Beatriz

Gisella stays close to Beatriz's side as guards escort them down the halls and stairways that lead from her rooms to the palace chapel on the first floor. Beatriz is sure Gisella expects her to make another escape attempt, but Beatriz keeps a serene smile plastered on her face as they walk, six maids trailing behind her to hold up the heavy, jewel-encrusted train of her gown.

She doesn't remember much about her wedding to Pasquale. She'd barely had a chance to get her bearings in her new country and drank far too much wine before the ceremony itself, so the entire evening is a blur in her memory. One thing she remembers with startling clarity, though, is being introduced to Nicolo and Gisella. If she could go back to that night now, there are a lot of things she might do differently, but she would begin by throwing her wine in their faces.

"Nervous?" Gisella asks now, and while she tries to inject the words with casualness, Beatriz can hear the tension lurking beneath.

Beatriz smiles at her the same way she did that night, like Gisella is merely an amusing stranger. "It isn't my first wedding," she tells Gisella. "Perhaps we should see about getting you married next, Gigi—it hardly seems fair that I get to have all the fun. I'll discuss it with Nicolo and offer a few suggestions. I hear Baron Farini has found himself widowed again."

Beatriz intends to be gone before she has another private conversation with Nicolo about anything, but the bluff is worth it to see the disgust and horror that flicker over Gisella's expression. Her brown eyes cut to the guards walking in front of them, then the guards behind them, before she stops short.

"I need a moment with Princess Beatriz," she says, with a sweet smile that sours slightly when the guards look to Beatriz for confirmation. She gives a quick nod. The maids and guards step away, and Beatriz is struck by the fact that should Gisella forgo her plan and try to kill her before the wedding, her wedding gown has rendered her a sitting duck. It's so heavy she doesn't think she can take so much as a step on her own.

"You're planning something," Gisella says quietly.

"What could I possibly be planning?" Beatriz asks, rolling her eyes skyward, hoping the dramatics mask the secret she's keeping, the power flowing through her. "Without magic, without a weapon, without anything at all?"

Gisella's eyes narrow and she stares at Beatriz for a second. "I need you to trust me," she says, still keeping her voice soft.

Beatriz snorts out a laugh. "You can't be serious," she says. "You've made it very clear that you're going to kill me as soon as your brother's ring is on my finger."

"Have I?" Gisella asks. "When? When did I tell you that?"

Beatriz opens her mouth and closes it again. She's sure Gisella said as much. She confirmed that the empress gave her orders, she even discussed the manner she considered doing it in…but has she actually said she was going to?

"Are you denying that my mother's ordered you to kill me?" she asks as her thoughts spin.

"I'm not denying that," Gisella says. "But I have no loyalty to your mother, no more than I had to you or to Pasquale. Certainly no more than I have to my brother."

That catches Beatriz by surprise. "Considering the lengths you've gone to in order to see him on the Cellarian throne, that's hardly reassuring."

Gisella's smile is brittle. "And what, exactly, has that gotten me, Beatriz? Abandoned in a Bessemian prison? A role as nanny for his wayward fiancée? We were supposed to rise together, but he left me behind the first chance he had—just as you said he would."

Beatriz recalls their conversation after Nicolo had been named Cesare's heir mere hours before Cesare died, how Beatriz warned her that Nicolo would turn on her, that the further Gisella tried to climb the further she would fall.

"You insinuated yesterday that he was making plots with you," Gisella says. "I won't ask you what they are because I know you won't tell me, and in the end, they won't matter."

Beatriz knows they won't matter, but not for whatever reason Gisella seems to think. "Because you have plots of your own?" she guesses, fitting together pieces of what she knows and trying to see the full picture. "Much of the court isn't happy with Nico, but they'd be far less happy to see you on the throne in his stead."

Gisella makes a scornful sound. "If I were alone," she says.

And just like that, the final piece of the puzzle slides into place. "The Duke of Ribel," she says. "If the two of you marry, it would consolidate power." She's speaking more to herself than Gisella now. "The only thing in the way would be Nicolo."

"And you," Gisella adds mildly. "Should you decide to make yourself a nuisance. But you don't intend to do that, do you?"

Despite Gisella's casual tone, Beatriz knows it's a loaded question. It strikes her as almost funny that the fates of countries aren't always decided on battlefields or in throne rooms, but in quiet hallways like this, between desperate women with everything to lose. Still, she's walked this path with Gisella before and it has never worked out in her favor.

"I have no reason to trust you," she says. "And a good many reasons not to."

"You don't have to trust me," Gisella tells her. "I assume whatever you're planning will take you out of Cellaria?"

Beatriz only stares at Gisella, careful not to let her expression betray anything. After a second, Gisella sighs.

