“Princess Lilac?” Sable said, apprehension warping her voice into trepidation.
“Y-yes,” she replied grimly. She pressed her fingers to her temples, struggling to ignore the horrible gulping sound that echoed down the hallway. “It’s me. I’m her.”
Since leaving the castle, it was her first true encounter with citizens who knew who she was, and they were already afraid of her. She sniffled.
Sable searched her face. “Is it true, what everyone used to say? About the discovery of… the way they discovered your Darkling Tongue?”
Of all the things to bring up. Lilac shrugged away from Sable’s hand.
“Mr. Trevelyan,” Sable suddenly snapped, looking intently over the princess’s shoulder.
Garin stood in the hallway entry. Hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, he sauntered into the room, mouth ruddy and hands tinged pink, as if he’d tried his best to wipe the mess off his face in haste. At least the crater in his cheek had finally healed.
“The name’s still Garin,” he replied, eyeing Sable wearily. “Is… there something I can help you with?”
“Are you capable of entrancing properly now?”
Crossing his arms, he frowned. Probably at the woman’s astute lack of fear. “I beg your pardon?”
“Yes or no,” Sable prompted sternly. She snapped her fingers when a curious noise was uttered by Jeanare. It silenced him immediately.
“I suppose so.” Garin scratched his head. “I can’t promise it’ll stick, but I should be able to do so more efficiently since I’ve…” he glanced sideways at Lilac. “Eaten.”
Large eyes flitting impatiently between Garin and her husband, Sable sighed. “That will have to do. Garin, I need you to take care of Jeanare—and by that, I mean his memory. Remove his memory of this whole affair.”
“What is the meaning of this, dear?” The old man’s voice quivered in the background.
Sable looked pointedly at Garin. “Now, please. In the other room.” She nodded to her right at the timber-lined door frame leading into the west wing. “Not to worry,” she added, when Garin glanced apprehensively at Lilac on the floor. “I merely wanted a kind word with her Highness. We’ll be here. When you’re finished, please have him head to bed.”
After a long moment, Garin nodded. He didn’t need to corner Jeanare, for the man had already done that to himself. Jeanare cowered between the wall and the kitchen counter as the vampire approached him swiftly, taking him by the wrists. Jeanare fearfully locked eyes with Garin, who whispered something ever so softly in his ear. In a matter of seconds, an odd calm swept over Jeanare. He sighed contentedly, nodded, and trailed Garin into the west wing.
Lilac shuddered, watching them retreat into the dark. She turned to Sable when they were alone.
She tried to sound polite, but defensiveness still crept into her voice. “I—we really don’t have a lot of time. What is it you want with me?”
Sable pursed her lips then sighed, as if to brace for her own question. “Did you know Freya?”
Immediately, Lilac scooted back and stumbled halfway to her feet. “Pardon? I don’t…”
“Freya,” Sable persisted. “Strawberry blond locks, messy curls.” She suddenly lurched forward, gripping Lilac’s hands. Tears glistened in the woman’s eyes “My Freya,” she whispered, fine lines in her face illuminated by the torch light. “She was a wolf woman. A shifter.”
Lilac struggled to swallow past the lump that had formed in her throat. No.
No, no, no.
“Your Freya,” was all she could manage.
“Mine. My only child.” Sable produced a sigh of defeat at Lilac’s tormented grimace and released the princess’s sweating palms. “Remember the story from last night, about my first love? His name was Luzio. There was another reason my parents forbade me from continuing to see him. A reason I wasn’t so keen to reveal with Jeanare walking around.”
Hesitantly, she picked at the frilly material on her nightgown. “Barely an adult myself, I’d fallen pregnant with Luzio’s child. In her fury, my mother and father ordered me to stop seeing him. As soon as my daughter was born, I gave her up; back then shifters weren’t allowed to reside in the towns, and even if we hid her, it would soon become evident what she was—and that I was her mother. I refused to risk her getting caught only to be slaughtered, at least that’s what I told myself.”
The woman’s silent strength had faded to the picture of misery. “Your Highness, I chose a comfortable, safe life over what was most important. Over my own daughter.”
