by Ingrid Hahn
“No. I will never leave Jacques. I can’t. I won’t.” Roland had given up Sidonie for Jacques. He couldn’t have made the wrong choice.
“You’ll die here.”
“We all die, cousin.” A strange thought—a wish, almost—bubbled up. Instead of laying down his life for his brother and the d’Ambroisin duty, he could lay it down for Sidonie.
Idle musings could be dangerous. He wouldn’t allow himself to entertain such notions.
Toinette sighed, softened, and crossed the room to place her hands upon his shoulders, her expression motherly. “You’re a good brother. But staying here to be what you’re not . . . Roland, have you looked at yourself? Do you see what it’s doing to you?”
“I won’t abandon him. Without me, he’d—” The gruesome possibility was enough to choke him. “It’s my place.” He drew on his waning inner reserve to steady himself. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with. You might think you’re ready, but nothing could ever prepare you. Not for this. Heed my warning, Toinette.”
Ignoring him, she wiped his brow with a delicate square of linen and frowned as if noticing for the first time the mark Sidonie’s blow had left. “You’ve been hurt. Bit of a nasty gash too. Have you put anything on it?”
“It’s nothing.”
She pressed her lips together as if debating which argument she wanted to pursue. “Listen from within as I do and you shall hear it too.”
He pushed her away. “I hear nothing.”
“Roland—”
“I’m not leaving.” Sidonie’s face glowed in Roland’s mind’s eye. Were temptation an abyss, he’d be ready to spread his arms and leap.
He rubbed his pounding temples. His cousin couldn’t possibly know what her words were doing to him. He was all too capable of walking away, of turning his back on Jacques. He dreamed of nothing else, bastard excuse for a d’Ambroisin son that he was. It’d be easy to go, so easy.
But leaving wouldn’t be his beginning.
Leaving would be his end.
“Nothing, mark me, nothing will, could, or would ever get me to go.”
“It’s time we saw your mother.”
He bit back a heated refusal. But if his mother required Toinette, he would not refuse her.
In silence, they wound their way up. In his mother’s chamber, two servants stayed with her so she would never be alone. They rose, curtsied, and quickly left.
Toinette let her cloak slip from her shoulders and settled by the bedside, taking her aunt’s skeletal hand within her own. A weak whisper came from the shadows of the massive draped bed. “Where is she?”
Toinette’s face softened. “I’m here, Aunt.”
“No, my girl. Not you. Her.” His mother’s gray eyes found his. “He knows.”
His cousin’s head whipped around, expression annoyed. “What is she talking about? Is somebody here?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t be a fool, cousin.” Toinette rose and waved at him. “Fetch her at once.”
“No.”
A voice came from the doorway. “Are you perchance looking for me?”
~ ~ ~
Time was running short. With the shade’s warning pressing upon her, Sidonie had to leave within the hour. The inquisitor’s man was coming for her. He’d followed her. She’d put everyone in the château in terrible danger. She’d be the one shouldering all the blame if anything happened to them.
But to leave without taking her one final desperate chance to speak with Roland’s mother, Lady d’Ambroisin—it was a risk she had to take. For the greater good.
The bedchamber was a relic of those bygone days when the d’Ambroisin family held status over those in the land. Once shining and bright, the fabrics of the room had faded, becoming worn and tattered. The walls were blackened with decades of soot, making a generous room feel cramped.
Roland and the pretty woman—his cousin, Antoinette—stared at her. Roland’s scowl turned downright threatening. As if by daring to encroach on his territory he would turn against her, unchecked and feral.
A weak voice sounded from the darkness enclosed in the drapes around the bed. “Bring her to me.”
Sidonie stepped forward. Roland wouldn’t meet her eye. He visibly fumed, his face hard, his eyes burning with all the rage of hellfire.
Whatever this cost her with him, Sidonie wasn’t going to lose anything. Their paths weren’t joined. They were never supposed to be together. No matter what her heart might whisper when they were close, she had to ignore the yearnings.
The firelight danced on the walls and the flames crackled menacingly, as if they were coming for her.
The figure propped on pillows in the bed was a shrunken and pale version of the once vibrant woman. Her life force remained strong—by far the strongest thing in the room. But so much had ebbed out of her, it was nearly impossible to believe her corporeal shell hadn’t yet been hollowed by Death. She was clinging to this life by sheer willpower alone.
She wasn’t half so old as she looked. Written upon her face were hard years full of sorrow upon sorrow that would have killed lesser people decades ago. Yet, through it all, she’d lived with a courage and grace Sidonie could only envy. If faced with the trials Lady d’Ambroisin had struggled with, she could only pray she managed half as well.
“I’ve been waiting for you, my dear.”
The old woman held out her hand. Sidonie knelt and kissed the icy fingers. In the facial bones underlying the papery skin were traces of both Roland’s features and his ghostly brother’s.
“Help me.” Desperation made Sidonie’s voice tremble. “Please, I beg of you. Help me.”