"I expect you never to return," she says.

Beatriz says nothing, struggling to make sense of what, exactly, Gisella is up to, but when Gisella turns to call the guards and maids back, Beatriz finds her voice.

"The throne you're fighting for isn't yours," she says. "It's Pasquale's."

Gisella turns back to her, eyes sharp. "If he wanted it, he should have fought for it," she says. "But we both know he doesn't want it at all, so why shouldn't it be mine? Why is he or anyone else more deserving of it? Because of blood? I have as much royal blood as Nicolo. Because he's a man?" She tsks. "Come, Beatriz, you and I are the same at the heart."

"What in the name of the stars would make you believe that?" Beatriz asks.

"Because we want so much more than we were born for."

"That's hardly a fair comparison, considering I was born to die," Beatriz points out.

"You were born to further your family's position, no matter how it affected you," Gisella corrects. "All girls are raised like lambs to the slaughter in some way or other. You and your sisters aren't unique in that."

"Perhaps not, but I've never stepped on others to escape my fate," Beatriz retorts.

Gisella laughs. "Haven't you?" she asks. "Your hands aren't clean, Beatriz. The servant girl who was executed for possessing the stardust you created? The empyrea you killed in Bessemia?—yes, I know about that. And Pasquale—had you not dragged him into your schemes, he would be sitting quite securely on the throne now."

Beatriz stares at her, unable to say a word. Fury burns through her, all the hotter because she knows that Gisella is speaking the truth. Her hands aren't clean, and they'll get bloodier still before she's through. She holds Gisella's gaze for a moment longer before looking away.

"Guards," she calls out. "We're ready to proceed."

The chapel is dark when Beatriz enters, lit only by the moon and stars shining down through the glass ceiling. It isn't enough to see much more than two steps in front of her, but she doesn't need to. She can feel the stars dancing on her skin, calling to her with the sweetest soundless music. She felt them briefly the night before, but now it overwhelms her in the best way, like an embrace from a long-lost friend. She takes as deep a breath as she can in her tightly laced wedding gown.

The first constellation Beatriz picks out is the Thorned Rose—one of the constellations that hung overhead when she took her first breath more than sixteen years ago. In a way, it might be fitting to use it now for that reason alone, but tonight Beatriz doesn't need beauty or the thorns that accompany it. A different power courses through her as she puts one foot in front of the other, down the long, plushly carpeted aisle.

At the front, she can just barely make out the shadowy shape of Nicolo, waiting for her. A brief stab of pity goes through her. He has no idea what he has walked into tonight, soon to be betrayed not just by her but by his twin as well. Beatriz doesn't think Gisella would go so far as to have him killed, but the second the thought crosses her mind she takes it back. There are no lengths Gisella wouldn't go to for power, and she's too smart to let a threat go uneliminated.

Except, she thinks, for Beatriz herself. Gisella is letting her go. Whether that is because, despite everything, Gisella does care for—or at the very least respect—her, or because Beatriz has simply made herself too much of a nuisance, she doesn't know. She likely never will know.

The Twisted Trees move through the sky to the east, symbolizing friendship, but that isn't the right constellation for Beatriz to pull from either. The branches of the Twisted Trees entangle like the lives of friends, and the last thing Beatriz wants to do is inadvertently tie her life to anyone in this stars-forsaken chapel.

Beatriz steps up onto the dais at the front of the chapel, coming to stand beside Nicolo, just as a new constellation catches her eye, edging into the sky from the South—the Glittering Diamond.

It's another one of Beatriz's birth constellations, symbolizing strength. She could certainly use a bit of that tonight, she thinks.

She's dimly aware of Nicolo taking hold of both of her hands, of the archbishop's droning voice reciting a passage from the scriptures, of the eyes of hundreds of people on her, but the bulk of her attention is on the Glittering Diamond, arcing across the sky. It's moving quickly; there is no time to waste.

She draws a full breath into her lungs and casts her gaze upward, picking out the largest star at the center of the constellation.

"I wish—"

Her words are interrupted by a high-pitched scream. It's too dark to make out more than vague shapes, but Beatriz sees what looks like a woman bolting upright in one of the middle pews, the figure next to her slumping forward, unmoving. Almost perfectly in sync, the sound of dozens of swords being drawn from their scabbards cuts through the silent chapel, starlight glinting off silver blades. And then chaos rears its head.

Someone—Nicolo, she realizes—yanks at her arm, pulling her back behind the altar. It offers only the illusion of safety, without any kind of defense at all. Nicolo's eyes are wild, his face panic-stricken and shocked.

He truly did not expect this.

Nicolo shrugs his jacket off, reaching for the dagger holstered at his hip. Beatriz's eyes follow the movement, mind spinning.

