Beatriz

Lunch is held on the South Terrace of the Cellarian palace—a small but sumptuous setup of a single long oak table brought out from indoors, along with eight matching chairs, a white silk tablecloth embroidered in gold thread, heavy gold goblets filled with red wine, and porcelain platters piled high with fresh fruit, cheese, toasted bread, and sliced cured meats.

As Beatriz steps out onto the terrace, she's struck by how different the weather is here than it was in Bessemia, where there was a chill in the air as winter settled in. But winter hasn't touched Cellaria—the weather doesn't seem to have changed at all since the first time she came here in late summer. The air is hot, humid, and heavy on her skin, with a gentle breeze rolling in off the sea just below. A bright red canopy has been erected to block out the worst of the sun, and it has the added effect of casting the entire terrace in a garish light.

Beatriz is the last to arrive, and as she approaches the table, everyone else rises to their feet, with the exception of Gisella, who remains seated to Nicolo's left, leaving the seat at his right open for Beatriz, who takes it. As she lowers herself, she takes in the other five men at the table. She vaguely recognizes the man on Gisella's other side as Gisella and Nicolo's father and Pasquale's uncle, the Duke of Bellario; the others she can't put a name to, yet she feels certain she saw three of them around the palace during her last stay. None of them was part of King Cesare's inner circle, though, and Nicolo is either smart for ensuring the loyalty of those he surrounds himself with, or else he's a fool for alienating a group of people who were accustomed to power.

It's no concern of Beatriz's whether he's being smart or a fool, she reminds herself. She'll be long gone from Cellaria before any rewards or repercussions can find him.

"Princess Beatriz," the duke says, bowing low at the waist, followed a beat later by the others. "It is wonderful to see you safely returned to us. How have you recovered from your ordeal?"

"My ordeal?" Beatriz asks, cutting a glance at Gisella, who responds with a loaded look of her own. The threat she made against Pasquale and Ambrose hangs over Beatriz, so she fixes a smile on her face and turns back to Lord Bellario. "I assure you, Your Grace, I am recovering from my ordeal quite well and I'm happy to be home in Cellaria."

Nicolo clears his throat. "Beatriz, I don't believe you've met Lord Faviel, Lord Gustin, Lord Warrel, or my cousin, the Duke of Ribel."

The last name gives Beatriz pause—during the councilmeeting she attended in Bessemia, General Urden apprised them of the threats facing Nicolo's reign, and chief among them was the Duke of Ribel, whose claim to the Cellarian throne was just as strong as Nicolo's and who had been amassing his own support among the nobility that was turning on Nicolo. Once again, Beatriz wonders if Nicolo is brilliant or a fool.

"My lords," she says, inclining her head toward the first three men before turning her attention to the Duke of Ribel. "Your Grace."

She takes the opportunity to look him over, surprised at how young he is. She has never heard much about the duke, who preferred to stay at his estate on Cellaria's western coast to avoid becoming the target of the late King Cesare's mercurial temper—a smart decision in Beatriz's eyes, but she'd thought he would be older. Instead, he's close to her own age, with hair such a dark shade of brown it's nearly black and hooded sea-blue eyes. Though his coloring is different from Nicolo, Gisella, and Pasquale's, she sees the family resemblance in the sharpness of his features, the aquiline nose. Her gaze lingers on his mouth, full and curved into a slight but knowing smile that Beatriz feels like a caress.

Beside her, Nicolo clears his throat, and Beatriz tears her gaze away from the duke, looking instead at the boy who is, at least for the moment, her husband-to-be.

"Lord Gustin asked how you're finding being back in Cellaria," Gisella supplies.

"Oh," Beatriz says with a laugh, focusing on Lord Gustin—a tall, wiry man with a balding head and a glorious mustache that reminds Beatriz of illustrations she's seen of walruses. "I believe we were anticipating snow when I left Bessemia—this sun is certainly an improvement."

