"O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason."

--From Julius Caesar,
By William Shakespeare

JOVANA STARED AT the bowl of blood and tried queasily not to think of how it had been obtained. People had spread rumours of her mother drinking blood. If any of them saw her now, they would certainly think she was her mother's daughter. Still, she had no intentions of consuming the glistening red pool. No, she was practicing her magic.

Every ruler of Mordania had practiced some aspect of blood magic that was beyond that of mere aristocrats or the common people, meaning Jovana had to elevate her skill and train in all of the four facets as well as creating a new type. It was a great deal of pressure, to put it lightly.

Common people were mainly healers. Then, there were the four Mordanian noble houses, each with a different type of blood magic: the Durand house had the ability to control their enemies' minds and nerves (which was why the royals kept them so close to court, ensuring they would root out spies). The house of Levesque could crush bones with the simple snap of a finger (a skill mainly utilized for torture and warfare). The Beauforts were able to manipulate limbs and movements of extremities in others—and exceptional grace came with it, meaning many of members of the house were dancers and entertainers. Finally, the house of Clement was blessed with the magic that let them command the internal organs of others—a skill particularly useful for public humiliation.

"It has been ten minutes and the only thing you've done to this blood is stare daggers into it," Madame Siward, who was her tutor and also the librarian's wife, complained. "Sacré bleu, should we switch to bones? Or corpses? Perhaps a little beheading of some prisoners will help you focus?"

Her tutor was one of the few who dared to speak to her with such fond exasperation in her tone. Jovana sighed, and resumed her concentration, fidgeting in her seat. "Apologies, Madame. I have... a great deal on my mind."

"Would you like to share?" Madame Siward asked, a coy gleam in her brown eyes. It was a prying look, one that Jovana had grown used to over the years. The woman was a gossip with a soft spot for romance.

Tapping her fingers on the solid oak table, the young queen stared at the walls of the training room instead of replying. It was one of the plainest rooms in her chambers, with one window, gray stone walls, matching floors and nary a tapestry or rug to soften it. Still, she preferred it to court or one of the grander meeting rooms where she was usually forced to entertain Ilyas Durand's presence. A simple candelabra made from wrought iron spikes hung from the ceiling, a tendril of wax narrowly missing her as it landed onto the counter.

"There is a certain guard..." she let her voice trail off to pique interest, knowing Madame Siward would chase after it as a lion did a gazelle. "But, I would much rather prefer to train, Madame, not to discuss my personal life with you," Jovana lied.

The elder woman sighed, one strand of her curly hair falling over her face. "Are you certain? A guard! Who is this man?"

Jovana remained silent, knowing it would make the tidbit of gossip all the more intriguing. "Forget that I spoke. He is nobody."

"If he were nobody, he would not be on your mind." That much was sadly true. "You may trust me, Your Majesty."

The tutor was the biggest gossip in the castle—Jovana would as soon trust her with the Crown Jewels. Still, there was no harm in confiding what she knew to be false. "Well, he is... a rather tall guard."

Madame Siward nodded, all thoughts of training abandoned. "And his hair?"

"Dark brown." She hadn't had any specific one in mind—really, any of them would do as a fake love interest. However, unbidden thoughts of Carlyle Lambert flashed into her mind: raven hair, skin a smidgen darker than that of most Mordanians, and those piercing hazel eyes.

Someone tapped on the door and quickly Jovana covered the bowl with a towel. It would do her no good for the servants to spread rumours about her bloodthirsty nature or lack thereof. The only one who was a worse gossip than Madame Siward was any servant, really—especially the footmen. "You may enter."

Surprisingly, it wasn't a servant. It was... Captain Lambert. Her tutor's mouth fell open in a too-conspicuous manner, and Jovana resisted the childish urge to kick her under the table. She was full of far too much energy for sitting still and manipulating blood today.

"Your Majesty." He sketched a bow toward her, shrinking his looming frame. "Madame. Your presence is required by His Grace, the Lord Regent."

"Only myself, or my tutor as well?" Jovana asked, already getting up to leave. She surveyed the captain with caution, noticing the twitch of his eyebrow before he drew it back into his usual glower.

