Erec had all the precision and control she had always lacked. When he fought a duel, he was perfectly capable of slicing off his opponent’s buttons one by one, accompanying each swipe of his sword with a witty remark. He wouldn’t hurt her, but he would cheerfully slice her dignity to pieces and make the court laugh at her.
And she would have to pretend to laugh along with them, or only look more ridiculous.
They saluted each other, took two steps away, and turned back. They lowered their swords until they barely touched, halfway down the blade.
You can fight him, Rachelle thought, if you stay calm. He’s counting on you to get angry.
The rustle and mutter of the crowd faded away. Erec filled up her world: his narrowed eyes, the glint of his sword, the way he leaned his weight just slightly to the left.
“Now,” said the King, though Rachelle only realized she had heard the word a moment later, so absorbed she had been in watching Erec and trying to gauge how he would strike.
When he moved, it was barely more than a twitch of his sword. Rachelle parried too hard, and left herself wide open for the tip of his sword to slap against her chest.
“First point,” he said.
He wants me angry, Rachelle thought, circling him. He wants me angry so I’ll make mistakes.
She tried to keep calm. But he kept attacking her in swift little flurries that would just barely miss scoring points against her, not because she was blocking them correctly—she could never quite do it right—but because he had the control to stop his sword or turn it aside just a moment before it hit her.
He was patronizing her. And anyone who knew anything about sword fighting could see it.
“Come, d’Anjou,” said the King jovially. “You’re not giving us much of a show.”
“Do you hear that, my lady?” said Erec. “Our King demands amusement.” His voice had a wry slant of you and I know this is stupid. Having picked a fight and made her look a fool, he was now offering a truce.
“Fine,” said Rachelle, and kicked him in the face.
Though he dodged at the last moment, it sent him staggering backward in a way that should have been satisfying. But he only laughed, somehow making it sound like she had done it to please him, and he approved.
Then he attacked. The next few moments were a whirl of dodges, lunges, kicks, and leaps. They were indeed putting on a show: nobody but bloodbound could have maintained this kind of speed for so long, let alone dodged each other’s blades without being sliced to ribbons. Rachelle knew this, and she knew she was fighting better than she ever had against Justine.
She still wasn’t fighting well enough. Erec scored a second point against her—this time a quick tap to her arm—and then redoubled his attack. Rachelle tried to match him, and she was fighting better than she ever had in her life, but no matter how fast she moved, he was faster, dancing at the edge of her reach and laughing at her with his eyes.
Laughing. Because he knew he was going to win, and this duel was going to last precisely as long as he wanted it to.
A cold pressure pounded inside her temples. Icy sweetness shivered down her veins. The Great Forest was in her blood and it wanted her now.
With a numb, dazed panic, she realized that she wanted it too. She couldn’t want it, and she was trying so hard to resist that she stumbled, and suddenly the tip of Erec’s sword was hovering an inch away from her face, mocking her because Erec could use the power of the Forest to make himself perfect and she never could.
If she couldn’t win, she might at least decide when the duel ended. With a snarl, she lunged toward Erec, dropping to her knees at the last second to skid under his blade and stab upward.
He caught the blade with his bare hand. Blood leaked out between his fingers, but he grinned.
“I dub thee,” he said, “the lady of my heart.” And he tapped his sword to her shoulder, taking the final point and winning the match.
Rachelle stared blankly at the ground. Her heart was still pounding from the fight; tears and fury clogged her throat. Around her, she could now hear applause, laughter, and muttering as everyone admired him.
His finger tilted up her chin. “Don’t forget our wager,” he said.
Despite the duel, he wasn’t breathing hard at all; there was barely a drop of sweat on him.
Rachelle wanted to snarl, I’d rather kiss a forestborn, but anger would just amuse him. Would just amuse everyone, because anger was funny when it couldn’t be backed up by strength, especially when it was the anger of a stupid little girl from the northern forest.
She couldn’t smile and hide what she was feeling, though. Blankly submitting was beyond her too: her eyes stung, and in a moment she really would be crying.
If she had to submit to him, at least she could do that, too, on her own terms.
“I never forget,” she said, and rolled abruptly to the side, swinging a leg to sweep him off his feet. Erec went down, and though he was rolling back up a heartbeat later, she was on him and pressed him back down with her sword at his throat.
“This is for you,” she said, and crushed her mouth down onto his.
For one moment, it was glorious: her heart drummed against her ribs, his body was pinned beneath hers, and for once she was the one wresting something from him. Around her, the air sang with icy, approving sweetness.
But he was Erec, and he had no problem kissing her back. Nor in wrapping his bloody fingers around the blade—again—and pushing it away as he sat up, still kissing her. Her body was catching fire, but inside her chest was a cold hollow, because always, always he made her helpless.
Then he broke away. Rachelle caught a strangled gasp. Her body felt like it was made of sparks and no longer quite attached to her. She had to take a few breaths before she scrambled to her feet, and by then of course Erec was already standing straight and tall and smug, convinced that he had won this contest as well, because he was looking ironic and she was breathless.
