Serpent & Dove

by Shelby Mahurin

  “You resent her. How interesting.” Her fingers raked through my tangled hair, braiding it away from my face. “Perhaps if it had instead been the stake, you would’ve married her.”

  My stomach twisted. “Reid never hurt me.”

  For all his faults, for all his prejudice, he hadn’t lifted a finger against me after the witch attacked. He could’ve, but he hadn’t. I wondered now what might’ve happened if I’d stayed. Would he have tied me to the stake? Perhaps he would’ve been kinder and driven a blade through my heart instead.

  But he’d already done that.

  “Love makes fools of us all, darling.”

  Though I knew she was goading me, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “What do you know about love? Have you ever loved anyone but yourself?”

  “Careful,” she said silkily, fingers stilling in my hair. “Do not forget to whom you are speaking.”

  But I wasn’t feeling careful. No, as the great white silhouette of the Chateau took shape above me—and Angelica’s Ring glinted on her finger—I was feeling precisely the opposite of careful.

  “I’m your daughter,” I said angrily, recklessly. “And you would sacrifice me like some prized cow—”

  She wrenched my head back. “A very loud, disrespectful cow.”

  “I know you think this is the only way.” My voice grew desperate now, choked with emotions I didn’t care to examine. Emotions I’d locked away tight when I’d grown old enough to realize my mother’s plan for me. “But it’s not. I’ve lived with the Chasseurs. They’re capable of change—of tolerance. I’ve seen it. We can show them another way. We can show them we aren’t what they believe us to be—”

  “You have been corrupted, daughter.” She enunciated the last word with a sharp tug to my hair. Pain radiated across my scalp, but I didn’t care. Morgane had to see. She had to understand. “I feared this would happen. They’ve poisoned your mind as they’ve poisoned our homeland.” She jerked my chin up. “Look at them, Louise—look at your people.”

  I had no choice but to gaze at the witches still dancing around us. Some faces I recognized. Others I didn’t. All regarded me with unadulterated joy. Morgane pointed to a set of sisters with brown skin and braided hair. “Rosemund and Sacha—their mother burned after delivering an aristocrat’s breech baby. They were six and four.”

  She pointed to a small, olive-skinned woman with silver marks disfiguring half her face. “Viera Beauchêne escaped after they tried to burn her and her wife—acid this time instead of flame. An experiment.” She gestured to another. “Genevieve left our homeland with her three daughters to marry a clergyman, severing their connection to our ancestors. Her middle daughter soon sickened. When she begged her husband to return here to heal her, he refused. Her daughter died. Her eldest and youngest despise her now.”

  Her fingers gripped my chin hard enough to bruise. “Tell me again about their tolerance, Louise. Tell me again about the monsters you call friends. Tell me about your time with them—about how you spit on your sisters’ suffering.”

  “Maman, please.” Tears leaked down my face. “I know they’ve wronged us—and I know you hate them—and I understand. But you cannot do this. We can’t change the past, but we can move forward and heal—together. We can share this land. No one else needs to die.”

  She only gripped my chin harder, leaning down next to my ear. “You are weak, Louise, but do not fear. I will not falter. I will not hesitate. I will make them suffer as we have suffered.”

  Releasing me, she straightened with a deep breath, and I toppled to the wagon floor. “The Lyons will rue the day they stole this land. Their people will writhe and thrash on the stake, and the king and his children will choke on your blood. Your husband will choke on your blood.”

  Confusion flared briefly before hideous despair consumed me, obliterating all rational thought. This was my mother—my mother—and these were her people. That was my husband, and those were his. Each side despicable—a twisted perversion of what should’ve been. Each side suffering. Each side capable of great evil.

  And then there was me.

  The salt of my tears mingled with the jasmine in my hair, two sides of the same wretched coin. “And what of me, Maman? Did you ever love me?”

  She frowned, her eyes more black than green in the darkness. “It matters not.”

  “It matters to me!”

