Chapter 35
XXXV
She wasn’t beautiful, but her face was pleasant and her smile easy. I hated her. She was polite and gracious and intelligent, and I hated her even more.
Sebastian, what is wrong with you? Sarmodel asked. He can’t exactly read my thoughts, but he knows when I’m feeling strongly about something, or someone. I feel like you’re about to burst into flames.
It’s nothing, I grated. You wouldn’t understand.
You’re always so sure of that. I might be able to help.
I ate something to keep my hands busy. I doubt that.
I could feel Sarmodel strumming my senses with unusual attention. Ah, he said. It’s the wife. The Baroness d’Ocerne. She got something you wanted.
Yes, Sarmodel. She got something I wanted very much, and without even trying.
Was that so hard to admit?
You do not have a heart, I replied harshly.
Outwardly I was talking light philosophy with Eloise; Jacques’s young wife was surprisingly inoffensive, and quite well-read.
I feigned a spell of coughing to disguise the tears in my eyes—of hurt, humiliation or rage, I couldn’t have said.
But if you did, you would understand that there is nothing harder to admit in the world.
Sarmodel was silent for the rest of the meal but I could feel him turning in my mind.
I was treated as an honored guest. The table was set with an extravagant porcelain dinner service, decorated with a wolf-hunt scene in exquisitely detailed relief.
Everywhere was the sparkle of silver, from the engraved cutlery to the scallop-and-swan candelabra.
Lady Ocerne must have emptied her stores for us.
We ate watercress and pheasant soup; roasted duck and quails in pots of sage butter; wine-glazed pork; potatoes crushed with garlic and leeks; mushrooms as large as plates, dripping in mustard cream; soft bread, cheeses and tart plum pastries.
It was all so much dust in my mouth. I acquitted myself well in the face of Lady Ocerne’s munificence, accepting with courtesy all that was offered and complimenting both the cook and the lady herself.
She was distracted—concerned for Antoine, and confused by the behavior of her son, though she hid both very well.
I loathed her poise and her easy rapport with the castle staff. I even found something despicable in Jacques and Eloise’s cow-eyed devotion to each other.1
I retired to the guest quarters early, pleading weariness.
It had been a mistake coming back to Gévaudan after all.
How could I have believed that Antoine would send for me after all this time?
Jacques was not redeemed by his apology.
If I had been more alert, I would have seen that there was something amiss with the whole proposition, from the very beginning.
Yes, more alert, and less blinded by the desire to return to something that was no longer there.
The fire had been lit in my chamber. A pair of elaborate high-backed chairs basked invitingly before it and I sat with gratitude, watching the flames.
I resolved to depart in the morning, before Antoine’s return.
I would leave it to his family to tell him as much or as little as they wished of my visit.
The edges of my vision flickered as Sarmodel Projected into the chair opposite me. He was watching me in his favored human guise, my child self. His sharp nose and dark, serious eyes were too grim for a boy’s face.
I am sorry, I sent to him. About what I said. About not having a heart. It wasn’t fair.
I was surprised by my own reaction. Jealousy of any kind is quite out of character for me, and I had always known Antoine would marry.
Perhaps it was the final dashing of my lovelorn fantasy—that Antoine had in fact been desperately yearning for me all this time, miserable in an arranged marriage to a witless madame—which had so poisoned my mood.
Sarmodel reached over and placed a spectral hand on my arm. I have eaten hearts, Sebastian, he said, not unkindly, and they are as any other meat. The only one that matters to me is yours, and I have shared it with you for lifetimes. These Mundanes are not worthy of it.
Even Antoine? I smiled ruefully.
Even him. The boy I had been smiled back at me.
I suppose I won’t need that quicksilver after all. I used my foot to give a little shove to my trunk, loaded with my arsenal of the high occult. I’ve been a fool from the beginning. What a ridiculous waste of time.
You’re really going to leave? He raised a dark eyebrow. With all of this trouble unresolved?
Unresolved? We nearly died the last time we tried to “resolve” this particular trouble, I said.
You do not believe the risk is worth it? What about Antoine? He seemed genuinely perplexed.