Lilac suddenly couldn’t breathe in deep enough. She swayed slightly, but Sable managed to catch her at her shoulders. “She’s dead,” Lilac uttered, wringing her hands. “Freya is dead.”
Strangely, Sable relaxed. Her grip upon Lilac’s shoulder’s lessened and firey demeanor simmered. She stroked the top of Lilac’s hand. “I figured as much when I didn’t hear from her. I only wanted confirmation, dear. Confirmation other than usual town gossip, I mean.” She cleared her throat, removing her arms from Lilac to wipe her own tears. Sable wrapped both her arms around herself. Even if she’d suspected Freya’s death, the confirmation of such clearly took its toll.
The responsibility of that night had always weighed in on Lilac, but not nearly as much as it must’ve for her grieving mother. Guilt bubbled up from her burning gut.
“It was my fault,” Lilac blurted in a soft half sob. “That night it happened, I went down to the kitchen to get a drink from my father’s stash. That’s where I found her. She was a wolf then. We were both shocked when we discovered that we were able to converse with each other. Someone overheard us, and that’s how we were caught.” She wiped the corners of her eyes with her dress sleeve and spoke to Sable’s feet, unable to meet her gaze. “All she wanted was food for her young. Maybe if I hadn’t gone downstairs, hadn’t spoken with her, she would’ve remained undetected. I tried to help her, Sable. I’m sorry.”
With a sad smile, Sable pivoted to face the hearth, still clutching her arms tightly around her chest. “That is where you are wrong, Your Highness. You are not to blame. The fault is all mine.”
“Please, Sable.” Why would she shoulder the blame? “Please don’t say that. I owe you my apologies, and so much more.”
The woman stared on and continued as if Lilac hadn’t spoken. “You don’t understand. See, the only reason she went to forage at your castle in the first place, was because I turned her down.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That morning, t-the morning of your birthday, she arrived on my doorstep. It was the first time I’d seen my daughter since relinquishing her, but I immediately knew who she was, the woman on our porch. You’d know your own daughter. She had the same frizzed hair as Luzio. Strawberry hair like mine. Her eyes were desperate. Ravenous. They were a wolf’s eyes.”
Sable shuddered. “I wouldn’t let her in. Jeanare was home at the time, and I was much too ashamed. I didn’t want him to see. From our doorstep, Freya told me she’d lost her seamstress position up in Rennes when the townsfolk became suspicious of her; she was able to keep her Darkling nature hidden for a number of years, but folks began to talk after realizing her consistent absences on days after the full moon. Once the rumors spread, she had to leave and couldn’t return to the city. She and her two young boys—my grandchildren I didn’t know existed ‘til then—were forced to flee into the forest to escape the possibility of execution.”
The woman’s gaze was hollow; no matter how badly she wanted to, the princess couldn’t stand to look away.
“All she wanted were rations for her young… My own grandbabies. And I turned her away before my husband could hear the commotion.”
“So, she came to the castle.” Lilac’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, her throat suddenly dry. The picture of solemn desperation—the enormous pride Freya had swallowed to ask for help—burned in her own memories surfacing now. Her birthday had always been announced by town crier. Freya probably knew
there’d be copious leftovers after the soirée. Suddenly, she felt sick.
“Yes. Your Highness, I thought she might go to the kingdom to appeal to the king. I didn’t know she had it in her to try and steal, straight from the castle.”
“He doesn’t know, does he? Your husband, I mean.” Lilac rocked on her heels. Hearing Freya’s backstory and meeting her mother, both were equally intriguing and painful.
Sable shut her eyes briefly. Almost pleadingly. “Nor shall he ever. He knows about Luzio, but nothing of the child we’d conceived. I couldn’t do that to him after sparing him the truth after all these years. Plus, Jeanare and I could never have any of our own.”
Swallowing hard, the princess looked down at her hands; her nail beds were red from her picking at them. “What became of her sons?”
“All these years and I haven’t been able to locate them. I fear the worst.”
