Stepsister

by Jennifer Donnelly

  “He was shut in a stall. In a stable in the village,” she said, turning to the fairy queen. “How did he get out?”

  Tanaquill shrugged. “Kicked the door down, I imagine. You know what he’s like.”

  Isabelle walked around to Nero’s left side. Hugo held her helmet while Felix boosted her up into the saddle. Tavi and Ella gathered close.

  The lieutenants sat up tall in their saddles, awaiting orders. All across the grounds of the Maison Douleur, in its fields and meadows, soldiers stood at attention.

  It was dead silent as they waited, their eyes on Isabelle.

  “I’m afraid,” she whispered, squeezing Felix’s hand. “I don’t know how to do this. I’ve never been a general.”

  “You know the most important thing,” Felix said. “You know how to be brave. You’ve always known that.”

  “You know how to outmaneuver the enemy,” Ella said. “You got us here.”

  “You know how to fight,” Tavi said.

  “You’re the worst girl I’ve ever met, Isabelle,” Hugo added, with touching sincerity. “You’re so tough and stubborn, you give me nightmares.”

  Isabelle gave him a tremulous smile. “Thank you, Hugo. I know there’s a compliment in there somewhere.”

  “Go now,” Felix told her, releasing her hand. “And then come back.”

  Hugo handed Isabelle her helmet. She took it, then bowed her head to the fairy queen. “Thank you,” she said, with a catch in her voice.

  Tanaquill nodded. “What was cut away is whole again,” she said. “The pieces of your heart are restored. The boy is love—constant and true. The horse, courage—wild and untamed. Your stepsister is your conscience—kind and compassionate. Know that you are a warrior, Isabelle, and that a true warrior carries love, courage, and her conscience into battle, as surely as she carries her sword.”

  Isabelle put on her helmet. She drew her sword from its scabbard and raised it high. Nero stamped at the ground. He turned in a circle and pulled at the reins, eager to be off. The muscles in Isabelle’s arms rippled. The sword’s silver blade gleamed.

  A cheer rose, a war cry from two thousand throats. It rang out over the land and echoed through the hills. Isabelle smiled, reveling in the thunderous sound.

  “Soldiers!” she shouted as it died down. “We march on a fearsome enemy this morning! He murders our people, he plunders our villages and towns, lays waste to our fields. He has no claim to our lands. Greed and bloodlust are all that drive him. He and his fighters are without mercy. Their hearts burn with the flames of conquest, but ours shine with the light of justice. We will surround the Devil’s Hollow. We will fight him there, and we will vanquish him!”

  The roar that rose then was the sound of a hurricane, a tidal wave, an earthquake. It rolled on, an awesome force that nothing could stop. The soldiers were mesmerized by Isabelle. They would have marched into the depths of hell and fought the devil himself had she asked them to.

  “For king, and queen, and country!” Isabelle shouted.

  She touched her heels to Nero. He reared, hooves battering the sky, then lunged forward, bolting for the stone wall and the field beyond. Her lieutenants rode after her. Her soldiers followed.

  Isabelle rode tall in her saddle. Her color was high, her eyes were flashing.

  She was fearsome.

  She was strong.

  She was beautiful.

  The moon had faded. The stars had all winked out.

  Tanaquill’s work was done.

  She watched, a half smile on her lips, as Felix, with his dagger, and Hugo, with an ax he pulled from a chopping block, followed the troops, determined to fight with them.

  Ella and Tavi clambered back into the cart and started down the drive to what was left of their stables. Tavi planned to stow the cart there, put Martin in the pasture, and hide in the chicken coop with Ella until it was safe to come out.

  As the wagon trundled off, two figures emerged from behind the ruins of the mansion. One was an elderly woman, dressed all in black,the other a young man in a blue frock coat and suede britches.

  “She did it. I had my doubts,” Tanaquill said as the two figures approached her. “The girl is brave. Far braver than she knows.”

  “I’ve come for the map. It’s mine,” said Fate. “You must return it to me.”

  “You should give it to me. I won the wager,” said Chance.

