Mortal Heart

by Robin LaFevers

  The awareness that I am not alone comes to me slowly, like waking from a particularly deep sleep. Someone is nearby, in the shadows where the wall meets the rampart. I can feel him watching me. It cannot be a sentry, for he would not have stood so still for so long without making himself known. Uncertain whether my lack of fear is a sign of wisdom or folly, I fold my arms in front of me so that the daggers at my wrists are within easy reach, then turn around to face the shadows, pressing against the stone wall behind me. “Show yourself.”

  A darkness within the shadows begins to move slightly, causing me to catch my breath until I see that it is only a black cloak rippling as a man steps forward.

  Recognition slams into me, causing my heart to clatter against my ribs and all the blood to drain from my face.

  Balthazaar.

  Even as joy—silver and bright—skips lightly through my veins, I reach for the knife at my wrist, for that joy is overlaid with a dark, heavy thrum of apprehension. “What are you doing here?” How I manage to sound so calm with so many emotions coursing through me, I do not know, but I am grateful all the same.

  Instead of grabbing me or attacking me, Balthazaar barks out a laugh, the sound cutting through the darkness like a blade. “I have asked myself that a thousand times, calling myself a fool for every one of them, and yet, here I am.”

  And though we stand in the shadows, it is not too dark for me to see the pain that this admission of his own desire causes him. Good, I think, for if I must flounder and flail with whatever it is that lies between us, as least I do not suffer alone.

  “So the hellequin do not hunt me?”

  He grows so still it seems as if even his cloak has stopped moving. “Why would you think we were hunting you?”

  Did he not carry my own arrow in his saddlebag? What if I had been mistaken? What if it simply looked like one of my own? Perhaps it was my guilt and uncertainty that led me to believe it was mine. Or perhaps it was truly mine and I am too cowardly to force the issue. I turn and look out over the valley. “You told me they would if I were to leave. You said I would only be safe in their midst.”

  There is a faint clank of chain mail as he folds his arms across his chest and leans back against the wall. “If their blood was up and they were in the throes of a hunt, they might not stop to consider long enough to realize that they weren’t hunting you.” He tilts his head, considering me. “Have you done something that would cause us to hunt you?” There is a faint thread of amusement in his voice, which pricks my temper.

  “No, but neither am I who you think I am. I am Mortain’s daughter, one of His handmaidens.” I watch his face closely, looking for any glint of recognition that would show he has been hunting me and has now found what he seeks.

  Even though he is still mostly in shadow, the weight of his regard presses down on me. “Why are you telling me this now?”

  Why, indeed? Because I no longer believe he is hunting me? Because I feel inexplicably safe with him? Or is it simply because I am three times a fool? “For the same reason you followed me to Rennes, most likely,” I mutter.

  He clenches his fists, his eyes darkening into twin pools of blackness as all traces of amusement disappear. “Why did you run away?” It is hard to tell if that is a note of anguish I detect in his voice or if it is merely my own longings reflected back at me.

  Briefly, I consider telling him of the arrow I saw, but for some reason it feels like admitting that I was doing something wrong, although I was not. “I had business elsewhere. I told you that many times, and many times you promised we were drawing closer. And yet, we never reached Guérande. My business could not wait any longer.”

  He takes a step toward me and my heart begins to beat faster. “If you were traveling to Guérande, why are you now in Rennes?”

  “I was so long on the road that the person I needed to see had traveled here, and so I followed.” I tell myself he is only studying me so intently to see if I am lying, but that is not what I feel in his gaze. What I feel is his need and desire and longing, crashing against me like waves against the shore, calling to those same unwanted feelings I hold for him. And always that inexplicable connection that draws me to him.

  Sister Arnette once showed us a special rock that had the power to draw iron shavings to it. I remember how the dust and splinters of metal moved inexorably toward the rock. Even though I know he is dangerous, I am drawn to Balthazaar just as those shavings were to the lodestone. “Is it allowed for you to be here?” I force my voice to lightness, determined to hide my own traitorous emotions from him. “I thought cities were barred to your kind.”

  “We cannot hunt or ride through the cities, but as you can see, I am able to enter them.”

  There are so very many reasons why I should not trust him. Why I should tell him to leave, order him away. He has done things—horrible things—that have earned him this relentless penance. He and his hellequin are naught but outlaws and thugs, barely cobbling together a shred of decency among them as they desperately try to atone for their worldly sins. Truly, the midden heap of Mortain’s grace. While I, I am sworn to a life in service to Mortain. Surely our being together is like the daughter of the gaoler courting the prisoner.

  But none of those arguments amount to anything when weighed against the pain and despair that sits so heavily upon him, and the knowledge that I, in some way, am able to ease that, just as his presence fills some dark lonely need of my own.

  He moves nearer then until all I can see is him—his mail-covered chest, his dark eyes boring into mine as if he could read the depths of my soul. His gaze is too overwhelming, so I focus on the dark stubble along his jaw and wonder what it would feel like against my hand, my fingers clenching into a fist so that I do not reach out and run them along his cheek.

