Treacherous Witch

"I tell my priestesses to look for value, not authority. They shouldn't only look up. Good ideas can come from anyone."

Interview with Queen Shikra III, as told to Master Anwen

Valerie flopped on the bed in her chambers with a big sigh, hoping that Lord Dryden wouldn't keep Lord Avon too long. Was he thinking of the kiss? She could think of little else.

She could have returned to the party. But her mind was buzzing, thoughts darting around like flies. She could hardly contain herself.

That Avon wanted to kiss her wasn't surprising. But that she'd welcomed his touch... That was new.

She pulled out the pins from her hair and shook her curls loose, lying down with her head on the pillow. The magic in the silvertree wood washed through her, comforting and familiar. Valerie wasn't used to processing her own emotions. Goals, yes. She worked through those, planned and adjusted, planned and adjusted. But somewhere along the way she'd lost her course.

Become my queen.

It was absurd. He'd thrown her in prison two days ago.

She could take him up on his offer. Her goal was the same: to restore magic to Maskamere. If she could do it through Avon rather than Bakra, then she didn't need the resistance. Why fight a losing battle?

And if she could make Avon believe that, then her revenge would be all the sweeter. He'd offered to make her his queen. His words betrayed his true thoughts: he still didn't regard her as an equal. How could they rule together when they wanted drastically different things for her country?

If she wanted to become queen, she could do it without him. No treachery required. Bakra would restore the silvertrees. And there was no guarantee that Abbess Sopphora would survive this war...

Blasphemy again. He'd put the idea into her head, and now she could think of nothing else.

The door to the bedchamber creaked open, and Valerie sat up, startled out of her reverie.

"My lord."

"My apologies for the delay." Avon shook his head, unbuttoning his cuffs. "Lord Dryden is most passionate."

"What did he say?"

He pursed his lips. "He wished to remind me of my father's orders—and the good of the Empire."

"Do you agree with him?"

He regarded her for a long moment. Then he removed his tail-coat, waistcoat and necktie, coming over to sit beside her.

"I believe my plan is for the good of the Empire. But what I think doesn't matter. What's important is whether I can get enough of the council to agree with me. Several are yet to be persuaded."

"Why are they so short-sighted? You want Maskamere to be more productive, don't you? Tell them that we're unproductive because the magic has gone. That's why the crops failed—the harvest wasn't blessed."

He looked at her sharply. "Is that why?"

"Master Anwen thinks so... The queen blessed the crops every year."

"And I had an agricultural expert investigate the crop failures. His report was damning. Poor, outdated equipment, lazy workers, poor use of land. Even so, last year's harvest would have been adequate if we hadn't suffered a plague of locusts."

"What?" Her head was spinning.

"Perhaps they're too used to relying on the blessing of the harvest. They've forgotten how to farm the land for themselves."

"Or perhaps they've been ravaged by war, and they don't want to work for Drakonian masters."

He smiled at her outrage and that infuriated her more. She clenched her fists, pressing into the soft sheets.

"I'm right, aren't I? How many of the farmers are in forced labour? Is it any surprise that they don't want to work?"

She thought of Markus toiling away in the fields, no respite, no reward. There was so much injustice she had to make right.

"Then what's your solution?"

"You don't need me to come up with a solution. We already have one. Our people have been farming Maskamere for centuries."

"And they've failed to innovate for centuries. Drakon has far more advanced techniques."

"Then share them with us."

"If we did, would you share your magic with us?"

She hesitated. Knowledge is power. The priestesses closely guarded their secrets. That was why, even going to school at the convent, she'd hardly learned a thing about sorcery beyond the absolute basics. That knowledge was entrusted to acolytes only after they'd received the blessing of the silvertree.

"People in Drakon have a great suspicion of magic because they don't understand it," Avon went on. "Perhaps we need to educate them."

"We." She scrunched up her face. "We're getting ahead of ourselves, my lord."

"We are," he admitted.

"We should talk about Bolebund."

"We should."

She gave him a questioning look. It had been his proposal. He'd yet to explain it.

He chuckled, and she blinked in surprise. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to talk to you about affairs of state when you're dressed like that?"

She looked down, and, yes, he had a point. The shimmery material clung to her curves. With her knees loosely crossed on the bed, the slit in the dress revealed a generous expanse of thigh.

A sense of mischief swept over her. "Sorry, my lord." She drew up her legs, then turned to face Avon and extended her bare limbs across his lap. "Is that any better?"

"You're absolutely dreadful," he said when she grinned at him.

"So what's the plan?"

He rested a hand on her knee. "Well... We travel in commoners' garb, spelled with your magic of invisibility. That gets us into the city. Once we're there, will you be able to find the tree?"

"Yes." She thought of the silvertree in Enyr, how she'd sensed its presence from half a mile or more away. "But it'll be guarded."

"The convents were poorly guarded. We raided them at night and destroyed them with a small, contained force."

"They weren't expecting an attack. The wards at my convent were meant to stop thieves trying to steal the blessing of the silvertree."

