“That is not going to happen.”
Sonia Beaulin stepped into the throne room with a number of queensguard soldiers. They spilled in through the open doors and spread until they lined the walls and blocked every possible exit. And over Sonia’s shoulder, Elsabet saw more. More and more, armed and ready to fight, clogging the castle with their black-and-silver armor.
“What is the meaning of this?” Elsabet demanded. But no one answered.
Rosamund strode forward. Her mere movement was enough to make the closest soldiers shrink back, though she had not even drawn her sword. “What do you think you’re doing, Sonia?”
“What I must. What you could not. We are arresting a dangerous and murderous queen.”
Elsabet’s mouth dropped open. “Murderous? Who did I murder?” Her voice grew angrier and louder as she spoke. “Bess? Do you mean to pin the assassination of my own dear friend on me?”
“Do not listen,” Sonia ordered the soldiers. “The queen is unwell. Take her into custody now and into the West Tower. There she may be kept safe.”
“Safe? Safe from whom?” Elsabet began to tremble as the soldiers swept past Rosamund. She was as still as stone until they first took her by the wrist, and then she erupted, screaming and cursing them, throwing herself back and forth.
“Safe from yourself, my queen,” said Sonia as they dragged Elsabet past.
“You cannot do this to me! I am your queen! I am the Goddess’s chosen! Rosamund!” She craned her neck, able to see her commander standing a head above the others, the expression on her face still and full of anger, disbelief, and shame as she watched her own soldiers take her queen away. “Rosamund?”
They moved her quickly, through the castle and up the many staircases to the newly furnished queen’s apartments in the West Tower.
“Why do we not go to my chamber?” Elsabet asked. “I have not yet moved to these rooms!” She searched their faces. None spoke. All were afraid. But they did as they were told. They followed their orders. Only they were not meant to take orders from Sonia Beaulin or the Black Council. Not without Elsabet’s approval.
When she saw the open door, she knew it for what it was: a finely decorated prison. She dug her heels hard into the stones and struck out at the nearest queensguard, her vision blacking in and out with panic as they pushed her toward it.
“No! No, let me go!”
But they would not. They shoved her through the door so hard she stumbled and nearly fell to her knees, and by the time she turned back, the heavy wood was already swinging shut.
Rosamund stood silently in the middle of the throne room. Her eyes focused on no one in particular until she could no longer hear Elsabet’s cries. Then she turned to Sonia.
The look on the other warrior’s face nearly drove her to strike. So smug. So pleased with herself. She was proud of putting Rosamund in her place. Proud of being a traitor.
“How does it feel?” Sonia asked. “To know that your queensguard was never really yours? That they have been mine, all this time?”
“Not all of them.”
Sonia sighed. “No. Not all. But those have been dealt with.”
“What do you mean to do here, Sonia? What do you and Francesca have planned?” Her voice remained calm, almost weary. Almost bored. And with every word, a little of Sonia’s joy was chipped away. “Or do you even know? Perhaps she does not tell you. The master often doesn’t inform the puppet about the play.” She raised her eyes to the gathered soldiers. Many were good. Many she had trusted. They were only afraid, and following orders, and being lied to. “I don’t know what she has told you. Maybe she told you they would release the queen as soon as those who led her astray were dead. But you must know that is a lie. They can never let Elsabet out again, not without losing their heads.”
“Shut your mouth,” Sonia snapped.
“I won’t have you lying to them. If they do this, they should know what it is they are doing. They are deposing a Queen Crowned.” She waited. A small ripple of doubt passed through them, but it amounted to only a shuffling of feet and some hard, nervous swallows. Not that she had really expected more. She had truly just wanted them to know.
“Give up your sword, Rosamund, and come quietly. I’ll put you in the very best of the cells, you have my word.”
Rosamund stepped forward.
“You can’t win.” Sonia’s eyes glittered. She drew her sword. “There is no point in trying. No point in fighting. The cause is lost. Already the soldiers have eliminated the Howes. They say Catherine and the rest of them burned up in a fire of their own making. And as for your house . . .”
Rosamund thought of Antere House. Her brothers, laughing in the kitchen, the wives planning some grand hunt. Her mother, old now and unwell, but still ruler of them all. And the girls. The sweet, wild girls who slept with their wooden swords in their arms like dolls and covered her face with kisses when she returned from the Volroy after a long day.
“You should not have told me about my house, Sonia.”
“Why not?”
“Because now there is no one for me to protect by surrendering.”
Rosamund drew her sword with a bellow and brought it arcing down directly at Sonia’s head, so fast that the other warrior could not fully block it, and the blade glanced down along her arm, finding its way through her armor and drawing blood. Those who saw Rosamund fight always said it was a wonder she could move so fast, with her bulk and size. They said watching her was like watching a dance of red and silver.
Rosamund’s sword clashed again with Sonia’s, and she pressed up close as the other warrior glanced at the wide-eyed soldiers. “None of them will intervene. None have the stomach to face me outside of training. How many do you think are secretly hoping that I will win?”
Sonia growled and shoved her away. They met and clashed and fell back again, and it was clear whose war gift was the stronger. Sonia panted, soft from so long sitting on the Black Council. Rosamund’s sword was light as a dagger in her hand.
“Stand down!” Sonia shouted, and threw three fast knives, guiding them with her gift. But Rosamund knocked them all away. Then she picked them up and sent them back, her own gift too strong to be deflected, so that Sonia had to dodge and duck.
“Sonia Beaulin, in your fine black cape and fancy, shining boots. Dressed up in a warrior’s clothes with no war gift to speak of.”
Teeth bared, Sonia charged, slashing and striking with all her might. Together they stumbled into a table. They knocked up against the watching, astonished soldiers. She sliced into Rosamund’s shoulder, and Rosamund fell across the long table and rolled, but came up on one knee and laughed when she saw Sonia panting.
“Weak,” Rosamund said. “Pampered, Black Council pet.”
Sonia leaped, and Rosamund blocked and kicked. Sonia spit blood onto the wood floor.
“You’re too small for this, Beaulin. Why don’t you send the rest of my army in here to finish what you can barely start?”
Sonia wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “You are truly mad,” she said. “Your whole family is dead. They tell me your mother was stabbed in her bed.”
“My mother would never die in bed.” Rosamund bellowed and charged her again, metal on metal like a song in her ears and Sonia’s frustration turning to fear like a song in her heart. Sonia pushed back with her gift; Rosamund felt it, like a hammer against her chest. But Rosamund’s gift pushed back harder.
“Guards!” Sonia shouted, and they stepped forward like cautious dogs to surround Rosamund and Sonia in the center of the room.
“They won’t follow you,” Rosamund said, her smile full of red teeth, “unless you do it yourself.”
“They already follow me,” Sonia growled.
Rosamund fought as bravely as she could, for as long as she could. She cut down three, then four of her trusted soldiers. She ran them through. She knocked them back and sent them flying. But every one she dispatched was replaced by two, and the swords began to land. Blood ran down her arms, her legs; it spread across the floor. When Rosamund had gone down to one knee, Sonia finally came to finish her, and by then, there were too many knives in Rosamund’s back to know which one it was.
Coward, Rosamund thought as the blood filled her lungs, as she dragged herself through the fury until she saw the toes of Sonia’s fine, black boots. She had hardly any strength left, but she found enough to raise her dagger and stab Sonia through the foot. Sonia Beaulin screamed like a child and dropped to the ground.
And Rosamund Antere died with a smile on her face.