Crimson Bound (15 page)

“You mean
if
it falls,” said the older woman. “We’re supposed to keep the sun in the sky by weeping over our sins, aren’t we? I think that’s what our tiresome Bishop said last Sunday.”

“Weeping is too much trouble,” sighed l’Étoile-Polaire. “I’ll just have to die in eternal darkness.”

All three of them burst into soft, inane laughter that made Rachelle want to scream. They were rich enough to burn lamps all night long; they didn’t have to go out on errands when woodspawn were roaming the streets. So they didn’t believe in the return of Endless Night. None of the nobility did.

“I don’t think I could bear killing things,” said a young girl wearing a dress that was the exact same pale yellow as the curls piled atop her head. “Even woodspawn.”

“But you forget,” said the young man. “She’s already killed somebody, the naughty girl.” He gave Rachelle a grin that looked like it was trying to be rakish.

“Of course, I did forget,” sighed l’Étoile-Polaire, and once again slowly drifted her gaze back to Rachelle. “Who was it?”

Rachelle stared at them. She had expected to be mocked or scorned. That was how it went in the city: people despised her for being bloodbound, or laughed at her for being a peasant from the north end of nowhere.

She had never dreamed that the court might find her
exotic.

“I—I don’t think it’s very nice to ask,” said the girl in the yellow dress.

“Come, come, Soleil,” said the young man. “It’s not as if she’s a blushing innocent. She’s already said she wasn’t sorry.”

“And I wouldn’t be sorry after killing you either,” said Rachelle. “So maybe you shouldn’t bother me.”

Beside her, Armand let out a soft snort of laughter.

At that moment, one of the servants arrived with a tray of little cakes—the ones, Rachelle supposed, that la Fontaine had mentioned when they first met—and everyone was distracted.

“Oh,” said Soleil, turning toward Armand, “aren’t you going to eat any of the lovely cakes?”

“No,” said Armand, who seemed to have forgotten completely about being a charming liar. Maybe he didn’t think Soleil was any use to him, though she was certainly pretty enough.

“Oh, I forgot!” said Soleil. “Your poor hands. I’ll feed them to you.”

Armand’s jaw tightened slightly. “No, thank you.”

Soleil, who had already seized a little cake frosted in pink icing, paused. “But why not?”

“Because I’m not hungry.” Armand’s voice stayed quiet and even, but Rachelle could see his shoulders tensing slightly, and she suddenly remembered all the times she had kept her voice quiet and even while attempting to answer Erec.

“Because,” said Erec, suddenly behind them—Rachelle flinched, feeling like she had summoned him—“he’s ashamed that he can’t feed himself.”

He spoke in the light, needling tone that he used to tease Rachelle, so it took her a moment to realize that he’d been speaking of Armand, and to realize
what
he’d said of him.

It took her another moment to realize she was angry.

“But you shouldn’t be ashamed,” said Soleil. “I think it’s so beautiful, how
much
you were willing to sacrifice—I can’t imagine it, of course, but when I
try
to imagine it, then I feel like I can be strong too, and—” She bit her lip, blushing. “Please,
please
let me help you.”

Armand’s mouth flattened.

“Yes, let the girl do you a kindness,” said Erec. “Aren’t saints supposed to be meek and humble of heart?”

Seemingly encouraged, Soleil shoved the cake forward. “Won’t you—”

Rachelle caught her wrist. “Did I mention I’m his bodyguard?” she said. “And I’m not a saint, so I can do what I like.”

Armand sighed and reached up with his metal hand to push their hands apart.

“Mademoiselle, you’re very kind,” he said to Soleil. “But I did not lose my hands for the purpose of making you feel special.”

Soleil had gone red, but before she could say anything, la Fontaine clapped her hands once. Everyone in the room fell silent.

“Enough chatter,” said la Fontaine. “It is time for stories. And in honor of our guest, I propose that we each tell a tale from the north.”

Soleil rose. “If you will excuse me, gracious goddess,” she said quietly, “I am not well enough for stories.” Then she bolted out of the room.

“Now you’ve made her cry,” said Erec. “Not so very saintly.”

“Now you’re talking when our hostess called for silence,” said Armand.

