Chapter 22 #2
A branch snapped in the forest, shattering whatever spell had fallen around us. We bolted upright, startled, red-cheeked, with our hair sticking to each other’s damp skin like long spiderwebs weaving us together.
The dream had ended.
“Who’s there?” Dacia called.
No one answered. But the rain had stopped, and the moment had passed. I pulled away, pushing my hair back from hers as I looked for my borrowed cloak.
“No,” Dacia said firmly and pulled me back.
She kissed me again—hard—and it was then that I sensed, not just the pleasure of her, but the connection, the barest hint of that golden thread that was sewn into the very being of things and knitted me to her.
But before I could really grasp it, she ended the kiss.
Without asking, she turned me around and inspected my legs.
Her finger lightly touched the edges of the symbols.
“What is this?” she hissed in horror, her face going as pale as Tobin’s.
“I don’t remember,” I said, thankful she could not see my face. She knew me too well.
She must have known I lied, but she did not repeat the question.
“I really do think the Bandit of Molsheim can help in the village,” she said as we hastily dressed. “The green-eyed one. If we convince him. Can you help me?”
I took her cloak and wrapped it over my shoulders. “What do you mean help? We should have run. You run, at least; I’ll distract them. I can escape after.”
“I’m not going to run. The girls are terrified. No one is safe.”
I didn’t answer. I knew she cared for the girls, but I only wished she would run. And my heart ached at the thought that we were about to be parted again.
Jon whistled, and a moment later appeared through the trees.
Unbothered, Dacia crisply informed him of the care of my wounds.
“I’ll be fine,” I said as we got back on the horses.
The pools had washed away much of the pain and burning, and though the cuts still bled, it was slow.
My skin hummed with the scent and taste and feel of Dacia.
I licked my lips and could still taste her, and it sent an erotic pulse through my entire body.
Back at the camp, after the blindfolds were once again removed, the green-eyed man met us at a cook fire, a bottle of wine and a tin of a wild honey in his hands.
“You accuse us of being spies,” Dacia said as she lifted my shift and crouched to apply both to my legs. “What if we become spies for you?”
I wanted to kick Dacia as she splashed the wine onto my wounds.
Jon snorted. But Tobin’s green eyes flashed in a way I knew meant he was listening.
“Does the Baron frequent the brothels?” Tobin asked.
“No,” Dacia admitted. “But his soldiers do.”
Tobin rubbed his jaw. “How do I know you aren’t simply playing both sides?”
Dacia stood up and handed back the wine and honey. “Thank you,” she said at first, with a small curtsey. I recognized her shrewdness—the way she let that purity be seen. It was not a performance, but true vulnerability. She simply was all that she showed. Oh, how she broke my heart.
“Our lives depend on your help. We have been terrified, tormented, these last few months. All the priests say it is you causing the torment. All the old women say it is Lord Death. I know fairy tales do not live in this forest, and now that I have met you, I know the priests are also wrong. But something is out there, in the night, stealing away girls. We need someone who will care to stop it.”
For a moment, I believed she had convinced them.
She spoke so earnestly, so perfectly, and I could see the gleam in Tobin’s eyes—but also something more, that already half-in-love look that men could get around her.
Maybe it was my own feelings clouding it all, but in the pause as he considered her words, I thought that he would surely let us go.
“I cannot let you go,” he said.
My stomach sank to my feet.
“You’ve seen us here. You could run straight to the Baron and inform him for protection. I believe you must stay here. I’m sure we can find some”—he paused as if his mind skipped over the unspoken things—“use for you both.”
Until that point, I had hoped, stupidly, for this to be different. They had treated us well. They had taken us to the spring and cleaned my wounds and not touched us. And these simple gestures had lulled me into hoping we could escape. That deep down, these were good men.
But I had failed to remember they were simply men.
They were thinking only of their bellies, their taxes, their fees, and what coins and pleasure they could steal.
I remembered Renaud trying to get me to think bigger when I first arrived at the chateau, and oh, did I understand now.
How could I get them to understand the world was so much more than some low-rate Baron in the hinterlands of the empire?
How could I get Dacia free from their stupidity and smallness and their eager desire simply to use her?
In frustration, I reached for the incantation I’d found that turned my hair and dress white and made me glow.
I needed to shock them loose of their feeblemindedness.
All at once, my light filled the entire ravine.
Tobin and Jon threw themselves back from me, their faces pale. Dacia froze, but then her hands slowly covered her mouth, staring at me with wide, horror-stricken eyes.
I only glanced at her, and the glance alone broke my heart. I could never undo it. Never earn my way back into her heart. But I would set her free—even if it meant setting her free from me.