  The night breeze shifts, bringing a gust of cool air with it, and I shiver. Balthazaar raises his hands slowly, places them on my arms, and draws me into the shelter of his body. And still I cannot bring myself to meet his gaze, for it moves across my face like a caress. I fear if I look up, naked hunger will sit as plainly on my face as it does on his. I am content to simply stand in his arms, letting them act as a buffer between me and the rest of the world for these few stolen moments.

  And then he moves, lowering his head to mine. With a sharp thrill, I realize he is going to kiss me. I tilt my head up to meet his lips and wonder if they will be cool like the night air or warm like his eyes when he thinks I am not watching.

  But before our lips meet, there is a crunch of a boot heel on the catwalk behind us. I leap away guiltily, but he reaches out and grabs my arm. “Say you will return,” he says. “Tomorrow night.”

  I pull my arm from his grip and glance over my shoulder. Two guards are making their rounds. Surely they will see the hellequin, and no good can come of that. “I will. If not tomorrow, then the night after.” But when I turn to tell the hellequin he must leave now, he is already gone.

  After bidding the guards good night, I slowly make my way down the steps to the palace. My heart does a most inappropriate and ill-advised jig as I walk back to my chambers. Balthazaar has followed me here. It is not like Ismae’s new life with the noble Duval, or even Sybella’s new place at the heroic Beast’s side. But it is a green shoot of a life beyond the convent, and it is wholly mine. For tonight, that is enough.

  Chapter Thirty

  THE NEXT MORNING, BEFORE THE sun is even up, there is a knock on my chamber door. It is a page, who informs me that the abbess insists that I attend upon her right away. The summons jolts me fully awake. As I hurry to dress, my mind runs over all the arguments I did not have a chance to make during our first meeting. I will explain to her that I know how seeresses are chosen—it does not have to be me. That it is her decision, not Mortain’s.

  Then I will force her to tell me what flaw or lack she sees in me that prevents her from sending me out, and I will insist I be given a chance to fix it. If she denies there is any such thing behind her decision,
then I will ask if it was she who tore the page with my name from the convent register, and if so, why?

  When I am ushered into the abbess’s chambers, a sort of calm settles over me. Now that I am out from behind the convent walls, the power she has held over me for so long has dissipated, like smoke in a room once the door is opened.

  “Annith.” Her cool voice reaches out across the room.

  I dip a curtsy. “Yes, Reverend Mother?”

  She lets the silence between us build. Whether that is because she is choosing her words carefully or because she hopes to unnerve me with her silence, I do not know or care.

  To show her I am not unnerved, I glance to the crows on their ­perches behind her desk. There are three perches but only two crows, and I wonder if she has sent one to the convent with news of my arrival.

  “You may sit.” The abbess’s voice is tinged with a hint of warmth, which I do not trust at all.

  “Thank you, Reverend Mother, but I prefer to stand.” That way she will have to strain her neck to look up at me.

  Her mouth tightens slightly in annoyance before she forces all emotion from her face. “It is your choice.” She leans back in her chair and studies me. “What do you want from me, Annith? To know that I am sorry—heartbroken—about young Matelaine’s death? For of course I am. Her death pains me as does the death of any of our handmaidens. I grieve much as a mother does over her children.” Her face is soft, a look of gentle understanding in her eyes, and her brows are drawn together in an imitation of concern.

  “And what of Sybella’s death? Would you have grieved for her if she had died on that mission you sent her on? A mission no seeress had countenanced?”

  “Sybella is no concern of yours—”

  “You are wrong.” The words fly from my mouth like small, sharp rocks. “She is one of my greatest concerns. As is Ismae and Florette and all the girls that I have been raised with. And you sent Sybella back to that . . . that monster.”

  “What makes you think it wasn’t Mortain’s will that she be sent there? How can you be so certain that is not expressly why Mortain put her on this earth—to bring d’Albret down? No one else could have gotten close to him—no one else would ever have been able to gain a position of such trust.”

  “But what of her trust in you? She came to us half mad with despair and grief, and she had barely healed before you sent her back into that lion’s den. And Matelaine, she had been there less than two years, not nearly enough time to have learned half of what she needed to know. And Ismae? You sent her out blind, not even telling her who she was being assigned to.”

  “I did not want his identity to prejudice any conclusions she might draw.”

  “And what of Ismae’s letters?”

  The abbess blinks. “What letters?”

  “The ones she sent to me that I never received. The one asking if I knew the antidote to a poison.”

  Our gazes hold for a long moment before I lean forward and plant my hands on her desk. “You never even told her of the entirety of her gift. How she was able to draw poison from others’ skin, just like Sister Serafina.”

  “I had to be certain she was able to fulfill her duties for Mortain without remorse or second thoughts. I feared that her kind heart would cause her to use it without permission, and those fears proved founded when she wrote to you.”

  “You had no right to take my letters—”

  “No right? What rights do you think you have but those that are granted to you by me? All that you have, the clothes on your back, the food that has filled your belly, and any rights, are at my discretion. You seem to have forgotten that.”

  “I forget nothing.”

  “And so I ask again, what do you want from me?”

