A Sword In Slumber, page 7
She wanted to be married to him quite extraordinarily.
Suddenly, little else mattered.
The king and queen sat off to the side, where their thrones had been repositioned to make space on the dais for Briar, Phillip, and the priest. Hubert had his own throne next to theirs, and the fairies stood beside him. Fauna wept openly with joy. Flora eyed her sister with distaste. Merryweather’s nose was scrunched in a grin.
Briar stopped, curtsied at them all, her blond hair dipping down across her shoulder.
She ascended the dais and stood next to Phillip.
He took her hand.
She jolted, surprised—he wasn’t supposed to touch her yet. But she smiled up at him, and as the priest’s voice boomed through the throne room, a speech about the holiness of marriage, Briar twined her fingers with Phillip’s.
He leaned close to her, his nose brushing her ear. “You are beautiful,” he whispered.
The room was hot in early summer, and this gown was thick and heavy, but still her body flushed with even more heat. “Wooing me still, Sir Knight, though we are at our marriage altar? If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were quite taken with me.”
He pulled her hand to his chest. “Fully taken. Enraptured, even.”
“It’s this gown, isn’t it?”
His eyes flashed. She had been joking, but ah, she was not wrong.
Her grin went a little wicked. “Let us hope it is not merely the gown after all, for getting out of it is one of my top priorities after we’re married.”
She watched his face redden, and she beamed—her own victory. She had not even needed a bucket of water after all.
The priest guided them through the ceremony, reciting vows that they repeated, grinning more and more like fools. Not that it was ridiculous, but that it was so very much not ridiculous, and though they were in a room filled with people, Briar’s whole focus narrowed to Phillip’s crooked grin.
A valet presented a ring, and Phillip slid the thin gold band onto Briar’s finger.
The priest, arms spread out over their heads, projected his voice to the room. “Peace and blessings be upon this couple. Let them kiss, and they are wed.”
The word “kiss” had hardly left the priest’s mouth before Phillip had tugged Briar to him, hand catching the back of her head and lips connecting with hers. She laughed against him, and he laughed, too, a disordered interlocking of smiles, as music began again, and the crowd cheered.
Briar looped her arms around his neck and kissed him properly, his hands strong against her, and it fell over her like a torrent of rain. He was her husband now. Her husband. Her own, and whatever came next for her, he would be there, too, and she likewise for him.
Her laughter balled in the base of her gut and she rested her head against his temple, holding there as he stroked her hair behind her ear.
“Together,” he whispered, a moment before she could say the same thing.
She bit her lip, unable to speak beneath the winding of love for him, wondering if it was possible for a body to implode from that strain, knowing she wouldn’t mind, wouldn’t fight it.
On the edge of her happiness, poking through the crowd’s applause and the watching eyes of the king and queen, came a sudden, percussive thud, the doors that Briar had entered through slamming open.
“Oh my. Am I late?”
Terror charged from Briar’s head to her toes, but that voice was not Maleficent’s. It was a shadow of it, though, wicked and conniving as she had been, and it grabbed the attention of the room in a painful listing from celebratory to confused and leery.
Briar shifted, still in Phillip’s arms; he, though, stayed facing her, breathing shallowly into the space against her neck.
She did not recognize the figure standing at the end of the room. A woman in full plate armor, the breastplate showing blue-and-white diamond shapes, to display a thin gold band on her head, a mimic of a crown. She was alone, which was all the more odd, given the air of menace that palpitated off of her.
“Not Maleficent,” Briar whispered to Phillip. He still had not moved. “Not—It isn’t her. Phillip?”
Finally, he jerked upright, pupils contracting, but he did not let her go. He looked down the aisle, and his face twitched with confusion.
“Matilda of Bavaria,” he said absently.
Briar’s body went cold.
No one from Bavaria had been invited to their wedding.
