“Yes, it’s all very romantic,” I said drily.
“These are memories, I assume?” When I nodded, she looked pleased. “You’ve done well, Solange.”
“I had help,” I said so quietly I wasn’t sure she heard me.
“Is there a place nearby that has some sentimental value?” She peered through the shadows. “Where they were together?”
I looked around as well, trying to remember which memories I’d seen that had taken place here. They’d mostly been at Bornebow Hall. Except for the time she and Constantine had gone to the Drake castle to find Viola’s mother chained to a post and Madame Veronique in the courtyard. There was the Christmas feast, the dance with the candles, and the kiss by the tree.
The tree.
“There.” I nodded to the tree at the base of the hill leading up to the inner bailey. It hadn’t been there in her memory, but she’d incorporated it into her psychic safe place. I grabbed the remaining boxes and dashed over the grass until we were under its shielding branches. It was a pale birch tree, the leaves glinting like emerald drops and tinkling musically.
Isabeau glanced at me, an ax suddenly appearing in her hand.
“Okay, that’s cool,” I said. “I didn’t know I could do that.”
“I’ve done this sort of thing before,” she reminded me with a ghost of a smile. “You continue smashing the boxes and I’ll see if I can’t entice our little friend out farther.”
I still had the rock in my hand. I cracked it over the boxes.
“It helps if you call her name,” Isabeau suggested. “Especially as I’m now here and foreign to her dreamscape. She’ll be looking this way.” She brought the ax down swiftly, severing a branch. “Viola!”
“Viola!” I added, jumping up and down on all of the box pieces. I’d pulverize them into dust if I had to. Isabeau hacked at the tree. “Viola!” Stomp. “Viola!” Hack. “Viol—ew.”
Thick blood oozed out of the broken branches and the gouges in the white trunk. Rivulets coursed down, filling the spaces between the roots like tiny, bloody wishing wells.
Suddenly, I felt weird. I grabbed at a branch for support. I could hear the thunder of horses riding out of the upper gate, the flash of swords and armor.
“Crap,” I said thickly as my vision started to go black. “One more thing.” I felt my body slumping but couldn’t stop it. Viola’s knights were still advancing, Isabeau was still chopping at the tree, and I was still falling. “I’ve been blacking out.”
1199
Viola walked through the tournament camp, pennants snapping from pavilion spires and horses nickering in corrals. The sounds pierced her sensitive ears and she had to stop herself from wincing. Sunset had given way to evening, the sky was full of stars, and the fields full of torches. The lights stung her eyes. Knights, pages, and stable hands crowded around, tending to horses and armor. The smell of so many bodies pressed together made her mouth water. She knew they were staring at her, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. They were beneath her notice, unimportant.
Not Tristan.
None of it mattered without him.
She kept walking, barefoot, in a tattered gown stained with blood. Whispers boiled in her wake, weapons dropped with a clatter. A man stepped into her path, frowning. “Lady, are you well?”
He stumbled back out of her way when she raised her eyes to his. He blanched, confused, but was able to get back to the safety of his tent. She searched the family crests, the rampant lions, the unicorns, and the bar sinister, which was the black stripe that proclaimed illegitimacy. She felt strangely fond of that black mark, despite the evidence that she wasn’t a bastard after all. Her father was still begging for her mother’s forgiveness. Viola, remembering decades of tears and blood, wanted no part of it.
She only wanted Tristan.
There. The coat-of-arms of the Constantine family. It was a small tent, part of the larger circle belonging to a baron. Tristan had had to pledge himself to a new lord when Phillip Vale was found murdered in his bed.
She stepped through the painted canvas opening, feeling as hopeful as she had the first time Tristan had told her he loved her. He’d pledged himself to her, and she’d tied a ribbon to his shield. That same shield was propped against a table, the ribbon faded and tattered. He sat on a curved wooden bench, his head in his hands. His black hair fell into his eyes, obscuring his vision. He looked pale and tired.
“Leave it,” he said curtly. “I’m not hungry.”
“But I am,” she whispered.
