Scene XIII The Dauphine’s Apartments #2
The Dauphin sighs in resignation. Then he takes a shaky breath and squares his shoulders, lifting his chin. “This feels ridiculous,” he mutters, then approaches the guards once more.
“Stand aside. I would like to see my father’s body.”
The guards glance at each other. “By the Regent’s orders—” the one on the left begins, but the Dauphin interrupts with a surprising amount of passion.
“I am the Dauphin ,” he proclaims. “Heir to the throne, the soon-to-be-crowned King of Auréal. You will let me pass.”
“Or be punished for insubordination,” I whisper.
“Or be punished for insubordination,” he echoes unconvincingly.
“It will be painful,” I add.
The Dauphin gives me a flat look.
Unfortunately, the threats fall on deaf ears. The guard sets his jaw. “I’m sorry, monseigneur,” he says to the Dauphin. “But you are not yet king. The Regent was very firm in his orders.”
The Dauphin wilts visibly. He looks away, tugging at his lace cuffs, and then sighs. “Very well,” he says. “I will not force discomfort on you. You are both only trying to follow orders.”
I glance at him, startled by the change in demeanor.
He turns away, then seems to remember something. “Your name is Thomas, is it not?” he says to the larger guard. “Your father was the old captain of the guard. Recently retired.”
The man’s brows shoot up. “How did you know?”
“You look alike,” the Dauphin says. “He taught me to shoot, you know, your father—I miss that man dearly. I would trust him with my life.” He offers the man a smile and begins to walk away.
The guard’s eyes flicker with sudden conflict. Then, he steps forward. “Wait.”
The Dauphin pauses, hope lighting in his eyes.
Thomas and his companion exchange looks. Then, Thomas sighs. “I can give you five minutes,” he says. “But that is all.”
He opens one of the chapel’s double doors for us, ushering us through. Inside, the white of the chapel looks overcast, nearly gray. It has begun to rain outside, threadbare raindrops casting themselves upon the narrow windows.
Once the door is closed, I turn to the Dauphin with a grin. “Impressive. I did not think you had that in you.”
He looks perplexed. “Had what in me?”
“Manipulation,” I say, wiggling my fingers. “How did you know that bringing up his father would make him feel guilty?”
“Oh.” The Dauphin’s brows dip. “That was not my intention. I simply wanted to know if I was right about Thomas’s identity.
I try to remember the names of all the men of the guard.
The Chateau staff, too.” He chuckles ruefully.
“Sometimes they’re the only people who will really listen to me.
I try to pay the favor back when I can.”
Ugh. I could shudder at the nobility of it. No wonder he gets on with my brother so well.
I make a noncommittal sound in the back of my throat and turn my attention to the chapel.
As the rain intensifies, the shadows within begin to twitch and writhe across the white flooring, making the looming Mothers seem to grimace.
Someone has left a section of the arched windows cracked open, and water leaks along the wall, dripping monotonously into a slick pool.
The high-ceilinged chamber still smells of incense, but the scent is joined by the heavy grimness of decaying flesh.
Suddenly the Dauphin sucks in a breath. I follow his gaze as a chill crawls over me.
On the altar, covered by a sheet of pristine white silk, lies a body.
The Dauphin wrings his hands. “Oh, Mothers,” he whispers. “He’s really dead, isn’t he?”
The wavering in his voice makes my chest clench in discomfort.
Mothers, I hope he doesn’t cry. “Took you a while to notice,” I say, trying to keep levity in my voice.
Then, impatient, I waltz up to the altar and seize the corner of the sheet.
It rustles in the rain-heavy breeze. “Come on,” I urge.
“Let’s do this before we are seen.” Without waiting for his response, I tug it away from the figure.
What I see beneath makes bile rise in my throat.
The King of Auréal looks smaller in death. His skin puddles around him, white and bloodless—his face is slack, and his mouth is frozen in a perpetual, almost comical scowl. He lies naked, vulnerable, the thick hairs on his legs standing like the bristles of some wild hog. And…
The silk sheet slips free from my hands, falling at my feet.
Most of the King’s chest is missing.
Deep, violent grooves have all but ravaged his torso: his sternum reduced to a nub, splinters of his ribs scattered over the spongy surface of his exposed lungs.
Part of his heart can be seen, slick as ripe fruit, framed by flaps of jagged flesh.
As I track my eyes over the damage, I notice there are deep teeth marks in his right arm and shoulder, as though he had raised it in defense.
For a moment I’m entranced by the sight, filled with a mixture of revulsion and grim fascination.
Then I hear the quiet sobbing behind me.
I turn to glance at the Dauphin. The prince’s face is buried in his hands, his shoulders shaking as he tries to muffle his crying.
“Aimé?” I ask, uncertain.
The Dauphin drags his sleeve over his eyes. “Forgive me,” he says hoarsely. “He was only ever disappointed in me. I don’t know why I am upset at all.”
