Wedding Hells (Schooled in Magic Book 8) (37 page)

“Then we take steps,” Imaiqah said.

Alassa laughed, harshly. “Do you want to know the punishment for encompassing the death of the heir apparent? I believe it’s something lingering in boiling oil!”

She jabbed a finger towards the rat. “That...that
bitch
has been sleeping with my father!”

“There’s no way you can kill the child or Alicia without risking your position,” Imaiqah said, keeping her voice very calm. “There may be another way to manage it.”

“She may not want to marry your father at all,” Frieda put in.

Alassa rounded on her. “And what do
you
know about it?”

Frieda didn’t flinch. “Your father would have been delighted to know he’d actually managed to sire another child,” she said. Emily realized that someone must have filled her in on King Randor’s near-complete infertility at some point. “Male or female, he would have been delighted. She knew she was pregnant, so she could have gone to him at any moment and told him the good news. That she didn’t suggests she doesn’t actually want to marry him or bear his child.”

“She
is
bearing his child,” Alassa snarled.

“Yes, and she could have married him at any moment,” Frieda said, evenly. She gave Alassa a look that suggested she thought Alassa was being idiotic. “The fact she didn’t suggests she had something else in mind.”

Alassa stamped her foot. “She could have swallowed something that would have induced a miscarriage!”

Imaiqah frowned. “And where would she get it? Even if she knew what to take, she isn’t exactly used to finding stuff for herself - and whoever she asked would report to the king.”

Emily held up a hand. “I’m going to take her down to my rooms, turn her back to normal” - she ignored Alassa’s bitter snort - “and talk to her. You three are going to remain here and try to calm down.”

“I’m perfectly calm,” Alassa hissed. “That child is a civil war waiting to happen!”

“So you said,” Emily said.

She picked up the rat and headed for the door. Alicia had to be
completely
terrified by now, particularly after she’d heard Alassa’s threats. There was no one outside, much to Emily’s relief, as she carried the rat down to her room, opened the door and placed the rat on the carpet. She secured the wards, raised a couple of new privacy wards and then contemplated the spells surrounding the rat. Being unable to move a muscle had to be just as maddening as being in a new form.

And Jade’s wards should have sensed Alassa’s spells and sounded the alert
, she thought, as she gently touched her finger against the frozen fur.
A hundred guards should have been dispatched at once, unless he thought it better to handle it himself. Did he tune the wards to ignore Alassa? But her father would want to know what she was doing with her magic...

“Probably not a problem right now,” she said, out loud. “I’ll check the wards later.”

Bracing herself, she looked down at the rat. “I’m going to release the spells, one by one,” she said. She knew Alicia could hear her, unless she’d already lost her mind. It was all too easy to believe that the rat was already dead and cold. “Please don’t run or do anything stupid. Please.”

She braced herself, then released the freeze spell. Alicia twitched, turning to face her, but otherwise remained still. Emily nodded once, then undid the second spell. Alassa, thankfully, had used a prank spell rather than anything more dangerous. Alicia might have been terrified and humiliated, but she should be fine. There was a flash of light and Alicia, stark naked, appeared in front of her. Emily glanced at her belly and frowned when she saw no sign of a bulge. Unless Alicia was lucky enough to be able to carry a baby to term without showing any signs of pregnancy, she couldn’t be more than three months pregnant.

“It’s going to be fine,” she said. Lady Barb had told her to be as reassuring as possible when comforting patients. Given everything that had happened, she suspected it was wasted effort, but she tried anyway. “Really.”

“She’s going to kill me,” Alicia said.

“I’ll try to talk her out of it,” Emily said. She held her hand above Alicia’s bare chest for a moment, using a simple spell to check on the foetus. She’d half-wondered if Alicia had been wrong - it wasn’t as if she could go to a doctor for a pregnancy test - but it was immediately clear that she definitely
was
pregnant. “The baby doesn’t seem to be harmed.”

Alicia shuddered, but said nothing.

Emily rose to her feet, poured a glass of water and passed it to Alicia. “Once you drink that,” she said as she searched for something for Alicia to wear, “I want you to tell me what happened.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Alicia said, sipping her water.