  “I want to know that you have the novitiates’ best interests at heart. That you are not picking and choosing who to send based on some whim or personal favorite.”

  The abbess snorts. “Do not flatter yourself. I do not care for you that much. I have been kind to you, that is all.”

  While the words she speaks have the weight of truth to them, I do not believe them all the same. She has cared more for me than for the others, for all that she wishes to deny it now. “I want an explanation for why I have not been sent out, then.”

  “Must I carve it upon the skin of your arm? You have been chosen to be the convent’s seeress. Where did you think they came from if not from the ranks of our initiates? We plucked them from a magical tree?”

  “Except I have had a chance to research this matter and now know that there are many others qualified to be the convent’s seeress. Anyone who is a virgin, or who is past childbearing years and swears celibacy. I am not the only one who can serve in this manner. Why are you so set on me?”

  “How do you know that I am? Is not the first mission a novitiate is given one meant to prove her absolute obedience and loyalty? A task designed to demonstrate she can be trusted to carry out her duties?”

  Ignoring the sudden uncertainty that twists in my belly, I tilt my head and allow a bitter smile to play about my lips. “That is most odd, because I distinctly remember you telling Sister Thomine it was precisely because I was so biddable and obedient that I would excel as seeress.”

  Her eyes widen at the recognition of just how often I must have listened at her door, and the blood drains from her face. She turns to look at the papers on her desk to hide it, but it is too late. I have seen it and know that she is afraid of what I may have overheard.

  “Perhaps it is not what you have, but what you lack,” she says at last.

  Her words are like a slap. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you have no gifts, no special skills, nothing that would be of any use to Mortain in the execution of His wishes. Augury can be taught. The sorts of gifts the other novitiates possess cannot. However”—she leans back in her chair again and lifts a folded message from her desk—“this latest turn of events should please you greatly. In spite of your lack of true gifts, I will have to send you out on assignment after all. It will give you a chance to prove yourself. To convince me I was wrong to waste you as seeress.”

  And there it is: everything I have ever wanted, everything I have trained and fought for, only now I do not trust it. “You will have to forgive me if I seem less than grateful, for I find it hard to have confidence in such an order—now, at this time.”

  “You have asked me for an explanation, and I have given you one. I use the tools Mortain gives me in the manner best suited to their gifts. Matelaine, for all her youth, had inherent gifts that made her more valuable in her service to Mortain than you. But she is gone now and all the others are too young, as you have so movingly pointed out, so there is no one left but you.” She tilts her head. “I thought you were willing to do anything to prove your ability to serve Him in just such a manner?”

  Her faintly mocking tone sets my teeth on edge. “It is too late to catch me with that trap. Besides, the duchess has requested I assist her in caring for Isabeau, and I cannot turn my back on a command from my sovereign.”

  Her face tightens in annoyance. “That was a request, not a command, and likely made just as a favor to Ismae to give you something to do. And as Sybella is back, she can assist Isabeau in your stead.” Then she arches her brows at me in such a way that causes all the muscles along my neck and shoulders to clench in apprehension. “Besides, the man to be killed is not only a proven traitor to the crown but also the man responsible for Matelaine’s death.”

  And just like that, I am hooked like a fish. And she knows it. Even so, I try to feign indifference. “And who is this proven traitor to the crown?”

  “Chancellor Crunard. Or, I should say, the former chancellor Crunard.”

  I glance at the empty perch behind her desk. “Has Sister Vereda Seen this?”

  “Yes.” Our gazes meet, and I think of all the times I thought she was telling the truth only to learn later that she had lied. There is no way I can take her word on this.
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  “Why? According to Ismae, he has been sitting in a prison for months. What possible threat could he pose now?”

  “Someone is communicating our movements, positions, and strategies to the French. We know that Crunard has close ties with them and can only assume he is using some bribed guard in Guérande to get word to them of our activities.”

  “Yes, but how is he getting word of the duchess’s plans? He is no longer in her confidence.”

  “Perhaps there is yet another traitor. I do not know, I know only that we are to make every effort to halt the French. Are you willing to do this?”

  “What if I do not see a marque? What then?”

  “I told you. Sister Vereda has Seen it. Kill him anyway.”

  Back in our chambers, Ismae looks at me with worried eyes. “I think it is a bad idea.”

  I glance away and begin folding some of the clothes I will take. “Not if I am aware that the abbess is up to something,” I point out.

  Sybella moves away from the window. “You do not fully understand her motives.”

  “I understand enough to know she does not have my best interests at heart.”

  “But why?” Ismae asks. As if she is unable to keep still, she reaches out and begins helping me fold. “Why would you go, knowing that?”

  I look over at Sybella. “Why did you ride out to meet d’Albret?” I ask softly.

  She stares at me a long moment, then gives a curt nod. “Well and so. It is something you have to do.”

  “Precisely. I must do it for Matelaine’s sake.” And my own, although I do not tell them that. The abbess has all but taunted me with my own deficiencies, and I feel poised for a battle of wills. I am fully prepared for that. I am not prepared to stand down or walk away or turn my back on the only destiny I have ever wanted.