The Girl of Fire and Thorns Complete Collection (34 page)

His words sober me. I look up, worried that I’ve angered him, but the smile remains, and his eyes hold a genuine crinkle.

I smile back. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty—”

“Alejandro.”

I swallow. “Alejandro.” The sympathy in his face breaks something inside me, and words tumble from my mouth. “Papá and Alodia always said I’d marry for the good of Orovalle. I accepted it years ago. Still, I’m only fif—sixteen. I’d hoped to have some time. . . . And I didn’t expect . . . I mean, you’re very . . .” I assure myself that his expression remains unmocking. “You’re very kind,” I finish lamely.

He moves to the window seat. “Hand me a pillow?”

I pull one from the bed, a round thing with a long red fringe, and I shake the petals off before tossing it at him. He catches it easily, then lifts long legs onto the seat and clutches the pillow at his abdomen. With his bent knees, his open gaze, he doesn’t seem so much older.

“So,” he says, looking at the ceiling. I’m glad he is willing to start the conversation. “Is there anything about me or about Joya d’Arena you would like to know?”

I think about this. I already know that his first wife died in childbirth, that his son is six years old, and that Invierne harries his borders more doggedly than our own with its need to acquire a seaport. Joya is mostly desert, but rich in silver and jewels, in cattle along the coastline. There isn’t much I don’t know. Except . . .

“What is it?” he prompts.

“Alejandro . . . what do you want? From me?”

His smile disappears. Briefly, I worry that I’ve irritated him, the way my questions always irritate Alodia, but then he moves his head and his jaw catches the light; it curves so perfectly into his hairline.

He sighs. “Our marriage is part of a treaty I made with your father. And there are things you can help me with. But mostly . . .” He runs his hand through thick black hair. “Mostly, I could use a friend.” Alejandro looks me in the eye and waits for my response.

Friend
. My tutor, Master Geraldo, is a friend, I suppose. Nurse Ximena and Lady Aneaxi, though they are more like mothers. I realize I could use one too. “Friend” is a comforting word, and a painful one, but it doesn’t sound nearly so frightening as “wife.”

I find it exhilarating that I can help him in some way, yet odd too. “It seems to me,” I point out, feeling a little braver, “that the king of the richest country in the world would have no trouble making friends.”

He looks up, startled. “Your sister says you have a way of getting to the soul of a matter.”

I almost scowl, but I realize that Alodia’s words may not have been criticism.

“Tell me, Lucero-Elisa.” His lips curve into that gentle smile that already feels familiar. “Do you find it easy to make friends? As a princess? As the bearer of the only Godstone in a hundred years?”

I know exactly what he means. Remembering the conde’s son who tried to kiss both my sister and I those years ago, I say, “You don’t trust anyone, do you?”

He shakes his head. “Very few.”

I nod. “I trust my nurse, Ximena, and my lady-in-waiting, Aneaxi. And Juana-Alodia too, in a way.”

“What do you mean, in a way?”

I have to consider this before answering. “She’s my sister. She wants what is best for Orovalle, but . . .” Something closes my mouth. Maybe it’s the intensity of his eyes that darken from warm cinnamon to near black. I never hesitate to grumble about Juana-Alodia with my nurse. But with Alejandro . . .

“But?” he prompts.

His face is so intent on mine, so interested in what I have to say, that I blurt, “She hates me.”

King Alejandro says nothing at first. I feel I have disappointed him, and I want to suck the words back into my mouth.

Then: “Why do you think that?”

I don’t answer. Several candles have sputtered out, and I’m glad because it is easier to avoid his eyes in the flickering shadows.

“Elisa?”

Tell him about the Godstone,
I say to myself.
Tell him that Alodia is envious. That she is angry because I am already sixteen but show no inclination to fulfill my destiny as God’s chosen.
But his open gaze commands my honesty, and I say to him what I have told no one.

“I killed our mother.”

His eyes narrow. “What do you mean?”

My lips tremble, but I inhale through my nose and distance myself from the words. “Alodia says Mamá miscarried twice. So when she became pregnant with me, she took to bed. She prayed to God for a son, a prince.” I have to grit my teeth for a moment before I can continue. “It was a difficult pregnancy, and she was weak, and after I was born there was a lot of blood. Alodia says that when they placed me in her arms, Mamá saw that I was a girl. And dark skinned and fat.” I feel the cold edges and aching hardness of my jaw. “And grief overcame her, and she breathed her last.”

