Chapter 7 #2
As one person accepting the cost of another’s courage.
“So be it,” he said.
From the hallway, a soft sound came.
Silk brushing stone.
Morgaine had been listening.
Morgaine did not run.
She never did anything so honest.
When Thierry opened the door, she stood in the corridor with Lady Séverine Valcour at her side. Her mother looked like an older, colder version of her: silver-gray hair, pale face, green eyes that measured weakness as calmly as a jeweler measured stones.
“How fortunate,” Morgaine said. “Everyone important gathered in one room.”
Lucian’s voice cut low. “You were not invited.”
Séverine smiled. “My daughter does not require invitation in a house where her future has been discussed for years.”
Isolde felt that sentence move through the room and strike old agreements no one had shown her.
Lucian did not blink. “There is no future to discuss.”
Morgaine looked at Isolde. “You hear that? Men can discard promises so neatly when a new curiosity appears.”
“I am not his curiosity,” Isolde said.
“No. You are his problem.”
Lucian stepped forward. “Morgaine.”
She ignored the warning. “The Tribunal will ask for order. I can offer it.”
Thierry gave a tired sigh. “Here we go.”
Morgaine’s eyes flashed. “A public union between House Blackthorne and House Valcour would calm the council. It would answer doubts. It would make one human servant’s strange mark look like a failed trick instead of a threat.”
Isolde’s face went cold.
There it was.
Not jealousy alone. Strategy.
Séverine added, “No one needs to be harmed. The girl can be moved quietly. Given a cottage. A pension. A new name.”
Ma?lle laughed once, sharp and bitter. “That is what noble mercy sounds like when it wants the knife hidden.”
Lucian’s gaze stayed on Morgaine. “You poisoned me.”
Morgaine’s smile held, but her eyes changed.
Séverine spoke first. “Careful, my lord. Accusations before proof are poor manners.”
“I have powder from the cellar.”
“Planted.”
“Paid men in my western wing.”
“Rebel confusion.”
“A vial in your hand.”
Morgaine tilted her head. “Seen by whom? The maid with the glowing back? The stable boy? Your pet adviser?”
Thierry touched his chest. “Pet?”
Lucian ignored him. “I reject your offer.”
Morgaine’s smile vanished.
The room felt colder without it.
“You should think,” she said.
“I have.”
“No. You have reacted. To her.” She pointed at Isolde. “To a bond you do not understand and a girl who will cost you everything.”
Lucian moved so fast even Séverine stepped back.
He stopped inches from Morgaine. Did not touch her. Did not need to.
“Do not point at her again.”
Morgaine’s breath shook once. Only once.
Isolde saw it.
So did Séverine.
And something inside Morgaine broke cleanly from pride into hate.
Lucian turned away first, the insult deliberate.
“Thierry, escort them out.”
Séverine took her daughter’s arm. “You are making enemies you cannot afford.”
Lucian looked back. “No. I am finally counting the ones already here.”
Morgaine’s gaze slid to Ma?lle.
A small thing.
Fast.
Isolde noticed because fear had taught her to read rooms.
But before she could speak, the tower bells rang.
One.
Two.
Three.
A guard appeared in the doorway. “My lord, the council demands your presence in the lower hall. Immediately.”
Lucian looked at Isolde.
She said, “Go.”
“No.”
“They want to separate us.”
“Yes.”
“Then make them believe it worked.”
Thierry’s eyes sharpened. “That is not a bad idea.”
“It is terrible,” Perrin said from somewhere behind the guard. “I was listening respectfully.”
Ma?lle grunted. “Boy has sense.”
Lucian looked at Isolde as if memorizing the line of her face.
“Stay with Mrs. Corvin,” he said.
Morgaine walked away with her mother, her steps soft down the corridor.
She did not look back.
That, more than anything, worried Isolde.
Lucian was gone for less than an hour.
It was enough.
The keep settled into the strange quiet that came after the disaster. Guards moved in pairs. Servants whispered in corners. Outside, rain began to fall, soft at first, then harder against the windows.
Isolde stayed in the small sitting room off the healer’s chamber, where Ma?lle was supposed to rest. Mrs. Corvin stood by the door. Perrin sat on the floor with a knife he clearly did not know how to hold. Ma?lle pretended to sleep under three blankets and fooled no one.
Isolde could still feel Lucian in the keep.
Not thoughts. Not words.
A pull.
A heat behind the ribs.
It angered her that part of her found comfort in it.
“You care for him,” Ma?lle said without opening her eyes.
Isolde looked at the old woman. “Rest.”
“I have rested enough for one lifetime.”
Mrs. Corvin said, “You have not rested for ten minutes.”
“Time becomes flexible after seventy.”
Perrin nodded. “That explains old people.”
Mrs. Corvin glared.
He found interest in the floor.
Isolde sat beside Ma?lle. “I don’t know what I feel.”
“That is rarely true.”
“It is tonight.”
Ma?lle opened her eyes. “Then know what you choose. Feelings are weather. Choices build houses.”
A sharp knock came at the door.
Mrs. Corvin opened it only a hand’s width.
A young maid stood outside, soaked from the rain, breathless. “Kitchen injury. Mrs. Corvin, they need you.”
Mrs. Corvin did not move. “Who sent you?”
“Cook.”
“Which one?”
The maid faltered.
Too long.
Mrs. Corvin reached for the door, but the maid shoved something through the gap.
A glass bead.
It struck the floor and burst.
White smoke filled the room.
Perrin shouted.
Isolde grabbed for Ma?lle, but hands seized her from behind. Not strong enough to be dragon. Human. Two of them. Maybe three. The room turned to shapes and coughing and the scrape of chairs.
Mrs. Corvin slammed one attacker into the wall.
Perrin swung his knife handle-first and hit someone’s knee by accident.
“Sorry,” he wheezed, then hit again with more confidence.
Isolde found Ma?lle’s sleeve.
For one second.
Then the sleeve was gone.
“Grandmother!”
A door banged open at the far side of the healer’s room. Hidden passage. Of course. Every room in Blackthorne Keep had a secret, and all of them seemed to hate her.
Isolde pushed through the smoke.
She reached the passage in time to see a dark figure drag Ma?lle into the narrow turn.
Silver hair.
A thin hand.
Then nothing.
Isolde ran after them.
The passage ended at a small outer stair slick with rain. Wind struck her face. She stumbled into the courtyard behind the healer’s wing.
Empty.
No footsteps.
No carriage.
No Ma?lle.
Only a shawl lay on the wet stones.
Isolde picked it up with shaking hands.
Ma?lle’s shawl.
Blood marked one corner.
A dagger pinned it to the ground.
Silver handle. Green stone.
Valcour.
Behind her, the tower bell rang once.
Lucian’s voice tore across the courtyard from the open archway.
“Isolde!”
She turned with the shawl in her hands.
From the roofline above, Morgaine Valcour looked down through the rain and smiled.