Page 148 of The Thirteenth Child
His words were madness. “I don’t want that. I don’t—”
“Oh, of course you do, Hazel,” he snapped. “Everyone does. Girls clamor outside the palace grounds. Dukes travel from afar with their pretty daughters in tow. Scullery maids and kitchen wenches pourout of the woodwork, positioning and propositioning themselves to get closer and closer.”
“That’s not what I’ve done,” I stated, my voice flat and cold.
Marnaigne snorted, unconvinced.
“It’s not,” I repeated with insistence. “You brought me here. You kept me here. I didn’t even…I didn’t even particularly like Leopold when I met him. I thought he was pompous and entitled and—”
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you,” the king said firmly, and despite everything, my breath caught and a flush of heat broke over my cheeks.
Had he?
“Watching, watching, always watching. And I’ve seen the way you look at him,” Marnaigne went on, his eyes flickering with too bright a shine. “So you do this thing for me, thisone little thing,and he’s yours. I will give it my blessing. I will welcome you into my family with open arms.”
I nearly laughed aloud, stunned that he’d think I might wish to be any part of his family after all I’d witnessed that day.
“I don’t want your bribes,” I said, keeping my voice strong but even. It wouldn’t serve me or Euphemia to spark his anger again. “I don’t want Leopold, and I don’t want to be a queen. But I will do everything I can to cure Euphemia. I care about her as if she were my own little sister. I don’t want to see her sick or in pain. I…” Before I could stop myself, I reached out and fondly cupped her cheek. She looked so small and forlorn.
When the deathshead rose over her slumbering face, silent and leering, I was too surprised to make a sound.
“If you don’t want it, that is your decision,” King Marnaigne said, watching me with careful, guarded eyes, and I had the strangestsensation that he somehow knew what I’d seen. “But I will domybest to ensure you doyours.” His jaw tightened with resolution. “Starting with Bellatrice.”
“Sire, no!” I cried in horror, spinning from Euphemia.
He was already in the hall. “If I cannot tempt your success, I will block any chance of your failure.” King Marnaigne fumbled at the front of the door, and I heard a lock click. “If my daughter does not survive this…neither will you.”
Chapter 52
I stood at the door,tracing its wooden grain with my fingertips. I wanted to snort with laughter at how quickly everything had spiraled, to marvel that I’d ever thought I was in control to begin with.
I waited for the king to return and admit that he’d made a mistake, but the door remained shut.
I tried the handle, hoping, however foolishly, that I had heard wrong. I couldn’t have heard the click of the lock, and I’d certainly not heard King Marnaigne threaten to kill me if I could not save his ailing daughter, then leave me without my valise or a single tonic or medicine with which to treat her.
Predictably, the handle did not twist.
“Sire?” I called. There would be no moreRené,no more pretense of familiarity with this madman. “Your Majesty?”
There was no response, and I slammed my curved palm against the door in frustration.
“Bellatrice?” I tried, knowing she could not possibly hear me, knowing she was dancing away her last few moments of normalcy.Had Marnaigne already gone after her? Would she sense him coming? Would she be able to flee in time? Or would she be like me, unaware she was in a trap until it sprang shut?
“You can’t keep me in here!” I howled, banging on the door again, over and over. I wanted to hear it shake in its frame, rattle and clatter and cause the whole castle to come running. But I could just make out the faint notes of a melody in the ballroom far below. The masquerade was still going on.
I hit the door one last time before giving up. Turning back, I restlessly scanned the chambers, searching, searching. I didn’t know what I was looking for. A way to escape? Something to help Euphemia? A weapon with which to defend myself when the king returned?
There was no right answer. There was no one right thing to do.
I crossed to the princess’s bed and perched on its edge, studying her. Brilliance pooled in all the recesses of her twitching face, down her cheeks and into her ears, along the dips of her clavicle.
How had she caught the Shivers? There’d not been a single case in months. I’d made sure that healers and doctors all over the capitol and surrounding areas were well stocked with black agar; that the pastes and tonics were sent to every province; that every village, however small, received instructions on how to fight it.
And it had been kept at bay. The reverents in the Rift burned sacrifices of gratitude each night, certain Félicité was finally showing a bit of favor after so many things had gone wrong.
And what I’d told Marnaigne was true: sicknesses were cyclical, often going dormant in warmer months when everyone was outside, breathing fresh air, eating newly grown greens and fruits, only to flare up again as winter set in.
But it was now spring. And no one around Euphemia had beensick.