Antoine doesn’t want my help, Sarmodel! He never did. Whatever is going on here can run its course without me. I drew a sigh that somehow turned into a sob. I covered my face with my hands and wept.
Sebastian. I felt Sarmodel’s hand on my shoulder. You have lived thousands of years. Do you truly have more tears for this one man? You cried so many for him. I felt him flowing, flickering around me. This one Mundane, mortal man . . .
Sarmodel, stop.
. . . this one, dying, imperfect creature . . .
I turned to see him Projected again, now on the great wooden bed. My breath caught and I could only stare, utterly ensnared.
. . . this one product of mortal tissue, so easily re-created . . . He was Antoine as I had known him, naked and beautiful.
His blond beard was dusted with snowflakes and his skin was like polished wood in the firelight.
Sarmodel extended a hand to me. It bore the bite I remembered so clearly, the punctures welling with bright jewels of blood.
A fallen maple leaf was stuck to his thigh, from that first night we spent as lovers.
He saw the longing in my eyes and broke my heart with Antoine’s smile.
I know everything you loved about him, Sebastian. I loved him with you. The voice in my mind was Antoine’s. Come. Take comfort with me.
I moved to the bedside, powerfully drawn to him—drawn to both of them: the man I remembered and the demon I had always known.
I knelt and he touched my face, leaving streaks of blood across my cheek.
He stroked my ear as Antoine once had, and his lips as he leaned forward were firm and eager on my mouth.
“Antoine . . .”
Yes, my love. He smelled of the wilderness—pine, leather and horses.
Smoke. Sweat, sex and blood. I tasted brandy in his mouth; the publican’s best from the Bow and Brace.
And underneath it all was the tang of Tartarus, a trace of hot sulfur and burning metal.
I can give him to you. And you can give him to me.
I felt him reaching tenderly into the parts of my mind I guarded the closest. He pulled at the memories I held so painfully, teasing them gently away from me as he guided my hands to his body.
He was hard and willing in my grip, and his skin was burning.
His kiss grew more intense and his hands tugged at my clothes as I responded to his touch. 2
The temptation was overwhelming. It would be easy to give it all to Sarmodel, to just .
. . let him. The betrayal would lose its sting.
The memories of Antoine would lose their color and he would be just another face among the multitude in my mind.
Soon, I would have trouble remembering his name.
Sarmodel would grow stronger on the charge of my anguish and I would never have to feel it again.
One day, the memory of Antoine would be gone altogether and I would be none the wiser.
But . . .
But . . .
I couldn’t.
“Sarmodel, stop,” I said, gently pushing his hands away. “This isn’t—”
Ssh. Let me take it from you, and tomorrow you may look at all of this with a clear head.
“I don’t want to. Not this time.”
Antoine’s eyes regarded me gravely and I thought my Guest was about to insist. But then he leaned forward and kissed me again, softly.
Then speak no more of leaving. You know we still have much to do here, and your business with Baron Avenel d’Ocerne is the least of it.
I pulled away from him sharply.
“I see! Yes—yes, indeed! Let us not forget the fragment of the Olympian you have come so far to claim. Best not to let your mortal bag of meat complicate things!”
Sebastian, please. We have been hunting Avstamet for over three centuries.
This may be our last chance. Even if you won’t kill him, the young lord is likely to die one way or another—let us be here when it happens.
Antoine’s hand caressed my throat. And are you not eager for your own restitution? For all the humiliations of the past?
“And then what?” I asked. “Then what? The next Contract, the next Beast? The next great hunt? The next Antoine? Let us consume all of them, for there will always be another and then another, will there not?” I stood and turned my back on him, my hands shaking.
“Please change! This is a cruel trick, Sarmodel! Change now, or go away.” I could no longer bear to look at his perfect re-creation of Antoine. “Must you always have your way?”
He was silent for a few long seconds and I thought that he had mercifully decided to dispel his Projection. But then his voice thrummed in my mind again, and it was no longer Antoine’s.
I am cruel, Sebastian, he said, but not to you. Never to you.