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“She killed herself,” he snapped. Rowan paused in mid-step. The room seemed to sway. He unclenched and clenched his fingers around the hilt of his longsword.
“How?”
“I found her hanging from the rafters.” He tightened his grip on Mary’s hair and gave a cruel twist that made her scream. “Do you know what that’s like, cutting your daughter’s corpse down? No. I don’t suppose you would.”
Edrick sank a hand into his coat and pulled out a piece of parchment. “This is all she left for me. And your name was all over it.” He tossed it at Rowan, the hatred in his eyes burning like fire.
Cautiously, Rowan glanced down at the parchment. What did he want? For him to read it? Hopelessness rose inside him. He pressed his palms together and gave Edrick a pleading look. “Please… she is an innocent child, Edrick.” He took a cautious step toward them.
“So was Kathryn’s unborn babe.”
Rowan’s face paled. He waited, feeling the seconds tick off like a man waiting for the headsman.
“You didn’t know.” Of course I didn’t know. I would have never left her had I known. “She was heavy with child. Your child. You… you killed them both. And now I’m here.”
Yes, we are here… but where is that?
Rowan’s eyes moved from Mary to Edrick, and horror wrapped around his heart like an iron manacle. He saw the determination and grief in his comrade’s gaze—and he knew, sure as the sunrise, he meant to kill Mary as a twisted sort of vengeance.
One I am no stranger to.
“Why then? Why did you follow me, Edrick? Why drink with me, fight with me, share my table and hearth? You kept this a secret for years. Why?”
Rowan saw some of the resolve vanish from Edrick’s eyes. Some of the madness too. For a moment, he lowered the blade, and his voice softened. “I had believed in you still. Faith can be a strong thing… a blinding thing. But you ignored my counsel at every turn. You forgot me entirely, and when I saw the way you fell into her hands—the daughter of a tyrant and a whore—while my Kathryn lay cold in the dirt…”
Yes, he thought. Faith is a strong thing. I put far too much faith in you… I underestimated a friend.
Rowan glanced over his shoulder, finding Blanchette standing soundlessly in the open door. Tears and blood and ash stained her cheeks. She looked at Rowan frantically, her heart in her blue eyes.
“Edrick,” he said, turning back to his comrade. “Please. This is not her fault.”
“It doesn’t matter now. It’s over.” His eyes hardened again. He pulled on Mary’s hair, forcing her closer. He poised the blade at her cheek and brought it down, shallowly cutting her flesh as he whispered, “Any last words, girl?”
Then Smoke was leaping past Blanchette, quicker than a lightning strike. He came full bodily at Edrick, his massive paws slamming into his chest and shoving the air out of him. A sick snarling filled the room as Smoke went for Edrick’s throat. He fought him off with his hands, blaring an inhuman sound—then plunged his dagger deep into Smoke’s face. The wolf crawled off him, yelping, the blood already soaking his dark fur. Then he padded over to Rowan, fell halfway across the chamber, and died, his eyes never parting from his master’s.
“Go,” Rowan yelled to Mary, “go to Blanchette. Now!”
Blanchette wrapped Mary in her arms and gave him a pleading glance as they vanished into the corridor.
An ominous quiet engulfed the castle as Edrick straggled onto his feet, paced to Smoke, and withdrew the bloody dagger from the wolf’s face.
Edrick laughed. Frantically. Madly.
Rowan withdrew his longsword and advanced.
“Now it’s over,” he said as he jammed the length of his longsword through Edrick’s throat, finishing what Smoke had started.
What Smoke had started eight long years ago.
The Black Wolf was no more.
* * *
The blade went through him the same way it went through all those men he’d killed. Rowan had found the sweet spot, surpassing all his armor like a knife through butter. The longsword jutted through the front of his neck and out the back.
The pain was blinding, and in that suspended moment, he wondered if this was how Rowan’s wife felt when her throat was slit. He gazed into the dark corridor beyond the bedchamber. Sconce torches flickered there, casting long shadows along the stone floors. And in the doorway, he saw his Kathryn one last time.
Silently, his daughter stood there, her long, chocolate-colored hair falling across her body. She held her fair hands out to him, palms up. Edrick reached out, trying to close the space between them… but she was too far away.
