Crimson Bound (22 page)

“It wasn’t for you.”

“Who are you?” asked Rachelle.

The woodwife handed her a bowl of porridge and a spoon. “My name is Margot Dumont,” she said. “I apprenticed beside Léonie and I do not intend to forgive you for her death.”

Rachelle’s hand clenched on the spoon. “I didn’t ask you to.”

“No.” Margot nodded in acknowledgment. “I need to know, and on whatever honor you have left, I charge you not to lie: What did she tell you about Durendal?”

“Nothing,” said Rachelle, and took a bite of the porridge. It tasted like her childhood, and her throat ached with tears.

“Nothing?”

“Just what everyone knows. That it was Zisa’s sword, forged from the bones of the Devourer’s victims. That it was lost. That’s all.” One spoonful had made her hungry; Rachelle gulped down the rest of the porridge.

Margot watched her eat. When Rachelle had finished, she said, “Léonie knew where it was.”

“What?”

“It was her duty to know where it was. She was entrusted with it by the woodwife who trained us. You were her apprentice; she must have told you.”

“She never told me anything,” said Rachelle. “She never
did
anything, just—”

Just, she realized, guarded Durendal. Rachelle had despised her aunt for doing nothing when she was protecting a weapon that could kill the Devourer.

The porridge turned to stone in her stomach.

Margot sighed through her nose. “Then I will continue searching,” she said. “And you—what brings you back here? An errand for the King? Or did you just need to look at the sight of your triumph?”

Rachelle set the bowl down. “No,” she said flatly, “I was looking for Joyeuse. You don’t happen to know anything about it?”

They stared at each other for a few moments. Then Margot snorted and looked away. “No more than anyone else. Behind a door above the sun, below the moon.”

“I know,” said Rachelle. “I found the door. There’s a lindenworm on the other side.”

Margot raised her eyebrows. “Indeed.”

“Do you know how to kill one?”

“I have heard it said that the blood of an innocent virgin could lull them to sleep,”
Margot said musingly. “But you might find that hard to obtain, and I doubt that tale anyway.”

Rachelle strangled the sudden fury in her throat and said quietly, “Try to remember that killing that lindenworm could save us from the Devourer.”

“No human hands can kill a lindenworm,” said Margot, as placidly as if they were discussing the best way to stitch a hem.

“I thought la Pucelle killed one?” Rachelle demanded.

“I believe she had angels helping her. You do not.” Margot paused, pursing her lips. “Perhaps you never learned this rule: the most powerful creatures can only be touched by the most terrible charms—or the most simple. I don’t believe there is a woodwife alive who could weave a charm strong enough to stop a lindenworm, but I suppose a simple charm might beguile it for a little while.”

“Do you think that could work?” asked Rachelle.

“No,” Margot said coolly. “I think if you try to fight that lindenworm, it will swallow you whole, and you will feel the flesh melt off your bones as you die. But you deserve as much and more besides, so I will not try to dissuade you from trying.”

Rachelle stared at her. She thought,
Armand would probably laugh at that
, and then she had to smother her own urge to laugh wildly.

Margot took the bowl and rose. “I won’t let the village burn you, but you’d better be off now before it gets difficult.”

Rachelle nodded and rose to her feet. She went to the door, opened it, and couldn’t move.

Her mother stood on the front step.

How had she changed so much? Rachelle remembered her mother as a towering, imperious figure—not this slight woman with a sagging face.

“So,” said her mother.

Rachelle couldn’t speak. It used to be that one glance from her mother would make her stammer and confess what she’d done wrong. Now her very existence was the confession. There would be no forgiving hug after her punishment, because there was nothing left of her but the sin.

“Your father was weeping in the loft all night,” said her mother. “On and on about his darling precious daughter. He never believed you’d done it, you know; he swore the forestborn must have kidnapped you, and that was why you never came back.”

After all the nights she’d spent agonizing over what her father would think, it should
have been a comfort that he still loved her. It wasn’t.

“You believed,” Rachelle whispered.

Her mother smiled mirthlessly, her gaze drifting away. “I know quite well what daughters will do when they must.” Then she looked back at Rachelle. “When he wakes, he won’t believe this happened. He’ll swear it was only a lying forestborn who looked like his daughter. You won’t ever come back so he won’t ever have to learn the truth. Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” Rachelle said numbly. She couldn’t tell what she was feeling. She had imagined a thousand nightmare situations that might happen if she ever went back to her village. But she had never imagined anything like this.

Neither one of her parents hated her the way that Margot did, the way the rest of the villagers did. They simply didn’t want her to exist.

“You won’t come back?”

“Never,” said Rachelle. “I will die first. I promise.”

“Good.” Her mother opened her mouth, then shut it, and turned to stride away.

Rachelle’s chest hurt. She took a step after her.

“Mother,” she called out.

Her mother stopped. Without looking back, she said, “Yes?”

Rachelle didn’t know what she was going to say until the words formed in her mouth. “Thank you. For asking me to help.”

“I knew you lived,” her mother said after a moment. “Any daughter of mine would be ruthless enough.”

She found Armand sitting in the herb garden. The morning sunlight glowed through his hair; he looked at peace in a way she didn’t think he had anywhere in the Château.

“I like it here,” he said. “It’s quiet. Nobody knows who I am.”

And then she felt it again: the sudden, sharp awareness of wanting to touch him, of the space between them as an open wound, of her own body being jumbled and awkward and far too separate when she could be pressed against him, waist to waist and chin to shoulder and her fingers sliding into that pale brown hair—

Her face was hot. She took a step back, thinking,
He isn’t yours. He will never be yours. He will never, ever want you.

