Astore put his hands on her shoulders. “I will keep you very well, or even, if you like, arrange for escort to your mother’s people. But here, near power, you are a danger to yourself and this entire island. And can be no fit wife for me, because of what you’ve done to yourself.”
“You would put me aside in favor of drooling babies?” she murmured. “Choose children of your own line over ambition and a crown? Oh, I misjudged you, Col.”
“Yes, you did. I have ever wanted that crown, and I mean to fight for it, still. But what is the point of a crown without a legacy?”
“Power, together, to make a legacy for every child on this island, Col.” The depth of her disappointment in him surprised her, and that surprise stirred matching anger.
“You lied to me from the beginning. You never wanted me. You have never wanted any man. Though you professed to want a king. What kind of partnership is that, to have worked together based on such a lie?”
Baring her teeth in a mean smile, Gaela said, “I wanted a king—thatmuch was true. But I have always intended to be that king myself, and toward that, on this cursed island, my stars provided a singular path. I have what I needed from you now, you foolish man, and I can finish the rest myself, without the need to share my crown.”
“I loved you,” he snarled, as if it would make a difference to her.
Gaela ended her smile. “I respected you, but no more.”
His face blazed red with his outrage, and he yelled again, “Seize this woman!”
Gaela eyed his retainers. She met their gazes with her own severity. “No one here has the authority to arrest the ascendant queen of Innis Lear, Col Astore, but she can challenge you herself.”
He put his hand again on the pommel of his sword. “I would die before I let you drag me down.”
“Same, husband.” Gaela reached, and the soldier Dig was at her side, putting her sword in her hand.
She did not wait, but swung it instantly, and with all the strength of her body. Astore barely blocked in time, stumbling. Gaela followed through with her shoulder, knocking him aside. He grunted, and before he could react, she drew the knife from her belt and stabbed it expertly between the buckles of steel plate, directly under his arm.
Astore’s mouth gaped open, and he looked down at her hand on the hilt.
Gaela pulled the knife free. Blood gushed through the quilted wool of his gambeson, pouring red and hot. She had learned from him, that very first year, how to always find a mortal stab.
“You misjudged me, too, Col,” Gaela murmured, opening her arm for him to slump against her. She caught him under his opposite shoulder, and carefully lowered Astore to his knees. “You always underestimated my ambition and my commitment. I would do anything for my crown and island, even let you paw at me, let you put your seed in me, thinking that it might ever take root. You’ve looked at me since I was a little girl like I was the thing to bring you what you wanted. But always you were the tool to bring memine.I married you, and then I became you. Remember that as you die. Your honor is to have made the strongest king Innis Lear has ever seen.”
Breath wheezed from his lips, but Astore couldn’t catch enough air to speak.
“Men of Astore and Lear!” Gaela cried, standing with her dying husband against her hip, the murder weapon brandished and dripping a single long line of blood onto her wrist. “You have until his blood stops running to choose. Against me, and there will be a massacre here today, all the legacyof the fine Astore spirit become one of death and waste. Orwithme, and we will ride out this afternoon to take all of Astore’s ancient lands back in the name of our duke, husband to the new king of Innis Lear.”
A gasping silence answered her first, and Gaela gripped her husband’s neck, wishing for battle, hoping the men chose poorly, that she would be forced to throw Astore’s body to the ground and let her rage free. To let herself go, to finally unleash and fight until triumphant or dead.
Her smile was fearsome to behold.
Astore held on to her hips, face pressed to her side. She stroked his hair, tugged it in the way she’d learned he liked, during their long marriage. But he was past such desire; he slid forward, blood spattering the packed earth as he slowly fell, but caught himself on his palms. His body shook with effort; Astore collapsed.
Several cries of sorrow rang out, but none leapt forward to attack.
More of Gaela’s retainers had by now pushed into the forecourt, pressing hard and crowding.
“Gaela Lear!” yelled Dig in his bearish roar.
“Gaela Lear!”
“Gaela Lear!”
She held up her hand for silence. It fell, swollen and ready to burst again with further violence. Gaela shook her head in mock sadness.
Finally, one of the duke’s first captains knelt, drawing his sword. He held the blade in one gloved hand, then kissed its guard. “Gaela of Astore and Lear!” he said, opening devoted eyes to her.
Gaela nodded regally, then crouched to grasp her husband’s shoulder and roll him onto his back. He groaned. Blood coated his front and side. His chest hardly rose. Gaela touched his mouth gently, brushed her knuckles along his jaw. Strange how numb she felt, though a recognizable flutter of angry grief waited behind the coursing thrill in her heart. She would feel it soon: a sorrow of necessity, a lost ally. Men were fools, with backward priorities always turning their heads. Astore would have gained everything by letting Gaela reign as she wished, if only he had curbed his own desires.
Then the duke of Astore died, and his wife placed the knife that had done it across his heart.
