by Ingrid Hahn
The door. She did a double take. Had she heard a key turn in the lock when he’d left?
Only one way to find out.
She pulled the handle. The door swung wide, no impediment to escape but wailing hinges. The door didn’t lead to a stairway, but instead to an interior room. Together with the bedchamber behind her, they must have comprised the master’s apartments. The temperature disparity between the two spaces was immediately obvious with a cool brush of air over her face.
Sidonie wasn’t one step into the room before a figure crossed in the far corner of her vision. She started.
It was a serving girl, dressed simply in a plain bodice not unlike the one Sidonie donned, her hair covered in a coarse linen.
Sidonie thrust the candlestick onto a nearby table before the girl could see her with the precious item and draw the incorrect conclusion.
The servant set down the chipped pitcher alongside a basin on what must have been a makeshift washstand and offered a pretty curtsy. “Hot water for you, madame.”
“Thank you.”
“You’ll need this.” The girl offered an earthenware cup to Sidonie, brimming with rich beef broth.
The smell alone made her nearly faint with longing. Sidonie tipped the vessel back and drained the contents like a laborer after a long day under a brutal sun.
“Anything else I might bring you, madame?” The girl took back the cup.
Distinctions of rank were a natural part of the world. Sidonie had no claim to a superior role. Not anymore. Her attire alone should have signaled her as being the same as the serving girl. What had Roland said?
There was nothing about the girl but pure, earnest sincerity. It was almost as if . . . Something twinged in the back of Sidonie’s mind.
She steadied herself inwardly, lightheaded from the intoxicating pleasure of the broth warming her chilled bones. “Nothing now.”
“If that’ll be all, then.” The girl turned to leave.
The lines of the girl’s features drew an old memory in the back of Sidonie’s mind. “You must be related to Lyse.”
“You knew her?” The servant’s eyes brightened.
Sidonie’s father had whipped his daughter’s palms, making them bleed, when Sidonie had been caught attending to Lyse’s tasks. The girl had been several years younger than her, small and weak, with a persistent cough. Born into service, she’d already been a servant half her short life when Sidonie had known her. “Vaguely.” She shook her head. “But no, not really. Are you her younger sister?”
Regret pinched in Sidonie’s chest. She didn’t want to know. The chances of a sickly thing such as Lyse surviving childhood were slim. As a witch, Sidonie knew the place of death in the world, honored it and respected it. As a woman, she was tired through and through of people dying.
The sound of someone beyond the door made Sidonie turn. Roland entered, carrying a tray piled with enough food to feed four. He kicked the door closed with his heel. “Where are you?”
Jolted by the strange question, she blinked at him. “Where am I?”
“You were far away.” He gave her a measured look. He was about to set his burden down when he paused, eyes catching on the earthenware cup, his expression wary. “Where did this come from?”
Sidonie caught herself in the middle of gesturing toward the girl. But the place where she’d been about to motion was unexpectedly vacant. They were the only two in the room, she and Roland. Her first thought was that there was indeed a second passage to come and go, but, realizing the truth, the second thought quickly obliterated the first.
The girl hadn’t been there at all.
Of course. That was what Sidonie had sensed. She should have known, should have felt it. Another careless mistake.
In the very corner of her vision, a black streak darted to safety behind the folds of a tattered cloth covering a table.
The cat.
Chapter 7
Roland turned the cup upside down. Residual droplets from the broth fell to the bare floor, leaving dark circles on the stone. “You did this.”
Her gaze was so cold, he wouldn’t have been surprised if the remaining liquid in the cup had iced over. “Don’t be so certain.”
He spoke carefully, aware of needing to keep himself in check. There were things that witches were capable of—things they had in their power to do.
However. They were honor bound to live by a code. They did not see to their own comforts in any supernatural way. Doing so was one step away from affecting the world to shape their own whims and wants. It was the smallest slip on a very wet slope from there to darkness. “What have you brought here?”
Roland closed the space between them. Sidonie didn’t tremble or cower, but instead held her ground, chin dipping as her brows rose in preparation of opposing him.
The brazen display of unapologetic strength sent a hot rush of blood directly downward. He teetered dangerously close to losing control, to pulling her close and tasting for himself whether her lips were as sweet and pliant and passionate as they appeared.
“Let me go and you’ll never see me again.”
The words were razor-sharp claws against his heart. Roland studied her, hands flexing by his sides in sharp awareness of their need to be filled with her flesh, the need to keep her safe, to protect her from everything—most especially from herself. “I believe if you had the power to leave, you would be gone by now.”
Sidonie’s brows went up. “If I have such scruples, it stands to reason I had nothing to do with the broth.”
“I said nothing of scruples, madame. Now that you mention them, I’m not certain what I think.”
“Thank you for making your true opinion of me so very plain, my lord.”
He narrowed his eyes upon her. “What is it you’re not telling me?”