Of course he had won. He always won.
Rachelle lifted her chin and looked at the King. “Are you sufficiently amused, Your Majesty?”
That was when she noticed that the crowd had gone dead silent. She remembered what Armand had said about kissing in public.
Well, if they wanted to think her an animal, let them. It wouldn’t be so far from the truth. Her body was shaking with pure animal hatred.
Then she saw Armand, still sitting on the ground where she had left him and watching her with absolutely no expression.
Yes, she thought ferociously. This is what I am. Don’t forget it.
Her body grew tenser, as if preparing to fight again. A heartbeat later, she realized there were woodspawn nearby.
“Erec,” she whispered, “do you—”
Then the woodspawn attacked.
They didn’t come out of the trees. They stood up from the grass, as if they had been there all along, though the space had been empty and well-trodden a moment before. There were at least ten of them: furry creatures that stood as high as her knees but were long and limber as ferrets. They would have looked almost natural except for the glowing red eyes and the long, snakelike black tongues that lashed out of their mouths.
She had fought this kind before. She knew their tongues were deadly poison.
Rachelle had killed the first two before the crowd even realized what was happening. Then they started clapping and laughing. She didn’t understand what it meant—she was busy dodging the tongues of two more woodspawn—until Armand’s voice rang out: “Everyone get back! They’re dangerous!”
She realized: the courtiers thought this was entertainment.
Somebody screamed—not a shriek of fear, but a howl of pure agony. Rachelle whirled and saw one of the ladies had fallen to the ground, clutching her arm. One of the woodspawn crouched beside her.
Rachelle threw her knife; it hit the woodspawn but glanced off, and then the creature turned on her.
She charged. The creature leaped at her and e
nded up spitted for its troubles. Rachelle turned, discovering as she did that the thing’s body was stuck on her sword—
And saw, in the same instant, that Erec had managed to kill off all the others but one, and that one was preparing to spring at Armand.
She sprang first. Barely. She hit its body in midair and the both tumbled to the ground. Its tongue lashed up and struck her throat, burning like white-hot iron—
With a shriek of pain and fury, she seized its neck and twisted. She felt it writhing in her grip. Felt the bones of its neck snap. Felt it go still.
She felt the air rush out of her lungs. And then she felt nothing at all.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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It didn’t take her long to wake up again. What was deadly poison to humans was only pain and an hour-long fever to bloodbound. When she was able to sit up again, her throat aching and her skin shivering, people were still shouting and fainting and chattering.
Rachelle managed to escape most of the tumult by dragging Armand away for his own safety. Though by the time she got him back to his rooms, the servants had already heard and were talking about it.
On the bright side, the horror of a surprise woodspawn attack in plain daylight seemed to have stopped people from talking about the depraved antics of the King’s bloodbound. Not that Rachelle could stop thinking about it; every other minute, she remembered Erec laughing at her as he scored point after point in the duel, Erec pinned beneath her but still—through the kiss—making her dance to his bidding. He had humiliated her and laughed at her and then he had still made her want him.
Armand didn’t speak to her for the rest of the day. That was good, because she didn’t want to talk to him. He had seen her kissing Erec, seen her panting with lust and bloodlust at the same time. She knew what he must think of her.
It shouldn’t matter what he thought of her.
The King didn’t send for them that evening, so Armand ate dinner in his rooms, grimly stabbing at his food with the fork clamped to his hand. Rachelle sat in the corner and stared. She didn’t want to look at him. Looking at him made her think of this afternoon and the day before and everything that was horrible and broken and wrong in her. But she couldn’t look away.
Finally, Armand looked up at her. “Are we still pretending you take orders from me?” he asked with a mild curiosity that burned more than any anger.
Rachelle’s chest tightened. “Have we ever pretended that?”
“I would like it,” he said quietly and distinctly, “if you pretended long enough to go into the other room and stop staring at me.”
“And let the woodspawn eat you?” she asked.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re useful. For now.” She stood. “Scream if you need help.”
She went to her room and spent the next hour watching Amélie mix powders and trying not to cry. Which did not make any sense.
Nothing in her heart made any sense.
She could tell she wasn’t going to sleep that night, so she didn’t even try. She told Amélie to go to bed, and then she sat in a chair and stared at the wall. If she stared hard enough, she could make herself stop thinking, even though the confused misery in her chest still wouldn’t go away.
Then Armand let out a hoarse cry. She was in his room before she had fully realized what she was doing. She didn’t see or sense any woodspawn; Armand was sitting up in bed, rigid but apparently unharmed. Beside his bed, the candle had burned down nearly to a stump.
“What happened?” she demanded.
“Nothing.” He stared at the wall.
“Did you see something?”
“No.”
“Did you— Just look at me!” She grabbed his wrist to pull him toward her. But she had forgotten that he had lost his hands; her fingers closed over the very end of his arm, and she could feel the rounded edge of the stump.
She had heard for months about his tragically missing hands. But feeling the way his arms just ended was like a kick to the stomach.