He froze. “Viola?” His voice cracked. He clenched his hands in his hair. “No. Away with you, spirit.”
She glided forward, closing the small distance that still lay between them. “I am no spirit, my love.”
He looked up, eyes bloodshot and ringed with shadows. There was stubble on his jaw and his cheekbones looked more prominent. She smiled gently. “Won’t you kiss me?”
“Vi?” Tears clogged his voice. “It’s not possible. The massacre ...” He blinked, finally looking hard at her. She knew her hair was tangled with leaves and that there were unmentionable stains on her best gown. And she knew it didn’t matter, not when they were together. “You’re hurt.” He got up so fast the bench flew backward, hitting his pallet.
“No, I survived.”
He gathered her up into his arms, tears turning to a wild choked laugh. “I thought you were dead with all the others. No one knew where you were. It’s been weeks. Weeks.” He kissed her desperately, lips moving from her mouth to her temple to her hair and back to her mouth again. She kissed him back, laughing with him. She could restrain herself. She’d fed on a group of outlaws who’d thought to surprise her in the woods. And kissing him made her feel whole again, sane again. She could almost ignore the hot pulse of his blood under his skin, his scent making her head spin.
He ran his hand over her hair, pulling out the knots. “What happened to you?”
She burrowed into the circle of his arms, her cheek against his chest. His heart echoed in his chest and reverberated through her head, like the bell in the churchyard. “Men with crosses and stakes.” She shuddered. “They think I’m evil just because I survived.”
He looked down at her. “You’re Lady Viola Drake,” he said darkly. “And they will not touch you.”
“There are hunters still after me,” she said. “My own family sent them. I am a Drake no longer.”
His face hardened. “I won’t let them hurt you. Any of them.”
“I know,” she whispered. “Nor I, you.” Her fangs cut through her gums like knives, but Tristan was already turning away to take up his sword. He didn’t see her face change, her eyes gleam. “We can be together forever now,” she said.
I woke up in the damn stairwell again.
Which meant Isabeau was alone in the courtyard with the bleeding tree and Viola’s knights. I flung myself down the steps even though I wasn’t steady on my feet yet. I crashed into the wall and kept going, using the stones to hold me up. I tripped on my hem and nearly knocked my own fangs out. The hall was smoky and warm as I dashed through it. The dried flowers and rushes on the dirt floor were covered by half-eaten chicken bones and dog droppings. The veneer was starting to peel off Viola’s inner sanctuary.
Grimly satisfied at that small triumph, I almost ran into a sword. The knight had his helmet’s visor down so I couldn’t see his face. He was just creaking armor and flashing weapons. I dodged, rolling low. I popped back onto my feet behind him. I didn’t stay to fight, just kept running.
I broke through the top gate just in time to see the knights closing in on Isabeau. She swung her ax in a wide circle, keeping them at bay. The tree wept blood, the white wood scarred and ragged. Isabeau leaped over a sword strike and cut off the arm that was attached to it as she landed. She was holding her own. But she didn’t see the little girl with long blond hair coming up behind her, weeping pathetically in her embroidered dress, looking lost. Looking innocent and sweet.
&
nbsp; She wasn’t.
But Isabeau might not know that. “Behind you!” I yelled, half running, half sliding down the hill. “Not a little girl! Not a little girl!”
I was sliding too fast.
“No!” I yelled, frustrated as everything spun. The stars smeared on the dark canvas of the sky. “Not again.” I held on tight, digging my fingers into the grass, willing myself to stay where I was.
The guards crossed their lances together, preventing Viola from entering. She didn’t even pause, just whipped both arms out so fast and hard the knights flew into the wall and slumped, unconscious. She marched into the chamber, the candlelight flickering in the draft she created.
Tristan lay in the bed, his chest bare except for a bloody bandage around his ribs. Cuts and bruises marked him from head to toe. Blood trickled slowly from a gash in the back of his head. She stifled a sob, flying to his side. He didn’t stir.
“One of my guards found him,” Veronique said, stepping out of the shadows. Her servant cowered in the corner like a trapped rabbit, eyes wide.