"Stay here," Nicolo grits out.

But Beatriz is tired of being told what to do by him, his sister, or anyone else. There is little left for her to lose now, so she balls her right hand into a fist and slams it into Nicolo's nose, sending him stumbling back, his grip on the blade loosening as it clatters to the stone floor. He curses, hand on his nose as he struggles to regain his balance, looking even more perplexed now.

"What in the name of the stars—" he begins, but Beatriz doesn't let him finish. She scrabbles for the dropped dagger, her fingers closing around the hilt just as a new scream joins the cacophony filling the chapel.

"Beatriz!"

She knows that voice, she realizes with dawning horror. Somewhere amid the bloodshed of what Beatriz is quickly realizing is a coup orchestrated by Gisella and Enzo, is Pasquale.

Nicolo realizes it too, recognition cutting through the shock in his eyes. "Pasquale is dead," he says, though it sounds more like a question than a statement.

He isn't wrong, though. If Pasquale is truly in the middle of the melee that's broken out in the chapel, he is as good as dead.

"Is this his doing?" Nicolo continues, his voice barely audible over the sound of swords clashing and the shouts of triumph and pain.

Despite the danger surrounding them and the thought of Pasquale in the carnage, Beatriz laughs. "You think Pasquale is behind this?" she asks incredulously. "You have no idea, do you? What's been unfolding right underneath your nose? In your own court? In your own family?"

She sees the realization hit him, not so outlandish an idea that he struggles to grasp it. "Gisella." He says his twin's name like a curse.

"Gisella," Beatriz confirms. "You aren't walking out of this chapel alive, Nico."

He opens his mouth—to argue, she's sure—but he closes it again, apparently realizing the truth of her words. He looks at Beatriz for a moment, and she can see the thoughts racing through his mind, searching for a way out of this and finding none. Moving fast as lightning, his hand grabs hers, still holding the dagger. She tries to wrench away from him but he holds fast, his eyes somber as he pulls her hand up to bring the dagger to his throat.

Confusion floods her. "What are you—"

"I'm not getting out of this chapel, Beatriz, you said it yourself. But you are if you use me as a hostage."

That only unnerves her more. "I don't need a hostage," she tells him, pulling her hand away and the dagger with it. Reluctantly, he lets her go. "You would do that?" she askshim.

Nicolo shrugs, looking away from her with discomfort clear in his eyes. "If it weren't for me, you wouldn't be anywhere near this mess," he tells her. "It seemed to be the least I could do."

He isn't wrong about that, but the gesture still moves her. She tries to peer around the altar, but from her position she can't see the stars—she can't reach her magic. She needs to stand, but doing so will make her a target, and she's sure she'll be dead before she can utter even half of her wish.

Her wish.She had one prepared for the Glittering Diamond—I wish I were in Hapantoile—but she can't use that now and leave Pasquale here. She could wish both of them away, but she doesn't know who else might be with him—Ambrose, Violie, Leopold, someone else altogether. And even if she succeeds in getting herself, Pasquale, and whoever he's with out of this place, she couldn't do it. It was one thing to escape a wedding, but running away from what very well might be best described as a massacre when she has more power to stop it than anyone else present is something entirely different. Just moments ago, Gisella reminded Beatriz of all the blood on her hands. She might not be able to wash them clean, but the stars can damn her before she adds another drop—even if that blood belongs to Nicolo. Her eyes find his and she tightens her grip on the dagger.

"You're going to follow my lead," she tells him.

He barely has time to nod before she grabs hold of his arm with her free hand and jerks them both to the side of the altar until she's standing behind him while he kneels, both of them facing the battle, with the dagger's sharp edge pressed to his throat.

"Drop your swords or I'll slit his throat!" she shouts out as loudly as she can to be heard over the sounds of fighting. Her words echo through the room, drawing hundreds of eyes to her, their swords stalling in midair before falling limp at their sides.

"Change of heart?" Nicolo hisses.

She ignores him. In truth, Beatriz doesn't fully know what she's doing, but she has the stars now and the full attention of the room. Even the courtiers fighting to overthrow Nicolo don't want him dead—not like this at least, beheaded by a hysterical woman in a story they won't be able to spin to add to their own mythos. Beatriz holds the narrative now, so she holds the power.

She searches the crowd, but it's too dark to see much. She knows, though, that Pasquale is out there somewhere. Overhead, the Glittering Diamond has left the sky. Now there are only the Twisting Trees, the Dancing Bear, the Clouded Sun. Beatriz doesn't have time to be picky about the constellation she pulls from now—any one of those will have to do the job—but some unknowable force whispers through her.

Patience,it says.

