Chapter 20 #3
Without hesitation, I took it.
BY THE TIME WE MADE IT BACK TO THE CHTEAU, NIGHT HAD fallen over the forest and a hot wind had risen out of the east, stirring the inky trees teeming with sounds of creatures I had never heard before.
I shuddered against Death as we reached the courtyard, grateful to finally be returned to the safety of the chateau.
The backs of my thighs burned from the ride, and as he lifted me off the horse, my once white dress, so glowing and perfect, now stained and dirty, stuck to my legs with thick dried blood.
I was exhausted and wrung out, but as he let loose the stallion, Death crooked two fingers in my direction.
His gloves were back on, whatever intimacy we’d shared once again closed off from me.
“I’ll accompany you to your room. I want to take care of you properly. ”
My heart fluttered like a broken bird, and I was happy to surrender, following him into the great entrance.
All the torches and candles were lit for our arrival, and my bloodied silk whispered against the smooth floor.
The cuts on the backs of my thighs were trying to scab, and every time I walked they opened again, bringing a rush of pain.
I tried to walk with straight legs, to minimize the way the flesh moved, and it took forever for me to hobble after him.
When we finally arrived at the door to my chambers, I sighed with relief and rushed for the bed, not caring how bad it hurt, only wanting to lie face down in the furs and blankets.
He gave a small murmur of sympathy. “Is it hurting very much?”
I swallowed away how I really felt and shrugged.
I didn’t want him to think me pitiful, or that I couldn’t handle pain—but I also wanted to feed on his adoration, his tenderness, the way he looked me over with those fathomless black eyes as if I were a small, fragile animal that needed to be nursed to health. I felt I was owed his ministrations.
“Here, drink some of this wine, it’ll help the pain,” he said, leaning over the bed and offering me a glass.
I sat up on my elbows and drained the cup. It tasted strange, but I only noticed after I finished, and I moved my tongue around my mouth thoughtfully. “What else did you put in there?” I asked.
I must have sounded harsher than I meant, for he immediately stiffened. I was only asking out of intellectual curiosity—in that moment, I had no suspicions of anything, my life was in his hands. But his expression shuttered, and he plucked the glass away. “I told you, to help with the pain.”
“I was just curious …” I said and trailed off.
“Curiosity is a dangerous, feminine emotion. Take off your dress,” he said.
I swallowed and twisted on the bed to loosen the ties and pull the silk limp from the heat and blood and sweat off my body.
I hugged myself and laid back down on the bed, naked.
In the flickering candlelight, Death brought white cloths and herb-scented water to my side and, without looking at me, removed his gloves—the same way, a bite of white teeth onto the finger.
“Do you remember one of your first lessons here?”
“Surrender,” I said. I was greatly comforted by his hands.
He bent over my legs with a damp cloth and the same careful touch.
It reassured me that the Death of the meadow and the Death of the chateau were the same.
Those hands were the same. Surely there was safety in a man or god who could be this gentle.
“Remember, then.” He wrung out a cloth and laid it over my thighs.
The wet cloth cooled the fire in my wounds, and whatever herbs he’d put into the water or maybe in the wine worked quickly. The pain eased, and a soft hum of warm relaxation came over me. I sighed and closed my eyes “What is your name? The name you had before you were called Death?”
“I do not remember,” he said, not pausing in his movement. “It is lost to me.”
“If you do not remember your name, I will give you a new one,” I said. “I will call you Renaud.”
“Renaud? Why that one?” he asked, sounding amused.
“You are my ruler.”
I could feel his smile, and when I forced my eyes open, I warmed to see it pull across his face. “Yes, ma petite chou, your ruler indeed.”
“You will keep me safe,” I said. “Even from myself.”
“You are a poisonous flower, treacherous in the wrong hands,” he agreed.
I hid the triumph that soared through my chest, closing my eyes so he would not see. “I see you, Renaud.”
His chuckle was sad and achingly human, and he nuzzled into my hand. My breath stopped. Heart raced. He had brought me here because I had stood against him. I could, if he let me, stand with him too. It was easy to surrender to him.
“Are you ready, ma petite chou?” he asked. I barely heard the words, just felt the graze of his warm hand over my skin and murmured that I was.
I did not remember moving from the bed. I might not have remembered any of it, even when I opened my eyes and saw myself below, arranged on the chapel altar, bathed in the flickering candlelight. I could have thought it was another strange dream. Would have, if not for Schneid.
I spotted him below the altar. Renaud didn’t notice him.
Renaud.
I woke inside my own dream, suddenly aware of watching myself from above. My body was laid out like an offering on the altar, naked and damp with sweat. He’d turned me onto my stomach, revealing what he’d done to my thighs that afternoon.
Fresh, red wounds were marked into my body. Carved into my body—one on each thigh—were symbols for a spell. But either the dream or the cloudiness in my brain wouldn’t let me see them clearly.
Incense burned in thick trails in the damp atmosphere of the chapel while Renaud worked over my body, reciting something.
His tunic was removed, bare chest covered in sweat.
When he finished the incantation, he climbed up onto the altar to straddle my legs.
The symbols he’d cut on my legs were positioned directly beneath him.
He pulled down his hose, and I watched with a strange detachment, as if I were watching a nightmare.
Standing over my limp and senseless form, he began stroking his staff from limp to erect, increasing into a frenzy.
His face twisted. I can only describe it as the opening of something deep inside, something that I felt, instinctively, should not be opened.
Should not be surrendered. My entire body rejected whatever that magic was, and for one terrifying second, I thought my spirit was about to flee and my body would never be seen again, just left behind as a shell, limp as a doll.
An intense revulsion came over me. A dread worse than death, worse than anything I had ever imagined or encountered.
No. I screamed in my mind and reached for myself. No!
Below the altar, Schneid mewed incessantly. On the altar, my body twitched.
I heard or maybe just sensed Renaud somewhere forbidding me from coming back, telling me to keep going, to trust him. But I couldn’t. I only knew one true thing—I was in danger of something worse than death. I dove back into my body.
When I opened my eyes, I was not in the scene I’d just witnessed.
I was in the chapel, yes, but Renaud leaned over me, fully dressed, hand smoothing my hair back as he murmured soothing words.
I could have told myself it had all been a nightmare—but that first moment I came to consciousness, so clear and true, I knew it had not been.
Even as he tried to shush me back into a magicked sleep, the candlelight flickered across the angles of his face, stretching them sharper and longer.
It seemed I could see in his eyes, something in that darkness, lurking and stalking and greedy, so infinitely greedy, like a great dragon over his hoard.
It filled me with so much dread, I convulsed and immediately pushed up off the altar, shaking off his hands and leaping to the floor.
I nearly landed on Schneid. The hellcat hissed at me.
Rochelle’s figure in the mirror appeared in my mind, the whites of her eyes showing as she searched the frame, trying to get through. Run.
I bolted for the door.
Renaud shouted at me. He screamed my name. But I ran and did not look back.
I burst out of the chapel and into the labyrinth of halls, following the glow of Schneid’s back.
The world seemed to flicker strangely, and I stumbled, dizzy.
It must have been the draught. I could still feel its effect, the lifting sensation as if my spirit couldn’t help but want to tear away from my body.
Rubbing my eyes, I ran, naked and nearly blind, for the doors.
Out in the courtyard, midnight had fallen over the forest and the wind was hot and heady. A rumble of thunder echoed through the sky, but to my heart it felt like the roar of Renaud’s rage.
I ran for the trees.