“You already know what you must do.” The dying woman spoke in slow, breathy whispers, her voice raspy, as if she spoke through sand. The death rattle. With her end so near, she would never allow anything to pass between her lips to ease it.
“But I can’t, you see. I’ve been trying, again and again, but without any success. I need your help.”
“You’re overreaching, my child. There are more ways to accomplish what you want than what you’re aiming to do.”
Sidonie had not come all this way to hear such words. She tamped down her impatience. “This is what I must do.”
“Must? You’ve taken this task upon yourself, my child.”
“I have. And I won’t shake my conviction. I will do what’s right. I will see this done.”
“Will you? You just told me you’ve been trying without success.”
“Please, my lady—”
“You don’t need to do this.”
“I do. I could slice his throat, I know I could. That would be so much simple.”
“If you kill him—”
“I won’t.” Sidonie folded her hands together in a position of prayer, squeezing her fingers so they turned white. “I want to, I wish I didn’t, I pray for this thirst to be lifted from my soul, but so far my prayers have been met with silence.”
“You are young, aren’t you, my girl? It’s not for the likes of you and I to seek vengeance.”
“I’m not so young as all that.”
Sidonie bowed her head, feeling all too painfully the uncertainty of her inexperience. Her lack of power. What she wanted to do was simple enough.
For a minute, she almost lost her courage and didn’t speak. Lady d’Ambroisin’s opinion of her meant something. Like Jeanne’s. Sidonie didn’t want to want their approval. Like she didn’t want to want to kill the inquisitor’s man. These wants were weaknesses. Flaws.
But the bigger weakness would be if she slunk away now—remaining silent when she should have spoken. Sidonie couldn’t call herself a witch if she left. Maybe it was pride that was keeping her—forcing her onward—but if that was what it took, so b
e it.
This exchange was a test. One Sidonie would not fail. “It’s not vengeance if I send him back where he came from.”
“Is that the truth, or is that what you’ve made yourself believe to justify the path you want to take?”
“You’re not going to make me waver, my lady.” Sidonie’s inner self might not have matched her words, but still she spoke the truth. Or a version of it, any rate. She wouldn’t abandon her fate. “This is what I must do.”
“Beware of your anger, my dear. Whatever you feel, honor it. But don’t on the impulse of emotion alone. Use your God-given intelligence.”
It wasn’t a refusal. “I pray you, my lady, help me. So he can no longer hurt our kind.”
“There will be more. There are always more.”
“But there won’t be him.”
Roland’s mother smiled. “I’m going to give you the greatest gift I can bestow upon you.”
Sidonie’s heart lifted. An object of some sort? Something that could enhance her powers? Such objects were dangerous, especially if they fell into the wrong hands, but nothing would stop her from using it. Even if it brought to Death. She would die to vanquish evil from the land. She would die so others could live.
Her soul was prepared for whatever might lay ahead.
“Yes, my lady?”
“I’m going to give you my son.”
Chapter 12
Roland, having withdrawn at once from his mother’s room in the wreckage of her pronouncement, locked himself in his bedchamber. A violent tempest raged in his body. He downed a swallow of spirits, then splashed a second, much-larger pour into the cup.
How dare his mother ask this of him? How dare she lay upon her death bed and tell Sidonie that he, his brother’s guardian, leave the grounds of Bramville?
His whole life was in turmoil. He should find Sidonie and explain to her that no matter what his mother said, he wasn’t going to go. Letting her go would rip him in two. But she had her path to follow—her duty. He had his.
And his cousin. What was he going to do about his cousin?
Toinette was no fool, but she was wrong. Delusional. So long as she remained convinced, he was well and truly alone. Pray she didn’t have to die before understanding the depths of her mistake.
He tugged the pendant out from under his shirt and stared at the intricate design struck in silver. The piece had been passed down from father to son through the ages. He would be the last to wear it. The one who’d take it to his grave.
The workmanship was so finely detailed, so delicate, as to be otherworldly. In the center of the obverse hung a perfect crescent moon. The silver had gleamed when his mother had pressed the piece into his hand all those years ago. He’d been the prodigal son, newly returned to France, newly returned from shirking his duty, from rejecting his brother, and from breaking a promise to Sidonie.
On the reverse was a stylized depiction of a raging bull, the horns almost as large as the creature itself.
The metal was almost black. He’d have to polish it. When he was small, he’d been able to see his reflection in the silver. That was long before he ever dreamed he’d possess the object himself.
His hand closed so tightly around the medallion, the sharp edges cut into his skin. His eyes squeezed shut. Toinette wanted him to listen? Very well. He would listen.
His head bowed and he shut away all conscious thought.
Nothing. Nothing but darkness and silence. Well, what had he expected? That a phantom would materialize and explain everything to him? Nonsense. Spirits were common enough in stories. In life, they were exceptionally rare.
The thought made Toinette’s words about her children being next in line echo in his mind. She was right. He was powerless to stop it. This was bigger than him, bigger than any of them. Even Jacques.