Viola crawled into the bed, touching his face, his arms, his chest. He had no heartbeat.
“Hunters did this,” she wept. They’d burst into the tent before she could turn Tristan and the fight had gone on too long. Dawn crept over the horizon and she’d had to crawl into a chest and lock it. When she woke she was alone.
And now she was truly alone.
“And yet you’re the one bringing shame to our family,” Veronique snapped. “We can’t keep cleaning up your mess. You have no discretion. Even animals dispose of their kill with more grace.”
“I don’t care about that.” Her tears soaked into his bandages.
“That is apparent.”
“Do you even have a heart?” she shouted bitterly, her lover’s blood on her hands, and on her lips.
“Yes,” Veronique replied coldly. “But it is not selfish.”
Viola hissed at her. Veronique snarled back, power clinging to her like ice on a winter lake. “Don’t push me, girl,” she warned. “We have rules and secrets to keep. You’re endangering us all.”
“He’s dead!” Viola shrieked, eyes bleeding red. “And you’re next, old woman,” she promised balefully. “You’re next.”
She knew she couldn’t take her right then. So she’d wait. She’d get stronger, lethal. With one last hiss, she flung herself out of the window, landing on the stable roof and sliding down onto her horse. She was riding away when Tristan jerked violently in his bed, bolting into consciousness. Fangs cut through his lower lip as he fought the unknown war inside his body. His eyes were open, but unseeing. Veronique gestured for a servant to pass him a jug filled with blood.
Viola r ode over the hills, a cold wind howling inside her body. Tristan was dead.
Dead.
The world was a lamb to be led to the slaughter.
The red veil descended again.
At least this time I woke up in the same place.
And with the same battle brewing at the bottom of the hill, but Isabeau had already dispatched the last three knights. Their horses bolted away. She turned to the little weeping girl. “Not a little girl,” I repeated, leaping frantically over the fallen knights.
“I know,” Isabeau said. She had the shard of a mirror in her other hand. She angled it toward the little girl and glanced down into it. The reflection of the little girl shimmered into Viola.
Then the actual little girl did the same thing.
Viola looked like a medieval maiden from a painting, with her gold hair adorned with flowers and the butterfly sleeves of her blue gown. The carved pendant swung on a long chain around her neck. The knights stirred at her feet. They stood up, armor creaking, and placed themselves between us. I wrested the sword from the decapitated arm, never taking my gaze off Viola. I brandished it, getting a feel for the weight. It wasn’t a rapier, like I preferred, but it would do.
I skewered the first knight, driving the tip of the sword in the crease between his arm and breastplate. I caught the dagger from his hand when he fell. I was suddenly grateful for all the studying I’d had to do on the twelfth century. I knew the weak points to plate armor, knew that it made them slow when they were off their horses. I waited until the next knight lumbered awkwardly to look at his companion, then flung the dagger. It pierced through the eye slat.
Viola’s smile died when the second knight landed back at her feet.
“Merde,” Isabeau swore as the ax faded out of her hand. She looked wispy. “I’ve been here too long.” She faded for a moment, like a candle flame flickering out. She solidified again but I could see it cost her. Her tattoos and amulets were the brightest thing about her.
“You said I had to fight her anyway,” I said. “So go! Go now!”
“Come with me, Solange!”
“I have to do this,” I insisted, pointing my sword at Viola. Isabeau wavered again. “Go!” I yelled at her. “Go now!”
Isabeau kept fading but took the knights out with her, knocking them out with the last blast of her magic. Even the guards on the ramparts collapsed. Viola blanched. Isabeau had just time enough to shoot me one of her rare smiles before she exploded into light. The glow hovered there for a moment before channeling into my tattered silver cord.
I was alone with Viola.
Finally.
Chapter 21
Lucy
The fire died all too soon.
We were left choking on smoke with a burning vehicle and half a dozen screeching Hel-Blar. I was out of arrows and there were only a few stakes left between us all. Even Kieran’s bottomless cargo pockets weren’t turning up anything to help us right now.
