Chapter 8
SHARA
With one of Leonie’s arms freed, we were able to shift her sideways enough to lift her head out of the mud. Vore used his legs to carefully scrape away caked mud to find the lock, while I cradled her head against my shoulder, wiping mud from her eyes.
Though something wasn’t right. Weird nubs closed her eyelids.
Her eyes. Sewn shut. The same as her mouth.
My fingers began to shake as I continued wiping away the muck from her face. “Leonie, can you hear me? We’re here to help you. The Dauphine is dead. She can never harm you again.”
Vore slipped the tip of one leg into the lock on the neck cuff and cracked it open entirely. More of her weight settled against me, pushing us both lower into the mud. I wrapped my arms around her, and Vore picked me up, hauling us both upward. One of her legs fell free. Then the next.
He carried us to the ledge and set us down beside Gwen, who dropped to her knees beside us. Blood pooled beneath Leonie, which I hoped was a good sign. She was bleeding. She had to still be alive. But the more mud we cleared away, the heavier and colder the pit of my stomach weighed.
Her poor right wrist ended in a jagged stump. Her body was wasted away to skin and bones. As we wiped blood away, she began to bleed from other spots all over her body. Likely places the leeches had been feeding on her.
“Lance, we need your sword to cut these stitches,” Gwen called. “I feel life in her, but the spark is trapped inside her. That’s why her body is like a corpse. If we can free the spark, her body will hopefully respond to healing.”
Okeanos dropped her alpha down beside us and Lancelot pulled out a shorter blade to delicately cut the stitches holding Leonie’s eyes and lips closed.
“Sorry, I lost your knife when I fell.”
He shook his head but didn’t look away from the tiny stitches. “Not to worry, Your Majesty, I have plenty more. As Sir Guillaume would tell you, it’s sort of an unspoken rule for knights to always carry a dozen or more blades.”
Cupping her face in both of my palms to hold her steady in case she woke while he was cutting, I closed my eyes and focused on the Dauphine’s power.
My power, I reminded myself grimly. As Lancelot cut each stitch, I felt the unraveling of the magical bonds placed upon this queen.
The intention to incapacitate in every careful stitch.
The thread had been soaked in the Dauphine’s blood first, then blessed—cursed—with words spoken in French as she sewed with her own hand.
I couldn’t speak the language, but with the inheritance of this gift, I fully understood the words.
With this stitch, I bind you.
With this stitch, I compel you.
With this stitch, I blind you.
With this stitch, I silence you.
With this stitch, I own you.
With this stitch, I claim you.
Your soul is mine. Your power is mine. Your magic is mine. Your house is mine. Your Blood are mine. Your gifts are mine. Your goddess is mine.
Though Jeanne’s hand trembled with that sentence. A jarring, discordant sound echoed through time and space, as if Leonie’s goddess had rejected that intention with great displeasure. Though Jeanne continued the spell regardless.
Your body is mine. Your will is mine. I am you. I am Leonie Delafosse. I wear Leonie’s body. I wear Leonie’s face. I speak in Leonie’s voice. I write in Leonie’s hand. We are one, now and forever. By Jeanne Viennois, so let it be.
Lancelot cut the last stitch, and Leonie’s body shuddered. But she still didn’t wake.
What else did the Dauphine do to her? Something to root the spell inside her. Before the stitches. Before the mutilation.
A leech. Just like she’d done to Thierry.
Goddess. I did not want to have to hang her up by her heels and cut her throat to let all of the taint spew out of her…
I sank into her thin, wasted body, letting the power guide me back to its source.
She wasn’t rotted and tainted like Thierry had been.
She was a queen. The leech would’ve carried Jeanne’s blood.
The ones that had done the worst of the thrall damage had been given to him in the swamp.
Leeches tainted with human blood. By then, my mother would’ve been dead.
He had no queen’s bond to ground him. Mixed with the Dauphine’s original leech, he’d slowly turned into a near mindless thrall, subject to her will.
Except for the tiny bit of his true self he’d been able to keep inside him. The Isador blood he still carried, anchoring him to Esetta’s goal.
Me.
I found the leech burrowed deep inside Leonie’s heart.
It hadn’t grown to enormous proportions like Thierry’s.
That wasn’t its goal. This leech was the primary connection to Jeanne, creating a sort of warped sibling bond.
Everything Leonie possessed then shifted to the other queen.
Gwen’s words played back in my head from earlier. “What’s mine is yours.”
Literally.
Seizing the leech, I crushed it with the very power that had created it.
Leonie’s back arched up on a rattling wheeze. She sucked in a breath and screamed, ragged and rough, shredding her vocal cords. Her arms and legs flailed, her heels drumming the concrete.
I held her head on my lap, leaning over her, trying to soothe her. “You’re safe. You’re free. You’re Leonie Delafosse. Jeanne’s dead. She can’t harm you ever again.”
Tears streaked the drying mud on Leonie’s cheeks. Her eyes bulged, wild with terror, but she looked up at me. She said something. Mumbled, like her mouth was filled with a wad of cotton. I couldn’t quite understand her. Because Jeanne had cut her tongue out.