His words strike a strange chord inside me.
I know this, understand it somehow: why the Dauphin mourns a cruel man.
It’s what might have been. The missed chances to prove himself, the pride he will never see in his father’s eyes.
The scarce memories of softer moments, where his father might touch his shoulder, or listen to his worries, or even smile from a distance.
Small kindnesses, ones that would make it all worth it.
I shake my head sharply and turn back to the King’s body, unwilling to acknowledge the sympathetic pain blooming in my chest. The Dauphin is a fool to show this weakness in front of me, I decide. He’s a fool for letting himself fall apart at all.
“I was right,” I say instead, my voice ringing discomfortingly loud in the vast chamber. “There’s no way a human did this.”
The Dauphin sniffs wetly behind me. “What—what do you mean?” A second later, he steps up beside me, his face glistening with tears, his lips still pinched as though holding back another sob. “Mothers,” he whispers, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth. “Mothers, how did this… what…”
“Exactly,” I say, eager to move on to a more practical topic. “I doubt this was a wolf or bear, either. These lacerations are too large.”
He shakes his head. “We don’t have such creatures in the Chateau’s forest anyway. Perhaps a few foxes, but—”
He cuts off as the sound of a door opening comes from the back of the chapel, followed by muted footsteps down one of the column-flanked aisles. “Who’s there?” the soft voice of a priestess calls.
“Time’s up,” I say, and snatch the Dauphin’s hand before he can protest, yanking him out of the chapel and back into the hallway.
I don’t let go until we’ve reached one of the high-ceilinged corridors feeding into the entrance hall.
Only there do I pull us both into an alcove and say, breathless, “Whatever left those marks was unnatural, and your uncle knows it. Perhaps that’s why he lied—to keep panic from spreading. Or perhaps…”
“You don’t think he might be responsible, do you?” Aimé asks.
“I’m not sure,” I say honestly. “I think if we figure out what did this, and how, we’ll find the one behind it all. Who has a reason to want to kill King Honoré? And where would they have gotten such a creature from?”
Aimé utters a small gasp. “Could it have been a sorcier?” Immediately he shakes his head. “But no. That’s impossible. There are no sorciers here. They left Auréal after Bartrand de Roux’s betrayal.”
“They didn’t leave ,” I snap. “They fled or were chased out by angry mobs. And the Spider King did nothing to protect them.”
He stares at me, his lips parted in surprise. “Oh,” he says. “That is not what my father told me.”
“King Honoré did not know everything,” I say.
Aimé looks down at his hands, and I notice they’re trembling slightly. “This is all wrong,” he says, voice tight. “I have to tell my stepmother. And my uncle. Damien is innocent; I must get them to let him go and put the guard on alert for this creature. I—”
He moves to step past me, and I grab his arm.
“Wait. What if someone among them is responsible for this? Knowing that you know about their ruse could put you in more danger. It could give them a chance to cover up their tracks.” I shake my head.
“Besides, this is not enough proof—in fact, it’s no proof at all when the surgeon has already declared it a stabbing.
We need more evidence, evidence even the Regent cannot refute.
Our best bet is to find who did it and force them to confess. ”
“Marie, you and I both know I’m not clever enough for this.”
He says the words with a mocking smile, but there’s a troubled edge beneath it.
Perhaps I would have agreed with him, two days ago.
But now I can’t, not after witnessing the way he coaxes the world into motion around him—from calming the Step-Queen this morning to convincing Thomas to let us pass, all without a single lie or pretense.
I was always taught that earnestness is a weakness, yet Aimé manages, unwittingly, to turn it into a strength.
“You must stop thinking so little of yourself,” I tell him, and I’m surprised to find I mean it. “Besides, we’re in this together, and I’m clever enough for two.”
He laughs. “That you are, ma chérie ,” he says, but I catch the glimmer of gratitude in his eyes.
A thought strikes me then: Letting Aimé get involved in this was a mistake.
He’s too yielding, too na?ve. Yet I let my guard down, let myself indulge in this ridiculous camaraderie, and now here he is, the grandchild of the Spider King, entwined in my plot.
It’s too late to drive him away. And, though it irks me to admit, I don’t want to.
I’m not an idiot—I don’t trust Aimé-Victor Augier. But for the first time since Damien left, I am not entirely alone. I will betray him eventually, of course. But for now it’s reassuring to have someone watching my back.
I glance down the oily length of hallway, fixing the sleeves of Marie’s gown. “We need to figure out what this creature is. Does the Chateau have an archive perhaps? Somewhere we can find old stories, myths, or even records of animal attacks?”
Aimé shifts. “Well, there is the library. My father kept an old vault of documents from before my grandfather’s time. He never went in there, but I did. I remember there being old journals and such, though I have not touched them in years. It could be worth looking into?”
“Perfect,” I say. I’m eager to get moving. With the funeral being tomorrow, I doubt I will have much time for sleuthing. “Then that’s where we start.”