Chapter 31
“[There] lies a vast and dismal peat bog known as the Yeun, which has long been regarded by the Breton folk as the portal to the infernal regions . . . In summer it seems a vast moor carpeted by glowing purple heather, which one can traverse up to a certain point, but woe betide him who would advance farther . . .”
I feel lost in my thoughts as we ride into Regina Centrum, and I guiltily allow Isabeau to think my grief over Girard and worry over my duty are the reasons.
In truth, I suspect she also knows that the possibility of her curse being tied to the beast is not insignificant.
Either way, she has stopped trying to convince me to talk long before we arrive to find the Maudite town house empty.
Inside, the house is cold. No servants are here waiting.
We walk in the front door to sheet-draped furniture and a temperature not much warmer than outside.
The air is stuffy from recent dampness outside and carries a hint of cleaning oils and vinegar.
“I had not expected to be here, so I gave the servants a two-week holiday. I was trying to conserve my finances.” Isabeau looks sheepish, as if embarrassed by her revelation. “Perhaps you ought to stay at your house. I can tell you come morning if I stay awake.”
“I thought you wanted to be with me.”
“I do, but I’ll probably be unconscious or sick come nightfall.” Isabeau secures the door of the town house even as she is arguing that I ought to leave. “I cannot protect you.”
“I am the blade that monsters fear, Isa, or have you forgotten? No human stands a chance against me, and I need no servants to undress me,” I say.
I have been injured and ill often enough that I am expecting to be ready for night sweats and vomit, and I am hoping that sickness is the worst thing I will face tonight.
“I think I will see the queen in the morning. I want to be here with you.”
“I am glad,” she admits. “I’m nervous.”
Isabeau leads me up the staircase and pushes open a door.
The center of the room is dominated by a bed with four strong oak posts; atop it is a lace-edged white canopy.
At the foot of the bed sits a matching oak trunk with ornate carved wooden spirals, and to the far side are a wardrobe, a valet stand, and a blue velvet chaise.
The chaise is faded and partially hidden by an excess of pillows.
Next to it is a low shelf overflowing with books.
In all, the room is a standard setup, but the excess of pillows on the chaise hints at a bit of indulgence. And the books hint at Isabeau’s continued love of reading.
“I want to not be cursed,” Isabeau says, voice seeming loud in the silent house. “I want to be awake to talk to you and stare at the constellations and sleep with you in my arms.”
I wrap my arms around her. “I want that, too, but if you are asleep, I’ll read. Perhaps you should pick your favorite book for me.”
“I can do that.”
As Isabeau pulls away and begins to get undressed, she gestures at the bed. “I will be here, sleeping next to you or perhaps cursed.” She pauses, hand on her stomach yet again. “You will not change your mind about marrying me if I am still cursed? You will still love me?”
“I will always love you,” I assure her.
That will not change, even if she is the monster I have sworn to kill. I briefly wonder if on some level she knows that she is the monster and she has employed me to stop her. The thought makes me unable to move for a moment.
She cannot be the monster, my heart insists.
My mind lists reasons she can: the sudden curse, the tonic, the way the monster declared me its possession.
“Is your cycle near?” I ask Isabeau as she bends over in obvious pain.
Her cheeks pink slightly. “No. I feel wrong, as if I am both ravenous and need to purge everything I have ever eaten. I have felt this way in the past when the physician said my tonic needed adjusting.”
“When did your mother become so listless?” I say mildly, walking to the window casement. It feels odd to be here with her.
“When Father died.” Isabeau lifts a nightdress and clutches it in her fist. “I want to hold you, love, and kiss you. I hate this.”
“One night,” I remind her. “Perhaps less. You saw the night sky when you went without the tonic. We might know sooner than the next hour what the curse is, and if you are cursed at all.”
We are both watching the night sky, and I feel such guilt when Isabeau asks, “Do you always sleep with your weapons on the floor beside you? Or is that because you fear that I am a monster?”
“No. They are often on the bed beside me.”
As she stretches out on the bed in preparation for a curse that has not yet arrived although the sun has fallen, she says, “If I am fully uncursed, I will not apologize for replacing the sword that used to claim the space beside you.” She takes my hand and kisses the palm.
“And if I am cursed in some awful way, I am glad you have weapons and can use them.”
I nod, tears blurring my sight as she squirms. Her brow is damp with fever, and she shudders with small tremors. I feel her skin, and she seems to be burning up.
“Do you think I am the beast? Did I kill your father? Your former lover?”
“I am going to grab a few clean cloths for your fevers,” I whisper instead of answering. I don’t know if she is the monster—and I cannot say that to her. “Would you like anything to drink or . . .”
She shakes her head. “I am so cold.”
I pull a warm quilt over her.
“I will be right back,” I promise before I walk away to get a damp cloth to wipe and cool her skin. I hastily pour water into a stewpot I find in the cook’s pantry and carry it back to Isabeau’s room.
“There you are, little wisp.” The creature is sitting on the edge of the bed. “I could not rest until I knew you were safe, love.”
I toss the water at it. At Isabeau, who is covered in fur and wiping her face with clawed hands.
“I need no cool water; I am not feverish now.” She makes a sound that I realize is meant to be a laugh. Then she pulls the quilt over her, lets out a recently familiar purring sound, and drifts to sleep.