“Kieran, can you make a run for it with Lucy?” Nicholas asked. “You can take one of the Jeeps,” he added as Logan tossed Kieran his keys.
“I’m not leaving you guys,” I sputtered. “When did you fall and hit your head?”
“Lucy, you’re out of arrows and we’re out of options.” He darted a quick glance at Quinn, who was behind me.
I grabbed a fistful of Nicholas’s shirt. “I’m not leaving you, you big dumb idiot.” I whipped my head around and shot Quinn a glare. “Take one more step. I dare you.” I knew full well he’d planned to sneak up on me and toss me over his shoulder. He paused, knowing equally well that I’d damage him if he tried.
He did it anyway.
I was suddenly airborne and then draped over his shoulder, which dug painfully under my ribs. “It’s just faster this way,” he said.
I shifted, cursing. “Put me down, you undead asshat.”
“Just trying to save your ungrateful life,” he shot back with grim cheer. I punched him right in the ass since I couldn’t reach any other part of him. “Ready, Kieran?”
All I could see was the melted snow at his feet. The clacking of jaws got louder and the smell of burning metal and rubber was noxious. I coughed. Quinn dashed ahead, Kieran running all out to keep up. And then Quinn stumbled to such an abrupt halt that I swung uncomfortably, getting queasy. I held onto his belt as all the blood rushed to my head. “What’s going on?” I tried to peer around. “Hello?”
“Mom,” Quinn said, startled.
“Thank God,” I said, feeling like we might have a chance for the first time that night. “Put me down.” I pinched his butt this time instead of punching it.
He jerked. “Ow.”
“Well, put me down.”
“I thought I told you boys to keep that girl at home,” Helena said.
“On second thought, it’s safer up here,” I muttered. Quinn released me so fast pain flared up my legs when I hit the ground. I turned around, gulping. “Hi.”
Helena flicked us a warning glance that had Quinn and I stepping closer to each other for self-preservation. Liam was behind her, eyes glistening. “Solange? Nicholas?” Helena whirled and we were out of her crosshairs for the moment. “Isabeau found you,” Liam said, his voice clogged with tears. “Thank God.”
Aunt
Hyacinth, Sebastian, and Marcus were fighting off the Hel-Blar. Kieran’s car was still burning. Duncan slid behind the wheel of Logan’s Jeep and hit the accelerator, aiming for them like Kieran had earlier. It was like watching a game of vampire Frogger. Uncle Geoffrey was already inspecting Solange’s wound. He was about to pull the arrow out when Isabeau jerked violently. She’d been sitting so still, we all jumped in response.
She swallowed thickly. “I couldn’t stay any longer.”
Logan reached down and sliced the ribbon in half, helping her to her feet. She looked exhausted but energy crackled off her at the same time. “Don’t,” she warned Uncle Geoffrey. “She’s still fighting for control.”
“Is she . . . all right?” Helena asked, as if she was afraid of the answer. She touched Solange’s hair. Liam had his arms around Nicholas as if he meant never to let go. I knew just how he felt.
“She is stronger than we thought,” Isabeau answered wearily. “She has been fighting off this spirit since before the coronation.”
“We had no idea,” Helena said. Her fangs poked out from under her lip. “We thought she was just adjusting. Badly.”
“I believe the spirit of Viola Drake has been trying to gain a foothold since Solange’s birthday.”
“Viola Drake?” Liam asked.
“Damn it, how could we not know that?” Helena snapped. “And who the hell is Viola Drake?”
“We can’t stay here,” Uncle Geoffrey interrupted.
“We won’t know for certain until she wakes up tomorrow, but I am almost certain she will prevail.” Isabeau straightened. Even though I could see she was so tired she wanted to slump against Logan, she wouldn’t let herself. She dug her fingers into Charlemagne’s fur. “I did what I could to help her.”
“Thank you,” Liam whispered.
“I’ll have to sedate her, if you think she might still be dangerous,” Uncle Geoffrey said. “But we have to get her home. The Hel-Blar aren’t the only danger out tonight.”
“We’ve got Huntsmen on our tail,” Helena explained tersely.