He opened his fist. The sharp edges had indeed cut his skin and the thick red liquid smeared over the surface, pooling in the etched designs and cradling the center crescent as if making a blood moon. Blood without a drop of true d’Ambroisin.
Something bumped up against Roland’s ankles. A cat. The animal arched a back thick with shining black hair and bumped against him again. “Where the devil did you come from?”
It looked up at him with glowing yellow eyes and meowed.
Just a meow. A long and demanding yowling sort of meow, but a meow all the same. Nothing unusual about a cat producing such a noise. It couldn’t have made Roland’s insides ricochet, it couldn’t have. Cats didn’t have that power.
A sinking feeling almost made his knees buckle. He wanted to be wrong, but he wasn’t. He knew. It should have been impossible for the cat to communicate, but a whisper rolled through the air around him.
Sidonie. She was gone. Forever.
And he’d failed her.
~ ~ ~
Sidonie had failed. She was returning to Paris no stronger than she’d left. Perhaps weaker, with so many of her thoughts in a tangle of useless hopes and dreams concerning Roland. Without any of the knowledge she’d sought. And—regardless of what his mother had said—without Roland. Waiting for him would only cause further delay.
She clutched a hood around her head to keep dry under the rain turned to pinpricks by the whipping wind. From her vantage on the back of the shaking cart, Château Bramville was a hulking gray pile of rock overlooking the river. The massive form grew ever smaller until at last, around one brambly turn, the road began to dip and the building slipped from view.
She rubbed her dangling feet together. Riding on the cart would conserve strength, but sitting damp and still while gust after icy gust cut down from the north might turn out to be too high a price to pay. At least walking might warm her blood and give her mind a steadying focus. Roland pulled on her thoughts like a relentless moon brutalizing a helpless tide.
She bundled down into the heavy wool cloak to bury her nose in the fur and lose herself in his rich fragrance.
An hour or two later, the sound of distant hoof beats made her draw herself into a tight ball against the rough sacks in the back of the cart and arrange the cloak as if she were nothing but a part of the farmer’s load. The risk of being recognized was slender enough, but a minuscule chance remained. Cordumont, her father, remained prominent in these parts.
The rider grew closer. Sidonie held her breath. She shouldn’t have been this uneasy. Damn her for coming back. Damn her foolishness with Roland. Damn her for failing.
She was more alone than ever. But that wouldn’t stop her.
The rider passed, but it was a long time before she unfolded herself.
The rain grew heavier as late morning gave away to afternoon. The sky grew darker and began spitting down the occasional white flake with the heavy drops. Through an ill-attended stretch of road, the cart jostled over the deep ruts.
About a mile from the next village, the wheel fell into a trench, and there came a sound like a branch splitting. Sidonie lurched, grabbing on to the sides at the last moment to stop from being flung into the mud.
She craned backward to find the grizzled old farmer with his hands on his knees, crouched next to the cart, his thin wavy hair dangling in his face. The donkey brayed and shook droplets from his head. “All is well?”
“Afraid not.” Any protest against ending the day’s journey early died on her lips when he looked at her and pointed down. “Wheel broke.”
She parted with the same amount of coin as if the farmer had taken her the whole of the way to Paris. In a few days, she’d have no need of money. Corpses generally didn’t.
Trudging onward, she came to a tiny roadside village at last light, only just able to make out a handful of weather-beaten buildings all but completely shrouded by the rain. Her worn boots were solid enough protection against dry ground, but did nothing to keep out th
e wet, and she could no longer feel her toes.
In a house by the side of the road, a woman sat in the window with a child nursing at her breast. The sight made Sidonie’s heart ache with longing. Seeing Roland had been a difficult reminder of all the things she wanted but could never have.
She couldn’t take another night of sleeping on the open road—sneaking into a barn and making herself a bed of hay. She wanted a bed. A meal. A bit of comfort, however small.
In the smoky entry of a modest inn, she made arrangements with a gracious but distracted innkeeper for a hot meal and a night’s stay, then crept, dripping, into the common room.
Rough men hunched over drinks at a table by the fire stopped talking to run their gazes over her. Unaccompanied women made easy prey. She made eye contact with each in succession and offered a cool nod. When they turned back to each other, she sank into a deep exhalation.
She took a rickety table in the far corner and along with her meal came a lantern so she wouldn’t have to eat in darkness. She cupped her hands around the earthenware bowl of hearty mutton stew set before her until sensation again started tingling under her skin. Then she made quick work of the meal, catching bits and pieces of the men’s conversation as she ate. Their regional speech were the sounds and cadences of her childhood. Different from the dialect she’d learned in Jeanne’s home after the older witch had taken her in.
“Don’t like it, me. Did you see the coin he handed over to Émile? Men like him mean trouble.”
“You’ve been listening to your wife again.”
“My woman has more sense between her ears than you do.”
“Coin or no, don’t matter. Émile’d piss in his own mouth before throwing him out. He’s a coward afraid of getting his throat slit.”