“Even they will figure it out sooner or later,” she said. “When they get a look at you in daylight, for instance. Get up. We’re going.”

He stood. “Mademoiselle Dumont—what did she want to talk about?”

Aunt Léonie could have stopped the Devourer, and Rachelle had killed her, and now nobody would ever find Durendal.

Or maybe her forestborn had already found it and destroyed it. That must have been why he was sniffing around the village to begin with. Maybe if Rachelle had told Aunt Léonie when she first met him, they could have stopped him. They could have saved Durendal. They could have saved the world.

“Nothing important,” she said, and grabbed his arm. “Come on.” She started to drag him toward the edge of the trees.

“Is your family here?” asked Armand. “Aren’t you going to say good-bye to them?”

She didn’t know if the ache in her chest was grief or freedom. Maybe they were the same.

“I did,” said Rachelle.

ZISA CARRIED THE BONES TO A GREAT YEW TREE. Beneath its roots there was a cave, and in the cave there was a forge, and chained to the forge was a man with a smile like dried blood and glowing embers.

This was Volund, the crippled smith. He had once loved a forestborn maiden, and so much did he delight her that for seven years she stayed beside him. But one night she heard the hunting horns of her people and rose to follow them. Before she had taken three steps, he struck her dead.

In recompense, the forestborn hamstrung him, chained him, and made him undying as themselves, an everlasting slave to craft their swords and spears and arrows.

“Old man,” said Zisa, “I must have two swords made out of these bones.”

“Little girl,” said Volund, “I must obey the forestborn, but not you.”

“And when I am one of them, I will remember you said that,” she replied.

He laughed like a rusty hinge. “And much I have left for anyone to take from me. But you, I think, have the whole world to lose.” He looked her up and down. “I will make you a bargain. Give me the delights of your proud body twice, and I will make you two swords such as the world will never see again.”

There was nothing she would not do for her brother.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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“D
o you have a plan?” asked Armand as they walked into the woods. They were not in the Great Forest yet, but the shadows cast by the trees were a little longer and darker than they should be in the daytime.

“Yes,” said Rachelle.

Like a trickle of blood, the thread lay on the ground before her. If she followed it, then she should find her forestborn at the other end.

He wanted her to live. So if she gave him a choice between leading her back to the Château and watching her perish in the Great Forest, surely he would help her.

But if she told Armand that, he might ask her why she was so sure that her forestborn wanted her to live.

“Is the plan ‘walk into the Forest and hope to meet the Wild Hunt again’?” asked Armand. “Because I’m not sure how likely that is to work.”

“Well,” said Rachelle, thinking of the lindenworm, “maybe there will be a miracle to save us. Since those always happen for people who deserve them.”

“I already told you,” Armand said mildly, “I don’t believe that.”

He had, and she couldn’t stop a guilty glance at his hands.

“Then what do you believe?” she asked. “That we should all be martyrs?”

She realized that they were surrounded by darkness and the cold, sweet wind. They were in the Great Forest again. The change had felt so natural, so
right
, she hadn’t noticed it happen.

“What’s so bad about that?” asked Armand.

“The problem with martyrs is that they’re all dead. What have they got to do with those of us who are sinful enough to still be alive? Should we just give up and want to die, because death is better than dishonor? But suicide is a sin too, so then we really are damned if we do and damned if we don’t.”

“I don’t—” Armand started to say.

“Enough. I don’t want to hear it.” Rachelle strode forward faster, trying not to think about the lindenworm waiting for her, and thinking of it with every step.

The journey seemed to take hours. Days. Forever. There was no keeping track of time in that endless darkness, but they walked on and on, and Rachelle grew wearier and wearier.

All she could think of was the lindenworm. She had to try to defeat it and get Joyeuse. She didn’t see a way she could win.

You deserve as much and more besides.

She didn’t want to be a martyr. She didn’t have a choice.

When sunlight suddenly poured down on them, Rachelle’s head was hanging low. She looked up, and saw Château de Lune glittering before them. They were in the garden, among the rosebushes. Judging by the position of the sun, they had only been walking for a few hours.

“How did you do that?” asked Armand. He was looking at her, his eyes squinted against the sudden sunlight.

“Luck,” said Rachelle. “Maybe.”

Or her forestborn was lurking somewhere near the Château, which was a truly terrifying thought.

When they got back to their rooms, they found both Amélie and Armand’s valets in a state of modified panic.

“Where have you
been
?” Amélie demanded, hugging Rachelle fiercely. “Monsieur d’Anjou kept asking and asking for you, and we had to keep making up excuses.”

Which was pointless, since the valets would report it all to Erec anyway, but Rachelle was surprised and touched that Amélie had taken the trouble.

“We took a walk,” said Armand. “Got lost in the trees.” His valets were not hugging
him, but they had peeled off his coat—exclaiming about the dust—and now seemed to be checking him for injuries.

“He was tired of being cooped up,” said Rachelle. “It won’t happen again.”

“I’ve learned my lesson,” Armand agreed, with a smile just for her.

Of course, she had to explain herself to Erec. The valets must have sent him a message as soon as she got back, because he turned up not long after and dragged her away for a private audience.

“I hear you went wandering with our saint,” he said. “What happened?”

Rachelle decided that a little bit of the truth couldn’t hurt. “It turns out the protections on the Château are worse than we thought,” she said. “We went walking and ended up in the Great Forest.”

“And you didn’t bring me along?” he asked lightly.