“Do you have a tale to share, my dear Fleur-du-Mal?” asked la Fontaine, her voice ringing across the room like a bell.

“No, my dear Fontaine,” said Erec.

La Fontaine nodded regally. “Then we shall proceed. You.” She nodded at the young man who had called Rachelle a “naughty girl.” He scrambled to his feet—he was trying to grin again, but now it just looked sickly—and started a rambling tale of three shepherdesses and a bumblebee who was a prince in disguise.

Rachelle didn’t pay much attention. She was too busy watching Armand and thinking. He should have been sitting in la Fontaine’s place at the center of the room, everyone wincing and smiling according to what he said. If he had really lied about meeting the forestborn, if he had simply decided to turn his injury into fame, then he would
want
fame. A liar might have too much pride to be hand-fed, but surely he would at least want a pretty girl to declare that he was marvelous and brave.

Unless he wasn’t a liar. But what else could he be? Once marked by the forestborn, there was no way to escape. You killed somebody or the mark killed you. There was no other way.

She hoped so much that there was no other way.

The young man stammered to a close. His tale had been nothing like the fireside stories that people told in Rachelle’s village, but she didn’t think that was why la Fontaine looked at him when he was finished and said, “Very charming.” He flinched
and retired into a corner.

Then l’Étoile-Polaire sighed and stood like a weary flower. “I believe
I
can honor our guest,” she said. “Once upon a time, a prince and a princess lived in a silver tower with domes of gold and parapets of diamond. Every day they ate berries and cream, and their days were all delightful. . . .”

The story wound slowly on, with many digressions about the delights of the palace and the prince’s horse and the princess’s dresses. Eventually, the two children contrived to get themselves lost in the woods.

And that was when the Great Forest awoke in la Fontaine’s salon.

Or perhaps, the Forest dreamed about them. It certainly wasn’t a full manifestation; Rachelle hardly felt it at all, only saw it, fleetingly and from the corner of her eyes. It started with the murals: they acquired depth and shadows, the trees growing thicker, vines winding up the legs of the shepherds. Dim animal shapes stalked among the hills, and the shepherds’ singing mouths seemed to be screaming.

Until she looked straight at them, and then the murals were flat, and bright, and pretty again.

She might have thought she was imagining it. But as l’Étoile-Polaire told—with a great many flourishes—how the prince and princess stumbled upon a cottage where a mad old woman put the prince in the cage but adopted the princess and set her tasks, Rachelle started to see movement at the corner of her eyes. The potted plants swayed in a phantom breeze. Flowers blossomed on the tile floor. Translucent deer peeked through ghostly foliage, startled, and fled.

It was the strongest manifestation of the Forest that she had seen here yet, and her first thought was that the door must be here. She had only given the room a cursory examination when she went in. Now she scrutinized it slowly and carefully. There were no suns or moons anyway.

But then why was the Forest appearing? Had the protections on the Château simply grown
that
weak?

Insubstantial rose vines climbed down her shoulder. Rachelle startled at the same moment Armand drew a sharp breath beside her, and then they met each other’s eyes.

So he really did see the Great Forest. That was good to know.

He raised his eyebrows a fraction. She shrugged. It didn’t feel like the Forest was prepared to break through and menace them—there was no least presence of woodspawn—it was simply as if the Forest were
thinking
of them.

“—and then,” l’Étoile-Polaire went on, “the old woman believed that the princess loved her, and said that she might help take the prince out of his cage and bake him in a pie—”

The half-seen Forest trembled around her, and Rachelle suddenly realized what story l’Étoile-Polaire was telling. And maybe why the Forest was listening.

“No,” she said. “That’s not how it goes.”

Everybody looked at her. Including the eyes in the ghostly foliage, and Rachelle had to strangle a bizarre urge to giggle. They all thought she was shocking, when they were sitting in the middle of the Forest.

Was anybody ever out of the Forest?

“Excuse me?” said l’Étoile-Polaire.

“You’re telling the story of Tyr and Zisa, aren’t you?” said Rachelle.

“If you must put it so bluntly, yes.”

“You’re telling it wrong.” Rachelle heard a soft snort from her side: Armand had a wrist pressed to his face to smother laughter.