The table laughs politely. After a few moments during which servants arrive to fill their plates with a little of everything, and everyone begins to eat, Lord Faviel smiles at Beatriz—the sort of smile, she thinks, that looks rehearsed.

"I confess, Princess Beatriz, we have all heard…rumors of what transpired between when you left Cellaria and when you returned, but I find myself curious about what actually happened."

Beatriz glances at Gisella uncertainly. She overheard what the servants claimed she'd gone through, but she didn't gather nearly enough information from that brief conversation to be able to spin the tale herself, or to know how much of it is in line with what Gisella wants the story to be. With Pasquale's safety at stake, Beatriz knows she has to follow Gisella's lead, as much as she might hate it.

"The princess is surely exhausted from telling that story so many times already," Gisella says with a bright smile. She claps her hands. "Oh, I have an idea—wouldn't it be fun if I told the story, as I've heard it, and you can correct me if I get anything wrong?"

"I'm sure that will be fun," Beatriz says, managing to keep the sarcasm from her voice as she reaches for her goblet of wine and takes a sip.

"So," Gisella begins, sitting up straighter in her chair. "After the traitor prince, Pasquale, forced us all into his depraved plot against his father, you ended up caught in the mess. It was so unfortunate—when Nicolo was crowned, he had every intention of pardoning you, but he feared that if Pasquale believed you'd betrayed him, he would kill you. It was his intention to have you separated at the Sororia and Fraternia and rescue you from there as soon as possible, but Pasquale stole you away before Nicolo had the chance, forcing you to return to Bessemia so he could leverage your safety for your mother's support against Nicolo."

"Hmm," Beatriz says, taking another sip of her wine and pondering the story. It's ludicrous. The "depraved plot" Giselle spoke of—to rescue Lord Savelle from the dungeon before King Cesare could use him to incite war with Temarin—had been Beatriz's idea, and one Gisella and Nicolo had been happy to go along with. And surely no one could believe that Pasquale would hurt anyone, let alone her. But supporting these lies is the only way to keep Pasquale safe. Still, every part of her rebels against saying one word. Eventually, she chokes it out. "Indeed."

"But you never stopped working against Pasquale in the interest of Cellaria," Gisella continues, lifting her wine goblet toward Beatriz in a miniature toast before taking a sip. "You and your mother were trying to figure out how best to sever your marriage to him without endangering you, your reputation, or the alliance between Bessemia and Cellaria. Then I arrived, and Pasquale was absolutely furious. He insisted your mother have me arrested and threatened to publicly proclaim you all manner of indelicate things. A harlot. A traitor. An empyrea. Your mother went along with his threats in order to protect you."

Beatriz struggles not to laugh. If Pasquale—or anyone like him—tried to blackmail the empress, they would meet with a mysterious death within the hour, and she certainly wouldn't so much as lift a finger to protect Beatriz. What's more, Beatriz is sure her mother had no hand in this story Gisella is spreading, one that paints her as a weak and easily manipulated ruler, because if she did, Gisella herself would not be long for this world.

"I fear," Beatriz says, meeting Gisella's gaze, "that my husband had begun to inherit his father's mercurial temper. I would never wish to say a bad word about the late king," she hastens to add, looking around the table with dramatically wide eyes as she bites her lip. "But I believe we all experienced that temper firsthand, did we not? There were shades of that in Pasquale, and they grew worse each passing day."

Gisella clicks her tongue. "You were so brave to withstand that for as long as you did, Princess," she says, her tone so simpering Beatriz is surprised that the others at the table seem oblivious to it, with the exception of Nicolo, who cuts a glare at his sister. Gisella ignores it, keeping her attention on Beatriz. "And luckily, with my help, we were able to convince your mother that it would be in Bessemia's best interests that your marriage to Pasquale be annulled and you marry the true king of Cellaria instead. After all, your marriage was never consummated."

