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Hands shaking, red-hot anger piping in her veins, she scooped the dagger from the under the bed and thrust it through Thomas’s neck. Metal slid through layers of muscle and tendon. She met Thomas’s eyes, watching as whatever lived there faded into darkness.
Good, let the darkness swallow you. She lodged the dagger a little deeper, then twisted. She felt the blade work against a wall of muscle before hitting a sweet spot.
Thomas uttered a single word. It might have been sorry or forgive me, but perhaps that was only her imagination at play.
Blood bubbled from his mouth. She watched with bitter satisfaction as it dripped from his chin and slid down the shaft of his pierced throat. She dislodged the dagger, shuddering deep, then stepped back. He collapsed to the floor, his life’s blood pooling around his head in an unholy sea of red.
Death surrounds me.
The thought barely registered before a crash resounded, snapping her focus into place. It propelled her into survival mode.
Her coolness surprised her. She hiked up her nightdress and stepped over the fallen corpse. Blanchette glanced at her grandmother. That image would forever be carved into her mind and heart. A day would never pass when she didn’t see Grandmother Sybil’s limp body and those bloodstained sheets.
Blanchette inhaled a strained breath as the sounds of war and death flooded the castle in an ever-expanding wave. She shuffled over to Grandmother, knelt at her bedside, then clasped her hand. Studying her pale, lifeless complexion, she smoothed her thumbs across the delicate web of bones and raised veins.
She’d been impossibly frail for so long, a gentle light constantly fading into darkness. She felt that darkness now, pressing down on them, windowless and starless and infinite. Was Grandmother resting? Finally at peace? Blanchette increased the pressure of her hold as if the movement might prevent her grandmother from leaving her.
But she was already gone.
Grandmother Sybil’s signet ring looked impossibly large on her thin finger. Blanchette studied the crest of a black raven against a sunrise in a field. She felt a fire kindle inside. Gently, she slid the ring off her finger—after giving it a few turns to maneuver it over her arthritic knuckle—and gripped it in her bloodstained palm.
She wiped the blood from her face with her forearm again—cringed at the heat oozing from her wounded cheek—then stole one last look at her beloved grandmother.
“I will keep my promise,” she said.
Then, with a whip of her red cape, she fled from the privy and returned to the shadows.
* * *
Slinking through the great hall, Blanchette fought not to look down at the strewn bodies lest she see a face she knew. She slid against the stone walls and prayed no one would recognize her. They would parade her head on a spike if so.
Dear God, please let my mother and brother be alive.
God, be good…
Every corner she turned brought that terrible prospect and a new horror. She would round a corner, and there they’d be, as clear as Norland’s blue sky on a summer day—her parents and brother torn from limb to limb, bleeding out like slaughtered lambs.
Devoured by the Black Wolf.
She clasped the dagger in her sweaty palms. The steel felt heavy in her hand, yet it armed her with courage.
My promise.
That also gave her courage.
Her gaze darted about the room—at the well-armored knights and the soldiers gripping oaken shields. What she’d give for a bit of armor instead of the red cloak. Hastily, she wiped the dagger on the said cloak, unable to bear the sight of her grandmother’s blood. The slash on her cheek throbbed. Burned. Tears tracked Blanchette’s face as she felt herself beginning to black out… to fall into dangerous darkness, a beckoning void from which there’d be no return.
If she fell into that darkness, she’d be lost.
My promise.
She inhaled a long, steadying breath, then blew the air out. So very slowly. All around her, steel clashed against steel, and the prospect of life and death balanced on every strike. The great hall was hazy with smoke and heavy with the scents of musk, sweat, and the tang of blood. Banners and tapestries draped the gray stone walls, and at the far end, the ever-stoked hearth roared on through the chaos.
Devil’s flames.
A blond man dressed in a ragged tunic, mismatched armor, and a tapestry of facial scars caught her stare from across the room. She saw the realization in his eyes… watched as he crossed the hall with fast, determined strides, wiped sweat and blood from his brow, then lifted his rusted sword out in front of him. Blanchette jackknifed in the opposite direction and adjusted her grip on the dagger. It wasn’t easy with her sweaty palm. The man thundered toward her—struck down a soldier in the middle of his charge—his sword raised and ready, poised to strike death.
No.
