Violie

Violie wakes to soft sunlight filtering through white linen curtains, but even that hazy brightness makes her groan and roll away from it. The bed she's in is soft, she realizes, so different from the hard, blood-soaked ground she remembers lying on. The events filter back to her—the certainty she was dying, how she felt the life leaving her body as surely as she felt Leopold's hand in hers, the desperation clawing at her chest, begging the stars to let her live. The stars that were falling over Cellaria—at Beatriz's command, she imagines.

She remembers Sophronia's voice whispering through her mind, granting her wish for life but warning she would soon yearn for death.

The pain that hit when the falling star crashed into her chest was unlike anything Violie had felt before—so intense she wanted to tear her own flesh from her bones in an effort to make it stop—but never once had she yearned for death. Which wasn't, of course, to say that she wouldn't yet.

Violie struggles to sit up, blinking heavy eyes as she looks around the room, taking in the clean white bedsheets, the plush four-poster bed, the thick wool rug covering most of the stone floor. Where am I? Her first thought is the inn, but if so this isn't the room she and Leopold stayed in before—it's bigger, with a larger bed and finer furnishings.

A room fit for a king, she realizes, just as the doorknob twists open and Leopold appears in the frame. When he sees her awake and sitting up, he sighs, the tension in his shoulders disappearing along with his breath.

"How are you feeling?" he asks.

Violie tries to smile, but even that hurts. "Like I got hit by a falling star," she says. "What happened?"

One side of Leopold's mouth lifts into a smile. "You got hit by a falling star," he says dryly.

"That, I remember," she says, shaking her head. "It's what happened before that, with the baron's army, and what I assume must have happened since that I'm unclear on."

"Right," Leopold says, coming into the room and closing the door behind him. He sits at the foot of her bed, close enough that she could reach out and touch him if she wanted to.

And she does want to, she realizes, a warm ache blossoming in her chest as her realization from the battlefield comes back to her. I love him.

"Apart from your being recognized, the rest of our plan went off without issue—with half the village armed, we took the occupying soldiers by surprise and overwhelmed them, taking their weapons and using them to arm the other half of the village," he says. "Freeing the girls from the granary was easy with that power, but that was when Janellia found us. She was distraught, but she managed to relay what you'd told her, that the baron was my uncle." Leopold lets out a low curse, shaking his head. "I should have seen it earlier—he was always a bitter, angry man, but I never thought he'd have it in him to amass such power."

"With you and your brothers gone, there was a power vacuum," Violie says. "And so he allied himself with the empress to take advantage of that."

"He allied himself with the empress long before that," Leopold says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the heavy chain the baron wore, the one with Sophronia's wedding ring hanging from it like a charm. Violie's stomach sinks at the sight of it, at the thought of the baron taking it from Sophronia's lifeless body. "He admitted as much when I questioned him after the battle, and his men filled in what he didn't say. It would seem he was in the employ of the empress at least as long as you were."

Violie wishes she could summon surprise, but she can't. She knows better than most just how wide and deep the empress's network of spies goes. How much of the baron's drinking and gambling was real, she wonders, and how much of it was an act to keep anyone from suspecting there was more to him?

"And his army?" Violie asks. "Bessemian or Temarinian?"

"Temarinian," Leopold says. "Paid soldiers with alliance to his coin, mostly, but many others who swore allegiance to him because they had no other option and it seemed, at the very least, preferable to follow the orders of a countryman than one of the invaders. It was the only way they could take care of their families, and when I arrived with the villagers, almost all of them bent the knee right away."

"How many?" Violie asks.

Leopold shrugs. "The battalion was five hundred men," he says. "A little over four hundred changed their loyalty to me as soon as it became an option."

And they could change it back just as quickly, Violie knows, but when she says as much to Leopold, he shrugs again.

