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But inside my bedroom, the room that has always belonged to the Penitent, I’ve never felt that same energy. I’ve never felt him there.
And it has me thinking.
Settling behind my desk, I open the Book of Tithes. I can just imagine Willow’s face as she read through it. Her thoughts. Her horror.
I turn the pages yellowed by age. They’re fragile. It wouldn’t take much to tear them out, crush them in my hands. Turn the past to dust. Would it change our future if I did? Because as much as I abhor Salomé’s archaic, blind belief, her devotion and commitment to follow through with this sacrifice to protect us from Elizabeth Wildblood’s curse, there is one thing that I cannot explain.
The Wildblood women are sacrificed at our hands. Their deaths, mostly, are made to look accidental. But with each Tithe paid, the Penitent who shed the blood of the chosen Wildblood woman dies within a year. Those deaths always occur on Delacroix soil. Those deaths are accidental, in some regard, or can be deemed so. But how many Penitents have drowned in the lake I grew up swimming in? How many have been struck by lightning on these grounds that seem to defy the odds of attracting electricity? How many are buried beneath powerful, young trees felled by almost unnatural storms?
I don’t ask the question out of fear. I’ve said it before, and I will say it again. I would give my life freely if it would save my family, and that now includes Willow. But this is something I cannot explain. It’s something I cannot disregard. Like the pages of this ancient tome, even if I could turn them to dust, I know their destruction will not change our future.
But the crack in the carving, maybe that is not Shemhazai’s rage, his warning. Even the splitting of his altar, if I shift my perspective… maybe it’s something else entirely.
I open the tome to the page I want. That of Solange Wildblood and her Penitent, Louis Delacroix. Their story dates back to 1822, and it’s theirs that has always stood out to me. I’ve never understood why until now. Until this morning.
Louis wrote their story in the first person calling his Sacrifice my Solange. The Penitents before him had noted facts, logging the atrocities they committed. The only emotion on the page, if any was shown, was an eagerness that turns my stomach. Perhaps that is one of the reasons their story has stayed with me. It was just different.
Solange’s birthday was on the day of the Tithing. She had turned twenty-two and she and her two older sisters had stood in their white gowns and received the Delacroix brothers, Louis and Charles, twins like Abacus and I, born minutes apart.
Opposite Abacus and I, Louis and Charles were not close. In fact, from how I read it, Charles hated Louis.
I turn the page that marks the year and names of both Penitent and Sacrifice and begin to read.
I shift uneasily, leaning forward so as not to come into contact with the back of the seat. Charles is at my side as we ride to the Wildblood house. My grandfather and father saw us off and will await our return at home. Just days ago, we buried Manon, our sister. And that on the heels of our mother’s burial weeks earlier.
The Tithe is a heavy weight upon my shoulders, but I understand my duty now. Both Father and Grandfather have shown me what happens when we shirk our responsibility.
“Sit back, brother,” Charles says in his mocking voice, pushing me backward. “Relax.”
I wince as my flayed skin comes into contact with the seat and hate myself for crying out.
Charles grins, his eyes dark, their wickedness making the deep amber flat and ugly.
“You’ll see your lovely Solange in just a little while. We’ll bring her to her new home together, you and I.”
“She is mine. I am the Penitent.”
“Of course,” Charles says, his expression one of pure innocence, a thing he is not.
Once we arrive at the Wildblood house, we are ushered inside only a few candles barely lighting our way. The mirrors we pass in the hall are covered with black shrouds and Horace Wildblood, Solange’s father, stands at the door where the Tithing will take place, one arm in a sling, leaning on his better leg, his face swollen with the bruises Charles put there when we had to drag him and Solange back home. He had tried to hide her away, out of reach. He did not understand that it is an impossibility.
Does he know, though, that the beating he took was nothing compared to what my family has endured? What Solange has yet to endure.
I meet his eyes, this man who once, before he knew my name, welcomed me into his home.
