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She watched the mayhem from the battlements. Her breath held tight in her throat as the battering ram rocked the castle. Except it wasn’t a ram at all. It was a twisted goat’s head.
Huntley’s sigil.
The beam was mounted on a frame and suspended by ropes. A dozen men swung the battering ram back and forth, delivering powerful blows to the Eastern Gate.
Terror cut through her like a knife. She grasped at the material of her red riding cloak and watched the mist of her breath in the air.
Suddenly, she knew where she was meant to be… what she was meant to do.
* * *
She ventured into the cold of her family’s crypt. There, she made out a glow pulsing within the dark. Her steps slowed, and she descended the stairwell, where the air volleyed toward her. She felt like she’d crossed into a dream... as if she were sleepwalking and would soon awake in bed. Except she’d been ten years old again, her family would be alive, her father the king, her brother still next in line for the crown.
Her breath caught. Her steps sent vibrations through the very foundations of the crypt.
“Hello?” Her voice echoed within the darkness. In the distance, the sounds of screaming men and clanging steel filled the world. “Hello,” she asked of the darkness again, this time just to break it. She took a few more steps, pacing toward that light. She felt the hairs on her neck stand on end.
“Blanchette.” At first, she thought she was seeing a ghost. The figure held a candle and was robed in a plush, samite coat. Its fabric was a pure white embroidered with the salamander and gold flames of House Delacroix. The hood was pulled over her face, and Blanchette watched as the light illuminated her sister’s porcelain features and the pink tip of her nose.
“I… I don’t believe it.”
“Believe it, Sister,” she replied, tossing back her furry hood in an elegant movement that she remembered so well. Her dark eyes shone within the candle’s light.
Blanchette reeled forward with a cry of disbelief and thrust her arms around her sister’s shoulders.
“Careful, Your Grace, careful,” she whispered, angling the candle away from the two of them.
Blanchette felt something inside her snap; something she hadn’t known was on the verge of breaking. She buried her face in her sister’s warm coat and sobbed. Her entire body shook with her cries, and she felt something tight slowly unwind inside her heart. She felt like she could breathe again.
“Oh, my sweet sister, shhh,” she murmured, ever the tender heart. “Your cheek.” Isadora dabbed at the raised scar.
“It’s nothing. Really.” Isadora wriggled free of Blanchette, set the candle down on a nearby altar, and held her at arm’s length. Blanchette glanced at the statues beside them: Willem, Father, Mother. “That’s where my real pain lies. They were taken from us far too soon, Isadora.”
Isadora shook her head, her tears shimmering. “I haven’t seen them for years. What I would give to speak with Mother once more.”
Blanchette softly smiled. “Down here, they can hear us, you know. Mother and Governess Agnes always said that. You can still speak to her. Willem too.”
Isadora’s eyes turned to cold ice. “He shall pay for this. You are the queen now, Blanchette. Adam’s army shall slay the Black Wolf. I promise you.”
Blanchette felt her skin flush. “No, you don’t understand. It’s not what it looks like. He’s… not the monster I thought he was.”
“But your letter? And Governess Agnes’s letter?”
“I sent that before I learned many hard truths. What do you mean? Governess Agnes wrote to you?”
Her hands slid away from Blanchette’s shoulders. She dug inside her cloak and withdrew a piece of parchment.
She handed it to Blanchette while the din of battle and thunder bellowed above them. Blanchette carefully unrolled the parchment, her hands quaking as she felt her sister’s eyes on her.
She shook her head, feeling the wet slide of a tear tracking her cheek. Hastily, she wiped it away with her wrist. “It’s her hand, but not her words. She must have been threatened and forced to write this. She knew. She saw, and she learned what Rowan was really like. And she was murdered for it.”
Her sister smiled softly, her eyes glittering in the candlelight. “Yes? And what is he like?”
Blanchette exhaled a long breath and rolled the parchment with clumsy fingers. After a moment of silence, gazing into the dark hollows of the crypt, she met her sister’s eyes again. “He is good. He is good to me, good to the people of Norland. He is everything our father was not.”
Isadora remained as silent as the crypt in which they stood. Finally, she shook her head, her sweet features drawn together in a mask of horror. “How can you say that? He’s bewitched you, Blanchette! That monster massacred our family. Burned our villages. He?—”
“No, you don’t understand. That wasn’t him. It was Peter Huntley, my betrothed. And I know it… it sounds all wrong. I know it so well. I loved Willem and Mother and our Governess Agnes… God, part of me died that night. But it’s more complicated than all that. You must trust me.”