  “Then you are a fool,” she said coldly. “Love is a nothing but a disease. This desperation you have to be loved—it is a sickness. I can see in your eyes how it consumes you, weakens you. Already it has corrupted your spirit. You long for his love as you long for mine, but you will have neither. You’ve chosen your path.” Her lip curled. “Of course I do not love you, Louise. You are the daughter of my enemy. You were conceived for a higher purpose, and I will not poison that purpose with love. With your birth, I struck the Church. With your death, I strike the crown. Both will soon fall.”

  “Maman—”

  “Enough.” The word was quiet, deadly. A warning. “We will reach the Chateau soon.”

  Unable to endure the cruel indifference on my mother’s face, I closed my eyes in defeat. I soon wished I hadn’t. Another face lingered behind my eyelids, taunting me.

  You are not my wife.

  If this agony was love, perhaps Morgane was right. Perhaps I was better off without it.

  Chateau le Blanc stood atop a cliff overlooking the sea. True to its name, the castle had been built of white stone that shone in the moonlight like a beacon. I gazed at it longingly, eyes tracing the narrow, tapering towers that mingled with the stars. There—on the tallest western turret, overlooking the rocky beach below—was my childhood room. My heart lurched into my mouth.

  When the wagon creaked to the gatehouse, I lowered my gaze. The le Blanc family signet had been carved into the ancient doors: a crow with three eyes. One for the Maiden, one for the Mother, and one for the Crone.

  I’d always hated that dirty old bird.

  Dread crept through me as the doors closed behind us with ringing finality. Silence cloaked the snowy courtyard, but I knew witches lingered just out of sight. I could feel their eyes on me—probing, assessing. The very air tingled with their presence.

  “Manon will accompany you day and night until Modraniht. Should you attempt to flee,” Morgane warned, eyes cold and cruel, “I will butcher your huntsman and feed you his heart. Do you understand?”

  Fear froze the scathing reply on my tongue.

  She nodded with a sleek smile. “Your silence is golden, darling. I cherish it in our conversations.” Turning her attention to an alcove out of my sight, she shouted something. Within seconds, two hunched women I vaguely recognized emerged. My old nursemaids. “Accompany her to her room, please, and assist Manon while she sees to her wounds.”

  They both nodded fervently. One stepped forward and cupped my face in her withered palms. “At last you have returned, maîtresse. We have waited so long.”

  “Only three days remain,” the other crooned, kissing my hand, “until you may join the Goddess in the Summerland.”

  “Three?” I glanced to Morgane in alarm.

  “Yes, darling. Three. Soon, you will fulfill your destiny. Our sisters will feast and dance in your honor forevermore.”

  Destiny. Honor.

  It sounded so lovely, phrased like that, as if I were receiving a fabulous prize with a shiny red bow. A hysterical giggle burst from my lips. The blood would be red, at least.

  One of the nursemaids tilted her head in concern. “Are you quite all right?”

  I had just enough self-awareness left to know I was most certainly not all right.

  Three days. That was all I had left. I laughed harder.

  “Louise.” Morgane snapped her fingers in front of my nose. “Is something funny?”

  I blinked, my laughter dying as abruptly as it’d started. In three days, I’d be dead. Dead. The steady pounding of my heartbeat, the cold night air on my face—it would all
cease to exist. I would cease to exist—at least, in the way I was now. With freckled skin and blue-green eyes and this terrible ache in my belly.

  “No.” My eyes rose to the clear night sky above us, where the stars stretched on for eternity. To think, I’d once thought this view better than Soleil et Lune’s. “Nothing is funny.”

  I’d never laugh with Coco again. Or tease Ansel. Or eat sticky buns at Pan’s or scale Soleil et Lune to watch the sunrise. Were there sunrises in the afterlife? Would I have eyes to see them if there were?

  I didn’t know, and it frightened me. I tore my gaze from the stars, tears clinging to my lashes.

  In three days, I would be parted from Reid forever. The moment my soul left my body, we would be permanently separated . . . for where I was going, I was certain Reid couldn’t follow. This was what frightened me most.

  Where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay.

  But there was no place for a huntsman in the Summerland, and there was no place for a witch in Heaven. If either place even existed.

