The Purest of the Breed (The Community) (35 page)

She took a moment to adjust the lay of her skirts, taking hold of her composure. “No one of your years would know about such an event,” she told the girl.

“Oh, but I do, ma’am.” Josie’s expression brightened. “My great-great grandfather knew Pettrila.”

“Did he?” Pettrila arched her eyebrows at the Soothsayer. “I don’t know what disgraceful antics you’re trying to employ, young man, but I think all of us here can agree that this girl’s relative never knew a Vârcolac.”

The D’Amberville girl blinked. “A what?”

“Never mind, child.” Pettrila gestured imperiously. “You’ve either been misinformed, or you’re outright lying.”

“I…” The girl faltered. “I’m not.” She cast a desperate glance at the Soothsayer. “I swear.”

“I know.” The Soothsayer gave the girl a reassuring nod.

“Shame on you,” Pettrila snapped at the Soothsayer. “Did you pay this poor child to spout such nonsense?”

“Excuse me,” the D’Amberville girl cut back in. “I don’t mean any disrespect, ma’am, but my great-great-grandfather did know Pettrila.” A breath escaped her lips. “Knew her and
adored
her.”

Pettrila slitted her lids, her pulse hammering with a sudden flare of rage. “No one
adored
Pettrila.” Images of her interminable, loveless marriage to Grigore flipped across her mind’s eyes like a time-lapse slide show. Forcing down a sudden unpleasant taste in her throat, she swept the Tribunal with an authoritative glare. “Enough of this. I’ve already accepted the girl. Proceed with the ritual or release Devid Nichita to his life of solitude.”

“Josie has a diary,” the Soothsayer tried again, “proving that what she says is true.”

The girl nodded vigorously. “That’s right. My great-great-grandfather wrote this”—she held up the weathered book—“about Pettrila after she died. He was so consumed with grief over her death. Every page is filled with an outpouring of love for her.”

Out of nowhere, longing cramped Pettrila’s stomach, and she stiffened her spine against the back of her chair. She never allowed herself to think of love. Too much betrayal lay behind that emotion, too much loss.

The Soothsayer took the diary from the D’Amberville girl. “Luvera mentioned that you once knew a man called Ştefan Dragoş, so I—”

Inhaling a discordant breath, Pettrila jerked in her seat, the name striking her with bruising force. The garage spun crazily around her, floor and ceiling smashing together momentarily. Air roared through her ears.

“—tracked down his lineage,” the Soothsayer was saying, “and found Josie. It was pure good luck for us that Jose has this diary. I figured you’d—”

Pettrila surged to her feet. “Lies!” she hissed venomously. “How
dare
you bandy the name of Dragoş, making this girl Ştefan’s relative in order to compel me to refuse her. I should cut out your tongue and your gizzard for such a disgraceful sham. Speak his name again, and I will!”

Pettrila had never hurt anyone in her life, but she was a Pure-bred Vârcolac, with savagery a part of her blood, and as she issued her warning, she let all of the predatory darkness of her breed show in her glare. These two would be made to understand that her threat was real.

As a single body, the Soothsayer and the girl stepped back. The girl’s eyes were round as platters. The knot in the Soothsayer’s throat bobbed.

Silence dropped like a dark, tangled net over the garage, anxiety simmering in the air like brimstone before a storm.

“At grave risk to my well-being,” the idiot Soothsayer dared, “I have to ask you, don’t you want to know the truth?” He flipped open a random page of the diary and held it before her. “Don’t you recognize this script as being Şt—uh…as being familiar?”

Pettrila’s heart caved into the back of her ribcage. “I do,” she said in an acid tone. “It’s the same hand in which Ştefan wrote a letter to Pettrila, tossing her aside like a picked-over bone while he then contrived to murder nearly her entire race of people.”

The Soothsayer shook his head. “After talking only briefly to Josie, I get the impression that this”—he nodded at the open diary—“tells a different story from the one you’ve been led to believe for your entire life.” He gently closed the book. “Ştefan didn’t betray Pettrila. Someone else did.”

Chapter Thirty-five

Pettrila flared her nostrils around an aching inhalation. Her lungs hurt, her breath like frost.