“You don’t have a choice,” Emily said, picking up a dressing gown and tossing it towards Alicia. She hadn’t thought King Randor would try to seduce a girl barely a year older than his daughter, but he evidently had. All of a sudden, the private meetings between the king and Lady Regina took on a more ominous tone. “I need to know everything.”

Alicia stared at her, bitterly. “My father didn’t Confirm me before he died,” she said, as she pulled the dressing gown on. “I could have taken the barony at once, but no...I had to be sent to the court and placed in the care of the king while his men ran my inheritance. What could
I
do at court?”

Emily nodded, remembering Alassa’s explanation. King Randor had effectively inherited guardianship of the unconfirmed children after their parents had been beheaded for their role in the plot against him. He could use them as he saw fit, even to the point of marrying them off to his cronies as a reward for good service. Alicia...wouldn’t have any say at all in who married her. All she could do was wait for him to decide her fate.

“I see,” she said, finally. She couldn’t help feeling sorry for the poor girl. “And then?”

“I thought if I kept talking to him, he’d give me my rights without a husband,” Alicia said, angrily. “He seemed happy to talk to me. And...and then he seduced me and I let him!”

At least it wasn’t rape
, Emily thought. But was that actually true? Randor was in a vastly superior position, perfectly capable of organizing Alicia’s marriage to a complete monster if she displeased him.
She might have feared to say no
.

“We just kept meeting and doing it afterwards,” Alicia wailed. She started to shake as tears ran down her cheeks. “I didn’t know I could get pregnant! He told me he couldn’t have children!”

“Ill-luck,” Emily said tiredly, as she passed Alicia a handkerchief to wipe her eyes. “He had good reason to believe he was telling the truth.”

It was, she had to admit,
incredibly
bad luck, at least for Alicia. Years of trying to have another child, years of moving between mistresses, years of coming to terms with the fact that Alassa would be the only child he’d ever have...Randor had finally managed to impregnate another woman,
after
Alassa had already been Confirmed. There would be aristocrats who would line up behind Alassa in defense of her rights - and in hopes of avoiding a precedent that could be used to undermine their positions.

She rubbed her eyes. Alassa was right. Alicia’s child was an open invitation to civil war.

Alassa isn’t likely to stand still and let her claim be stolen
, Emily thought. Alassa was simply too stubborn to surrender the throne easily, even if part of her didn’t really want to keep it.
And she has powerful magic - and Jade.

She looked at Alicia. “Do you love him?”

“I don’t think so,” Alicia said. “He’s the king, of course, and my lover, but I don’t think I love him. I...”

She cleared her throat. “I wanted to talk to you because you might understand my position,” she said, pleadingly. “When I become visibly pregnant, I will be the laughing stock of the aristocracy; everyone will
know
I sullied myself...”

“I would have thought social shame was the least of your problems at the moment,” Emily commented. How much
choice
had Alicia
had
? King Randor was her guardian, not an unattached man. He could have pressured her into bed with him easily, if he’d wished, dangling the barony over her head as a reward. “If you don’t think you love him...”

Alicia cleared her throat. “But if I marry the king...”

“You’ll be trapped, like Queen Marlena, and incur the enmity of his daughter,” Emily finished, crossly.
She
wouldn’t have wanted to marry the king - or any king - even before she’d discovered what had been bothering Alicia. “Alassa would be a very unpleasant stepdaughter.”

Alicia smiled, rather wanly. “I’d hate to have to discipline her.”

Emily settled back on her haunches, thinking hard. The child could not be aborted without risking complete disaster - and even if she’d been willing to take the risk, the child was innocent. There was no reason why it should suffer for the crimes of its parents. And yet, Alicia could not have a child out of wedlock without destroying her reputation and she certainly couldn’t marry King Randor without risking her own life. Alassa would be unlikely to let matters rest when she had the magic and will to destroy the competition.

“Tell me something,” she said, after a moment. “Does the king know you’re pregnant?”