He did look at her then, very tired and very irritated. “I had a dream,” he said. “I woke up screaming. Laugh and go back to sleep.”
“I’m not going to laugh,” she said.
“Are you going to let go of my arm?”
She flinched and released him.
The silence stretched between them. The darkness wrapped around them. It felt like they were the only people in the world, and the tension that had choked her all day started to seep away.
“Are you going to watch me all night?” he asked. “Because I wasn’t aware that your mandate included protecting me from bad dreams.”
“What really happened?” she asked. “With your hands, and the mark?”
“I thought I was a liar. Now you’re going to believe what I say?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Are you going to tell me it was your holiness that let you live?”
He looked at her as if she were a foreign language he was trying to decipher.
“No,” he said finally, slowly, softly.
Very carefully, Rachelle sat down beside him on the bed. “Then what happened?”
He pressed his lips together. “I met a forestborn,” he said finally. “He marked me. I said I wouldn’t kill anyone. He laughed, and told me I’d change my mind in three days.”
“Did you?”
“No. I didn’t.” His voice was light and tense and strangled. “But you know the stories about the Royal Gift? That because the royal line is descended from Tyr, they have power over the Forest? It turns out it’s real. At least, real enough to keep the mark from killing me. And surprisingly, forestborn don’t like it when you ruin their plans.”
“Why didn’t he kill you?” asked Rachelle.
“Why don’t you ask him?”
He did have a point. “So the forestborn cut off your hands for revenge, and you survived it because you’re special—”
“Because I’m nearly bloodbound, so I heal faster. But I still wasn’t well enough to conceal the mark until much too late.”
“So now you hold audiences where you pretend to be the King’s pet saint. Why? Because you can’t bear to disappoint the multitudes?”
“Because,” Armand said, biting off each word, “my half brother Raoul deserves to get the throne and every other good thing. Unfortunately the King doesn’t much like him, but he knows I care about him, and if I don’t let people go on thinking I’m his pet saint, he will punish Raoul on my account.”
“So instead you lie to the people.”
“I don’t lie,” said Armand. “I always tell them I’m not a saint.”
“Which only convinces them that you are one. Do you think that makes a difference?”
“Maybe. Do you believe me now?”
“Maybe,” said Rachelle, but she knew she meant, Yes.
He seemed to know it too, because the edge of his mouth turned up. “Does that mean you’re going to be kinder to me?”
“Of course not. I’m still a heartless bloodbound.”
His face cracked in a smile utterly different from the one he’d used playing cards. “Between you and me, you’re not very good at it.”
The flickering candlelight danced across his face. He was beautiful.
No. Beauty was something you admired from a distance. Rachelle wanted to lock her fingers in his hair and close her mouth over his and pull him down to the bed on top of her. She wanted to possess him, and more than that, she wanted him to possess her. More than anything else in the world, she wanted him to look at her with the same absolute, burning attention he had when he talked about what he believed.
Her face heated. This was lust, plain and simple. It was why she couldn’t stop watching him on the hunt, why she couldn’t stop noticing his every movement now. She hadn’t thought she could feel this way about anyone except Erec.
It didn’t m
atter what she felt for anyone. It wasn’t love, and even if it was, she didn’t have time for it. Very soon now, she would die fighting the Devourer. Or more likely, the Devourer would return and she would simply die. There was no room for love in her future.
No room at all.
Armand let out his breath suddenly—the noise was almost a laugh—and Rachelle realized that she had been staring at him. She jumped to her feet.
“Then if we don’t hate each other right now,” she said, “will you help me look for the door again?”
Armand seemed to hesitate a moment; then he squared his shoulders and said, “Actually, I had an idea.”
“What?” asked Rachelle.
“None of the rooms look the same as they did in Prince Hugo’s day. But the name of the place—that hasn’t changed in five hundred years. Maybe longer. This was Château de Lune when Prince Hugo knew it.”
“You mean the whole Château is the ‘moon’?” said Rachelle. “Then what’s the sun?” As soon as she said the words, she realized. “The sun,” she said, answering her own question.
Armand nodded. “One of the old women on my mother’s estate said that some woodwife charms only work at certain times of day. Is that true?”
The sun had set hours ago. It was, in a sense, beneath them. Now they only needed to get beneath the Château.
“Yes,” said Rachelle, and hope was almost as dizzying as terror. “Let’s go.”
This time they didn’t have to spin a story to get past anyone. Rachelle stole the keys from their hook and they slipped down together into the chill, silent darkness of the tunnels.
“Do you see anything?” asked Rachelle, as soon as they had stepped off the bottom stair.
Armand paused. “No, just— Wait. Gold.”
A cold shiver slid down her spine. “Where?”
“All over the walls and floors,” said Armand. “Like traces of an old mosaic. I think it gets stronger up ahead.” He strode forward more quickly, and Rachelle followed him.
Please, she thought, and she hadn’t dared pray in years, but now she almost did. Please, let us find it. Please.
They came into a wide room lined with wine racks. Armand strode right to the center of the room, stopped, and stared down at the floor a moment.