“Isabeau?”
For the second night in a row, I pray I am wrong. I cannot look away from the creature now nestled in Isabeau’s bed. My worst fears have come to fruition. I have been in love with a monster, with the murderer of my father and my friend, with the creature I vowed to slay.
That’s her, my mind insists.
She is not a killer, my heart argues.
The alternative, though, is that Isabeau is missing—or hidden in the room, dying or dead.
The impossible is that the creature is imitating my beloved.
In desperation, I search the room, every cupboard, each wardrobe, and as I make my way through the entire house, I keep returning to check on the creature in Isabeau’s bed.
I am the Hunter. I kill faeries, I try to remind myself. The creature I am to kill is here. Now. Asleep.
I peer out the windows.
I cannot kill Isabeau, my heart objects.
Instead, I hold my sword in my hand like a child’s toy and take a seat on the chaise. I watch over the sleeping creature, hoping I am somehow wrong. Exhaustion blurs my eyes, but I stay awake. I pinch my arm several times when I start to doze.
Finally, as the light of dawn steals into the room, the creature fades into the form of the woman I have come to love. I am still holding a sword, but I am unable to raise it.
Isabeau is the monster.
She stares at me with sad but love-filled eyes. “I am cursed, then.”
Mutely, I nod.
Isabeau tumbles from the quilt that was encasing her like a cocoon. “Love? Gabrielle?”
Still I cannot reply. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to say anything.
Isabeau crouches in front of me and takes my sword. “Gabrielle?” She stares into my face. “Are you injured? Did something horrible happen?”
“I saw the creature,” I whisper.
“Are you hurt?”
“No. Not physically. My heart . . .”
Isabeau pulls me into her arms. “Am I . . .”
I sniffle, half choking on a sob. In a small broken voice, I tell her, “I wish you’d never sent the request for the Hunter.”
“What is my curse?” Isabeau shudders. Her voice fills with panic as she examines my face, my arms, my hands. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” I pull Isabeau to me and cover her mouth in a kiss that steals every word and thought away. I cannot have found love only to have to kill her. My hands roam over her frantically.
Isabeau stands, letting me wrap my arms and legs around her. Holding me aloft, she stumbles toward the bed. When her legs bump into the mattress, she lets us fall backward, her body cushioning my fall.
“I cannot imagine life without you,” I sob between kisses.
“I am the monster, then?”
My tears fall faster with every word Isabeau says. I think I may drown in them as she suggests, “Rest in my arms, Hunter. I will guard you, and tonight you will stop the beast.”
“I should see the queen now . . . about . . . the beast.”
“You have not slept,” Isabeau says, not unkindly.
“Do you remember anything from last night?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I remember the start of a fever, and you covered me, and then you came in with cold water and splashed it on me. Then I know nothing until just now, when I woke.”
I try to sit upright. What kind of monster am I to stay in the arms of a killer? “How can I blame you for what the beast does?”
“Because if I die, the beast will die, too,” Isabeau says.
Tears continue to stream down my face. “We must go to see the queen. Perhaps she knows something, or you can be . . . uncursed.”
Isabeau holds me close, stroking my hair and kissing my brow. “Rest, please? The Beast of Brimmond only kills at night. I have been with you throughout many days. Right now, I am only myself. Let me hold you for a few hours before . . .”
She does not finish the statement, does not say “before you murder me,” but I hear it all the same. I finally have the person I love, and she loves me in return. Yet I am destined to end her life.
“Hold me.” I nestle closer to her, trying to capture the memory of her kindness and love.
I will let myself stay in her arms, let myself forget what she is, for this morning only.
I say, “I will rest now if you promise to stay in the library at the palace when I consult with the queen. I need you to be locked up safely.”
“I would do so for all eternity, love,” Isabeau murmurs.
I choke on another sob. “I know.”
“I promised to accept every facet of you,” Isabeau swears between gentle kisses she presses to my cheek and temple. “That means I accept that you must do your duty now.”
Isabeau settles back into the pillows, relaxing more and holding me in her embrace.
“I love you,” I murmur.
“I have always loved you, Gabrielle. Always.” Isabeau pets my hair rhythmically, and I let myself forget for the moment that she is the monster. I force all my horrible thoughts away.
She is not a terrible person. She implored me to kill the Beast of Brimmond.
She was kind to my mother and sister. She is passionate and clever and funny.
She now accepts that she is going to die.
Instead of raging or trying to flee, she seems placid about the matter.
How is she also the monster that knocked me unconscious?
How could she have killed so many men? How could she kill my father?
In my sleep-deprived state, I think that perhaps I can fashion a dungeon of sorts where I will lock her away at night.
I wonder if that’s what the duke did. Was he locked away at night?
Why was she able to be around people all this time?
Did the curse only come to her after his death? Was he cursed and we simply don’t know?
Amid all the questions, one stark truth remains: The geas means I have to kill the monster Isabeau hired me to kill, and she is the monster.
The geas will eventually end my life if I do not fulfill it.
Magic is harsh. And if I am dead, Isabeau will again be loose, terrorizing Brimmond Wood, and Rylan will be the Hunter who must kill her.
I drift to sleep, knowing all too well that I must kill Isabeau later today.