There is no question in Gisella's voice, but Beatriz knows she needs that statement validated. It very well may be the only true part of the story Gisella is spinning, but Beatriz doesn't even want to give her that much. Yet again, she reminds herself it is for Pasquale's own good, to keep him safe.

"No, it wasn't," she says, her voice tight.

The Duke of Bellario clears his throat. "Forgive my indelicacy, Your Highness, but I must ask—a dozen of the late king's closest courtiers witnessed the aftermath of your wedding night."

Beatriz remembers the hasty charade she and Nicolo orchestrated that morning before King Cesare burst into their bedroom to inspect the bedsheets. It was the first time Beatriz trusted anyone apart from her sisters, and the beginning of her friendship with Pasquale. Thinking about him now causes a pang in her heart.

At least in this, though, Beatriz can simply tell the truth.

"Strawberry juice," Beatriz murmurs, lowering her gaze. "Our marriage wasn't consummated—that night or any that followed."

"If we required any further proof that my cousin was mad, surely that is it," Nicolo says, reaching out to cover Beatriz's hand with his. It takes all of Beatriz's self-control not to pull away, even as the words churn her stomach. There was a time when she wanted to be wanted by Nicolo, but not like this. The words, spoken with an audience, remind Beatriz far more of the skin-crawling comments King Cesare used to make about her than of the tentative flirtation she and Nicolo had shared and painstakingly kept private.

"Indeed," the Duke of Ribel says, leaning back in his chair. Beatriz can feel his eyes on her, but she doesn't let herself meet them. Instead, she looks to Gisella and tries not to think of Nicolo's hand on hers.

"My mother agreed, but Pasquale discovered what we were planning," Beatriz offers, able to surmise where this story is going.

"Yes," Gisella agrees, shaking her head. "While in Bessemia, he'd been seduced by the ideas of a heretical empyrea—a traitor in the midst of your mother's court: Nigellus."

The name gives Beatriz pause. If that is the story Gisella is telling, Beatriz has to assume her mother found Nigellus's body, that she and Gisella have been in touch since the escape from the palace. Beatriz expects guilt to follow the mention of the man she'd known her entire life, who had, albeit briefly, served as a mentor before Beatriz stabbed him with a shard of glass and rubbed poison into his bleeding wound. But the guilt is fleeting.

"Nigellus promised Pasquale that he could use his gift of exploiting the stars to return Cellaria to his rule, and Pasquale was thrilled to do it. He went up to Nigellus's laboratory late one night to make his wish while Nigellus brought down a star to make it come true, but little did he know that you, sensing he was up to something, followed. When you realized what he was doing, you went out on the laboratory balcony and tried to stop him, but it turned into a fight. In the struggle, you and Pasquale both tumbled off the balcony and fell six stories to the ground—a fall that should have killed you, but the stars saw in you a savior and so they protected you, and when you awoke, your eyes had become star-touched silver. Not a curse, but a blessing."

Beatriz takes another sip of her wine before smiling tightly at Gisella. "I would scarcely believe such a story myself if I hadn't lived it," she says, setting her goblet down again. An idea occurs to her, one she is sure she'll come to regret but is powerless to resist. Her smile widens. "But my dear Gigi, you're selling yourself short—I never would have known what Pasquale and Nigellus were planning if you hadn't bravely taken to the sewers to find those incriminating letters between them. I suppose Pasquale thought he'd destroyed them by tearing them up and throwing them into his chamber pot, but you weren't to be deterred, were you?" she asks, noting the shock and horror on Gisella's face, chased by the flush of embarrassment crawling up her neck. Beatriz smiles and looks at the others. "Let it be known that Gisella is a true heroine of our age—tirelessly sifting through sewage—"

"To Lady Gisella," Nicolo interrupts, sparing his red-faced sister a sympathetic look, though Beatriz could swear he's fighting a smile of his own.

"To Lady Gisella," the others echo.

Beatriz ignores Gisella for the rest of lunch, but she feels the other girl's glare throughout the meal and she knows there will be revenge coming.