The Empire's success in warfare had been largely down to timing and coordination, as far as she had understood from her time in the resistance. It tallied with her experience. The invasion had been so sudden, so complete, that half the country was under Drakonian control before the Maskamery army had mustered. Of course, it didn't help that the royal family had been killed in almost one fell swoop. She wondered how far down the chain of command had gone to find someone left alive to lead the defence.

"True," he said. "We should expect greater resistance here and now. So, we'll assess their defences. Wait until nightfall. Then strike."

As he spoke, his hand trailed along her leg, dragging heat up towards her thigh. She tried not to react. Then he shifted, climbing up along the bed and on top of her, eyes gleaming. At the word strike, his hand curled around her throat, and she gasped.

A thrill ran through her like lightning. His hand on her neck was loose, but so was his shirt, his hair falling forward over his eyes, the fire in them intoxicating. She reached up to grasp his arm.

"I have a better idea."

"Oh?"

She was playing a dangerous game, she knew that, inviting his desire, enjoying it, even. But she had to play to her advantage. This wasn't only about reaching the third silvertree. It could be a chance to end the war.

"Why invade when you can be invited in?" She gently peeled his hand away. "I can go to the resistance in Bolebund. They'll take me to the silvertree."

His gaze darkened. "And you'll take your blessing and run back to Bakra."

"No." She swallowed. "No, you're right. Bakra won't give me what I want. I see that now."

He stilled. She sensed his hesitation. "You're asking me to put a lot of faith in you," he said quietly.

"You don't have to."

His eyebrows rose. She nudged him and he retreated, sitting up beside her.

"I understand why you don't trust me," she said, "so why not give the power to someone else? Give the blessing to your sister instead of me."

He stared at her. "Would you do that?"

"Would you?"

There was a long pause. She watched him breathing, the way his chest gently rose and fell. He looked so deep in thought she could tell he hadn't considered it before.

"No," he said eventually. "You were born for this; my sister was not. I couldn't have Ophelia become a sorceress."

"To become a priestess is a great honour in Maskamere. We help our people to prosper. We're admired and respected."

"Not anymore," he said.

"No." She sighed. "You're asking me to put a lot of faith in you too."

Either of them could betray the other. Avon might intend to destroy the silvertrees once and for all, to lure her into his bed with the promise of freedom only to make her a slave. And he had to wonder if she might take the third blessing and turn it on him. She could run back to Bakra and restore him to the throne, have Avon's head on a spike...

"If you're lying to me..." She looked away. "I don't want to think about it."

"And if you're lying to me..." He frowned. "The prisoner's dilemma."

"The what?"

"The prisoner's dilemma. Two prisoners have been convicted of a minor crime. But they could be convicted of a greater one. The prosecutors offer each of them a deal. Testify against your counterpart and you'll go free, while he'll face a five-year repentance. If both refuse to testify, they can't be charged with the greater crime, and they'll serve out a one-year repentance for the minor crime. But if they betray each other, they'll both serve for three years."

She thought about it. "Can they talk to each other?"

"In the traditional formulation, no. But there are many versions of the game. The point is that in this scenario, it's rational for each prisoner to betray the other. They both lose."

"In that scenario. What version of the game are we playing?"

He exhaled. "I don't know. I've tested your loyalty and found it wanting. A typical strategy in an ongoing game is tit-for-tat. If your opponent cooperates, you cooperate. If your opponent betrays, you betray."

Which was why he'd responded to every transgression with punishment. And he'd dangled ever greater rewards in front of her, trying to entice her loyalty. Was he trying to engineer a scenario where it wouldn't be rational for her to betray him? Then she could play that game too.

"But you understand why I did it," she said. "I have to weigh up my chances. What will you do if I run off to the resistance and don't come back? Give me your best threat."

He frowned. "You want me to threaten you?"

"If it'll help you trust me. Give me an incentive not to betray you."

"I will hunt you down," he said slowly. "And when I catch you, I'll half-drown you, over and over until you beg for mercy. If you still talk back after that, I'll pick a family member instead. No more forgiveness."

Interesting, she thought. His words provoked a curious mix of feelings. Part of her was analysing what he was saying, what it meant he thought of her and the things she feared. He was promising her pain and further suffering inflicted on her family. A miserable existence to be sure.

Another part of her anticipated the horror of that future experience, cataloguing it as a risk to be avoided. She couldn't go past the point of no return with Avon until she was sure that she could kill him.

And the final, deepest, darkest part, was experiencing a thrill of just hearing him say these things, as if they were unreal, merely a game they were playing.

Was it wrong to enjoy the game?

"My turn," she said. "I swear, if you betray me, I'll put you into a never-ending sleep. And if I wake you and you fight me, I'll cripple you inch by inch. First your sight. Then your voice. Then your limbs."

"Interesting." Amusement flickered in his eyes. "So you don't want to kill me."

"Not yet." She shrugged, twisting a lock of hair around her finger. "When are we going to Bolebund?"