Immediately, the mood of the room transformed further. What Austrian guards had been positioned at the edges of the room moved forward as best they could, but the packed crowd of guests kept them mostly at the outskirts, the guards’ weapons now drawn. It was only Matilda who stood in the open doorway, though in armor, and her mere presence was threat enough.
Stefan was up, in the center of the aisle before Briar and Phillip. “You were not invited,” he boomed. “Leave peaceably; this is our joyous day.”
Matilda laughed. It was so like Maleficent’s cackle that Briar unconsciously stepped forward, out of Phillip’s arms, wanting to face it, to face her, because last time she had been confronted by such a person, she had been defenseless and bound by magic and unable to fight back.
Whatever was happening now, she would not be helpless. Not again.
“I missed the wedding, did I?” Matilda looked beyond Stefan, to Briar and Phillip, and clicked her tongue. “They are married? That does change things. Blame this course of action, then, on the resiliency of your soldiers outside, and how they delayed my interruption.”
There was further noise. Boots marching, armor clanking, and in the entryway behind Matilda, soldiers appeared, all in the same blue-and-white diamond markings.
Briar trapped a breath in her lungs, fingers clenching and unclenching. She had never held a weapon in her life, yet right now, she twitched for a sword, though what good could she do with one?
The Austrian guards reacted as well, moving with purpose not for the doors, but toward Stefan, Briar, those clustered by the dais—but what of the guests? Who would protect them? A few cried out in alarm, realizing that they were quickly becoming an obstacle between two rallying armies, and ripples of unease sent bodies jostling into one another as reality broke in slow fragments.
This was an attack.
Bavaria was here to attack.
Music was no longer playing. Had it been playing the whole ceremony?
Someone screamed as the guests shoved each other harder, harder, until hysterical scrambling began, people trying to escape through the doors at the sides of the room. The Austrian guards were still too far from the dais, and the sudden intensity of the crowd hindered them further, ever more frantic guests heaving into them, panic rising in a sharp, cresting onslaught.
The rattle of noise set Briar’s heart racing even more, but what could she do? What could she do? She was helpless, again. She was at another’s mercy, again, and she felt that invasion over every part of her body, the prickle on her skin and the tension in her shoulders and the shiver through her muscles.
She could speak. She could say something, beg Matilda to—to stop. It was a mistake for her to be here. Only more bloodshed would come, because Austria would retaliate, and then Bavaria would fight back, and on it would go, it had to stop—
Stefan’s hands bunched against his long robes. “You would dare invade my kingdom outright? This is foolishness, Matilda, even for you!”
Matilda took a step forward. “What is foolishness is you believing I would allow Austria to absorb Lorraine without a fight. And now you will position yourself as emperor? You must see how that will not do, Stefan.”
They shouted at each other over the clear aisle, the center parting for them as both sides of the crowd fought to exit.
“To arms!” Stefan bellowed. “To arms!”
“Since I am too late to stop Austria from merging with Lorraine,” Matilda declared, “then I will simply have to prevent you from becoming emperor.”
She lifted her hand and brought it down.
A signal, Briar realized, a beat before the room shifted, color and light and rainbow flowers, then stone at her back.
Phillip had grabbed her, slammed her to the floor behind the dais, using it as partial cover.
Briar drew a shaking breath, fixed her eyes on him—and the room erupted.
The terrified screams went feral, agonized shrieks, chaos, and bodies running and soldiers pouring in, enemy or ally, weapons clashing. It was all noise, noise and the crash of a battle slamming into this finely appointed throne room, gold-embossed terror.
Ben was at Phillip’s side, his face gaunt. “What do we—Oh no.”
His eyes were over the dais.
Briar whirled, pushed herself up to see, Phillip’s hands on her hips.
The room was bedlam, too many people scrambling for cover and escape, the flash of swords. The fairies flew up to the corner, doing their best to throw magic to help innocents get away. As Briar watched, many of those innocents simply…collapsed.
At first, she thought, Are the fairies magicking them to sleep? Why?