  Tanaquill faced the crone. “Isabelle’s life will no longer be mapped out by you.” She turned her green eyes on Chance. “Nor will it be altered by you,” she said. “Her life is a wide-open landscape now, and if she survives the day, she will make her own path through it.”

  As Tanaquill spoke these words, she pulled Isabelle’s map from the folds of her cloak. She tossed it high into the air and whispered a spell. The map dissolved into a fine, shimmering dust and was carried away on the breeze.

  Fate and Chance watched it disappear, then turned to the fairy queen, full of protests. But she was gone. They saw a flash of red as a fox leapt over a stone wall. Their gaze followed her as she loped through the fields and over the hills. She stopped at the edge of the Wildwood to glance back at them once, then vanished into the trees.

  There is magic in this sad, hard world. A magic stronger than fate, stronger than chance. And it is seen in the unlikeliest of places.

  By a hearth at night, as a girl leaves a bit of cheese for a hungry mouse.

  In a slaughter yard, as the old and infirm, the weak and discarded, are made to matter more than money.

  In a poor carpenter’s small attic room, where three sisters learned that the price of forgiveness is forgiving.

  And now, on a battlefield, as a mere girl tries to turn the red tide of war.

  It is the magic of a frail and fallible creature, one capable of both unspeakable cruelty and immense kindness. It lives inside every human being ready to redeem us. To transform us. To save us. If we can only find the courage to listen to it.

  It is the magic of the human heart.

  The scout brought good news.

  The wall of blackbriar rising up from the river, thick and impenetrable, was still there.

  “Good,” Isabelle said quietly. “That walls off the southern edge of Volkmar’s camp and blocks any chance of escape up the mountain into the Wildwood.”

  As she spoke, she sketched a diagram of the Hollow in the dirt with a stick. Her lieutenants stood clustered around her, watching as she drew the camp, hidden in the hollow’s center.

  “We need to surround the other three sides and block off all escape routes,” she continued, drawing an arc from one edge of the blackbriar wall to the other and enclosing the camp within it. “Divide the troops in two. One half goes to the west, the other to the east. They meet here, where we are now,” she said, tapping her stick at the diagram’s northernmost point. “Be quick. Be silent. Send the signal as soon as you’re in place. Go.”

  Isabelle had brought her troops out of Saint-Michel, around the Wildwood, and down a long, rutted road to the border of the Devil’s Hollow. They had marched double time the whole way, but the sun was rising now, and they no longer had darkness as their ally. Isabelle had maintained what she hoped was about a two-mile distance between her troops and Volkmar’s camp, to keep them from being seen or heard, but she knew the chances of their being spotted increased with every moment that passed.

  If that happened, she would lose the asset of surprise. She believed that her troops outnumbered Volkmar’s, but Malleval had shown her what the enemy was capable of. Isabelle knew she would need every advantage she could get. Until the signal came, she would be on tenterhooks.

  The lieutenants rode to their troops and gave their orders in low, urgent voices. Immediately the soldiers disappeared among the trees. They were made of wood. They were creatures of the forest, and as they moved into place, they became one with it again, making no more noise than a branch creaking in the wind, or leaves whispering in the breeze.

  Isabelle n
odded to a young, wiry private. He saluted her, then climbed a tall pine tree behind her, a spyglass tucked inside his jacket.

  Twenty minutes passed. Thirty. Isabelle had given orders that each company send a man up a tree with a piece of red cloth. The man was to wave it when all the members of his company were in place. Forty minutes went by.

  She tightened her grip on her sword. What is taking them so long? she wondered tensely. Nero tossed his head but made no noise.

  Just when she thought her taut nerves would snap, she heard it—a hawk’s cry, made by the young private high in the tree above. That was the signal. The red flags had all been sighted. Everyone was in place.

  Isabelle lowered her head. Elizabeth, Yennenga, Abhaya Rani, be with me, she prayed. Give me cunning and strength. Make me fearless. Make me bold.

  Then she lifted her head, raised her sword, and shouted, “Charge!”

  The grand duke never saw Isabelle coming.