The Soothsayer handed the diary back to the D’Amberville girl. “Isn’t that true?” he prompted.

The girl’s throat worked for a moment. “Yes, ma’am. Ştefan was forced to write that letter you speak of because Pettrila’s life was in danger. The person who actually conspired to harm her people confronted Ştefan and threatened to put Pettrila on one of the ships scheduled to sink if Ştefan didn’t end the relationship. Ştefan agreed for the sake of her safety, but also because he secretly planned to come after her. He was imprisoned after he’d written the letter, though, and…” Lines of sorrow marred the girl’s smooth brow. “Many pages of his diary are filled with such regret that he didn’t make it to the guns on the Constanţa jetty sooner in order to save more of the ships in Pettrila’s armada.”

Pettrila took a swift step back, the backs of her legs bumping her chair.
We were rescued. I know not by whom, but whoever ’twas, they manned the cannons on the jetty and fired relentlessly at the Russian frigates, sending our enemy limping away
. She curled a fist into her blouse. That had been
Ştefan
?

“My great-great grandfather was utterly heartbroken when Pettrila’s ship sank.” The girl swallowed. “That’s the truth, ma’am, you can read it for yourself in his diary.”

Pettrila peeled her fingers out of her blouse, forcing herself to present an outward calm. “If Ştefan was on the jetty, he must have seen that two ships survived. Why wouldn’t he have considered that Pettrila was on one of them?”

“He knew which ship she was supposed to be on, and watched it sink with his own eyes.” The girl ran her fingers along the spine of the old diary. “My great-great grandfather had spies within the Russian camp, and he’d been told about the deal struck between one of Pettrila’s own people and General Nikolai Pavlovich Kridener. He didn’t find out in time to stop it, unfortunately. The general handed over a large sum of money to the betrayer in exchange for information about the escaping armada, but as a part of the deal, the general was supposed to let two ships survive: the
Lady Revenge
and the
Randy Saint
.” Josie released a sigh. “But Kridener wanted all of Pettrila’s people killed, so he reneged and tried to sink the entire fleet.”

Pettrila took another stilted step backward, knocking her chair sideways as images of that fateful evening swept over her. She pressed her eyes closed, remembering Grigore’s rage when they’d missed sailing on the
Lady Revenge
…and his reluctance to board the
Tempest
. He must have known it would be sunk.

Pettrila’s eyes burned strangely when she opened them again. “Grigore Nichita is the name of the betrayer, isn’t it?”

The girl visibly startled. “Yes, ma’am. How did you know?”

Someone in the gallery gasped.

After that, nothing. Silence descended on the garage, a silence so complete that Pettrila could hear the slow drip-drip of oil from one of the minivans, the huffing expulsion of air through a vent. The noises sounded thunderous…same as the sound in her memory of Grigore yelling, “Bloody betrayer,” after the
Lady Revenge
had taken a fatal hit,
not
cursing Ştefan, as she’d originally thought, but rather the Russian general who’d broken his word.

“Why?” Pettrila ironed all but the smallest rasp from her voice. “Why would Grigore betray his own people, do you know this, child?”

“For power,” the girl answered in a voice weighted with compassion. “He knew that his people would keep to the old ways of aristocracy in their new life, and he wanted the throne. Pettrila had the closest blood ties to royalty; marrying her would earn him the powerful seat he wanted. The deal he struck with the Russian general was insurance; he was securing his position by removing other rivals. He made certain that important families would be on the ships slated for sinking: Cantacuzino, Brâncoveanu, the House of Mihnea—”

A sharp growl erupted from Roth.

Pettrila met Roth’s eyes: Roth Mihnea, their leader…instead of a Rázóczi.

Roth’s jaw rippled with tension. “The survivors of the armada,” he said in a roughened voice, “blamed Pettrila for leading Ştefan Dragoş to them. They thought him to be a real Vârcolac Vânător.”

Pettrila held Roth’s gaze. At the top of her vision, she could see her eyelashes quivering. She was shaking.

“The royal seat went to the Mihneas.
My
family.” A shadow crossed Roth’s face. “Unfairly, it would seem. Dragoş did arrange that armada in good faith. All of the people who escaped Romania that night owe him, and Pettrila, their lives.”