When lunch is over, Nicolo offers to escort Beatriz back to her rooms, and after the stunt with Gisella, Beatriz decides not to push her luck. When Nicolo offers her his arm, she forces herself to take it, resting her fingers lightly on his brocade sleeve. As they walk inside and begin to navigate the palace halls, Beatriz keeps an eye on her surroundings, searching for anything or anyone that could potentially lead her to finding illegal stardust.

"It'll be in six days," Nicolo says, drawing her out of her thoughts. She realizes he's been talking for a few moments and tries to recall what, exactly, will be in six days. She hazards an educated guess.

"You're really in such a rush to marry me?" she asks, keeping her voice light even as her eyes scan the hall, noting servants carrying trays, courtiers she has idle tidbits of gossip on—could she leverage any of that gossip for stardust? She doubts any of it is that salacious.

"I am. Because you're searching for an escape route," Nicolo says, his voice low in her ear. "And I know you well enough to know that you'll find one, sooner rather than later."

Beatriz stops short, but Nicolo urges her to keep walking. It was easy to forget, when she was in Bessemia, just how well Nicolo manages to see through her. Even from the first night they met, when she was thoroughly drunk at her wedding to Pasquale, Nicolo looked at her like he saw who she really was, like he knew every secret she held.

He doesn't, she reminds herself. He can't. But he does know an awful lot more about her than he did when she left Cellaria, and she realizes she can't say the same about him.

"What are the details of your agreement with my mother?" she asks him. "What, exactly, did she offer you?"

Nicolo glances sideways at her, frowning. "I don't see what that has to do with you," he says.

Beatriz considers her next words carefully, hewing as close to the truth as she can to convince him of her honesty. "Of course I'm looking for an escape route, Nico," she says, making the choice to use the nickname she called him by before everything between them changed. She feels his arm flex under her fingers, notes that he likes her calling him that. "I was torn away from Pas—who, yes, might have been my husband in name only, but was my most loyal friend—and shipped back here to marry you like a pawn in a game of chess, with no say whatsoever in my future. Are you telling me that if you were in my place you wouldn't be looking for an escape of your own?"

Nicolo's jaw tightens and he doesn't answer, but Beatriz doesn't need him to. She continues.

"However," she says, "it is possible that the smartest escape route isn't out of Cellaria at all. My mother sought to use me as a pawn to further her own agenda, but to do that she also has to make me her equal—a queen in a country of my own."

"Well," Nicolo says, clearing his throat. "Queen consort."

Beatriz laughs at that. "Please, Nicolo," she says, shaking her head. "You said it yourself—you know me. And you know that if I wanted to wrest power away from you once I have that crown on my head, I could do it. Your hold on it isn't terribly strong at the moment, and I am a saint now. I daresay I could be Cellaria's sole ruler by the next full moon."

Nicolo glances around the busy corridor before making a sudden turn down a deserted hallway—a servants' corridor, Beatriz guesses—and dropping her arm. The hallway is narrow, and with no one else around, Nicolo steps close to her, crowding her against the stone wall, though he doesn't touch her. "Are you…threatening me?" he asks, sounding more bemused than concerned, though the concern is there as well. Beatriz hears it, lurking beneath the blasé surface. Rather than cower against the wall, Beatriz stands up straight, even though that puts her face inches from Nicolo's, his dark brown eyes nearly black in the dim lighting.

"Mmm," Beatriz says with a casual shrug, lowering her voice to a murmur. "It sounds awfully messy to me. It would likely involve a lot of blood—including all of yours. And, frankly, I don't want to be the sole ruler of a country. Can you blame me? You're not having fun. It appears you haven't slept in weeks."

Nicolo frowns, looking like he wants to argue that, but Beatriz silences him by placing her palm against his cheek.

"I don't want to rule Cellaria alone," she says softly. "But I won't settle for being a powerless queen consort, either. We'll rule equally, as partners."

