“What kind of creature are you?” I nearly yelled. Despite all my power, I felt overcome by the never-ending depths of powerlessness. “With all your gifts that you deny?”
“What are you on about?”
“Your eyes. Your spirit. The gods … they’ve given you something. Something you deny.”
He looked at me with a mixture of pride and contempt, clearly thinking my head was merely turned by a man with pretty eyes. “I am not a female with weaknesses or witchcraft.”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” I sputtered. “Don’t you sense it? Can you not feel the difference between your spirit and others? Are you not at all curious about who you might be or what you might be capable of? You are denying your own nature. You could change the course of things and yet you piddle around with raids and efforts that don’t truly cost you.”
As I ranted, twin spots of red appeared on his cheeks. But the only thing he said when I finished was a curt, “No, madam, it is you who deny reality.” With a final, flashing gaze, he clicked his horse and rode off.
For all his gifts, he was an incredibly useless man.
IARRIVED TO THE CHÂTEAU AT SUNSET. IWAS WITHOUT MYherbs, too close to the night, and the torches were dark. I’d never seen the château so silent, so heavy. Falling into my dark room, I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. I’d made it.
As soon as I flopped onto the bed, I heard the stallion’s hooves in the courtyard. My racing heart and sweaty forehead would give me away, but I closed my eyes and tried to breathe. I listened for his footsteps and thought of what I would say. But he never came, and my heart finally went back to normal. When I opened my eyes, the tub was there, steaming into the cool fall evening.
Renaud came, finally, when I was bathing. And I turned to meet him with peace in my eyes and hands stilled with perfect calm.
XXXI.
Love Has No Law
“Good evening, ma petite chou.”
“Good evening, my lord.”
“I do not mean to interrupt.”
“I bathed early. I was working in the garden today.” I stepped out of the tub, keeping my eyes down. I was afraid to have him read the truth. After all this time, I still did not know what he did or did not know. Where he ended and I began. I heard Perchta’s faraway warning.
He took my hand to steady me. The cool leather of his gloves sent a shiver up my spine. I met his eyes then and caught the gleam of his desire.
He pulled me into his chest, kissing the water drops off my neck. “Are you ready?” he whispered into my ear.
“For what?” I asked, pulling back in his arms.
“For your final test.”
“Final?” A terrible dread filled my stomach. I hadn’t expected this. “But … I’ve only been here a few months. I’m not finished with any of my work.”
“You will see what I mean,” he said, holding a robe for me. “Come.”
I didn’t answer right away, allowing my gaze to linger on him. He liked the memory of what I’d been, dirty and wild and half frozen in the snow. I understood I was not the prostitute he’d brought here, who had cowered and fallen apart at a simple kindness. I was fat and sleekand had a sense of my own power now, even if it felt hard-earned and as if I were always chasing its edges. I was, or might be, a very powerful sorceress one day—one who could cross between worlds and time. But he did not want any of that. His vision for me would always be the broken prostitute he had saved. He felt comforted when I was nothing but need and hunger. I pulled the robe close, my heart pounding through my chest. “I have something to confess. I need your guidance.”
He softened, tilting his head in that animal way. “You may confess to me as if I am your priest. I am listening.”
I did not know if he was serious, but he sat on the edge of the bed, waiting expectantly. And so I kneeled before him, pulling the dampening robe tighter across my chest.
It had been so long since I had confessed. I had forgotten the feel of being on my knees like this. Of being so vulnerable. I had only meant to tell him my fears of bringing something terrible and ravenous into this world, but now I felt as though I might accidentally reveal my whole soul, even the parts I desperately wanted to keep for my own. But I swallowed and crossed myself. “Bless me father, for I have sinned.”
He placed his hand on my wet hair.
“I am afraid I have unleashed a terror into this world.”
“What kind of terror?”
I hesitated, but then I forced myself to speak on. Maybe he would be swayed by my vulnerability—my need for his help. “I am afraid that I am responsible for bringing this devourer into the world. That the villages are unsafe because I have brought darkness upon them. That no one is safe from me.”