  Would my soul remember him? A small part of me prayed I wouldn’t, but the rest knew better. I loved him. Deeply. Such a love was not something of just the heart and mind. It wasn’t something to be felt and eventually forgotten, to be touched without it in return touching you. No . . . this love was something else. Something irrevocable. It was something of the soul.

  I knew I would remember him. I would feel his absence even after death, would ache for him to be near me in a way he could never be again. This was my destiny—eternal torment. As much as it hurt to think of him, I would bear the pain gladly to keep even a small part of him with me. The pain meant we’d been real.

  Death couldn’t take him away from me. He was me. Our souls were bound. Even if he didn’t want me, even if I cursed his name, we were one.

  I became vaguely aware of two sets of arms around me, carrying me away. Where they took me, I didn’t care. Reid wouldn’t be there.

  And yet . . . he would be.

  Harbinger

  Reid

  “I’m freezing,” Beau moaned bitterly.

  We’d camped within a grove of ancient, gnarled pines in La Forêt des Yeux. Clouds obscured whatever light the moon and stars may have provided. Fog clung to our coats and blankets. Heavy. Unnatural.

  The snow on the ground had soaked through my pants. I shivered, glancing around the company. They too were feeling the effects of the cold: Beau’s teeth chattered violently, Ansel’s lips slowly turned blue, and Coco’s mouth was stained with rabbit blood. I tried not to stare at the dead carcass at her feet. And failed miserably.

  Noticing my stare, she shrugged and said, “Their blood runs hotter than ours.”

  Unable to keep quiet, Ansel scooted toward her. “Do you—do you always use animal blood for magic?”

  She scrutinized him a moment before answering. “Not always. Different enchantments require different additives. Just like each Dame Blanche senses unique patterns, each Dame Rouge senses unique additives. Lavender petals might induce sleep, but so might bat blood or tart cherries or a million other things. It depends on the witch.”

  “So—” Ansel blinked in confusion, his face scrunching as he glanced at the rabbit carcass. “So you just eat the tart cherries? Or . . . ?”

  Coco laughed, lifting her sleeve to show him the scars crisscrossing her skin. “My magic lives inside my blood, Ansel. Tart cherries are just tart cherries without it.” She frowned then, as if worried she’d said too much. Ansel wasn’t the only one listening intently. Both Madame Labelle and Beau had been hanging on her every word, and—to my shame—I too had inched closer. “Why the sudden interest?”

  Ansel looked away, cheeks coloring. “I just wanted to know more about you.” Unable to resist, his gaze returned to her face seconds later. “Do—do all the blood witches look like you?”

  She arched a brow in wry amusement. “Are they all breathtakingly beautiful, you mean?” He nodded, eyes wide and earnest, and she chuckled. “Of course not. We come in all shapes and colors, just like the Dames Blanches—and Chasseurs.”

  Her eyes flicked to mine then, and I looked away hastily.

  Beau moaned again. “I can’t feel my toes.”

  “Yes, you’ve mentioned that,” Madame Labelle snapped, scooting her log closer to me. To my great irritation, she’d affixed herself to my side for the journey. She seemed intent on making me as uncomfortable as possible. “Several times, in fact, but we’re all cold. Grousing about it hardly helps.”

  “A fire would,” he grumbled.

  “No,” she repeated firmly. “No fires.”

  As loath as I was to admit it, I agreed. Fires brought unwanted attention. All sorts of malevolent creatures roamed these woods. Already a misshapen black cat had started following us—a harbinger of misfortune. Though it kept a wide distance, it had crept into our packs the first night and eaten nearly all our food.

  As if in response, Ansel’s stomach gave a mighty gurgle. Resigned, I pulled the last hunk of cheese from my pack and tossed it to him. He opened his mouth to protest, but I cut him short. “Just eat it.”

  A morose silence fell over the company as he complied. Though it was very late, no one slept. It was too cold. Coco moved closer to Ansel, offering some of her blanket to him. He buried his hands in it with a groan. Beau scowled.

  “We’re very close now,” Madame Labelle said to no one in particular. “Only a few more days.”

  “Modraniht is in three,” Beau pointed out. “If we don’t starve or freeze to death first.”

  “Our arrival will be close,” Madame Labelle admitted.

