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Cassel raises his sword. “Fight or have the world know you as a coward.”
Beast leaves his own weapon lowered. “This is not a war, and I do not care enough about you to commit patricide.” I hear in his voice that it is true. Whatever horrors this day has brought, it has also brought him that peace. “Besides, there are other men with more claim to your life than I have.” His gaze shifts to Maraud, who has come down the stairs into the room while the two men were talking. “Sir Crunard, with the king’s permission, I leave him to you.”
Surprise flashes across Cassel’s face, and he swings his body around to find Maraud’s sword raised in readiness, his easygoing manner replaced by something dangerous and lethal. Gen’s eyes widen in alarm, her hand flying to her chest. She has heard one of the hearts in the room begin to beat. Understands that one of them will die. She looks at me, lifting her shoulders in a gesture of helplessness. She does not know which one.
Beast walks away from his father.
With a roar of outrage, Cassel pivots from Maraud, raises his sword, and rushes toward Beast.
Trying to recapture Cassel’s attention, Maraud bellows, “Face me, you coward!” But the general’s world has narrowed to Beast.
Determined resignation settles over Beast at the choice being forced on him. He stops walking, turns around, and simply stands there, as immovable as a mountain. I can only wonder what thoughts are going through his head as he lifts his sword. The general does not check his momentum—surely a man as battle seasoned as he is recognizes that Beast’s blade is longer than his. Or mayhap he thinks Beast will give in and spar with him.
But Beast does not. He would not willingly make this choice, but he will not run from it either. He does not flinch and only grunts a little from the effort of holding his ground as Cassel skewers himself on the sword.
Silence spreads across the room like the blood spreading across the general’s chest. Beast shoves his sword—and the general—from him, his father’s body sliding to the floor and taking the sword with him. Beast looks up at Maraud. “That should have been your kill.”
“He’s not dead yet,” I tell them, for while his heart is slow and feeble, it still beats.
Maraud nudges Cassel’s shoulder with the toe of his boot. “Dead enough.”
The fallen general tries to speak. After a moment’s hesitation, Beast kneels down to hear, even as my mind screams, Trap!
“Honor is a fool’s game,” the general mutters.
“And yet it is you on the floor dying, with your past glorious deeds congealing around you like old blood.”
“Honor is a fool’s game,” Cassel mutters again. “And yet you played it well.” His fingers grasp Beast’s knee, but Beast stands, causing the general’s hand to fall back to the floor.
I scramble down the stairs, nimbly avoiding the stunned and grumbling remains of Cassel’s garrison. Beast is battered, bruised, bleeding, and that is not even counting the damage to his heart this day. Not caring who sees, I throw myself at him, forcing him to hold on to me lest we both tumble to the ground.
“Thank you,” he murmurs against my hair, his arms forming a protective shield around me.
“You did not even need our help,” I say, dangerously close to weeping in front of all these vile men. I now understand precisely how Genevieve felt, standing outside Givrand.
“Now who has straw for brains?” He takes my face in his hands, forcing me to look him in the eyes. “Just seeing you—knowing you were here and not locked away in Pierre’s holding—heartened me. If not for the sound of your voice calling me back, I would have lost myself, and he would have won.” He places his forehead against mine. Then he sniffs. “You smell like the inside of a chimney.”
“You’re a fine one to talk.” I close my eyes and wallow in relief like a hog in mud. I want to roll my entire body in it and splash it all around, but instead, I thank every one of the saints who had a hand in bringing us through this.
In the next moment, General Cassel ceases his struggle against the inevitability of his wound and passes into death, his soul erupting from his body, a hurtling projectile of force and velocity looking for a target.
It seizes on me. I have only a moment to reinforce my mental shields before I feel its impact. Beast grips my hands, as if he can physically protect me from Cassel’s avenging soul.
After a moment of withstanding the battering, I realize it is not anger that propels the soul, but vigor. As he was in life, so he is in death. Once he has swirled around me with fierce curiosity, the soul shifts its attention to Beast, and its entire manner changes.
“What is happening?” Beast’s voice is naught but a rumble that I feel in my chest.
“Your father’s soul,” I whisper. “It . . . he . . .” I cannot keep the amazement from my voice. “Was proud of you.”
Beast looks at me as if I’ve offered Cassel’s liver to him for supper.
I shake my head—in wonder, in disbelief, in order to keep Beast from pulling away. “In his own brutally twisted way, he was. You were everything he refused to believe in, but in the end you proved him wrong.” I pause, trying to understand the rest of the sensations coming from the soul as they nearly overwhelm me. It is as if every feeling he denied himself in life has been let loose upon his death.
“He was glad,” I say at last. “Glad that honor existed. And that you wielded it more gloriously than most.”
The general is filled with pride that his son has more honor than any man he has ever met, feels that it exonerates him in some way. I do not share that with Beast. I will save it for some less fraught day. Say, when he is nearing his dotage.
Chapter 118
Genevieve
I watch Maraud staring down at the general’s body. He looks like one of the statues the Church is so fond of, both beautiful and terrible in the same moment. The righteousness of his anger, the pain of his loss, the depth of his grief, the solemnity of what he has just witnessed all writ plainly on his face. In truth, he and Beast could not have given the king a better showing of honor.
Would that the king could have a painting of that to hang on his wall to guide him.
It seems to even have impressed the souls of the dead, who have been hovering and pulsing along the upper reaches of the room. Seeing Sybella in Beast’s arms, jealousy courses through me. I long to run to Maraud. Throw myself in his arms, laughing and weeping with relief that his long nightmare is over. But I am not willing to trust the limits of the king’s newfound tolerance. His face is a pale mask of horrified revulsion, and so I must stand here like a lump, my own paltry gifts of no help at all.
When the general’s men begin to move, making ominous rumbling noises, I brighten. Mayhap I will get to skewer one of them.
The king finally bestirs himself. “I have seen all I need to see.” He clears his eyes of the horror he has just witnessed, lifts his chin to a royal angle, and squares his shoulders. “Hold,” he calls out as he steps to the edge of the gallery.
The men freeze. All of them have had occasion to see the king before and easily recognize him. “Although General Cassel is dead, he is being charged with treason. You may lay down your weapons and come peacefully, or I will send in the three hundred troops I have waiting just outside the holding.”
After a moment’s hesitation and a look around the room at Beast, Maraud, Andry, Tassin, Jaspar, and the others, Cassel’s men do as commanded.
I shoot the king a sideways glance. “That was quite a gamble,” I murmur. “You don’t have three hundred troops.”
The corner of his mouth lifts in the faintest hint of a smile. “I’d like to think that I’ve learned a thing or two from you.”
I nearly laugh then, for surely I have brought the greatest weapon in our arsenal—the king’s justice.
Chapter 119
Five days later, we arrive in Nantes to the shocked stares of the people of the city, as well as the palace guard, who had not realized the king was not within
the palace.
Once we are ushered inside, the king calls his council to him and disappears while the rest of us are treated with utmost respect and given every courtesy. Most of that honor is lost on us, for we are all so exhausted from our travels that we sleep for the next four days. Well, I do. Sybella spends much of that time tending to Beast’s wounds while Maraud watches and teases the stoic Beast about making such a fuss.
On the fifth day, I am summoned to the king’s privy chamber. I arrive at the same time as Sybella. “Do you have any idea what this is about?” she asks.
“None.”