“I haven’t told him,” Alicia said. “But...”

She swallowed, hard. “My monthlies stopped, Lady Emily. He’ll know.”

“If the maids reported it to him,” Emily said. Queen Elizabeth’s maids had monitored her periods too, even though
she’d
been their ruler. There was no reason King Randor couldn’t order his maids to keep an eye on one of his subjects. “I think Queen Marlena
does
know.”

And she may have confided in Lady Barb,
she added silently.
She may even be waiting until the wedding is over before doing something drastic
.

Emily looked down at the floor. “There are two options,” she said, carefully. “The first one is that you go away somewhere, have the child and give him or her up for adoption. You would never see the child again, but your position would be undamaged.”

“The king would never let me go,” Alicia said. “You’d have to tell him
something
.”

Emily swore under her breath. Alicia was right. King Randor needed to keep her under his watchful eye, just in case she decided to contract a marriage with someone else and present him with a
de facto
claimant to her lands. Or possibly being kidnapped, raped, and forced into marriage. She shuddered at the thought. The aristocracy might look genteel, but the beast was barely hidden under their pretty dresses and gentle manners. She considered, briefly, simply taking Alicia out of the castle herself, but Randor would start a search the moment his spies reported her disappearance.

And I wouldn’t know where to take her
, she thought.
Unless I took her to Cockatrice...

“And he’d want the child, if you told him you were pregnant,” Emily said. Randor’s entire kingdom rested on a single girl. If something happened to Alassa, civil war was bound to break out, sooner rather than later. Randor would want a spare heir even if Alassa remained the Crown Princess. “Damn it to hell.”

She took a breath. “The second option is to get married to someone else,” she said. It wasn’t a good solution, but it was the best she could think of. “A quick marriage, one that will give the child legitimacy without threatening Alassa’s claim to the throne.”

Alicia stared at her. “The king would have to authorize my marriage,” she said, finally. “He could pick anyone. Anyone at all.”

“Then we have to go speak to him,” Emily said. She smiled as she drew on a quote from Earth. Heinlein would have approved, she thought. “When faced with two bad choices, accept the least hazardous and cope with it unflinchingly.”

“Very profound,” Alicia said. “And what if he says I have to marry
him
?”

“I won’t let him,” Emily said. Even if she hadn’t liked Alassa, she knew
someone
had to stand up for Alicia. “It would tear the kingdom apart.”

“There isn’t anyone who dares stand up to the king,” Alicia said.

“I’ve killed two necromancers and a combat sorcerer,” Emily said. She took one of her spare dresses from the hangers and tossed it to Alicia. The older girl wouldn’t want to be wandering the corridor in a dressing gown. “I dare say I can talk to him without flinching.”

She looked at the clock and frowned. Eleven bells; late evening. It felt later. “Shall we go find him?”

Alicia frowned as she pulled the dress over her head. “He’ll be in his bedroom, won’t he?”

Emily shrugged. “One of his personal staff will know where to find him,” she said, as she rose to her feet. “Where did you...do stuff with him?”

“His offices, normally,” Alicia said. “He has a private bedroom next to his study.”

“This castle gets bigger every day,” Emily muttered. She cast a glamor around the nightgown to hide her curves from view. “How many private sets of rooms does the king have?”

“I don’t know,” Alicia said. “But my father was fond of secret passageways and hidden chambers. I used to go exploring until the governesses told me I had to stay in my rooms and learn.”

Emily nodded and held out a hand. “Let’s go, shall we?”

Outside, Nightingale was waiting for them.

“Lady Emily, Lady Alicia,” he said, calmly. He bowed so low his nose brushed the stone floor. “King Randor demands your immediate presence.”

“And were you about to knock?” Emily asked. The wards had to have sounded the alert, then; King Randor must have told Jade and the guards not to intervene. Had he been spying on the game? “Or were you waiting for us to emerge?”

Nightingale ignored the question. “The king demands...”

“Our immediate presence,” Emily finished. She would have welcomed a nap before meeting the king, but she knew it was impossible. “Lead on, if you please.”