Chapter 21 #2
And with those words, my entire world fell apart.
‘How dare you.’ I was on my feet, blood pounding. ‘After everything?’
‘Because of everything,’ Raleigh said. ‘What I did to you was exactly what she did to me. That’s why I left to find Enrique.
’ He took a breath. ‘I gave you every opportunity to escape while I was away. I wrote to you to make sure you knew I was gone. And when I gave you the choice in Orlfen, you weren’t supposed to come back. ’
‘You didn’t give me a choice then,’ I pointed out. ‘You said you’d still marry me regardless.’
‘Do you think the Queen hadn’t heard of our engagement by then?’
Of course. I’d found the burnt remains of her letters before I returned to Orlfen.
‘I was giving you time to get as far from here as possible. Don’t pretend you didn’t know that – you’re far smarter than that.’
He was right. Even at the time I’d known it was long enough to escape, but I hadn’t believed it was a real opportunity. I thought he would try to find me if I ran.
‘I brought your horse back,’ Raleigh continued, ‘I gave you a map to a cathedral where the clergy know exactly what I am and I gave you enough money to buy passage anywhere in the world. I gave you every opportunity to escape, and you kept. Coming. Home.’
I felt like I was underwater. ‘You should have told me.’
‘I’m telling you now,’ Raleigh said. ‘This is your last chance. You still have two months. Take whatever you need from the castle, take Sovereign and run. Get on a boat. Go to America, New Holland, anywhere. Go, and save yourself.’
He meant it. After all these months I was completely free. He would never force me down the aisle, never take my life. All I had to do in exchange was condemn him to the same fate from which I’d just been freed.
It was another impossible choice. Was this part of his plan too? No. Nestled into the settee, Raleigh’s frame felt smaller than ever. His gaze dipped, his lashes casting shadows over his expression. Hope had abandoned him; he really meant it. No matter where I went, he would never trouble me again.
‘You said she gave you fifteen years,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ Raleigh said. ‘That’s why I gave you until the new year to find a cure. I knew I’d have to return to court then, no matter what.’
‘But you didn’t leave in the new year,’ I said. ‘You were in Orlfen for the autumn festival. That was last week.’
‘She said the end of the fifteenth year,’ Raleigh said. ‘She may not know how to love, but she’s still a romantic. She wouldn’t choose a number like fifteen if there wasn’t a more significant milestone. If this is the fifteenth year, that means December. The end of the century.’
‘Unless she planned for you to reach that conclusion.’
I never knew it was possible for Raleigh to turn paler than he already was.
‘You had fifteen years to realise this!’ I was too incredulous to really be angry with him. ‘Did it never occur to you that she might have meant that literally? Forget the new century. If you left in October, the end of the fifteenth year is October.’
‘She said the end of the fifteenth year,’ Raleigh repeated, weaker this time.
I felt dizzy. Over the last six months my deadline had been like a looming beast, but it had been a comfort too. Dwindling time was still time. Now I knew it was time I never had.
At my most generous estimate, the harvest festival marked the end of Raleigh’s fifteenth year. This was why Yorik and Lukas were here. Not to drag Raleigh to court prematurely, but because he had outstayed his agreement.
No, it wasn’t too late. If I could convince the Queen I loved him, Raleigh would have no need for a bride. We could both be free.
And if I couldn’t, maybe I could still cure him.
I sat back down. Through the cushions, I could feel the tension as every muscle in Raleigh’s body went rigid.
‘You’re wasting sunlight,’ he said.
‘I’ve been invited to the royal court,’ I said. ‘Father would have killed for this opportunity. I can’t let it pass without at least meeting her.’
Raleigh’s expression was carefully still. ‘There are better ways to hurt me.’
I let my eyes drift. ‘It’s not you I want to hurt.’
Raleigh inhaled sharply. He spun so his legs straddled the settee.
‘Clara, no. Listen to me. Look at me.’ His hands found my shoulders, wrenching me to obey.
‘Don’t try. You could barely touch Lukas, and his power doesn’t compare to hers.
