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Blanchette felt a laugh on her lips. But the thought of the river and her horror stole it away.
And laughter? How could she possibly laugh?
Does happiness still exist in the world? She felt tears prick her eyes again and vigorously blinked them back. “Where… where is your mother?”
“She died. It was one of the king’s soldiers, Pa said. He broke her into pieces. Pa says the Black Wolf pulled the soldier off her, but Momma was already gone. It was years ago.”
“Oh, I’m… I’m so very sorry.” The words sounded and felt empty.
The realization hit Blanchette like ice water to the face. She was their enemy, while the man who ordered the siege and destruction of her family, the beast who’d doomed all she’d ever cared about, was their hero.
Did these peasants know who she was?
And if they didn’t, what would happen to her when the truth emerged?
Suddenly, the home began to quake; the rough-spun curtains twitched, and the glass of water on the end table rattled like creaking bones. The little redheaded boy gasped. A smile spread across his face. Naive hope shone there. “It’s the Black Wolf, the Black Wolf! Pa said he’d be coming to us, and he’s here, just like he promised!”
I promise.
Blanchette swept the curtain aside, her heartbeat thundering. Men on both horses and foot marched through the clearing. Bannermen flew the sigil of the Black Wolf; it swept through the wintry landscape, a predator hunting its prey… yet she watched as the townspeople greeted it with reverence, like a symbol of hope. They rushed out of their timber-and-thatch houses, crossing themselves, yelling prayers as if welcoming the second coming of Christ. A small blond girl danced on the dirt road, and for a moment, Blanchette saw herself as a child. The girl’s mother, a tall, willowy figure wearing a sunny smile, grabbed the child’s hand and drew her near her flowing skirt.
A breeze lifted the silk banner on the lance, and it fluttered outward, making the embroidered black wolf at its center appear to stretch and prowl. “I know you’re excited, sweetling, but we mustn’t get in their way. Come now, stand back,” the mother mildly reprimanded, pulling her daughter out of the way of the marching soldiers.
One foot soldier halted in front of them and reached for the mother’s hand. He kissed her knuckles, then lowered to a knee and playfully ruffled the girl’s blond hair. Blanchette felt something twist inside her chest… remorse mixed with bittersweet longing.
“Petyr?” a man called out, his voice muffled by the partially shut door. The scuffle of boots followed. The little redheaded boy, Petyr, stood in the doorway as the man appeared behind him. His hair was just as red, and his pale skin equally freckled, though he held muscle and bulk where his son was slender. She guessed he was in his mid-forties. Slightly balding. Leathery wrinkles disrupted an otherwise handsome face, and his body was hewn from years of laboring.
“Ah, well, your fever has broken,” the man said to her. “Is the pain awful today?”
Pain? Yes, it was unimaginable. The worst she’d ever known. Her heart was a raw wound, and numbness and disbelief were the only tethers keeping her attached to this world.
“I feel fine,” she finally answered. Speaking those words was a battle. They grated against her sore throat, where she was sure the skin was scabbing.
“Ah, good to hear,” he said. His voice sounded vaguely familiar—an echo from a distant dream.
I heard him on the riverbank. After…
She stopped her thought there, not wanting to recall the horror from that night again.
Blanchette tracked a fingertip over her face, where she felt a healing wound that started at the corner of her lip and stretched to her ear. She was afraid to see herself in a looking glass but inwardly scolded herself for having such a petty concern when her family had lost their lives.
“Where am I exactly?”
The man frantically shut the curtains and turned back to Blanchette with a poorly worn smile. “This is my home, sad as it is,” he said with a wave and a crooked grin. He draped his palm on Petyr’s head and mussed his bright red hair. “And this—well, this is my son, as you might have gathered. My name’s Jonathan, milady.”
He hesitantly strode through the chamber with long steps, then sat on the edge of the hard mattress. Silence filled the room, broken by chattering voices beyond the home. “Do you remember anything of these past three days?” His boy came up beside him and leaned against the bed. He studied her with large, expressive eyes that seemed to fill his face.
“The past… three days?” The revelation startled and terrified her. She vaguely recalled flights of nightmares and dreams, each woven into the other in an unsettling patchwork of feverish imaginings.
Fever dreams. She thought hard, trying to untie reality from fiction, but everything was muddled and drenched in blood.
So much red, she mused, looking at her cloak.
“My family… they’re all dead, aren’t they?”
“Yes. Yes, they’re dead.” He hesitated, giving Petyr a strange, sad look. The boy leaned against him, and Blanchette felt something dark and ugly tug at her heartstrings. “I’m so sorry, milady. I… I can only imagine your pain. My wife died a few winters ago. She was the prettiest lady you’d ever seen… and the best mother to little Petyr here. A seamstress,” he continued with a proud smile as he waved to the blanket and Blanchette’s dress.
Blanchette swallowed, then inhaled a shaky breath. Absently, she meddled with her signet ring. Images spun through her mind, blurring into each other, distorting and cracking her poor grip on reality. “Your son mentioned her death before you came in. I hope the man paid with his life.”