  “We’re wasting time,” I said. “We should continue on. No one is sleeping anyway.”

  Only a few hours into our journey, Madame Labelle had uncovered two witches tailing us. Scouts. Coco and I had dispatched them easily, but Madame Labelle had insisted we chart a new course.

  “The road is being watched,” she’d said darkly. “Morgane wants no surprises.”

  Seeing no alternative that didn’t involve slaughtering Lou’s kin, I’d been forced to agree.

  Madame Labelle glanced to where the black cat had reappeared. It wove between the pine branches nearest her. “No. We remain here. It is unwise to travel these woods at night.”

  Beau followed our gazes. His eyes narrowed, and he lurched to his feet. “I’m going to kill that cat.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Madame Labelle warned. He hesitated, scowl deepening. “Things are not always as they appear in this forest, Your Highness.”

  He dropped back to the ground in a huff. “Stop calling me that. I’m freezing my ass off out here, same as you. Nothing high about it—”

  He stopped abruptly as Coco’s head snapped up. Her eyes locked on something behind me.

  “What is it?” Ansel whispered.

  She ignored him, pushing off her blanket and moving to my side. She glanced at me in silent warning.

  I rose slowly to my feet.

  The forest was still. Too still. Tendrils of fog curled around us in the silence . . . watching, waiting. Every nerve in my body tingled. Warned me we were no longer alone. A twig snapped somewhere ahead of us, and I sank into a crouch, creeping closer and brushing aside a pine branch to peer into the darkness. Coco shadowed my movements.

  There—a stone’s throw away from us—marched a squadron of twenty Chasseurs. They moved silently through the fog, Balisardas drawn. Eyes sharp. Muscles tense. Recognition razed through me at the short, dark hair of the man leading them.

  Jean Luc.

  The bastard.

  As if sensing our gaze, his eyes flicked toward us, and we shrank back hastily. “Stop,” he murmured, his voice carrying to my brethren in the eerie silence. They halted immediately, and he drifted closer, pointing his Balisarda in our direction. “There’s something there.”

  Three Chasseurs moved forward to investigate at his command. I unsheathed my own Balisarda slowly, silently, unsure what to d
o with it. Jean Luc couldn’t know we were here. He would try to detain us, or worse—follow us. I gripped my knife tighter. Could I truly harm my brothers? Disarming them was one thing, but . . . there were too many. Disarming wouldn’t be enough. Perhaps I could distract them long enough for the others to escape.

  Before I could decide, the black cat brushed past me, yowling loudly.

  Shit. Coco and I both made to grab it, but it darted out of our reach, heading straight toward the Chasseurs. The three in front nearly leapt out of their skin before chuckling and bending to scratch its head. “It’s just a cat, Chasseur Toussaint.”

  Jean Luc watched it weave between their ankles with suspicion. “Nothing is just anything in La Fôret des Yeux.” Hearing a disgruntled sigh, he waved the Chasseurs onward. “The Chateau could be near. Keep your eyes sharp, men, and your knives sharper.”

  I waited several minutes until daring to breathe. Until their footsteps had long faded. Until the fog swirled undisturbed once more. “That was too close.”

  Madame Labelle clasped her fingers together and leaned forward on her stump. The cat—our unexpected savior—rubbed its head against her feet, and she bent to give it an appreciative pat. “I would argue it wasn’t close enough.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We don’t know what awaits us at the Chateau, Captain Diggory. Surely there is strength in numbers—”

  “No.” I shook my head, unwilling to hear more, and stalked back to my spot against the tree. “They’ll kill Lou.”

  Danger averted, Ansel burrowed deeper in his blanket. “I don’t think the Archbishop would let them. She’s his daughter.”

  “And the others?” I remembered Jean Luc’s frightening smile, the way his eyes had glinted with secret knowledge. Had he told our brethren, or had he kept it to himself, content in his new position of power? Waiting to reveal the information until it best suited him? “If any suspect she’s a witch, they won’t hesitate. Can you guarantee her safety from them?”

  “But the Archbishop warned them,” Ansel argued. “He said if she died, we would all die. No one would risk harming her after that.”