She raised her chin, eyes harboring accusation. “A better question might be what are you not telling me? It wasn’t the fact of your parentage that prevented you from marrying me, was it?”
Roland hedged, relying on the truth, if not the whole truth. “The fact of my parentage is a grave consideration. Force that burden upon your shoulders? No. No, I couldn’t have lived with myself had I brought you into a life at Bramville.”
“Well, your wish was granted. I hope you’re happy.”
“My wish?”
“You live here alone. Without me.”
“Sidonie—”
“No, don’t Sidonie me. Don’t you dare. You’re keeping yourself back. Why?”
He toyed with a more complete answer, but changed direction instead. “If I’d married you as I ought to have done, would you be leaving me now?”
Ever so slightly, her brows dipped and her mouth turned down at the corners. Her voice came out low and husky. “I don’t think in what if’s, Roland.”
Maybe she didn’t want to, but everything they’d discussed since she came hinted that she did.
“Then you are so certain you will succeed in the task you have set for yourself?”
Color leached from her cheeks. There was guilt in that red stain. So she wasn’t certain. He’d been right. It was not a comforting thought.
“Take me to see your mother while she still lives.”
“No.”
“Your refusal means people will die. I can’t let that happen. Not when I can save them.”
“You’re mistaken. You can’t. They’re already as good as dead. The sooner you accept it—”
Fury flashing in her eyes, as beautiful as it was powerful, derailing his train of thought. Then, before he knew what was happening, she’d grabbed the pitcher and flung the contents into his face. Warm water crashed against his skin and coursed down the front of his shirt. He opened his mouth to rage at her.
The cli
ck of the lock, metal against metal, crashed into his skull like a clapper against the lip of an unready bell.
Sidonie was fleeing.
The sound of the lock working made him numb to everything but the need to catch her. He flung forward. The door slammed in his face. He yanked it open in time for her vanish around the bend of the stairwell in a flutter of skirts.
He was faster than she. Stronger. With longer legs and a stride at least double hers. But she was lean and light and fueled with the power of single-minded desperation.
Around and around the narrow stairwell they went, the shallow width of each step’s surface slowing him as he fought against pitching forward.
Her skirts billowed. He reached. He could almost . . . Yes. He grabbed the garment, twisting a handful in his fist. She screamed. The fabric rent. Stone crumbled beneath Roland’s feet and he tumbled, at the last moment heaving himself against the wall to keep from going down headfirst.
~ ~ ~
Sidonie ran, heart beating wild against her ribs. Consciousness vanished. Instinct propelled her. There was a white-hot pain in her side as if she’d been stabbed with a sword fresh from the blacksmith’s fires.
She ignored it.
Her panicked senses were scrambled, but she couldn’t squander the last chance Lady Fortune had offered to deliver Sidonie from Roland’s clutches.
Then his hand closed around her. Firmly and without question. There was a sound like falling rocks and suddenly she was free again. She didn’t dare look back to see what had happened.
She opened her senses. She had no time to evaluate, but she had to trust in a guiding hand far greater than herself.
A force pulled on her, called to her, even now in her current state of heightened emotions.
Roland’s mother. It had to be. Nothing else could reach up so quickly and with such power. Her life force might have been draining from earthly existence, but Death would not weaken it. Only shift it from this world to the next.
Sidonie threw a wordless prayer of thanksgiving toward heaven. She could feel where the force came from. Somewhere below. Roland had tried to hide her. He might know a thing or two about his mother’s kind, but lacked true understanding.
The stairway terminated in a shadowy chamber behind the great room in the oldest part of the château. There were two archways on either side, one dead-ending in a wall built by a more recent d’Ambroisin forebear. It appeared sealed, but she sensed a passage.
Without knowing whether she was going to break all the bones in her body or hurl through the air as if the solid surface were no more than a veil of smoke, she flung herself forward. The wall was no illusion, but no pain erupted in her body when she crashed against it. The smooth surface gave away under the force of her weight, swiveling open at the corner wide enough to allow her passage.
A panicked voice shouted her name. “Don’t! Stop! Don’t go down there!”
Not even a warning from the depths of hell would have been enough to make her take heed. She was going to get help from his mother and she was going to save her people.
Somewhere below was a flickering torch. Scant light indeed, but enough to make her sure of her footing over the unfamiliar steps.
The air turned damp. The crushingly narrow walls caught glassy glints from what meager light there was, as if water droplets clung to their surface.
The stairs leveled off, ending in a gaping space like an underground cloister. The ceilings were vaulted. Arches and columns lined the stretch, and as they receded, they faded into darkness. Upon the columns were blazing torches, a blackened streak rising behind each as if centuries of soot had never been washed away. The air smelled of a forgotten crypt.
The sensation was so strong, it could have felled her. She was close—close to Roland’s mother.
