Chapter Twenty-Two #4
He breathed in deep. I wondered if he felt as changed as I had when I spoke those words. If he too had felt the glory in them.
Returning his sword to his knee, he cleaned his blade with oil and the sleeve of his doublet. Then his head shot up, his eyes narrowed. A flutter of bird’s wings through the trees. Something even closer.
He took up his sword. And then he stumbled, clutching his heart. When he blinked, tears of blood fell. I watched as he reached out a hand to whoever he thought might be in the distance. A savior. But if there was someone, they had fled, or they crouched to watch the deed finished from the shadows.
He lay there, convulsing, until death stole him.
The beach returned, the tide higher than before. “There was no pain,” I said shakily. “I hoped there would be no pain.”
“Of course there was, Bianca. I just kept it from you.”
Hal’s eyes were so sad, I turned away. I faced the wind.
“Every member of the council knew you would be alone to recite that oath. It was an opportune moment. They could have followed you. Prospero could have been in the forest, waiting to burst your heart. Kitty Seton said the two of you argued the night before. She showed me.”
“We were arguing about you. He intercepted a letter you sent. I was going to go to my father and tell him I couldn’t marry the emperor’s daughter, because I already considered myself bound to you.
Bound under all seven planets and consummated.
Prospero knew about us. He’d known for a while. He was furious. At me, at you.”
“I thought you never received that letter. I thought you died not knowing how I regretted leaving you.”
“I knew. Tell me you’re happy, Bianca. Tell me someone is making you happy.”
Secrets had undone me before, and I may never speak to Hal again. Tomorrow, he would forget. We would remain in that meadow, he and I. In his eyes, we would never leave it. The meadow would always be green and sunlit. “What if it was someone you wouldn’t approve of?”
“A short list,” he muttered. “Roland?”
I nodded.
“I want you to have someone, even if I—” He thought his words through carefully. “I wouldn’t choose him for you myself. But do you suppose I expected you to sit alone in some manor, waiting to die?”
“Do you have someone? Are you lonely?”
“It is not that way for ghosts. We cannot fall in love because we cannot change. But you can change, and you must. You have changed. You’re more confident when you speak. Taller, too.”
“I’m no taller.”
He clenched his fist, and a darkness passed behind his eyes. “You thought hatred would be the end result of us loving each other. But all love does not wilt, Bianca. Sometimes, the years strengthen it. Roland is the one who told me that.”
I bit my lip so hard I drew blood. The pain only separated us further, a reminder that I was alive.
For three years, I would have given anything to trade places with him, to be the ghost, not the one haunted; instead, I endured my life. That was all I had done, since he died—endured. It was only since I had returned to Roland’s court that I felt something stir in me.
“I will find out who did this to you,” I promised him. “You were born to be king. Kings should be the best of men.”
His smile cracked. “How often they fall short.”
He was so close, but I could not smell the usual leather and sweat; there was only brine. The water, rising fast. “There’s more I would say to you, but the tide is here.”
I reached for him, but my hands passed through air. “Not yet. Please.”
In the months we had together, we stole time just like this. I’d pull him down to bed, pleading “not yet,” and he’d groan about being forever late because of me.
“No, not yet,” he agreed.
I nodded as I cried, rubbing my nose against my sleeve. Swells broke against my legs. For that short time, I had been incredibly blessed. Not by the planets, or the Moon—by him. And I would spend my life proving I deserved to be someone he had loved.
In the end, the tide came in. Time marched on. I walked through Hal’s specter, closing my eyes as my body passed through his. I could have sworn I felt him then, felt the rapid beating of his undead heart. But I heard the crash of the waves and the wail of the wind and knew he was already drowned.
I sailed back through the barrier connecting Lionesse and Alvion, and for a brief moment, I stood between two worlds. A clear sky at the stern, and a raging tempest at the bow. Up the winding Snake, the storm didn’t cease.
When the ship would take me no farther, I loaded into a cart delivering grain to Redhall. The rain had lessened by then, the trees and bushes still glistening, but there was a hollow quiet inside the castle. No laughter or music resounded from the great hall.
Frantic, I stumbled into my bedchamber to find Bess in a chair, cross-stitching by candlelight. She glanced up, her lips parted. “Oh,” she said, with obvious disappointment. “You’re back.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Only, you’re too late.” She set down her stitching. “Roland has been arrested and sent to the Archimago Tomb.”