Wedding Hells (Schooled in Magic Book 8) (36 page)

Emily eyed the needle nervously. “Do I want to know...?”

“Truth or Dare,” Alassa said. “I’m sure you know the rules.”

“I’m sure you’ll enjoy telling us all about them,” Imaiqah said.

Alassa stuck out her tongue. “It’s really very simple,” she said, in a mocking impression of Professor Thande. “The bottle gets spun around until it comes to a stop, pointing at one of us. That person gets challenged to either answer a question truthfully or do a dare. Once they do whatever they do, they get to ask the next question or set the dare.”

“Nothing too embarrassing,” Emily said, quickly. “I’m not running down the corridor stark naked.”

Alicia blinked. “People
do
that at school?”

“I don’t think so,” Emily said. She’d been told that stripping someone naked was punishable by immediate expulsion, but she had no idea what would happen if someone stripped naked willingly. “And I’m not doing it here.”

“Nothing too embarrassing,” Alassa agreed. She spun the needle with one hand. “Shall we play?”

“Wait a minute,” Frieda said. “Who asks the first question?”

“I’ll spin the needle now,” Alassa said, stopping it with a fingertip. “Whoever gets picked the first time gets to ask the first question.”

“Seems reasonable,” Imaiqah said.

Emily frowned as she sensed Alassa casting a truth spell into the air. It wasn’t a particularly
strong
truth spell, but it contained a nasty hint of compulsion that might have been a real threat, if she weren’t immune to truth spells. Imaiqah would have problems coping, she suspected, and Frieda and Alicia would find themselves telling the truth whatever they actually wanted to do. And it would probably be obvious if she tried to overcome the spell rather than surrender to it...

She met Alassa’s eyes. The princess winked.

“Here we go,” Alassa said. She spun the needle until it came to rest, its tip pointing at Imaiqah. “It looks like
you
get to ask the first question of” - she spun the needle again - “me.”

Frieda giggled. “It
was
your idea.”

“So it was,” Alassa said, without heat. “I pick truth.”

Imaiqah took a moment to think. “Is there anything you don’t like about being a princess?”

“I’m trapped in a gilded cage,” Alassa said. The spell, Emily realized slowly, was affecting her too. “I’ll never be anything other than Crown Princess and Queen of Zangaria.”

There was a long silence. “I’m sorry,” Imaiqah said, finally. “I didn’t mean to...”

“It was
my
idea,” Alassa said. She looked down at her hands for a moment, then spun the needle until the tip came to rest, pointing at Frieda. “Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” Frieda said.

Alassa made a show of stroking her chin. “I dare you to remain silent for the next five minutes. Starting...now.”

Emily watched with some amusement as Frieda covered her mouth with one hand. Alassa started to pull faces at her; Imaiqah and even Alicia started to do the same. Frieda struggled desperately to avoid laughing, but eventually started to giggle when Alassa hit her with a tickling charm. She banished the charm between giggles, scooped up one of the cushions and threw it at Alassa.

“That wasn’t fair,” she protested, picking up another cushion. “You...”

“There’s nothing in the rules against hexing someone,” Alassa said, sweetly. She tapped the needle with one hand. “Spin the needle?”

Frieda glowered, then spun the needle until the tip pointed at Emily. “Can I spin it again?”

“No,” Alassa said. “Sorry, Emily.”

Emily swallowed. “Go on,” she said. She hesitated, trying to decide what to pick. Dare might be safer - there were questions she didn’t want to answer - but Frieda had a mischievous sense of humor. “I choose dare.”

“I’m not sure what I can dare you to do,” Frieda said. She frowned, thoughtfully. “I dare you to throw a cushion at Alassa.”

“That’s tame,” Alassa objected. “And...”

She broke off as Emily hurled a cushion into her face. “Hey!”

“There’s nothing in the rules against involving someone else in a dare,” Frieda pointed out, snidely. “You should have set the rules a little more carefully.”

Alassa conceded the point with a nod. “Emily, spin the needle?”

Emily sighed inwardly as she reached out and spun the needle. She’d been lucky, she supposed; Frieda could easily have come up with something embarrassing or thoroughly unpleasant. The needle spun until it pointed at Alassa, who looked irked. Imaiqah and Alicia had both escaped so far.

“There should be a rule against having the needle pointing at me twice, at least until everyone else has had a go,” Alassa said.