“Your sister said this? When? How long ago?” Though his questions are pressing, his voice remains kind, like he really cares.

But I can’t quite remember.

He raises one eyebrow. “A year ago?” he prods. “A few years ago? Maybe when you were both very young?”

I frown, trying to place the moment. It was when Alodia and I still studied together. Our heads had nearly touched as we poured over a musty copy of the
Common Man’s Guide to Service
. When Master Geraldo asked her to explain the history of the Godstone, I interrupted by reciting the passage word for word. It was after that tutoring session, while Alodia pursued me down the steps to the kitchens, that she told me the story of Mamá’s death.

I don’t want him to know how long I’ve harbored this memory, so I say nothing.

He just stares, and I want to slither beneath the sunburst quilt. “You think she still blames you for your mother’s death?”

“She hasn’t indicated otherwise.” My voice is too sharp and hard, like a petulant child’s, but I refuse to lower my gaze.

“I think you’d be surprised,” he says.

“At what?”

“At a lot of things, Elisa.”

Lots of things would surprise me, it’s true. It’s easy to be surprised when no one tells you anything. And with a start, I realize I still don’t know what he wants from me. He could have found a “friend” in Alodia, or any number of young noblewomen. The king brushed off my questions as if I were a child, just like Papá and Alodia always do, and like a twitterpated fool, I let him.

Before I can muster the courage to press the matter, he says, “I suppose we should sleep sometime tonight, since we’re traveling tomorrow.” He stands and begins flicking rose petals from the quilt.

I tell him, “You can have the bed; I’ll take the window seat.”

“The bed is large enough for us both. I’ll sleep atop the quilt,” he says.

I freeze. Then: “Fine.” I sweep the remaining petals from the bed and pull the covers back. Sleep will be long in coming, I am sure. Not even the pulsing jewel in my belly can convince me to take off my wedding
terno
to get comfortable, and I don’t imagine that sensing Alejandro beside me all night will help. I blow out the candles on my nightstand and slide between the sheets, my back toward my husband.

The mattress shudders as Alejandro settles his weight next to me. I hear his forced breath as he extinguishes the candles on his side. Suddenly I feel warm lips on my cheek. “I almost forgot. Happy birthday, Lucero-Elisa,” he whispers.

I sigh into the dark. I thought the worst thing that could happen would be for my new husband to turn away from me in disgust. I was wrong. It is so much worse that he listens to me, sees me. That, in addition to being beautiful, he is kind.

It will be too, too easy to love him.

I am awake, eyes wide, heart fluttering, long after the last candle on the mantel flickers out, long after the man next to me settles into the steady, even breathing of sleep.

Our carriage heads a long procession that awaits beyond the cobbled courtyard. King Alejandro’s personal guards stand tall beside it, their dark faces inscrutable. To reach them, we must pass the fountains and the jacaranda trees, through a gauntlet of nobles and servants armed with birdseed and rose petals. Alejandro reaches out to take my hand, but Papá grabs me first and enfolds me in an embrace.

“Elisa,” he whispers into my hair. “I will miss you.”

It nearly undoes me. In the last day or two, I have had more affection from my father than in the entire year previous. He is always so busy, so distant. Is it only by giving me up that he finds it in himself to care?

“I’ll miss you too,” I manage, and the words cut hard with their truth. I know I’ll never be as dear to him as Alodia, but I love him just the same.

He releases me, and my sister glides forward. She wears a simple gown of blue silk layers that drop beautifully from slender shoulders, and her face is perfect and composed, like a sculpture. It nears mine—I smell her jasmine perfume—and I see tiny lines around her brown eyes. Worry lines. Strange that I have not noticed them before.

Alodia grips my shoulders with strong fingers. “Elisa,” she whispers. “Listen well.”

Something about her manner, the intensity of her gaze perhaps, causes me to block out the sounds of tinkling fountains and buzzing crowds to focus on her voice.