"And how many of them are asking themselves the same questions about my loyalty? They have every right to worry that as soon as I'm on the throne again, I'll go back to being the same useless king I was before," he points out. Violie opens her mouth to protest but shuts it quickly again. It's a fair point, but that doesn't mean she likes it. Leopold must see this, because he smiles softly. "Rebuilding Temarin won't be easy, Vi. For any of us. But if they're willing to help me do it, who am I to stop them? None of us are the worst decisions we've made."

None of us are the worst decisions we've made.

Leopold's words echo in the silence that follows them, digging their way into the pit of her stomach like seeds. She hopes one day they'll take root and she might actually believe them.

"And now?" she asks. "How long has it been since the battle?"

"Two days," Leopold says. "Long enough that everyone has celebrated, rested, and departed."

"Departed?" Violie asks. "Where?"

"Twenty-five volunteers riding south, twenty-five riding north, and fifty riding west," Leopold says. "Spreading stories and gathering support, just as you suggested. They'll stop where they can, tell anyone they meet what happened here, incite more rebellions in the villages and towns against the Bessemians occupying them."

He can't quite keep the excitement from his voice, and when he looks at her with nervous eyes, she realizes he's waiting to hear what she thinks of the plan.

"I think it's brilliant, Leo," she says softly. "With a little luck, you'll be marching into the Kavelle palace again before the last frost melts in spring."

Leopold's smile falters slightly. "You mean we," he says. "We'll be marching into the Kavelle palace."

When Violie doesn't respond, Leopold leans toward her, taking hold of her hands again. Violie tries to ignore the feeling of his skin against hers, warm and comforting and right.

"Vi, I can't do this without you," he says.

"Of course you can, Leo," she replies, squeezing his hands. "The last few days have proved that beyond any doubt. You don't need me."

Leopold hesitates a moment. "That doesn't mean I don't want you," he says quietly.

Violie bites her lip. She wants him, too. She wants to be at his side when he reclaims the palace, when he takes his throne, when the crown is placed on his head once more, this time earned and not just inherited. She wants to see him become the king she knows he can be.

But he doesn't need her. Daphne and Beatriz do.

"A starshower fell in Cellaria, Leo," she says. "You and I can both guess what that means—Beatriz has her magic back. If causing that starshower didn't kill her, she's on her way to Hapantoile as we speak, and she and Daphne will need all the help they can get to defeat the empress. That's a fight I need to see through to the end."

Leopold considers this, but Violie notes that he doesn't seem particularly surprised by the declaration.

"Even if I do manage to drive every Bessemian soldier out of Temarin, if the empress triumphs, my victory will be short-lived," he says quietly. "And I don't think Temarin could rise again from the ruin she will make of it."

"I won't let that happen," Violie promises him.

"And I believe you," Leopold says. "But it's my fight too. And I intend to see it through."

Violie shakes her head. "You're needed here, with your people," she says.

"My people do need me," Leopold agrees. "But the empress is a rot on all of Vesteria, and I can keep scrubbing my parts of it, or we can cut her out at the heart. The former is a temporary solution, and I won't sit idly by while someone else does the latter."

Violie understands that, but still…

"It won't do," she says softly. "For Temarin to see their king fleeing again."

"Not fleeing," Leopold corrects. "Marching. For Temarin, and with anyone else who wishes to join the fight. Does that include you, Violie?" he asks.

Violie looks at him, letting her eyes trace the sharp lines of his face, noting the ferocity that's taken up residence in his dark brown eyes. "Always," she tells him.

He smiles, relief clear in his expression, and Violie realizes he truly didn't believe that she would say yes. As if she wouldn't go to war on the stars themselves if Leopold were fighting beside her.

"You need rest," he says. "We'll leave tomorrow. Maybe the day after."

Violie shakes her head, though even that small motion pains her. "I'm fine," she lies, mustering a smile far brighter than how she feels. "We'll leave today. Get word to whatever troops remain—as soon as I get some food and have a quick bath, I'll be ready for war."

It's a lie, and one that Leopold sees right through, though after a moment of hesitation, he nods. "Then we'll leave today," he says.