Carlyle cast a wary glance at the covered bowl. She wondered if he could sense what was within it. "Only you, Your Majesty."

"Very well, then. I suppose our training mustn't impede your royal duties. Farewell, Your Majesty." Madame Siward excused herself and left through a back entryway, her dark red, wool gown trailing behind her.

"Farewell, Madame." Jovana sat on the table, careful not to topple the bowl of blood. "There is no meeting with the Lord Regent, is there?"

His eyes widened, his navy cape still dusted with the same snow that sprinkled his hair with specks of white. She had an inane impulse to brush it off. "How could you tell?"

"Oh, no reason." She knew him better than she liked, now, as he and Hugo, her loyal informant, were usually the guards assigned to her. Jovana did not want him to believe that she understood him because she was interested in him, no matter what falsehoods she fed her tutor. "What did you interrupt my training for, then?"

He pulled out two daggers from his belt and offered her one. "I thought you might like a different kind of training."

She smiled, an expression that was more of a baring of teeth than any real gesture of affection or amiability. He was the same way, the embodiment of that grin: hard lines and sharpness, not a shred of soft emotion or gentle sentiments visible.

"How could you tell, Captain?" she asked as they walked out of the training room together and toward a secluded courtyard that had become the place for their rendezvous—not romantic trysts but simply a time for her to test her fighting abilities against someone who would not back down or let her win because she was royalty.

He shrugged. "You have your secrets, Jovana. Allow me to keep mine."

"Fine, but only because you managed to wrest me away from a certain situation this morning," she bantered.

Carlyle's broad shoulders shrugged with ease. "I do make a habit of rescuing fair damsels in distress."

"Oh?" She inserted mock indignation into her voice. "What fair damsels? I have not heard of any. Do you mean that fair ladies make a habit of rescuing you from your distress?"

He chuckled, unfazed by her ribbing, and instead murmured lowly, "Do be careful what you say to me, Jovana. I am more heavily armed than you are."

"And perhaps you need more weapons because you are less skilled at magic than I," she countered with a teasing smile, trying to ignore the effects that his statement had on her. Not fear, but... something else. She knew he would not hurt her. He had had plenty of opportunities to do so, but he hadn't—even in their sparring sessions, he was never vicious or cruel. "As well, I outrank you."

Something like pain flashed in his eyes, softening them, turning the hazel to molten amber. He had no warning, no clever quip this time. "That you do."

Only the truth.

///

LATER THAT NIGHT, JOVANA lay awake in bed and wondered. Why did the mention of magic offend him? Was it simply masculine pride, unable to take any offense against his ego, skills, and talents? Or was it something more...

She dismissed the thought, but still couldn't go to sleep. Finally abandoning all attempts at slumber, she got out of bed and wrapped a cloak around herself. Shivering, she rubbed her hands, trying to warm up, and slipped the dagger from beneath her pillow into a silk sash at her hip that was tied over her red woollen nightgown. Her breath was visible in the frosty night air despite the hot springs that then Durand estate had been built over. Because of those, her bare feet, at least, were warm.

Somehow, after pushing on the door of her bedroom and putting one foot in front of the other at a slow, sedate pace, she found herself back in the training room. She saw that the bowl of blood was still there, still covered. Jovana removed the towel and stared into it, a full circle of white reflected in it from the full moon pouring in through the window. Feeling silly as she waved her hands over the bowl, she decided to continue her training from earlier today and put her brainpower to something actually productive.

But try as she might, her thoughts wandered back to Carlyle. There was something that felt familiar about him. She often felt as if she had known him in a past life. And then there were the unexplained physical aches, the ones that seemed to match up with what he had been doing. Her legs hurting when his did. Her random flare-ups of emotion and the unexplained frissons that overcame her. 

Suddenly, she smelled something. Something that smelled like... cooking. A kitchen. Horrified, she slowly directed her gaze back toward the bowl and saw that the blood was bubbling.

The blood was literally boiling, as if she had lit a fire beneath it. But there was no fire, only unexplained heat. Had she done that?

Without warning, unable to control herself for once in her adult life, Jovana let out a scream.