But then she realized. Disjointedly, slowly: No. They have been struck down.
There, a sword bloodied; there, an ax being swung; there, a burst of blood in the air, like a scatter of dust caught in the wind, droplets raining on frantic wedding guests who cried, struggled—none of these people were fighters.
Briar spotted Hubert and the queen being hauled from the room, Leah’s lips parted in a wail that was such a contrast to her usual decorum that Briar stared at her, locked on that oddity.
She followed the queen’s gaze.
And she saw.
The panic of the room congealed.
The king lay on the floor, fallen precisely where he had stood in the aisle, an arrow through his neck. A puddle of blood, perfectly circular, soaked his head, an echo of the golden crown still firmly on his dark hair.
More soldiers charged in, those in Lorraine’s colors now, three mighty kingdoms warring in this confined space. The Bavarian contingent was still mostly by the door; they were not fighting to advance, and indeed, seemed to be in retreat, death in their wake. And no wonder: They had come to stop the wedding, and if not to do that, then to stop Stefan from becoming emperor.
Sweat broke across Briar’s skin, her eyes flashing around the room as a swell of horrified mania overcame her. This invasion was not Maleficent, but it was the same, a power exerted over Briar’s life with its own will, imposing itself on her by force. And not just on her, but on these people, the guests of her wedding, and the soldiers sworn to protect her. Bavaria had chosen to harm them.
She would not be helpless again.
She did not know what she would do, but she started to rise, a small, subconscious part of her pushing herself up to cross over the dais.
Phillip made a choked sound of alarm and ripped her back down next to him. “Briar—”
“Release me, Phillip!”
“No.” She had never heard him speak like that. Panic and utter, desperate fear, his eyes wide pools. “No. Briar. You can’t—you can’t go—”
Briar sank down next to him, her fingers going to his face as her determination abruptly shifted its focus, broad to narrow, the battle to her husband. “Phillip?”
He was breathing hard. Harder. Quick, insufficient sips, and Briar glanced over him to lock eyes with Ben, who shook his head, fear turning his own face white.
“I won’t,” Briar tried, rubbing Phillip’s jaw with her thumb, trying to get him to look at her. He was, though; he just wasn’t seeing her, and that distance grabbed her lungs with relentless hands and twisted, wrenching the air from her body.
“You can’t go,” he said again, a prayer. “You can’t. Please—”
“It’s all right,” she told him. “I’m here. I’m here, and I won’t leave.”
The noise of the room was settling. Fewer weapons clashing and piercing screams; instead there was sobbing, voices barking orders.
The Bavarians had been pushed out.
Or they had left willingly. They were the victors, after all.
Briar pulled Phillip to her, and after a moment, his muscles gave, and he yanked her into his chest and held her in a tangled twist behind the dais. His tension fled in violent shudders that she tried to counter by clinging to him, pressure and relief, and he began taking deeper breaths.
“Shh,” she whispered. “It’s all right. I’m here. I won’t leave. It’s all right.”
He only stayed like that for a moment—just one beat too long for Briar not to worry—and then he shifted back, face flushed.
He said nothing. Wouldn’t look at her now, his cheeks no longer drained and pale but a brilliant red as he swallowed hard.
“Phillip—”
But he didn’t look at her, still, and instead peered over the dais, at the throne room.
Despair descended on him in a thick cloud, and it tore Briar in half—she needed him to be all right, but what had happened here needed her, too.
“Phillip,” she tried again.
“I’m fine,” he said, but it came out strangled as he stood quickly and helped her to her feet.
Ben rose too, silent and severe behind them, and he shared a look with Briar of concern, of unspoken, uncappable shock.
“Your father,” Phillip said numbly. His eyes slammed shut.
Briar did not look down at the body again. Some of the court were around the king, weeping; others knelt over different fallen victims throughout the room.
The high walls and ceiling were still in order, flowers and decorations and banners untouched, as though nothing had happened. If she kept her eyes up, just up, the day had gone as intended.