Have you ever killed anything bigger than a rabbit?
’ When he saw my expression, he said, ‘Have you ever killed anything?’
My breath hitched. He was right. I’d seen men come back from hunts with their kills, even watched Johanna wring our chickens’ necks, but the blood had never been on my hands. I’d never felt the weight of life draining away between my fingers.
‘I won’t need to kill her,’ I said, ‘if we can convince her you won.’
‘She can tell when humans are lying.’
Did he still think I would be? I no longer knew myself.
I felt like I was dangling from the edge of a crevasse, closer to falling than climbing back out.
Maybe I already had. I certainly couldn’t imagine finding my own happiness if I knowingly abandoned him to his fate.
The problem, then, was what awaited me if I fell. Would I be the only one lying?
‘But not you?’
‘Our kind don’t have the same tells. That’s why I planned to change you at the end of the year, so she wouldn’t be able to read you.’
So that was why he needed to curse me for eternity. He planned to steal my humanity for one simple lie.
That answered one question, but not the one I’d asked. Raleigh caught me watching for his reaction, held my gaze for a moment, then realised my true meaning.
He let go of my shoulders, withdrew entirely and intertwined his hands delicately in his lap. And in that, I had my answer. I swallowed down the despair that began to wind around my heart and tried to focus only on his words.
‘It won’t matter,’ he said. ‘The moment we set foot in the palace she’ll glamour you. The whole place is enchanted.’
‘Then glamour me first,’ I said. A human couldn’t be entranced by two vampires at the same time. I’d read that in the library, and Lukas confirmed it last night.
‘No,’ was all he said.
‘Raleigh—’
‘You have no idea what it’s like,’ he said sharply. He sounded angry, but there was a barely perceptible waver to his words that told another story.
‘Like bliss,’ I said. ‘Like the air is sweet and everything is perfect. Even if a man who repulses you has you in his arms and his lips at your throat. But you still know that something’s wrong, even if there’s nothing you can do to resist.’
Raleigh stared. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I don’t mean you,’ I said. I had nearly forgotten that he’d hypnotised me in the woods all those months ago. It had felt different when he did it. ‘I’m human, Raleigh. The Queen isn’t the only vampire I have to worry about. You’re the only one I trust to never hurt me.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘I do,’ I insisted. ‘I’ve been here for months now. You could have done anything. You’ve never needed my permission to use your powers against me, and if you’d wanted to you would have done it by now.’ I grabbed his collar. ‘I trust you.’
His hands closed over mine. ‘A lasting entrancement is different from a simple glamour. I can create one, but it won’t lift if I drop concentration; I’m not sure how to lift it at all. There’s no going back if you change your mind.’
‘Then don’t do anything that would make me want to change my mind.’
He hesitated a moment, then his eyes found mine. I’d never had the opportunity to study them from so close before. At this distance I could see where traces of green pierced through the hazel. And then I felt him slip inside.
His will engulfed me. He felt nothing like Lukas. Where Lukas was slime, Raleigh was silk. Dread became anticipation. I let my mind fall to his searching, allowed my being to be shaped by his hands. He could have taken anything. Everything. I was his to command.
‘Your will is mine. From now, as long as your heart beats, you are beholden to me. No other man or beast may command you.’ His words were distant, yet everywhere.
They wrapped themselves around me, curling inside my lungs, my heart, the deepest reaches of my mind.
‘And I command you …’ He tipped my chin.
I tried to jerk away on instinct, but found myself frozen.
The enormity of what I had given him crashed over me.
It was too late. I couldn’t move. I was powerless to deny him, no matter what his next words would be.
‘Live for yourself,’ he commanded. ‘Obey no orders but your own. From now until your final breath.’
And with that, I was back in my own body, as I had always been. I felt no different than before. Had it worked?
Raleigh looked just as doubtful. ‘Leave me and save yourself,’ he said.
Then I felt it, a golden barrier within. His command glanced off it and was swallowed, transforming into a renewed sense of determination.
I grinned. ‘No.’