  After she and Ella had escaped, he’d ridden to Cafard’s camp to order search parties out after them; then he’d returned to Volkmar’s camp, where he’d spent the rest of the night. He’d been in his tent, shaving in front of his mirror, as Isabelle had been fanning her forces out along the edge of the Devil’s Hollow.

  He’d been buttoning his jacket as she took her place at the head of them.

  He was sitting at a campaign table, slathering butter on a slice of toast, as she and her fighters descended.

  Shouts and screams brought him to his feet. He heard gunshots. Horses whinnying. A jet of blood spattering across the wall of his tent. The wet thuk of a blade being driven home.

  He grabbed his scabbard, buckled it around his waist, and ran out into the fray. The camp was in chaos. Isabelle’s soldiers were swarming through it, savaging Volkmar’s troops.

  “My horse! Bring me my horse!” he bellowed, but no one answered his command. Men were falling all around him. The air was filled with the white smoke of gunpowder. The grand duke’s hand went to the hilt of his sword, but he never got a chance to draw it. His last sight was of a girl on a black stallion, an avenging fury bearing down on him. And then Isabelle drove her blade into his chest, straight through his treacherous heart.

  He fell to his knees, a crimson stain blooming across his jacket, an expression of surprise on his face. Then he toppled forward into the dirt.

  Isabelle did not stop to exult, for she took no pleasure in killing, but rode on determined to do more of it. Soldier after soldier fell under her slashing sword. Her men swirled through the camp like a raging, flood-swollen river, some fighting with swords, others with bayoneted rifles. They set fire to tents, destroyed paddocks, freed horses, smashed wagons.

  Though they’d been surprised, Volkmar’s men quickly rallied. They were formidable soldiers who were fighting for their lives, and they put up a strong counterattack. But Isabelle was fighting for the lives of her countrymen and she fought like a lion, urging Nero on, deeper and deeper into the camp.

  She’d just run her sword through an officer who’d been aiming his rifle at one of her lieutenants when she heard hooves behind her. Turning in her saddle, she saw a rider bearing down on her. He wore the uniform of the invaders. There was a sword in his hand and murder in his eyes.

  Someone’s just walked over your grave, whispered Adélie’s voice.

  Had he?

  Here, in the Devil’s Hollow, she would finally find out.

  Isabelle whirled Nero around.

  Came face-to-face with Volkmar.

  And let the wolf run free.

  Blue sparks flew into the air as the two swords clashed.

  Volkmar was bigger, he was stronger, but Isabelle was nimble. She parried his blows with her blade, blocked them with her shield.

  On and on they fought, their horses churning the dirt around them, their shouts and grunts and oaths mingling with those of their soldiers. Volkmar hammered against Isabelle’s shield, making her left arm shudder. He had run out of his tent without armor. Isabelle deftly thrust her sword at his unprotected head, opening a gash in his cheek, but neither was able to deliver a killing blow.

  Then Volkmar reversed direction and swung his sword at Isabelle’s back, catching her with the flat of his blade. The force of the blow sent her sprawling out of her saddle to the ground. The impact knocked her helmet off, but she managed to hold on to her sword.

  Volkmar jumped down from his mount and advanced on her. Dazed by her fall, Isabelle didn’t see him coming. But as he raised his sword, one of Isabelle’s soldiers, fighting only a few feet away, shouted a warning.

  The blade slashed through the air. Isabelle rolled to her right, trying to get out of its way, but its tip bit into her left calf. She screamed and scrabbled backward across the ground with her good leg.

  Volkmar ran at her and kicked her in the side, behind her chestplate. There was a crunch of bone. Blinding pain. She fell onto her other side, gasping, her sword underneath her.

  “Get up, you little bitch. Stand up like the man you think you are and face your death.”

  Isabelle tried to get up. She struggled to her knees. Volkmar backhanded her savagely across the face, knocking her to the ground again.

  Isabelle’s entire body was made of pain. She struggled to see through its red fog. Volkmar was nearby, circling, playing with her before he killed her.

  “Pick up your sword! Come at me!” Volkmar shouted at her.

