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“You are clearly cold. Now come with me,” he snapped, though a new placidness in his voice rivaled the warmth of his fur cloak. He looked her up and down, a sad smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Sunlight danced in his raven-black hair and brought out the shadows in his eyes. His gaze descended on her again. It nearly knocked the breath from her lungs. She settled deeper into his black cloak and searched for warmth.
A coldness surrounded Rowan Dietrich. A winter with no end in sight. She shivered again and unconsciously stepped away from him.
“Keep your eyes open.” His voice was a strained whisper. And so, so very cold. “There’s something you must see.”
Seven
They traveled by horse, a great black beast as formidable and unforgiving as its master. Behind them rolled a large wagon, which Rowan had piled high with goods.Blanchette would have resisted the transport altogether, but Rowan was more than twice her size, so it would’ve been a wasted effort.
She needed every bit of her strength.
The horse was a destrier. One of impeccable breeding. She knew from the animal’s resolute demeanor. Spanish blood showed in the muscular profile of its head, neat ears, elegantly curved neck, deep chest, and powerful rump. Rowan called the monster Sunbeam. A ridiculous name. He’d scolded him like a governess chastens a child when it’d attempted to kick and bite her. Then he’d persuaded the creature to be amicable in muted tones, as one might soothe a lover.
Blanchette would have laughed had any humor still existed in her.
“Sunbeam was a gift from your father,” Rowan murmured in her ear conversationally, his hard body pressed against her back. They rode under the raised portcullis and across the drawbridge. Sunbeam’s hooves thundered against the wood and echoed the fierce volley of her heart.
That black demon wolf, Smoke, darted off into the tangled wilderness of the woods.
Off to spill more blood, she thought, her mind on the wolf behind her.
The horse’s powerful body moved beneath her. She swayed and gripped the reins a little tighter, lest she fall and break her neck. Rowan chuckled in her ear. “After he knighted me, I had the pick of any horse from his stables.”
“And you’ve used his gift to march on his very castle.” She could neither hide her disgust nor subdue the anger that welled in her chest. Rage pulled taut across her heart like a strung arrow waiting to be loosed. “It’s good to know you have taken your knight’s vows with such devotion.”
Rowan exhaled a long sigh. The heat of his breath stirred her curls and tickled her nape. She felt him tense against her, his body thrumming with a palpable, barely restrained fury.
“If there was ever a more heartless man than King Bartholomew, I’ve yet to meet him. And besides,” he dared to press on, his baritone voice sinking deeper still, “I gave the vow to my kingdom and the people. I have never wavered from it, and I never shall.”
Blanchette resorted to a sullen silence. The carefully knit world she’d known all her life quickly unraveled. Her father… heartless? Was it so? Of course, she’d witnessed his cruelty firsthand… but it was his duty as a king to keep order. Surely, that entailed a harsh hand at times?
It was a narrative she’d told herself often and loudly while tossing and turning at night.
They rode past the great gatehouse. Two round towers, each over fifty feet high, stood on either side of a pointed arch, with a painted statue of King Bartholomew in a niche above its grand entrance. When King Bartholomew sat on the throne, it wasn’t uncommon to find the bodies of traitors swinging from the gatehouse and decapitated heads black with tar ornamenting the gates. Now, the only bodies there belonged to Rowan’s pacing guards and gatekeepers.
Emptiness filled her, a gaping hole fringed by sorrow, grief, and utter exhaustion.Tragedy had snuffed out her light, and the world slid by her as she observed her kingdom with a strange detachment. As they rode on, she made out the nearby port over the moors; smoke furled from the burned ruins that were once a trading village.
Inwardly, she cringed as a flash of an axe and her father’s laughter infested her thoughts.That axe rained down again and again. It took seven blows to kill that poor man, hadn’t it?
The formidable walls of Winslowe Castle soon gave way to the woods and roads. Rowan tugged on Sunbeam’s reins and set down a dirt path bearing to the left and away from the greenery. Clusters of timber houses and the jutting church steeple punctured the horizon. Blanchette felt a knot tighten in her chest as they approached the town center.
Curious faces appeared in the windows. The streets came to life with the townsfolk. Merchants stopped rolling their carts in mid-street and fell silent at the sight of Rowan’s arrival. The sight of the Black Wolf’s banner was most disconcerting. Where the royal standard once hung from the storefronts flew Rowan’s sigil.
Behind them loomed the Winslowe Castle, with its seven shining towers. Ahead of them lay a somber flock of humanity, brown and ragged and unwashed.
The town showed all the features of a bloated glutton; it felt like the caricature of the human body—smelly, dirty, unkempt.
Yet something poked through that sorrow: a tangible hope.
Flanked by two bare-chested children, a reedy-looking woman ran over to Rowan and reached for him. Blanchette felt his strong body shift behind her as he outstretched his hand and touched their tiny fingers.
“Bless you,” the woman said, crossing herself with her free hand. “Bless you and all you have given us.”
Coins jangled as Rowan passed her a fistful of silver. The woman stepped back cautiously as Sunbeam tossed his muzzle, snorted, and pawed at the ground. The warmth in the woman’s gaze froze over; she stared up at Blanchette, her eyes turning cold and hard.
Blanchette swayed uneasily in the saddle as she observed the two children. Thin collarbones protruded, and their ribs showed beneath filthy, tanned skin. They appeared emancipated and a few breaths away from death. Blanchette felt her heart tighten as the world she’d once known crumbled around her. It was falling in an avalanche, and the weight was crushing.
Rowan urged Sunbeam on with a gentle word in French. Townspeople continued to file out of their homes and the shops in an excited rush void of color and the extravagance she’d always known.