“I’m sure they’re alive, Sable.” Lilac tried to sound reassuring but bit her lip before speaking further; she had no inkling if they were alive or not, and Sable didn’t seem the type to entertain false hope. “Children are resilient,” said the princess resolutely. “They have the strongest will of all.”
But Sable just shook her head and looked into the fire again. “It’s the Low Forest that I fear for them the most. I don’t know that the faeries would be any more merciful than humans.”
She recalled Cinderfell, ignoring the twisting sensation at her core. Poor Sable, who’d had to live with either possibility that her grandchildren might’ve been imprisoned and tortured by the Fair Folk, or made a prize kill by humans. By someone like Sinclair.
“So, have you been unable to track their scent, then?” Lilac spoke more hopefully than she felt. “Perhaps they decided to leave Brocéliande altogether.”
“Track their scent?” Sable’s silver brows lifted in understanding. “Oh. Oh, you thought… I’m not the shapeshifter, dear.” She reddened but pressed hand against her chest as if relieved by the news herself. “Oh, heavens no. That was Luzio.”
“But aren’t you… You aren’t a shifter?”
Before Sable could open her mouth, a faint shuffling noise interrupted her. As it grew louder, Jeanare stumbled into the kitchen from the west wing entryway. Irises glazed over, he smiled sleepily before stooping into a steep curtsy before his wife, nearly toppling all the way to the floor. Then, he continued across the kitchen, the gathering room, and into what Lilac assumed was the east wing.
“He’ll be all right, won’t he?” Lilac asked.
“I’m sure he will,” Sable answered, retreating to the cupboards with a sigh. “Our bedroom is in that general direction, so he’s at least on the right track. It’s nothing I haven’t seen after he’s indulged himself with his favorite brandy, I’ll tell you that much.”
Surprising herself, Lilac giggled.
“So sure of being mortal, are we?”
Both women jumped. Garin stood against the wing door frame, arms folded neatly over his chest. Seeming to have recovered from the sudden seriousness of doing away with Renald, he threw Sable a half smirk.
“Pardon?”
“You’d have to have at least a smidgeon of creature blood in your veins in order to carry his child.”
“I’m human, at least compared to the likes of you, vampire,” Sable shot back. “And just so you know, humans and shifters can produce offspring. The creatures are more or less mortals themselves, except for those couple unfortunate nights a month.” At Lilac’s bewildered expression, she scowled. “Oh, I don’t think either of you are in any position to speak ill of my and Luzio’s relationship.”
In effort to change the subject, she straightened and swung open the nearest cupboard, withdrawing a loaf-sized wicker basket. She showed it to Lilac with an apologetic smile. Its contents sat snugly wrapped in layers of cheesecloth. “It’s not much.”
“Why, thank you. What is it?” Lilac eyed it warily.
“Some provision for your journey, dear. Your friend there will have to seek nourishment elsewhere; he should be full for now, anyway” she muttered, regarding him bleakly. “But this should last you on your journey back to the castle. For your coronation, which you will be attending.”
“Speaking of,” Garin said. “We’ll need to get going. The sun’s set.” He gestured at the nearest window, where the last rays of sun had disappeared below the horizon of treetops.
Sable nodded and motioned to the door down the hallway. “Very well, then. After you.”
Lilac led the way to the front room, followed closely by Garin and then their hostess, who still carried the basket. Though she did her best to look away from the bloodied mess on the floor while they approached the entryway, she couldn’t help but peek. Besides, her father’s friend’s death had been her decision. She had to face that.
Lips a mottled blue, his corpse lay crumpled on the floor. A bit of blood pooled under each cleanly slit wrist. What little amount of relief she had left washed over her; Garin had spared Sable a repeat of the gruesome dismemberment at Sinclair’s campsite. Lilac felt a light warmth prickling her neck and spun; trailing her, Garin stalked into the room, quietly observing her. He was probably trying to gague her reaction. Despite the shudder that shook her shoulders, she gave him a reassuring grin.
He passed her and scooped up Renald’s body as if the dead weight of the built Breton soldier was nothing at all. He turned to Sable, inadvertently smacking the corpse’s head against the wall. “Do you happen to have an older pile of hay or straw stubble laying around out there?”