  Spitting out a mouthful of blood, Isabelle raised her eyes to his. He was holding his own sword across his body to protect his gut. She knew that her only chance was to somehow get to her feet, then get him to lower his blade.

  But how? she wondered.

  Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak, came the answer.

  “Thank you, Sun Tzu,” she whispered.

  “Please,” she begged Volkmar. “Don’t kill me.”

  Her enemy smiled at the fear in her eyes, at the pain in her voice. “Oh, I will kill you. But not just yet,” he said.

  His arm relaxed slightly; his blade dipped a little.

  With effort, Isabelle pushed herself to her feet, then tried to hobble away, dragging her wounded leg behind her.

  Volkmar circled, taunting her. He’d already counted her among his kills. He had no idea that she had fallen off horses a thousand times and knew how to bury her pain. He did not know about the duels she’d fought under the linden tree as a child. How she’d practiced with scarecrows at the LeBenêts’. How she’d learned to parry and thrust, to feint, fall back, then strike. He could not see that she was feinting now. Her wound was bleeding badly, but it was not deep. The kick he’d delivered to her rib cage hurt like hell, but she had not lost her breath, her will, or her courage.

  Panting, grimacing, one hand pressed to her side for effect, Isabelle stood, her head bent in supplication. She was leaning on her sword, using it as a crutch. Making it look as if she was helpless, her weapon useless.

  Though her gaze was down, she could see Volkmar’s feet and his sword. The tip was only an inch or so above the ground now. He walked toward her.

  Closer, she urged him. Just a little bit closer …

  “You’re a good fighter, I’ll admit. For a girl,” Volkmar said, only a few feet away now. “But you’re too rash to be a great fighter. You have more courage than common sense.”

  Closer … that’s it …

  “The grand duke told me about you. And how you maimed yourself to marry the prince.” He chuckled. “I’ll bet you surprised him. I saw you kill him. It was a lucky thrust, of course. But still. I’m sure he never expected to see you back here, and at the head of an army, no less. He never expected much at all from a plain girl pathetic enough to cut off her own toes.”

  Closer …

  Isabelle tightened her grip on her sword. She took a deep, steadying breath, then slowly raised her head.

  “No, of course not. Why would he? Why would you?” she asked. “But I don’t cut off toes anymore …” />
  And then, with an earsplitting cry, she swung her blade high and sliced cleanly through Volkmar’s neck.

  “I cut off heads.”

  The door to Isabelle’s carriage opened.

  She stepped out and strode purposefully up the sweeping marble stairs that led up to the palace’s tall, gold-washed doors. Soldiers lined both sides of the stairs. They snapped her a salute; she returned it.

  This was a special day. Isabelle could barely contain her excitement.

  Two footmen opened the doors for her, another ushered her inside. The grand foyer, all marble and mirrors, was illuminated by a thousand candles flickering in crystal chandeliers. As she walked through it, she thought about the first time she had come to the palace—with Tavi and Maman for the prince’s ball.

  Her heart clenched as she recalled how they’d left Ella at home, sobbing in the kitchen. Isabelle had been wearing a stiff silk gown then—trimmed with glass beads, festooned with lace. Her hair had been piled up on her head in an absurd bird’s nest of a style. As she’d entered the palace, she’d caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror—and had hated the girl who’d looked back at her.

  She passed that same mirror now and stopped, just for a few seconds, to look at her reflection. A different girl gazed back now—one whose bearing was confident, who stood with her head high. This girl wore her hair in a simple braid. She was dressed in a close-cut high-necked jacket of navy twill, and a long, matching split skirt that allowed her to ride with ease. Shiny black leather boots peeked out from its hem.

  Underneath her uniform, a white bandage was wound tightly around her torso to help with the pain from the ribs Volkmar had broken when he’d kicked her. A line of stitches ran down the outside of her left calf where he’d opened a jagged gash with his sword. The wound was healing nicely. A field surgeon had stitched it closed after the Battle of Devil’s Hollow.

  That fight had been bloody and long, but Isabelle had won it. She and her forces had descended on Saint-Michel next, where they’d removed Colonel Cafard as commander and locked him up. Then she’d headed for the king’s encampment.