A Kiss for Queens

“Honestly? I’m scared,” he said. “No matter how many battles we fight in, it never seems to get easier. I’m scared for myself, for my friends, about whether my parents will be caught up in it all… and I’m scared for you.”

“I think we just found out that you don’t need to be worried about me,” Kate said.

“You’re better with a sword than anyone I know,” Will agreed, “but I still worry. What if there’s a sword you don’t see? What if there’s some random musket shot? War is chaos.”

It was, but that was part of what Kate liked about it. There was something about being at the heart of a battle that just made sense in a way the rest of the world sometimes didn’t. She didn’t say that, though.

“It will be all right,” she said, instead. “I’ll be fine. You’ll be working with the artillery, not at the heart of any charges. Sophia would never allow her people to loot, or to attack ordinary people, so your parents will be safe. It will be all right.”

“Just… stay safe,” Will said. “There are so many things I want to have time to say to you, and do with you, and—”

“We’ll have time for all of them,” Kate promised. “Now, you should go. You know Lord Cranston gets annoyed if I keep you from your duties too long.”

Will nodded, looking as though he might kiss her again, but didn’t. Another thing that would have to wait until after the battle. Kate watched him go, stretching out what there was of her talent to take in the thoughts and feelings of the soldiers there.

She could feel their fears and their worries. Every man there knew that the world would erupt in violence come the dawn, and most were wondering if they would come through that chaos in one piece. Some were thinking of friends, others of families. A few were going through possibility after possibility, as if thinking of the danger ahead would stop it from happening.

Kate was looking forward to it. In battle, the world made a kind of sense.

“Tomorrow, I will kill the people who hurt my family,” she promised. “I’ll cut through them, and I’ll take the throne for Sophia.”

Tomorrow, they would go into Ashton, and they would take back everything that was supposed to be theirs.

CHAPTER FIVE

From the steps of the Masked Goddess’s temple, standing poised at their summit as he waited for the start of his mother’s funeral, Rupert watched the sunset. It spread in shades of red, hues that reminded him too much of the blood he’d shed. It shouldn’t bother him. He was stronger than that, better than that. Even so, every look down at his hands brought with it memories of the way his mother’s blood had stained them, every moment of silence brought back the memory of her gasps as he’d stabbed her.

“You!” Rupert said, pointing to one of the augers and minor priests who crowded around the entrance. “What does this sunset portend?”

“Blood, your highness. A sunset like this means blood.”

Rupert took a half step forward, planning to strike the man for his insolence, but Angelica was there to catch him, her hand brushing across his skin in a promise he wished there was more time to make good on.

“Ignore him,” she said. “He knows nothing. No one knows anything, unless you tell them.”

“He said blood,” Rupert complained. His mother’s blood. The pain of that flickered through him. He’d lost his mother, the grief of it almost a surprise to him. He’d expected to feel nothing but relief at her death, or perhaps joy that the throne was finally his. Instead… Rupert felt broken inside, empty and guilty in a way he’d never felt before.

“Of course he said blood,” Angelica replied. “There’s to be a battle tomorrow. Any fool could see blood in a sunset with enemy ships moored offshore.”

“Plenty have,” Rupert said. He pointed at another man, an auger who seemed to be using some complex clockwork device to scrawl calculations on a scrap of parchment. “You, tell me how the battle will go tomorrow!”

The man looked up, a wild look in his eyes. “The signs are not good for the kingdom, your majesty. The gears—”

This time, Rupert did strike out, sending the man sprawling with a booted foot. If Angelica hadn’t been there to pull him back, he might have kept kicking until there was nothing left but a pile of broken bones.

“Consider how it would look, doing that at the funeral,” Angelica said.

It was enough to get Rupert to hold back, at least. “I don’t see why the priests even let the likes of those onto the steps of their temple. I thought they killed witches.”

“Maybe it’s a sign that these have no talent,” Angelica suggested, “and that you shouldn’t listen to them.”

“Maybe,” Rupert said, but there had been others. It seemed that everyone had an opinion on the battle to come. There had been augers enough back at the palace, both real and merely nobles who liked to guess at sunsets or the flight of birds.

Right then, though, this funeral, his mother’s funeral, was the only thing that mattered.

Apparently, there were those who didn’t understand that. “Your highness, your highness!”

Rupert spun toward the man who came running. He wore a soldier’s uniform, bowing low.

“The correct form of address for a king is ‘your majesty,’” Rupert said.

“Your majesty, forgive me,” the man said. He rose from his bow. “But I have an urgent message!”

“What is it?” Rupert demanded. “Can’t you see that I am attending my mother’s funeral?”

“Forgive me, your… majesty,” the man said, obviously only just catching himself in time. “But our generals request your presence.”

Of course they did. Fools who had not seen the route to defeating the New Army now wanted to gain his favor by showing how many ideas they had for dealing with the threat that had come to them.

“I will come, or not, after the funeral,” Rupert said.

“They said to stress the importance of the threat,” the man said, as if those words would somehow move Rupert to action. To some kind of obedience.

“I will decide its importance,” Rupert said. At the moment, nothing felt important compared to the funeral that was about to happen. Let Ashton burn for all he cared; he would bury his mother.

“Yes, your majesty, but—”

Rupert stopped the man with a look. “The generals want to pretend that everything must happen now,” he said. “That there is no plan without me. That I’m needed if we are to defend the city. I have a reply for them: do your jobs.”

“Your majesty?” the messenger said, in a tone that made Rupert want to punch him.

“Do your jobs, soldier,” he said. “These men claim to be our finest generals, but they can’t organize the defense of one city? Tell them that I will come to them when I am ready to. In the meantime, they will see to it. Now go, before I lose my temper.”

The man hesitated a moment, then bowed again. “Yes, your majesty.”

He hurried off. Rupert watched him go, then turned back to Angelica.

“You’re being quiet,” he said. Her expression was perfectly neutral. “You don’t agree with me burying my mother either?”

Angelica put a hand on his arm. “I think that if you need to do this, you should, but we can’t neglect the dangers, either.”

“What dangers?” Rupert demanded. “We have generals, don’t we?”

“Generals from a dozen different forces stitched together to form an army,” Angelica pointed out. “No two of whom will agree on who is in charge without someone there to set an overall strategy. Our fleet sits too close to the city, our walls are relics rather than defenses, and our enemy is a dangerous one.”

“Be careful,” Rupert warned her. His grief was closing around him like a fist, and the only way Rupert knew to respond to it was with anger.

Angelica moved forward to kiss him. “I am being careful, my love, my king. We’ll take the time to do this, but soon, you’ll need to give them direction, so that you have a kingdom to rule.”