Page 90 of The Court of Venus

Marguerite smiled at his confusion. “So, little one. Don’t you finally want to tell him why you deny him? Relieve his suffering—and your own?”

I did. Oh, how I did. My mouth opened, and I didn’t know what was my will and what was hers. “I-I—” I felt her, in my mind, pressing me toward sweet relief. Say it, she whispered.

“I—”

“What are you doing, Marguerite?” snarled Roland.

“I—I—” she mocked, eyes widening. “Really, Roland, she’s longing to tell you. You must sense it. Oh, she’s been absolutely tortured by it. I’m only helping her along.”

My eyes snapped shut. Say it. Say it, Bianca. You undeserving, shameful coward. Marguerite’s scent poured over me again. How I longed to please her. Telling him would please her. It would please me, too, to be free of this burden. To release it at last.

My voice trembled as I inched my hand over to his. He rested his pinky finger over mine. “Both of us should have told you,” I whispered.

“Both of you?”

“Hal.” I swallowed roughly. “Hal and I.”

Marguerite’s grin was wide, triumphant. I held Roland’s gaze and sent him deep into my memory, to that first day when he had departed for Lionesse, when Hal and I had turned to each other, all alone, unsure what to say to each other without Roland between us. The night he punched Fulke, defending my honor. The night I listened at the door when he argued with Prospero over his marriage. The letters sent back and forth, the verve with which I snapped each seal, the ease with which I fell in love with him. His return from the war. Our kiss in the meadow. Moment after moment after moment.

I cut him off. He blinked rapidly, returned to the present. He tore his hand from mine. Finally, our eyes met, and my powers were unnecessary; the betrayal was plain to see.

He stormed from the room, devastation wafting in his wake as he slammed the door behind him. This time Marguerite let him go.

“Roland!” I tried to jump from my seat, but Marguerite’s magic held me back.

She sat with her hands folded daintily in her lap. “No, no. Stay. Do you not feel such relief, now that all is out in the open between you?”

“You only sought to humiliate him,” I seethed.

“No.” Her voice had dropped an octave. “I sought to break his heart, as he broke mine. I sought to shatter him completely. It is only fair. He has never experienced it, because he has never wanted someone so much as he wants you. I finally had a card to play with him. Before, he was removed, unfeeling, and never did I once have the upper hand.”

“He has never been unfeeling. You do not know him truly if you believe that. After all that talk of your ‘mutual understanding’ last night.”

She laughed, high-pitched and girlish again. “You poor thing. How blessed are we, dear one, to tear each other apart over and over again? To yearn for what we cannot have? These are life’s greatest pleasures.”

I began sobbing in frustration—all my desire was split, and I was held in place by her wrath.

“But you’ve already torn yourself apart, haven’t you?” she mocked. “What is it like, to know the emotions of everyone else so intimately, while refusing to see your own? I do wish you the best with this … exaltation.”

She was satisfied enough then to let me go. My chest heaved as I gripped the armrest. I rose shakily and bowed my head to her. She bowed back, a smile still playing on her perfect lips.

I brushed past the ladies filtering back into the room, holding back more tears until I found an alcove to hide in, my head in my hands. Trembling, I pulled my knees to my chest. “I’m so sorry,” I said to no one at all. “I’m so sorry.”

Marguerite was right. I knew what I felt, and I had run from it. Because of Hal’s ghost, everywhere I turned. Because I couldn’t imagine, after all these years, that Roland would ever look at me with such wonder.

As long as I lived, I would never forget the cascade of hurt in him, as it barreled down and buried what might have been.

Twenty-One

The Lionessians tell tall tales of their first king, a merman who fell in love with a Venusborn sorceress. So infatuated were the two that they met each day at high tide, until a miracle occurred: The Venus found her beloved had grown legs.

—FABIAN DE TEMPES, THE MORNING AND THE EVENING STAR

The sun circled the windows, the sea broke roughly against the rocks below, a shard of Moon rose. In a week’s time, it would enter Virgo, and the sky would mirror the star chart we’d found. Still, he didn’t return.

I knew Roland needed time, but I also knew there was a part of him that hoped to be searched for.

So, I went looking.