Frieda smirked. “There’s nothing in the rules...”

“I know, I know,” Alassa said, cutting her off. “I choose truth.”

“I’ve got a good one,” Imaiqah said.

“It’s Emily’s turn,” Alassa pointed out.

Emily nodded. “Alassa,” she said, wondering just what she should ask. All the ideas that came to mind were either incredibly tame and harmless or nasty enough to encourage retaliation in kind. “Are you nervous about the wedding?”

Alassa frowned. “I rather wish I could have a smaller wedding. And just get it over with.”

“So no fears about the wedding night,” Imaiqah put in.

“That’s something else to worry about,” Alassa admitted. “Mother’s advice was rather less frank than yours.”

“My mother’s advice was appalling,” Alicia offered. “Everything she said was dressed up in so many metaphors that I couldn’t understand what she was saying.”

Emily smiled. “The birds and the bees?”

“If only,” Alicia said. “It took hours before she finally admitted that she was talking about men and women and I got slapped when I tried to ask her to speak bluntly.”

“Your mother was always weird,” Alassa commented. She spun the needle until it came to rest, pointing at Imaiqah. “What’s the most embarrassing thing you ever did?”

“I didn’t have a chance to pick truth or dare,” Imaiqah objected, after a moment of struggling with the compulsion.

“Well, there’s the question,” Alassa said. “Dare...or answer the question.”

Imaiqah sighed. “I forgot to tell one of my boyfriends that I was dumping him,” she said, after a moment. “And he caught me kissing another boy.”

Emily covered her face with her hands. “Was that what happened when you wound up spending the night in the infirmary?”

“We had a three-way fight,” Imaiqah admitted. “It got pretty nasty.”

“I’m not surprised,” Emily said. Bad as it was for Imaiqah, it would have been far worse for both of the boys. “He must have been furious.”

“That isn’t too embarrassing,” Alassa said. “You never did anything more embarrassing than that?”

“Not really,” Imaiqah said. “There
was
the time I didn’t check my chair in defensive magic and got zapped into a frog, but I don’t think that was
quite
as bad.”

“Even though you failed the test?” Alassa asked. “And had to redo it the following week?”

“Jade - he was the Teaching Assistant at the time - was very sarcastic about it,” Imaiqah agreed. “And then there was the fact I had to ask my father for help ordering everything we need for the wedding ceremony. But it wasn’t quite as bad as being caught by my former boyfriend.”

“I suppose not,” Alassa said, after a moment. “Who
hasn’t
been truth or dared?”

“I haven’t,” Alicia said. She crossed her hands and scowled at the needle. “But I’m not doing either until I get picked.”

“Fine,” Imaiqah said. She took the needle and spun it until it pointed at Frieda. “Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” Frieda said. “I doubt you can come up with something
really
embarrassing.”

Imaiqah smirked. “Get up and do a silly dance around the room.”

Frieda shrugged, rose to her feet and did as she was told. Emily recognized the dance as one she’d seen while she’d been in the Cairngorms - a violent series of movements that had little in common with a formal dance - but she doubted the others recognized it. Frieda finished and sat down, breathing heavily. Alassa clapped and, after a moment, the others joined in.

“Not a bad dance,” Alassa said. She winked at Frieda, who smiled back. “I should introduce it to court.”

“The aristocracy would have a collective heart attack,” Emily said. She had to smile at the thought of some of the more dignified older men hurling themselves around the dance floor, swinging their fists and kicking their feet. It had never surprised her that such dances rapidly turned into nasty fights. “It would be bad.”

“I’m not seeing a downside here,” Alassa said.

“You’d have the older aristocrats replaced by younger noblemen like Lord Hans,” Emily pointed out. “Would that actually be an improvement?”

“At least they wouldn’t see me as a
child
,” Alassa muttered.

Frieda spun the needle, which came to rest facing Alicia. “Truth or dare?”

Alicia hesitated, clearly nervous. “Truth.”

“You’ve been wanting to speak to Emily,” Frieda said. She tilted her head as she studied the older woman. “Why?”

“I’m pregnant,” Alicia said. Her face froze in horror as she realized what had slipped out. “I...”

Emily stared at her. Aristocratic girls were meant to remain virgins until their wedding nights, even the handful with magical talents. Alassa had made it clear to her, more than once...she risked losing everything if she gave up her maidenhead before the wedding night. And yet, Alicia was pregnant? She’d been carefully chaperoned by her parents and then ordered to live in the king’s castle. How could she be pregnant? And how
long
had she been pregnant?