“You’re safe. We’re here to help you. You’re safe.”
But she kept saying it over and over again.
Thierry dropped down from an overhead beam and landed lightly on my shoulder. :Isador. She says Isador. I wasn’t sure if we had a bond or not, but we shared blood from the leeches before they took me to the swamp. I promised that her House Isador would return to save her.:
Tears leaked from my eyes and I nodded, gently stroking her cheeks. “Yes. Isador’s here. We’re here, Leonie. You’re safe now. I’m Shara Isador. Thierry told me all about you.”
Her left hand locked around my wrist with surprising strength. Her eyes burned with hunger. Urgency. Need.
I nodded again and allowed her to move my wrist to her mouth. “Feed, Leonie. With every drop of my blood, I return your power and House to you.”
Her fangs sank into my wrist, her bony fingers clamped like a vise.
She gulped frantically, long, eager draws of blood.
I closed my eyes and released all the power I’d absorbed from the leeches.
All the dark terror that had brewed beneath this house.
It had been built on Leonie’s pain and suffering. Let her use it to heal, if possible.
She fed for a long time. Long enough my thoughts began to float. “She’ll need her hand back.” My words slurred. “And her tongue. We need to give them back.”
:She weakens you,: Rik warned in the bond. :At least feed, my queen. I’ll send Sekh to you.:
“S’alright,” I drawled out loud. “Her need is great. I can take it.”
“You cannot replenish in one sitting what was denied for decades,” Gwen warned. “It will likely take several deep feedings to fully heal her body.”
:Bring our queen out,: Rik commanded.
My Blood picked us both up, my arm still pressed to Leonie’s mouth. Okeanos’ tentacles cradled me, the undulations of his movement across the mud like gentle waves.
Which told me exactly how drained I was. I turned my head and sank my fangs into his kraken body. He shuddered, his tentacles twisting and coiling around me. Oops. Too late, I remembered what my bite does to my Blood. Another testament to how much blood I’d already given her.
A hint of late afternoon sunlight on my face. Fresh air. I inhaled deeply and opened my eyes, but I didn’t lift my mouth from Okeanos. His king blood tasted too good. The salty siren call of the Deep Blue echoed in him, the endless tides of the sea. He gave that up to be with me.
:I can touch the Deep Blue any time I need from your grotto, my queen.: A smaller tentacle brushed my cheek, his suction cups working to remove the mud on my face. :Though I would still stay even if I never saw the ocean again. Just to hope you may have even a small need for me.:
:I will always need you. I love you, Okeanos, son of Undina Ketea, king of the Deep Blue. You should be feeding on me so I can heal your injuries, not the other way around.:
:I love to feed you,: he whispered gently, his tentacles shifting toward lighter lavender. :I’m healed just by being near you, my queen.:
He settled beneath the gnarled oak beside Leonie’s house, curling his tentacles up beneath the shade to prevent any sun damage.
His body rose and fell like the rolling waves, so soothing and gentle.
Rik joined us, though he didn’t immediately pull me away from my other Blood.
His eyes remained tight, his focus intent, judging my health and ability to keep feeding the other queen.
I still cradled Leonie in my arms, her body between my legs. Gwen knelt beside us and her magic flowed over the injured queen.
“What you’ve already wrought in her is a miracle,” Gwen admitted. “Though your resources are low, my queen.”
I licked my bite closed in Okeanos so he didn’t pass out completely. Rik immediately snagged my free hand, lifted up his shirt, and jammed my nails into his chest. The kick of alpha blood sent an adrenaline rush pumping through me.
“Better?” I asked with a wry grin. “If we can find her hand and her tongue, do you think you can re-attach them?”
Gwen’s eyes rounded. I couldn’t remember if she’d seen me feed through my straw-like nails before.
It was pretty freaky. “Possibly? I wouldn’t have thought half of what you’re capable of would be possible, but that’s never stopped you before.
If you can provide enough magic to sustain the regeneration of flesh, I can make sure the nerves and veins connect correctly to provide full use. ”
:If she thinks that’s freaky, wait until you show her how long you can feed on me,: Sekh purred. :I stand ready, my queen.:
I touched Xin and Itztli’s bonds, my two Blood with the most sensitive noses. :Can you search the house for Leonie’s hand and tongue? Or is her scent still too compromised by the mud?:
:We already found the Dauphine’s collection,: Itztli replied. :But there’s no way for me to tell which one is Leonie’s. They no longer have any identifiable scent.:
Through his bond, he showed me an apothecary cabinet with many little drawers. None of them were labeled. He opened one to show me its contents, and even knowing the horrors Jeanne had done, it was still terrible.
A dried, curled up claw-like hand sat in the small drawer with a thin flap of what looked to be dried leather, roughly the size of a quarter. One end was rounded and had a hole. The other end was flat, where the tongue had been smoothly cut from its owner.
I shuddered. :Goddess. How many sets are there?:
He took a step back so I could see the entire cabinet. :There are fifty-six drawers. Only twelve are empty.:
So many queens. Tortured. Possibly still trapped in their own houses with no one the wiser.
It’s going to take me forever to find all these queens and free them.