She looked down, though, and reality was too surreal. Everything had unraveled so quickly that Briar was still struggling to make sense of that initial sound of the door opening—that thud of it against the wall—and Matilda—and an ax swinging—an arrow flying—whom had it struck?
The room’s fine, jeweled carpet was now a resting place for mutilated guests and soldiers—and a king.
Tart bile rose in Briar’s throat. She thought she was shaking, but when she looked, her hands were oddly still, her whole body motionless, numb.
One of the high-ranking vassals saw Briar rise. She was on the dais, so it made him look up at her.
Immediately, he dropped to one knee before her, and others followed suit, until those in the room who were able all bowed low.
Dread knotted in Briar’s gut.
“The king is dead,” one of the vassals declared, voice echoing. “Long live the queen.”
Stefan’s council room was in tatters.
No, Briar’s council room now, wasn’t it?
She had not been crowned yet, though. Queen in name only.
Queen of Austria.
The Bavarian contingent had been small, swift, and effective. No grand army; they had come for the sole purpose of either stopping the wedding to prevent the unity of Austria and Lorraine, or stopping Stefan from making an attempt at becoming emperor with both Austria and Lorraine at his back.
They had succeeded in one goal, and then fled.
Briar sat at the head of a long table, staring down at the surface covered in maps of the Holy Roman Empire, some of Bavaria specifically, others of Austria, and willed herself to feel something.
All she could conjure was rancid terror over Phillip. Who sat at her right, his eyes on her face, his own concern for her pinching his features. How he could worry about her after his state in the throne room, she didn’t know. Or, no, she did know, because this was him, honor and loyalty above all, and she loved him and all his dedication to her, but in this moment she wanted him to damn his honor and let her help him.
Even if he would, though, she was unable to.
The room held Stefan’s five closest vassals. And the fairies, at the side of the room, silent and mourning. Ben was behind Phillip’s chair, hands folded, eyes on the floor.
Queen Leah was in hysterics, apparently unable to be calmed; she had been sequestered to her rooms.
Hubert was similarly distraught and had been moved to his chamber as well, for his health.
One vassal turned to Briar. Lord Lehmann, who oversaw the troops in the castle. “This act cannot go unaddressed. I can have an army mobilized within the day, Your Majesty.”
“You would attack Bavaria?” The words were ash in Briar’s mouth.
Not you.
We.
Her.
Her first act as queen would be death?
“What other course is there?” Lehmann asked.
“There is subtlety!” another vassal countered. Lord Köning, who dealt in communications and diplomatic relations. “There are ways to react that do not bring more loss of life and all-out war!”
Yes, she thought. Yes, that, whatever it is.
Lehmann purpled, enraged—the vassals were all enraged—and Briar shoved to her feet.
“I will not condone a war,” she said. That, at least, she could be sure of.
Did no one else hear how absurd this was, coming from her lips? As though she had any experience in these matters. As though she knew anything.
But she did know. She knew the families of the soldiers in Hausach. She knew them and their spouses and children. She knew the guests who had been at her wedding—she knew of them, at least. She knew the aftermath, how many of them were still soaking blood into her throne room floor. They’d had no choice. Those who lived under the powerful rarely did.
Briar would not, would never, condone endangering anyone.
Köning nodded, grim. “Then we move to declare another candidacy.”
Briar blinked at him. “What do you mean?”
“Bavaria sought to prevent Austria from gaining even more power. But we are not without options for continuing the king’s plans to bring the seat of the empire to Austria.” His eyes fell on Phillip. “Prince Phillip would make a fine replacement.”
Briar went stone stiff.
“His heroics would make him a candidate to be rivaled,” Lehmann admitted. “Defeating the dragon, ridding Austria of the tyrant Maleficent, rescuing the king’s daughter and breaking her curse—he has proven his valor beyond denial, to such glorious extent even Bavaria would have difficulty smearing his name.”