Patience has never been Beatriz's strength, and now seems like a terrible time to practice the skill, but she lowers her eyes from the stars, looking out at the chapel, which has become a battlefield. The Cellarians think her a saint, she muses. Saint wasn't among the identities her mother trained her to take on, but she knows the rules of it all the same. She draws herself up to her full height and squares her shoulders.

"You dare spill blood in the light of the stars?" she asks, her voice stern.

"The stars cursed Cellaria the moment that imposter took the throne," a man in the front counters, earning a scattered cheer from the rest of the chapel. "Surely they'll be glad to witness us righting that mistake."

"Yes, fine, he's been a shit king," Beatriz replies, and despite the tension in the chapel, there's a bout of choked laughter from an unseen place at the sound of the word shit leaving the sainted princess's mouth. Good, Beatriz thinks, feeling more confident. "Do you think Duke Ribel will be a better one? I don't see him among your numbers—is he too cowardly to fight for his throne?"

"Beatriz," Nicolo warns, but again Beatriz ignores him. She knows that taunting Enzo would be a foolish thing to do if she planned on staying in Cellaria long enough to face the consequences for it.

"Your Highness, if you wished to speak with me, you needed only ask," a familiar voice says, and Beatriz follows it up to a small balcony on her right, high above the chapel floor. Beatriz can just barely make out Enzo leaning over the railing, Gisella beside him. Even from a distance, Beatriz can see the irritation on Gisella's face, but Beatriz knows that despite what she might pretend, Gisella isn't immune to the sight of her twin with a blade to his throat.

Beatriz schools her own expression into a bland smile. "How kind of you to attend my wedding, Your Grace!" she shouts up to him. "Though I do wish you hadn't tried so hard to upstage me."

"Oh, I could never upstage you, Princess," he replies. "In that dress, particularly. Under different circumstances, I'd call our king a very lucky man."

Beatriz knows that if she didn't have a dagger to Nicolo's throat, he wouldn't be able to resist a retort.

She widens her smile, instilling it with every ounce of charm she can manage. "Whatever family squabble this may be, Enzo, it has nothing to do with me. For these past weeks I've been held in Cellaria against my will, bullied and blackmailed into a marriage I did not want, and pushed toward a throne I have no interest in laying claim to. I thank you for liberating me from my situation, but I hope you'll agree that we should settle this in a more civilized manner before all this fighting ruins what you yourself have pointed out is quite a lovely gown." She hopes that by returning his playful banter, despite the dozen or so bodies already bleeding out on the chapel floor, she'll incline him more to agree to her terms, but he purses his lips. "Surely Nicolo here is willing to discuss a truce?" She looks down at Nicolo, kneeling in front of her, who hesitates just long enough for a man toward the front of the chapel to shout out.

"The stars will fall before we'll accept the duke as king," he says, the words followed by a roar of approval from what Beatriz imagines is roughly half of the chapel.

"Better him than the usurper king we have now!" someone else shouts. "Go ahead, slit his throat, Princess. Save us the trouble." More cheers follow that, and Beatriz tightens her grip on the dagger, wondering if perhaps she's in over her head. But she is a saint, she reminds herself, if only in their eyes.

"The stars have already cursed Cellaria, dooming you to centuries without starshowers, with mad kings and cruel kings and now an incompetent one," she says, shaking her head. "To spill a drop more blood in their chapel would invite more misery for every person who calls this land home."

"Who says?" someone asks, skepticism clear in their voice.

"The stars have chosen me as their messenger," she replies coolly. "Do you dare to question that? In their chapel? Under their watch?" She casts her gaze skyward, partly for an added touch of theatrics but mostly to see the stars. The Slithering Snake has made its way into view—appropriate, Beatriz supposes, given all the betrayal at play. Perhaps…

Not yet,the voice whispers through her again, and this time it almost sounds like Sophronia.

"As you say, Princess," Enzo calls from the balcony, his smile cold. "Cellaria is no stranger to curses from the stars.We've managed to survive and thrive for centuries without their blessed favor raining down on us, haven't we? You think we still fear offending them? Kill him and see for yourself. The stars may not bless us, but they don't curse us either. They've abandoned us, just as they always have, and only children believe differently."

A tense silence follows his words, and Beatriz can see some of the men in the chapel shifting uncertainly. What Enzo is saying is sacrilege, but he knows that. The sacrilege is the point. Because while some men are uncomfortable with the way Enzo is speaking, others are nodding along, rapt at someone putting their own long-borne feelings into words.

"The stars haven't abandoned Cellaria," another voice says, one that Beatriz has missed so sorely that hearing it again is a lance through her heart.

The crowd parts for Pasquale as he makes his way down the aisle toward her, dressed as a servant and holding a clean sword at his side.