The Ring and the Crown (The Ring and the Crown 1)

She was pregnant—of course. She’d known, of course, but she did not want to accept it. It was why she’d kept throwing up all the time, why she felt so uncomfortable in a corset, why her breasts were so large and swollen. She was carrying someone’s child…how terrible that she did not even know who the father was. It could be Leopold’s, or it could be Hugh’s…the thought disgusted her. She would kill herself before she allowed herself to bring his child into the world.

“My men assured me that Louis-Philippe died before he could make you his wife. If you have this baby out of wedlock, you will be shunned from court and every great house across the Continent. No one will marry you. So I have taken you home to Orleans, where you belong. I am offering you my hand in marriage, and a chance for you to remain with your lands and estate. Come, my dear—haven’t I been kind to you? I will accept your child as my own; perhaps it is mine anyway.”

“No, no, no,” Isabelle sobbed. She was going to escape, she was going to get away from him, from this.…How had this happened…? She was going to live in Cévennes with beautiful Louis, and have a beautiful life together.…

“Come here—I have missed you,” Hugh said, and he put his slimy hands around her, and he kissed her lips—and it felt disgusting and repulsive, but also familiar, too familiar—too much like coming home.

The Prussians would bury their dead in their home country. But before they took Prince Leopold away, his body would lie in state in a chapel at St. James, so that the court and the many members of the public who loved him could pay their last respects. When the crowds had left and the chapel was empty, Aelwyn arrived to say good-bye. She looked down at his face, so serene in eternal rest.

Marie was sitting in the first pew, and bade her friend come and sit with her. They sat and looked at the body of Leo together.

When Aelwyn heard that Marie had returned to the palace, she knew she had made the right choice not to keep the glamour. The night of the garden party, she had destroyed the illusion stone—and with it, the temptation to be something she was not. Her father was right to be wary of the glamour spell, and Sister Mallory was correct; a false victory was a hollow one.

“We made a mistake,” Aelwyn said. “I am sorry.”

“I am sorry too, for I made you do it. I’m sorry, Winnie, for pushing you, just like on the night of the fire.”

“It is not your fault,” Aelwyn sighed. “Not all of it.” Her father had been right to send her away four years ago, and the queen had been right to be paranoid and to fear her. Because on the night of the fire, the night that she had almost killed the princess, a dark, awful place in Aelwyn’s soul had wanted it. All her rage and frustration at her position had manifested that night, and when she saw the flames burn and lick the building, and the princess trapped in the smoke…

Aelwyn had been glad, had felt triumphant. See, I can do this. I can make things burn, I can destroy, I can show you all.…

The power is at my command.…

She had seen the evil in her heart. It had been right of her father to send her away to Avalon, to understand that she must learn to control her power and emotions. She must accept her position and find the good in her…for there was good in her…unlike Leopold.

“I am glad he is dead,” Aelwyn said. “He was evil, Marie. He was a sorcerer—he was poison through and through. Everyone loved him, except for you—you were the only one who was immune to his magic. You saw through him, ever since we were children.”

“A sorcerer…you’ve known from the beginning, haven’t you? Since I told you what he did at Lamac—you said, ‘But only a powerful sorcerer can unleash Pandora’s Box.’”

Aelwyn nodded. “I knew. I saw it in him when we met again—Leopold was not just a sorcerer, but a sorcerer’s son. Lord Hartwig was a hidden mage, he had to be—he lived in obscurity and only recently infiltrated the Prussian throne. He was Leo’s father. It was why Leo had wanted the portraits of the royal family destroyed, because anyone who looked closely could see the resemblance.

“It was then I began to believe that the rumors of the Prussian queen and her guard were just a cover—to throw suspicion on Wolf, so that no one would see. No one would know the truth. Hartwig raped the queen—and she bore Leopold. It was why Queen Theresa cried all the time; it was why she killed herself. Wolf is the true prince, the true king. Leo used his magic to make Wolf seem like the wrong one, the bastard, so that no one would pay attention to him. Because if they did…anyone would see that it was Leo who was wrong.”

“He must have secretly borrowed Wolf’s spell-key days before to set the spell,” Marie said, understanding everything now. “He knew we had found it as children, and he used the secret passageways to get into the dungeons where the wine was kept.”

“Yes. The wards would never have allowed him to bring the Pandora’s Box into the castle, so he had to find another way. But if the tools for a weapon were already here, all he had to do was cast the spell.”

“The ruby spell. He turned the wine into barrels of magefire to destroy us all,” Marie said. “But why? We were going to be married—he had the empire at his feet.”

“Hartwig was not Prussian at all,” Aelwyn said. “He was a French warlock. He survived the Battle of Orleans, and nursed a lifelong grievance against the empire. Leo was his son. Like his father, Leo never wanted peace. He only wanted a way into the palace—a way to be welcomed by Eleanor. The wedding was just a cover for his true intentions. Hartwig was killed at Lamac. He was Leo’s father, and trained him as a boy. He shaped him to be a weapon, and fed his mind with anger and fury. Leo wanted revenge—everything destroyed—the empire turned to ashes, and war brought down on all our heads.”

“So we owe our lives to that French boy, to Louis-Philippe,” Marie said thoughtfully.

“Not quite,” Aelwyn said with a smile. “I cast a spell of my own.”

“When?”

“At midnight, in the garden—when I saw the duel. I thought, here is my chance. Here is my chance to make everything right. I made certain that the bullet would hit its mark. Leopold never saw it coming; he didn’t know that the wards were down, and the royal blood was unprotected.”

“I thought you loved him.”

Aelwyn sighed. She had been attracted to him—to his bright and fearless ambition. His focus and his anger had appealed to her, too, because rage and resentment were her lot as well. “I was drawn to Leo. I was attracted to his hunger, his weakness; but later, I saw him for what he was. He reminded me of Lanselin, whom I loved in Avalon. A vain and foolish boy, who would put his selfish desires over the peace of the kingdom.”

“Did he know you were me?”

“I don’t know…I suspected…I don’t know.”

“I am not sorry he is dead,” Marie said. “But he deserves our pity. It could not have been easy, growing up with such an awful secret. Hartwig must have corrupted him with his hate. Queen Theresa was still his mother, and he often spoke of her lovingly. And Wolf adored him.”