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She begins to pace. “I only hoped to gain clemency for the convent. Instead”—her voice grows rough with emotion—“I exposed everyone and put you all in even more danger.” She falls quiet a moment, then stops pacing to face me, chin held high. “However, I am not here so you can throw my past sins in my face.”
Impressed in spite of myself, I lean against the window. “Then why are you here?”
“I heard the king talking with his advisors.”
“When?” I ask sharply.
She glances away for the briefest of seconds. “Last night in the king’s privy chamber.”
“Why were you there?”
She shrugs. “The king enjoys railing at me at the moment. It is easy enough to endure, and I can learn much. Things we may be able to use to our advantage. Or at least protect ourselves against. The king had dismissed me to attend the meeting. But I did not leave.”
She takes a step closer. “Sybella—” The urgency in her voice shoves aside my anger. “His council—with the regent leading the charge—is urging him to petition the Church to have worship of the Nine declared unorthodox. They are trying to convince him that the queen cannot honor both the Nine and her marriage vows. I do not think any of them, with the possible exception of General Cassel, believe such a thing, only that it provides a political advantage.”
“What did Cassel say?”
“He wants the convent eliminated because it is a weapon the king does not control. But it is the regent who is more dangerous. She is urging him to do this as penance for breaking his betrothal vow.”
“A vow she encouraged him to break!”
She plucks at her skirt in frustration. “It doesn’t matter. She is happy to jerk her brother around like a dog on a leash as long as it allows her to do what she thinks best for France. She is also proposing to hold off on the coronation until the queen has agreed.”
Merde. The regent’s brain has more twists than a labyrinth. “You must tell the queen.”
“What? No! She is not fond of me. It is better if you tell her. She does not need to be reminded that I have private access to her husband.”
It is a considerate gesture. “Normally, I would agree with you, but with guards at my door, I don’t know when I will be allowed to see her.”
After a moment, Gen nods her head, then takes a step toward the door. “The body they found?” I say.
She stops. “Yes?”
“He was an assassin my brother sent to kill me at Christmas.”
* * *
When Father Effram looks up from putting away the altar cloth and sees my face, he immediately heads for the confessional booth. Fortunately, my two guards do not invade the sanctuary of the chapel and linger outside in the hall.
As soon as he slides the grill open, I tell him, “There has been a new development.”
“By your voice, it is not a happy one.”
“The search party has found a body. The body of the assassin Pierre sent.”
“That is a shame it didn’t stay put, but surely they cannot connect it to you?”
“Fremin suspects I killed him. He might tell the king.”
“Would that not also implicate him and your brother, since they are the ones who sent the assassin?”
“They would not say the man was an assassin. They would claim he was a messenger.”
There is silence as Father Effram digests this. “What will you do?”
“I have considered how I might neutralize Fremin without killing him. Now that the king knows I am an assassin, any death will immediately call his attention to me.”
“That is true.”
“I could cut out Fremin’s tongue, then he could not speak, but he has hands and knows how to write. I could cut off his hands as well, but would it not be kinder to kill him outright? In Pierre’s world, a man with no voice and no hands will not last long.” A silent burble of laughter threatens to crawl its way up my throat. “In truth, Father, I killed him the moment I removed my sisters from his reach. My brother does not tolerate failure.”
“What do you wish to do?” Father Effram’s voice is gentle and coaxing.
The dark ribbon of rage unfurls inside me. “I want to kill him,” I whisper, the longing in my heart causing my voice to tremble. “I want to slip my hands around his throat and squeeze the life from him. I want to squelch any threat he may now—or ever—present to those I love.” As the wave of fury subsides, an icy fear replaces it. “But surely it is one thing to kill the henchmen as they came to our room to kidnap my sisters, or to throw a knife at Pierre and the men who think to grab them from my arms. But to kill a man for something he might do in the future feels as if I am crossing a dangerous moral line. And yet no matter how I look at it, the only solution I can see is his death.”
“What happens if you don’t kill him?”
“He tells the king, or the regent. They believe him. I am tried and hanged for murder. My sisters will have no one to see to their safety. Worse, who is to say that Pierre won’t find them now that it is known I serve the convent? Eventually, he will look there, and he will find them.”
“The convent would not hand them over.”
“Not without a fight, no. But how can they withstand the thousands of troops Pierre commands? Must they all die, too, because of my blighted family?”
In the silence that follows, I can hear the cogs of his mind turning. At last he says, “The solution is obvious, child. You are acting out of love, not embracing darkness for its own sake. You must follow your heart.”
“Even if my heart says to kill him?”
He is quiet so long, I wonder if he is going to leave me to answer my own question.
“You—all his daughters—have only touched the surface of your power. You must stop being afraid to use it. Being small and hiding yourself does not serve anyone. It may have once, but no longer.”
His words fill me with both trepidation and exhilaration. It is the exhilaration that scares me the most. “But then I become what I am trying to protect my sisters from.”
“The Dark Mother takes life in order to make room for new life. But every time she does, she creates an opening for rebirth.”
For some reason, his words create a flutter of panic deep within me. “I am not the Dark Mother,” I rush to point out.
“Perhaps not, but that does not mean we cannot learn from her. Even when death looks us in the face, we can still choose life. If we do, we are reborn into something new. If not, death claims us for eternity.”
“Are you saying that if I threaten Fremin with death, he may change his ways?” I snort. “He is too afraid of Pierre to do that.”
“Fear is a powerful thing,” Father Effram agrees. “And goes to the crux of what I am asking you. Is your fear of the darkness greater than your love of your sisters?”
His words feel like a slap in the face, even as they pluck the chords of my own memory: Hate cannot be fought with hate. Evil cannot be conquered by darkness. Only love has the power to conquer them both.
And as soon as I remember those words, I realize there is no choice but to kill Fremin.
Chapter 16
Genevieve
While not pleased with the news I carried, the queen was most grateful to have it. Indeed, she treated me with every courtesy and did not make me grovel. She is one of the rare nobles who dip into the well of power only to do what must be done rather than to feed her own gnawing hunger.
However, I am not allowed to bask for long in the queen’s beneficence. One of the understewards appears in the hall before me with a summons from the king.
He is not in his apartments when I arrive. Uncertain what to do, I perch on the velvet-covered bench and wait. Moments later, I hear his voice and that of his valet from inside his bedchamber. As he draws nearer the door, he calls back, “And burn the clothes. You will never be able to remove the stink of death from them.”
His words capture my attention as surely as a hook snags a fish.
When he enters the salon, his cheeks are flushed and his hair still faintly damp, as if he has just come from a bath. Giving no greeting, he goes to stand directly in front of the fire. Still not looking at me, he asks, “From your training at the convent, is it possible to hasten the putrefaction of a body?”
“What, Your Majesty?”