“I grant you, the old chronicles probably mentioned the ruffles a little less,” said la Fontaine, as lightly as if there were not bluebirds with heart-shaped faces sitting on her shoulders.

“Zisa didn’t win the forestborn’s favor by bringing them nectar from a hundred flowers. She killed her parents and cut out their hearts, and so she became a bloodbound.”

Everybody was still staring at her, and Armand was still smothering silent laughter. The Forest was still listening. It was, possibly, the worst idea in the world to tell this story when the Forest was listening, but she couldn’t resist. They were all so oblivious, and Armand was laughing beside her.

“Then the forestborn trusted her enough that she was able to come with them for the sacrifice. But when they had summoned the Devourer so they could offer Tyr, Zisa tricked the Devourer into letting her walk into his stomach twice and steal the sun and moon.”

“How charming,” said la Fontaine. The birds on her shoulders shivered and were gone.

“Zisa meant to kill him after,” said Rachelle. “But before she could, the Devourer possessed her. So Tyr killed her with Joyeuse just as the sun rose for the first time. The end.”

L’Étoile-Polaire raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying that the first of all our kings was a
murderer?”

“That is the tale as they tell it in the north,” Rachelle said blandly.

“Don’t judge him too harshly,” said Erec. He was watching Rachelle with his familiar smile; if he had noticed the Forest, he gave no sign of it. “He would hardly be a good king if he let a patricide share his throne.”

“And hardly a good man if he killed his sister,” said la Fontaine. “A grievous dilemma.” She sounded precisely as distressed as if she’d been given cakes with the wrong sort of icing.

“But he didn’t,” said Armand.

La Fontaine raised an eyebrow. “You have another version to tell?”

“No,” said Armand. “If her tale is true, Tyr didn’t kill his sister. He struck down the Devourer that had hidden itself inside her.”

Rachelle looked at him. He was no longer laughing; his elbows rested on his knees as he leaned forward, his eyebrows slightly drawn together. He seemed simply and earnestly interested in the conversation.

“Do you think that sort of detail matters?” she asked.

His mouth twitched back toward a smile. “When it comes to killing your family, I imagine every detail matters.”

“Your father will be glad to hear that,” said Erec, and Armand’s lips flattened.

Something tightened in Rachelle’s chest; she didn’t know if it was envy, or amusement, or irritation. “And do you think,” she asked, “that because Tyr didn’t want his sister dead, somehow he didn’t kill her? Do you think Zisa didn’t really kill her parents, just because she
meant
to save her brother?”

Bloody-handed Zisa
, they called her in the village, and said that on moonless nights she forgot her quest was done and cut out the hearts of anyone foolish enough to wander the forest alone. They whispered of the sacrifices that were offered to her in the ancient heathen days, when people worshipped her as a goddess. She had won them the sun and moon, but she had become a monster.

For a moment, the mural showed a shadowy girl with two bleeding hearts in her hands. Then Rachelle blinked and it was gone.

“To the victor, the spoils,” said Erec, glancing at her in conspiratorial irony. “And also the pardon for all misdeeds.”

“No,” said Armand. His voice was soft but resolute. “I think Tyr was right and Zisa was wrong and neither one was lucky. Do you think that doing the right thing will always
be pretty?”

For one moment, her throat clogged in reflexive fury, because what right did he have to mock her by pretending that
he
knew about darkness and hard choices—

Except he was still looking at her with that simple, open gaze. His head had tilted a little to the side, and his lips were slightly parted. He looked like she was a code he was trying to decipher.

He wasn’t mocking her. He
cared
about this question. Out of everyone in the room, he was the only one who cared.

“I think sometimes there is no right thing,” said Rachelle. “What should Zisa have done? Left her brother a captive waiting to be killed and left all mankind enslaved to the forestborn, just so she could pride herself on her clean hands? Or do you think Tyr would have been saved by a miracle?”

“No,” said Armand.

“Then
what should she have done
?”

His mouth scrunched unhappily, but he didn’t look away. Didn’t laugh. Did not pretend that anything was all right.

She realized that she actually wanted to know his answer.

“I don’t know,” he admitted softly.

She felt like she had just flung herself off a roof and was pitching downward through the air. “So you know what’s wrong but you don’t know what’s right? What use is that?”