“Tobin, I have been sent to give you a message,” I said slowly, my voice amplified by the light, deep and resonant. I sounded like a creature of the wood.
His green eyes were wide, and he moved as carefully as a fox around a trap, hands a little too close to his knife. “I will curse you if you try to hurt or detain us again,” I said, though I’d learned nothing of curses. Oh, why had I run from the one safe place in the world for me?
“A message from whom?” he asked.
“From the gods,” I said, feeling rather foolish. I thought that would be obvious.
There was a long pause, and it took me a moment to realize they were waiting expectantly for the message.
My message. The message I was to deliver.
I cleared my throat. “You have been sent a quest from the gods, Sir Tobin. They demand that you find who is stealing women from these villages and ensure that no more are taken.”
I thought it rather a desperate effort, but the men seemed awestruck, looking at me with profound respect. As if I were someone who was worth listening to, instead of an invisible, endless scream that no one seemed to hear.
For effect, I waited a bit longer, then thought the reversal of the spell. Instantly, I was back to my former drenched black hair and bruised, naked body. “We will be leaving,” I said primly. “I will give you the courtesy of blindfolding us as long as you take us toward the village.”
Tobin stared at me still. His shrewd green gaze held an echo of my own glow. “We could use a witch.”
I sniffed and pushed back my hair. “Why? You have your own gifts.” It was a guess, but I said it bluntly, thinking to show off my insight. I thought he’d be flattered to be perceived. But he bristled, his calm exterior cracking for the first time. “I know not what you mean.”
I was confused then, unsure what to say. Did he not know? Or was he trying to hide his gifts as I had once hidden mine? “Well,” I said as if that hadn’t happened, “you may have need of me. I have no need of you. If you have wish for my help, send a crow.”
“How?” Tobin began to ask, but I grabbed Dacia’s arm and turned briskly away, daring to try to leave. “You’ll go back to wherever in this forest you hide?”
I narrowed my eyes and tried to speak to the fox, rather than just the man. “I go where I please and where the gods send me.”
He nodded. “We shall blindfold you.”
I did not like it, but I had been the one to offer.
At any moment, I expected Jon’s ham-size fist to grab me and tie me up. But they put the blindfolds back on our faces and then went to get the horses.
I could feel Dacia standing quietly beside me.
She was my cardinal direction—wherever she was, I was drawn.
Under the dark blindfold, behind my eyes, all the images of us together tumbled over and over, the kind of memory that could never wear out, that spilled molten gold all through my limbs.
I could still feel her under my fingertips.
But I had other memories too—her words. I am a Christian. I do not like to go into the witch’s home. And now, the horror in her eyes that seemed so final, so profound. I waited, but she did not speak. I wanted to say something, but no words came to mind.
I was a witch—everything she rejected, everything she opposed. Still, I could not help it—I tried to reach for her. My fingertips grazed the edges of her dress. And then I heard her feet shift in the dirt as she moved away from me.
My throat tightened and tears slid out of my eyes.
I loved Dacia with all my heart, but I knew, had known all along, I was too dark, too terrible to be loved by anything as human and good as Dacia. I might have saved us, but by revealing my true self, I had destroyed who we’d been.
The men came back and bundled us up again onto the horses, but I did not care what they did with me.
We rode for what felt like hours, and I insisted on watching from the forest as Dacia was delivered to the village, watching as she disappeared through the gates, before they turned the horses and we rode deep into the forest.
I was shoved off the horse not far from the pools. A mixture of blood and wine and honey trickled down my legs to my ankles and I felt weak and sweaty again. But I was in no danger. I knew I could make it back to Renaud—and it was the only place I wanted to go.
I did not know if I would be welcomed back.
He had no need of me or use of me. But I understood it now.
There was no place for me without his power.
I would get on my knees and beg him if he asked.
Those men had thought they could possess me until I had showed them who I was in Death’s house.
If I could not have peace or love or happiness, then I would have power.
It was easy to keep him fixed in my mind, and I began to walk through the darkening forest. It was nightfall when I finally made it to the chateau’s courtyard—and there I froze.
He sat on the grand steps. His hair mussed.
In the same clothes as the day before. I saw him before he saw me, and in that moment, I knew I had done the right thing to return.
He looked broken. Distraught. As if he’d been worrying about me all night and day.
I stepped forward, and he must have heard me, for his liquid dark eyes found mine and his whole body stiffened as if suddenly choked with hope.
I could not remember why I had run. I could not remember anything he’d ever done to hurt me.
He was no longer just Lord Death—for I had named the darkness and the darkness had claimed me.
I ran for his arms. His hands, gloveless, closed over my hair and my shoulders and gathered me close, mouth opening hungrily on mine.