“Trust no one, Elisa, save Alejandro and Nurse Ximena and Aneaxi.” Her voice is pitched so low, I doubt even our father can hear. I nod, feeling suddenly warm, and the Godstone flashes hot and hard. Is it a warning? “I’m sending pigeons with you,” she continues. “Use them if you need to contact me quickly. When you arrive, do not be afraid to assert yourself. Do not be afraid to be queen.”

She places her cheek against mine and strokes my hair, sighing. “Be well, Elisa, little sister.”

I just stand there, stunned. My husband grips my hand and pulls me through the crowd of well-wishers toward our carriage. I know I should look up and smile. I should show the nobility a final, glorious view of their princess as she rides off into eternal happiness. It’s what Alodia would do. But my vision is too blurred with tears, my face too hot, because my sister hasn’t embraced me that way since we were children in the nursery together.

The carriage step is too high to navigate comfortably. The foreign guards look on as Alejandro steps in and then pulls me up beside him. I give him a grateful smile, noticing the birdseed and rose petals that have stuck in his black hair. I put a hand to my head and wonder how long it will take for Ximena to brush the mess from my own hair. My nurse is already ensconced with Lady Aneaxi in the rearmost carriage, and suddenly, I can’t wait to see them again, to let them fuss over me. I resolve to seek them out at my earliest opportunity.

The seat is plush blue velvet, but it lurches hard against my rear as we set off. The
nobleza d’oro
cheers heartily, and for a moment, the air is a haze of seed and flowers and mad waving. The carriage window sits high enough that I can see across the courtyard, over the celebrating horde, to my father and sister. The morning sun is high now, casting a golden glow on the adobe of my sprawling palace, on the walls of beautiful Amalur. I drink in the sight of archways with their green creepers, of cobbled paths and tiled fountains. Mostly, though, I am transfixed by my sister. Her eyes are closed and her lips move as if in prayer. The sun shimmers against her cheeks, against the moisture there.

Chapter 3

A
LEJANDRO seems content to bear my company in silence. I fold my hands into my lap to keep them still and pretend to be indifferent while the carriage rattles away from my home. I imagine all the ways to start a conversation. Alodia always comments about shipyard construction, or the price of wool, but such topics would feel odd in my mouth. I should ask him about our marriage, and why my sister demands such caution, but I find it less frightening just to be silent.

The carriage lurches to a stop. The door swings open. Sunlight pours in around the enormous silhouette of a bodyguard, and I raise my forearm against the glare. Confused, I turn to my husband.

“It’s all right, Elisa,” he says. “The guard will show you to your carriage.”

My carriage?
I try to puzzle this through. “My . . .”

“It would be foolish for my wife and me to travel in the same carriage.”

My face tingles at his words—“my wife”—even as I parse his meaning. I’ve read of such things. In times of war, important figureheads must never consolidate targets. I nod and take the guard’s hand. A rough hand, strong and unkind.

“I’ll check in on you when we stop to eat,” my husband says.

We step down and away from the carriage, the unkind guard and I, and he leads me toward the back of our dusty procession. Plumeria trees, heavy with white blossoms, border the road, and I can no longer see the palace. My mind whirls with analysis, as if I were in Master Geraldo’s study again, engrossed in the
Belleza Guerra
.

Never consolidate targets.

I freeze and look up at the guard. His face is youthful and handsome, in spite of its hard lines and sculpted mustache. Irritation flickers in dark eyes, but he composes himself quickly. “My lady, we must get you to your carriage.” His voice is rough and strained, as if speech comes rarely.

Do not be afraid to be queen
, Alodia had said. “You will address me as Your Highness.” My voice is steady and confident, like my sister’s. I feel ridiculous. “After the coronation, you will address me as Your Majesty.”

He raises one brow. “Of course, Your Highness. Forgive me.” But his look is skeptical, mocking.

“What is your name?”

“Lord Hector, of His Majesty’s personal guard.”

“I’m glad to meet you.” I flash a courteous smile, the way Alodia would. “Lord Hector, what are we in danger from?”

My face warms and my heart drums in my chest. At any moment, he’ll recognize this bluff of insane confidence.

But his brow softens, and he nods. “It is not my place to give details, Highness. But I will mention your question to His Majesty.”

I can’t bring myself to prod further. He ushers me toward the back, where my ladies have already opened their carriage door. It’s covered in dust from being at the rear, but their arms are outstretched, waiting to help me step up.