal touches. Unsurprising, she supposes, since it's very likely no one has resided here since Pasquale's mother's death nearly a decade ago, but after a mere half hour of exploring, she has nothing else to do. No books to read, no letters to write—even needlepoint would be welcome to keep her from going mad waiting for the sun to go down and the stars to rise.

But after what feels like several lifetimes, they do, and Beatriz looks out her window, at the sprawling city of Vallon below, at the ink-dark sea stretching out beyond that, and the sky above it all, littered with stars.

As she searches the constellations, she thinks of Nigellus, her mother's trusted empyrea, who had the rare gift of pulling down stars from the sky to bring wishes to fruition. A gift Beatriz herself has, even if the lessons he gave her were cut short before they really ever started. He was adamant that it was a gift that should be used only under the most dire of circumstances to preserve the stars that remained in the sky—a finite resource that had already been drained in the millennia before either of them was born. If Nigellus could see her now, ready to wish on another star regardless of the consequences, would he support her? After all, Beatriz's magic works differently from his and differently from every other empyrea's—when Beatriz wishes upon a star, it reappears in the sky within a night or two like nothing happened at all.

As soon as she begins to think about Nigellus, memories sharpen into focus of the last time she saw him. He told her that he believed her magic was killing her each time she used it, and when she told him she didn't care, that she would still use it to defeat her mother and protect her sister and the rest of Vesteria from her plots, Nigellus grew angry. She remembers him at his telescope, wishing upon a star to take her magic away by force because, as he said, she couldn't be trusted to wield it. Beatriz tried to stop him, the two of them fighting in his laboratory until, in a burst of desperation, she broke open the vial of poison she'd meant to use on her mother and smeared the paste into his open wound, killing him instantly.

She pushes the image of his lifeless face from her mind and focuses on the constellations moving across the sky, searching for one whose meaning suits her motives tonight.

There's the Hero's Heart, symbolizing bravery, but that doesn't feel right. Wishing her way out of this situation is hardly brave, but Beatriz cares less about that than finding Pasquale and Daphne.

The Tiger's Tail signals revenge, and that is tempting, especially when she thinks of Nicolo's smug face and Gisella's hollow apology, but ultimately, Beatriz decides against using it. Revenge can come later; now she needs safety.

She finds it in the Clouded Sun, the sign for solace.

Remembering how wishes have affected her in the past, she braces her hands on the windowsill, clutching it tightly as she picks out a star from the constellation, focusing on one at the end of a sunray.

"I wish I were with Pasquale, wherever he is," she says aloud, readying for the same pull of magic she felt when wishing to escape the Sororia.

It doesn't come. The words she speaks are only that—words.

Nausea rises up, but it has nothing to do with the side effects of magic she's become so familiar with. If her wish isn't working, does that mean Pasquale is dead? No, she can't think of it. Perhaps there is some other explanation, something she can figure out once she's left Cellaria.

She tries again, finding another star, on the edge of a cloud this time.

"I wish I were with Daphne, in Friv," she says, thinking that a more precise location will help the stars grant her wish.

But that, too, fails, and Beatriz finds herself in exactly the same place, still in Cellaria, and still trapped. A queasy feeling sinks into her gut, bringing with it a knowledge Beatriz can't face.

Desperately, she searches out another star—this one in the Glittering Diamond.

"I wish my dress were blue."

It's a shallow wish, one so small that it could be accomplished by stardust, but when Beatriz looks down and finds her dress still Cellarian red, she backs away from the window, her hands shaking, forced to acknowledge the truth.

Her magic is gone.