There’s no baby bulge
, Emily thought, looking at Alicia. Lady Barb had gone through the stages of pregnancy with them, back in Second Year.
She can’t be more than three or four months along.

Alassa swallowed hard. When she spoke, her voice was very hard. “Who’s the father?”

Alicia struggled to keep from speaking, her face twisting as she fought the compulsion.

“Your father,” she said. “King Randor.”

A
LASSA LET OUT A SCREAM OF PURE
rage.

“You...you have been making love to my father!”

Alicia scrambled backwards as Alassa rose to her feet, her fists clenched. “You...”

“I had to,” Alicia pleaded. “I...”

Emily sensed the surge of magic a second before Alassa threw a spell right at Alicia. Her body shrank rapidly, her nightgown falling around her and landing on the ground. Seconds later, a rat nosed its way out of the fabric and stared up helplessly at Alassa. Emily had been transformed before - even as an experienced magician it was disorientating to suddenly find oneself in a different body - but Alicia would never have been transfigured into anything before. For her, the experience had to be utterly terrifying.

“You bitch,” Alassa snapped. A fireball flashed from her fingers and struck the ground, mere inches from where the rat stood. “You...”

Alicia spun and fled. Emily stared after her, horrified. Unless the new wards could track Alicia’s passage through the castle, they’d lose track of her as soon as she found a chink in the walls and ran into the shadows. She hastily shaped a freeze spell and threw it after the rat, only to miss. Frieda froze the rat in place a second later.

“Good,” Alassa said. “I...”

“You’ll kill the baby,” Emily said, hastily. Merely turning a pregnant mother into something else might have an effect on the child, although she had no idea what. Experimentation had been strongly discouraged at Whitehall. “Alassa...”

“
Good
,” Alassa snapped. She whirled around to face Emily. “A child. A
male
child. Do you know what this means?”

“You don’t know the baby’s a boy,” Emily said. Lady Barb had made it clear that they weren’t to tell pregnant mothers - or their husbands - the sex of their unborn children. “It...”

“Father spent years trying to get someone else pregnant,” Alassa snarled. “He wouldn’t have allowed Alicia to remain pregnant if the child wasn’t a boy!”

“If he even knows she’s pregnant,” Emily pointed out. Randor’s throne might not survive an allegation he’d aborted a child. “
Does
he know she’s pregnant?”

A thought struck her.
Does the Queen know too
?

It wasn’t a pleasant thought, but it had to be faced. If Randor had finally succeeded in siring a male child, he could put Queen Marlena aside and marry Alicia. He’d have no choice, if he wanted the boy to be seen as legitimate; he’d have to finesse the politics very carefully, but it could be done. And if Marlena knew she might be separated from her husband at any moment, no wonder she was sickening. The maids in the castle reported to her. If Alicia had missed more than two periods, Queen Marlena would have known that her worst nightmare had come to pass.

“He’ll find out,” Alassa snarled. “And then he’ll put me aside!”

Emily stared at her, shocked. “The child is innocent...”

“The brat is a civil war waiting to happen,” Alassa snapped back. “It has to die. Now!”

“And if it gets out that you aborted a child, even if you didn’t kill the mother, it would be disastrous,” Emily said. Abortion was taboo in the Nameless World. It was almost invariably seen as a form of human sacrifice. “There would be riots in the streets!”

“There will be civil war if the child is born,” Alassa said. “How many aristocrats will gladly take advantage of the opportunity to weaken my family?”

“The child hasn’t been born,” Imaiqah said, quietly. “Alassa, it may be a girl.”

“You don’t
know
what it is,” Alassa thundered. “And what happens if it’s a boy?”

Emily shuddered. King Randor could put Queen Marlena aside if he wished, at the price of his daughter’s eternal enmity. That would put his child with Alicia at the top of the line to the throne, even if the baby was a girl. But Alassa was the Confirmed Heir, the one named as his successor. He couldn’t undo that without very good cause. She shuddered again as she thought about some of the possibilities. Alassa had magic, a nasty streak of ruthlessness and she’d be married to a combat sorcerer. Emily wouldn’t bet good money on the child - or King Randor - surviving long enough to take the throne.