Chapter 23 #2
“How do you know these things? Is the Hunter’s daughter a chatterer?” Isabeau pats her horse absently.
“Is she, Gabrielle?” Rylan asks, eyes wide as if curious. “Tell us of her.”
“Rylan.” I give her a solitary shake of my head when Isabeau isn’t looking my way. “Please, don’t help.”
“I have questions, love, but the moon is rising soon, and I can feel the exhaustion pulling me toward darkness. I must be abed soon.” Isabeau stares at my mouth before whispering, “I would rather stay awake with you. I want to . . .” She glances at my sister before saying in a normal voice, “Talk to you.”
Rylan’s snort carries in the growing gloam, but I opt to pretend it’s her horse making a sound rather than my sister laughing at us.
“Race me, Isa?” I let myself have a moment to stare at her. She could insist on answers; I could as well. What did she drink? Why? The truth, however, is that this is the last night with secrets between us. I want to see her smile. “Or are you too slow?”
Her eyes widen, as a smile blooms over her face. “Slow?”
“You are older than me,” I tease.
“Trying to get me into your house faster, love?” she murmurs in so low of a voice that even with my Hunter hearing, I can barely hear.
“Keep up, sister,” I call out as I let Clatterbuck have her way, and in the golden light that hints at sunset’s pending arrival, all three horses thunder toward Fleuriste Manor.
Two of the stablemen are waiting to take the horses, and I motion for my sister to go inside. A nagging part of my mind, one fed on doubts and questions, wants to ask what Isabeau carries in her vials. I want to ask her mother’s history. I want to demand answers on the curse.
Is whatever cursed her, perhaps, the beast in the forest? The thought hits me like a blow. Beasts I cannot name are rare, and curses are rare. Is the same faery responsible for cursing her and for killing men in the forest?
My sister darts inside, the stablemen take the horses away, and I am left alone with Isabeau. “I wish I could take you to my bed,” she says, staring at me.
I lean in and kiss her, earning me a shocked look when I pull away.
“Love?”
“I am master of my house, my title, and my life, Isabeau.” I capture her hand. “No one can command me.”
“The queen—”
“No one.” I think for a moment that she hears what I am saying, but the sun is falling fast. Hurriedly, I ask, “What was in the vial?”
“The vial? Oh! My tonic. It’s changed as I aged, but it still smells of the rotting grass you hated when we were girls. Do you remember when I had to steal my father’s mead before we could kiss?”
I flush at the memory. “All I recall is the time spent talking and kissing. Not your gooey grass drink.”
Isabeau glances at the sky again. “Could we go inside, love? I did not have all my tonic, and I feel out of sorts. I don’t fancy being dead to the world outside your stable. I cannot picture you carrying me.”
I could, of course, but telling her that will wait on dawn. Lightly I ask, “Has the tonic changed?”
“Several times as I grew older,” Isabeau says.
“Recently?”
“Of course. There was a change when His Grace grew ill, as I was ill with worry.” She frowns at me. “Why do you ask?”
We stop at the door to the manor. “Because your reaction to it spilling seems out of character.” When she says nothing more, we walk in silence to the room where she’ll rest. At the threshold, I add, “The door will be guarded. You are safe here.”
“I am certain of that, love.” Isabeau brushes a quick kiss over my lips, and then she’s gone into the room. I listen for the heavy bar to be slid home, securing her inside.
My lover, my sister, and my mother are all safely inside Fleuriste Manor.
Light falls, and I do not need to journey to Maudite Castle this night.
Instead, I can patrol. Though the order has gone out from Her Majesty that Brimmond Wood is to be avoided, it does not apply to me.
I am meant to go there, to hunt, and hopefully to end the Beast of Brimmond’s reign of terror.
Once I am alone, I open Isabeau’s letter and read:
Hunter,
I am offering you my services to stop the monster in the forest. It has killed the Earl of Fleuriste and others. Such violence cannot be tolerated. Please let me know how I may assist you. Will you accept my request to stop the Beast of Brimmond?
Isabeau, Seventh Duke of Maudite
I reread her letter twice, smiling despite my irritation. She does not ask if she can assist, but how she can.
I trail my finger over her signature and aloud, I say, “I do accept, Your Grace. I will kill the Beast of Brimmond.”
My body responds to the vow viscerally. Until I stop the monster, I will feel this pressing need, this obsession.
I’ve seen my father in the throes of it.
My vow is writ in my bone and blood now.
I can feel it in each beat of my heart and every draw of air into my lungs. It rattles inside me like a demand.
“I will kill it,” I repeat.
It’s that or die from the pressure to do so. This is what it means to be a Hunter. I thought I understood, but feeling this urgency now is different than the drive of choosing to do it. This is a geas, a magical vow.