"Partners," he says, laughing softly, though he reaches up to catch her hand, holding it fast to the side of his face. His skin is warm, the barest hint of stubble prickling her fingertips.

"Partners," Beatriz says, firmer this time. She tilts her head up toward him, her lips a hair's breadth from his. If the courtesans in Bessemia could see her now, they would be proud, Beatriz thinks. And then she goes in for the kill. "And when we are sitting side by side on our thrones, we will declare war on Bessemia."

Nicolo blinks, shock cutting through the fog of lust in his eyes. He pulls back, dropping her hand. "You want to declare war on your home country? Surely you aren't so angry at your mother that you want to do that. She is acting in your best interests."

Beatriz wants to laugh at that, but she can see the story her mother must have spun him to make him believe that. More than that, Nicolo wants to believe it. She searches for an answer that isn't far from the truth. "No matter what her motives are, my mother has betrayed me for the last time," she says. "And I want to see her pay for it. Will you help me make her pay, Nico?"

Nicolo stares at her a moment longer, as if waiting for her to laugh and tell him she's joking. But Nicolo isn't a fool. Beatriz watches his mind work around the scenario, seeing the ways going to war with Bessemia would suit him, too—namely, adding another country to his domain. If he could do that—something his predecessor tried and failed to do with Temarin—his position as king would be far more secure.

"When we struck our deal, your mother promised to keep our former trade agreement and return Gisella unharmed," he says finally. "In return, she would help to ensure that Pasquale was no longer a threat to my place on the throne."

Beatriz pulls back from Nicolo at the mention of killing Pasquale—which, as far as Nicolo knows, is what happened. She knows that if she tried to fake understanding, Nicolo would know she was manipulating him, so she lets her revulsion show on her face. She shoves his shoulder and he steps away from her, a flash of guilt crossing his face, but it's gone just as quickly as it appeared, stowed away behind his placid expression.

"I'll consider your offer," Nicolo tells her, his voice stiff and formal once more.

"You mean you'll run it by Gisella," Beatriz replies, rolling her eyes. "Perhaps I will—surely I'd be better off negotiating with the true power behind the throne anyway."

Beatriz turns away from him, starting back down the hallway he pulled her through, but Nicolo's hand grabs her wrist—firmly, but not so tight that she would have difficulty getting away if she wanted to. For the moment, though, she allows it, turning back to him with raised eyebrows.

"Keep this conversation between us," he says before glancing around the deserted hallway and back to her. He sighs and his voice softens. "Please."

Interesting,Beatriz thinks. She's seen signs of a fracture between Nicolo and his sister since Nicolo became king, after he showed up drunk at Beatriz's window to try to convince her to marry him—a reckless move Gisella had no part of. The fracture deepened when Nicolo sent Gisella to Bessemia in person to renegotiate the treaty, leading to her being taken hostage. Beatriz has assumed that now that they've been reunited, whatever disagreements they had would have faded, the way her own conflicts with Daphne faded as soon as she heard her sister's voice in her head, apologizing and coming together for just a few moments, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

"Fine," Beatriz says. "But I want an answer to my proposal before I marry you."

"Or else what, Beatriz?" Nicolo asks, his voice more curious than scathing.

"Or else nothing," Beatriz says. She feels as if she is wearing half a dozen masks, all piled on top of one another, but for a moment she lets one slip, showing a flash of vulnerability. That, too, feels like a mask, though, a way of disarming Nicolo, convincing him she's vulnerable. She bites her lip and looks away from him. "I would simply like marrying you to be something I choose, whatever the reasons behind that choice may be. I thought perhaps you might like that too."

Nicolo doesn't answer, but after a second he loosens his grip on her arm and Beatriz twists away from him, walking down the hall the way they came. In the brief moment before she steps back into the main hall, she allows herself a triumphant smile, feeling as if she's scored a sorely needed point in this game she still doesn't fully understand.