Pettrila turned her eyes away, more memories sleeting over her. “By the stars, I never knew why Grigore was so upset the night I…Pettrila was stripped of her title. She and Grigore fought savagely, and by the end of it, he swore that if nothing else, he’d have a son from her.”

“Wait,” the D’Amberville girl interrupted, her lips parting. “Are you saying that Pettrila ended up with
Grigore Nichita
?”

Pettrila’s lungs compressed around a bitter laugh. “I’m afraid so, child. The weak-willed woman let Grigore manipulate her into thinking that Ştefan was the true betrayer.” A heaviness settled over her heart. She hadn’t believed in Ştefan, doubting a love that had been
real
. Her nostrils quivered, emotions she usually kept in merciless check threatening to rise beyond her control. Such a bleak, demoralizing landscape of regret and lost opportunities in her life.

“What happened?” the D’Amberville girl asked softly.

Pettrila’s lips threatened to tremble, but she ruthlessly firmed them. “Out of that unhappy marriage, Pettrila proceeded to give Grigore only daughters, four precious girls he wanted nothing to do with. They were…killed in a cave collapse.” She set a hand to her breast. Her breath wasn’t coming correctly. “In that tragedy, she and Grigore turned to each other in shared grief, remarkably, and found peace for a time. Many years later, when Grigore wanted more children, Pettrila agreed, and she gave her husband a son at last.”

She felt her lips constrict, heard her voice harden. “Grigore all but took the child from her, turning their son against her in their marital battles, never giving her a chance with the boy who…who…” From the side of Pettrila’s vision, she saw Devid bow his head, his lips stiff and bloodless, his throat working rhythmically. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him directly, though. What would she show her son in her eyes, on her face? All the ways she’d failed to be his mother? How she’d given up even trying? How she’d let bitterness and regret rule the decisions she’d made about her life and her children?

She glanced down, focusing on a blotch on the garage floor. “Grigore became greedy,” she went on thickly. “He wanted to try for another son, but Pettrila refused and…” She paused and blinked, that strange burn back in her eyes. “The next time I went into my fertile period, he drugged me into a deep sleep.”

Devid exhaled, a staccato burst of air. Over in the gallery, someone was crying softly. Luvera.

The D’Amberville girl gave Pettrila a strange look.

Indeed
… Pettrila had just spoken of herself in the first person. She didn’t care anymore. “When I awoke, Grigore was sprawled next to me in bed in his hibernation state. I knew what he’d done, and I’d never hated him more.” He’d made a victim out of her for the first time in her life. In all her years, through every hardship, she’d always managed to keep a piece of her dignity intact. Until her own husband had done the unthinkable. “It broke me.” She crossed her arms, cupping her elbows. “I couldn’t come back from it. I could hardly look upon my daughter, knowing how she’d been conceived, nor my son, as he—”

Luvera choked softly on her next sob.

Pettrila stared hard at the air vent, watching two stringy strands of dust wave from the slats. She’d wrapped herself in a protective shell, hating everyone—humans for what Ştefan had done to her, her husband for his offense—and had never come back.
For over fifty years
. Emotion roiled in her chest. “And now I find out Ştefan loved me in truth.
Loved
me! Grigore knew it and stole that from me, the despicable cur. And for what?
Power
,” she clamped her teeth around the word. “I could have had love, damn his soul. Love!” Her chest heaved, her eyes burning so painfully now that…good night, she was crying.

She lowered her head, concentrating on breathing slowly and steadily. Everyone in this damnable garage was staring at her, standing here naked before them, all of the ugly secrets of her past exposed.

“Here.” The D’Amberville girl held out the diary to Pettrila. “Take this. Please. I have it memorized, anyway, and I think you should read it for yourself.”

Pettrila made herself stop crying, wiping away her tears before she looked up. She didn’t reach out to take the book, though. “No. Thank you.” Reading it would only submerge her more deeply into the agony of all that she’d never had.

The girl bit her bottom lip. “It doesn’t have to be too late to feel Ştefan’s love for Pettrila, ma’am.”