Without warning, a figure stepped from behind one of the columns, bringing Sidonie to a dead halt. Whatever she had expected to find in the bowels of the château, it wasn’t this. Wasn’t him. Whatever—whoever—he was. The man was tall and gaunt, his hair long and white hanging in straight locks down to the middle of his chest.
Man wasn’t the right term for the figure before her now. But neither was entity. No ghost could have looked so haunted.
Catching familiar lines in his face and a familiar set to his eerily glassy eyes, she clasped a hand over her mouth.
But, no. That couldn’t be possible. Roland was the last of the line.
Recognition flashed in her brain. The man, he couldn’t be Roland’s brother, could he? No, Jacques had passed thirteen years ago. His family had buried him. Mourned him. Besides, the man appeared older than Jacques would have been by at least a century.
But the likeness was too great.
Her heart lurched in her throat. There was no question he was a d’Ambroisin. Only d’Ambroisin men perpetually wore a pinch upon their brow, a downward curl to the sides of their mouths. Two things this face echoed from Roland’s father’s features.
Back in the deep murk of her clattering mind another fact clicked into place. The d’Ambroisin marks upon him were nowhere to be found upon Roland’s. Roland’s nose had distinct lines and his eyes had a particular deep set unlike any other d’Ambroisin Sidonie had ever known or seen a likeness of.
If he were Jacques . . . well, that could mean but a single thing. It was true about madness in the d’Ambroisin line. Her stomach went hollow.
His mother wasn’t down here. Of course not. Why would anyone have put a dying woman down here, for any reason?
How could Sidonie have made such a terrible error? And so recently after chiding herself for the other—whatever it was that had happened in the other part of the château. It had happened mere minutes ago, but her memory was already going hazy to any other place but this one.
It was him, the haunted man. He had drawn her here, not Roland’s mother. By mistake or had he had a purpose in doing so?
She didn’t need to state her question. An undercurrent of unspoken comprehension pushed and pulled between her and the man.
Sidonie didn’t know she’d taken a step backward until there came a crunching sound from beneath the heavy soles of her worn boots. A shiver rattled down her spine. She wouldn’t dare take her gaze from the figure, not even to blink, but there was a dry quality to the sound. She didn’t need to look to know what she’d crushed.
It was an old bone.
Her back hit something solid and large hands closed gently around the tops of her arms. Roland’s smell made her heart leap. He’d safeguard her. All the protection she hadn’t thought she needed or wanted, she did. At least until she regained her equilibrium.
Slowly, as if he occupied a separate realm where time trickled instead of spun, the haunted man raised his head, his gaze focusing over her shoulder. The man . . . entity . . . Jacques . . . whatever he might have been, his voice was like sand. “Good day, Sidonie. We have been waiting for you.”
Her mouth went dry and panic pounded through her veins. It was too soon. She couldn’t die yet. “Waiting . . . for me?”
“You know what you must do.”
The pieces fell into place. “To save them, you mean? But, I’ve been trying, and—”
“Roland, take her.”
Roland growled. “You shouldn’t have done this.”
“No!” Sidonie held up her hand. “Wait, please. I have more questions.”
She reached out, trying to step away, but Roland held her fast.
Her pleas were in vain. The man turned, appearing not to have heard her.
And then he was gone.
He’d walked behind the column again, Sidonie was sure of it. In her mind, at least. She hadn’t blinked, but she also couldn’t deny how easy it would have been to doubt herself. He moved the way a ghost did. Appearing, it was like he
’d never not been present. Gone, it was like he’d been naught more than the trick of the light.
Roland’s grip on her arms tightened. “Come.”
Sidonie was powerless to fight against him. He led her back up. She no longer cared if servants caught sight of her. The haunted man hadn’t said as much, but she felt she didn’t belong below as intensely as he’d written the words over every measure of her skin.
Chapter 8
Roland brought Sidonie to the kitchens and, after dismissing the servant with a nod, rested her upon the stool by the blazing hearth.
Only then did the sting of a gash on his forehead pierce his awareness. He wiped a sleeve across his brow and pulled away a dark smear of blood.
He looked back to where Sidonie sat trembling. Kneeling beside her, he pulled her hands into his, rubbing back and forth to create warmth, the pain of the awareness of her beguiling fragrance more acute than the throb from his head.
In his years as Jacques’s protector, he’d grown accustomed to his brother. Even if he didn’t approve of what Jacques had done to Sidonie or what he had said, his brother wasn’t a shock to him.
Seeing through Sidonie’s eyes—what a shock she must have suffered. It was a rare thing, to shock a witch.
“You’re frozen. You must eat. Take some warm wine and a bit of bread.”
She said nothing, only stared trance-like into the flames. The way her lips curved in profile was enough to send heated images pulsing through his mind. Images of their bodies tangled and needy as they acted on all the base and animalistic forces drawing them together.
Such thoughts were unfitting at any time, most especially now. It was the relief that came in hot pulses after recovering from a terrible fright that brought the horribly inappropriate thoughts to the forefront of his mind.