“Yes,” Sable replied reluctantly. “Just out back.”
“Thank you, most gracious madame.” Without warning, he reached over and slid a hand into Lilac’s sack, grinning as he removed it just as quickly, ignoring her suspicious glower. “I’ll be back.” He swung the door open and vanished, corpse in hand, into the night.
The leftover sunglow above the horizon was tinged with the blue of twilight, casting a muddy haze upon the shallow hills. The porch boards beneath Lilac’s feet creaked with warning as she stepped out into the biting air. A single white horse stood obediently next to the gate, contemplating Sable’s vegetable plot with yearning. Shrugging the cloak further onto her shoulders, Lilac took a deep breath and turned to face Sable who had been watching her intently from the doorway.
“Sable,” she started awkwardly. “I am not sure whether to thank you, or to apologize to you first.”
Taken aback, the woman seemed to blink her own thoughts away. “For what, Your Highness?”
“For everything.” She wasn’t particularly accustomed to apologizing for anything, but she needed to do so for this woman. For Freya’s mother. “For bothering you last night, for the mess on your floor… I-I’ll be sure to send funds for any reparations, right away. I’ll cover that, all of it and more.”
“Princess,” Sable interjected, squinting. “None of that bothers me. But, may I ask… What are you doing visiting Ophelia?”
Lilac’s expressive brows rose in surprise before she could catch herself. She’d forgotten Garin’s exasperated mention of the witch when they’d dealt with Renald. Despite her age, the woman didn’t miss a beat.
“She’s a bit eccentric, you know. Most magic folk keep to themselves, but Jeanare has spotted her coin tossing at the Olde Crow. Right in the middle of town!” Sable chuckled softly. “Can you imagine that? Gambling at the pub. With the men. I’ve got half the mind to join her one day.”
Fingering the embroidery at her sleeves, Lilac gulped, unsure of how to answer. She giggled nervously.
The woman studied Lilac. “Not a beauty tincture; you don’t need it… Besides, you could have had any simpleton deliver that to you at the castle for any enormous fee,” Sable continued, tapping her lower lip with her finger. “I also doubt it’s for a love potion of some sort. You don’t seem to have any issues in that area. Although, I don’t know that vampires usually take much interest in mortals, at least in this way. Not especi
ally when your family caused their suffering.”
“It’s really nothing,” she insisted, face reddening at the woman’s shameless probing. She cleared her throat to buy herself time to think of something she couldn’t have delivered. “I’m actually interested in having my fortune done.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous.” Garin’s boisterous voice boomed from behind them. He’d emerged from the dark so silently that she hadn’t heard him approaching. “The princess wishes to get rid of her ability to communicate with Darklings so that the townsfolk will fawn over her again. Much like they do the Le Tallecs.” Whistling casually to himself, he passed them and sauntered in the direction of the horse.
She stared open-mouthed as he walked away. Now dressed head to toe in Renald’s spotless white and red guard uniform, he retrieved the reins from the fence and began whispering quietly to the animal, who paid him no mind.
“Thanks for the clarification,” she muttered. How could he humiliate her that way—just because her personal choice went against his own agenda?
How dare he.
Something brushed her arm, and Lilac almost flinched away. “What,” she groaned at Sable. “You too?”
Instead, the woman pressed the small wicker basket into her hand. “My dear,” Sable said firmly, releasing the basket. “There is an old saying. That any good ruler will build an empire with the same stones that were thrown at them.”
Sable stepped back, though her stern look gripped the princess. “If you ask me, that wretched Le Tallec boy cannot become king,” she insisted with sudden urgency. “Not if my grandsons and all alike are to have a fighting chance. They may be Darklings… However, they were my family all the same. I would do things differently, if given the chance.” The grief in her eyes was overwhelmingly evident.
Lilac felt the slew of apologies bubbling up again as guilt burned her hollow chest. “Sable, I don’t know what to say.”
“I wish many things for you, princess.” Sable gave a sideway glance at Garin, who leaned idly against the garden gate as if he weren’t listening. “The crown, certainly. But I do hope you decide to turn your pain into power.”
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