Felsteppe was backing slowly away from Constantine, closer to the wood. “I warned you! I warned you to let me be—I told you I would see everything you loved burn! You didn’t believe I could, but I did!”
“You caused the slaughter at Chastellet,” Roman Berg called from behind. “Destroyed the greatest thing I’d ever built. You are responsible for the deaths of many good men. You tried to kill my friends. My only family.”
“Many good men,” Adrian emphasized. “And innocents who had done nothing more than try to protect the last bit of hope and goodness in this world. You had hand in the destruction of its holy sanctuary.” His voice broke.
Glayer sneered at Adrian’s emotion. “Crybaby.”
“You are filth,” Valentine added with a disgusted curl of his lip. “The worst slime on the earth. You thought to take my wife from me—my Maria. And my brothers.” He raised his blade. “I’ve wished to see you dead for a very, very long time.”
Running footfalls sounded on the gravel road, and then Dori’s cry.
“Christian, no! Come back!”
“Papa, stop! Don’t!” the boy shouted, running into the midst of the group and stopping himself by grabbing great handfuls of his father’s tunic. “Don’t, Papa. You can’t.”
“Christian, go back to Lady Dori at once.”
“No.” Christian gasped and then looked over his shoulder with fearful eyes at Glayer Felsteppe. “You can’t kill him.”
Constantine shook his head. “Christian, he must pay for what he’s done. He’s a bad man.”
“You can’t all kill him!” the boy shouted, turning around to look at the group of battle- and life-hardened men towering over him. “One of you can strike the blow, but how do you decide which when he has wronged you all? Wronged those who aren’t here to have their revenge. If killing him brings you justice, what of the others who can’t speak for themselves? Where is their justice?”
Christian wheeled around with his fists clenched and glared at Glayer Felsteppe. He stepped forward haltingly and then stopped, sniffing and drawing a deep breath before turning his whole wrath upon Glayer Felsteppe, until Christian’s narrow neck was taut with strain.
“I hate you! I hate you! You took my mother away from me! I wish you were dead!” Christian turned back to face his father, and Constantine’s stomach clenched at his son’s red eyes, the clear snot on his upper lip. “But you can’t do it, Papa. It’s not your duty.”
Constantine didn’t know how Felsteppe moved so quickly, but in a blink he had jerked Christian by the arm and dragged him up against his chest.
“Foolish boy,” he said with a cackle and a smile. “Lovely, foolish boy! I thank you! Yes, I do!” He kissed Christian’s cheek as Constantine rushed forward fruitlessly, Roman Berg’s unyielding arms restraining him.
“Ah-ah!” Felsteppe panted, edging closer to the wood. “I’ll kill him and you know it. We’re going to slip into the trees here and away, Christian and I.”
“Let him go!” Constantine screamed, the fabric of his sanity worn down to the last threads as his nightmare bloomed to life before him.
“Yes, let him go, Glayer,” a woman’s voice echoed.
Eseld stepped from the wood behind Felsteppe, her gray hair hanging from its undone coil, her gray face a mass of creases and sorrow.
“He’s my only means of escape, Mother,” Felsteppe panted, seeming unsurprised at the old woman’s sudden appearance. “I’m taking him with me. Are you coming or nay?”
Eseld smiled at him. “Of course I’m coming with you. But we’ll be leaving the boy with his father.”
“Are you daft, woman?” Felsteppe demanded. “As soon as I turn him loose, I’ll be struck down!”
Eseld turned to Constantine then, and he could see the light in her eyes was gone. The madness had fully claimed her, and she had sunk into its embrace.
“You’ll let me take him, won’t you, milord?” she asked calmly. “You’ll let his own mother take him certainly. It’s my place after all. I should have taken him away years ago, when he was born.”
“Give me my unharmed son and I won’t touch you,” Constantine vowed in a low voice, understanding at last. “None here shall. Upon my word.”
“See?” Eseld looked back to Felsteppe, a smile on her old, weary, scarred face. “Turn him loose, Glayer.”
“Stan,” Valentine chastised. “We can no just let him go, after all these years.”
“Yes, we can,” Constantine said. He met Felsteppe’s gaze. “I retract my vow to kill you. Christian is right—it’s not my duty.”
Felsteppe let Christian slide down his front, but he kept a tight hold on his arm for one moment while the boy struggled to break free. He did at last and bolted to Constantine, throwing himself against his father.
