Crimson Bound (34 page)

She flinched. But he said, “May the Lord be in your heart and on your lips.”

Her heart lurched. Her lips wouldn’t move.

It was the worst mockery of repentance to speak these words simply so he would trust her. It was the worst mockery of Aunt Léonie to think she could ever be sorry enough to win forgiveness. Who did the Bishop think he was, to act as if he knew she could?

And then she thought,
Admit it. Most of all, you’re humiliated to speak your sins in front of someone you’ve despised.

So she made herself look up at him.

His hand had not fallen from her head. Rachelle could, if she wanted, seize his wrist, throw him down, and break his neck before Justine could intervene.

His mouth was a hard line; his nostrils were flared. She realized that he, too, was afraid.

“I confess—”

The words were like two boulders grinding together. She closed her eyes.
Speak your sins to God
, the village priest had once told her.
The priest is just his messenger.
So she spoke to the God in the painting behind her, as ugly as her own soul and as tormented as Aunt Léonie.

“I confess to almighty God and to you, Father, that I accepted a forestborn’s covenant to become a bloodbound.”

Her face burned. Her words were boulders and she was being ground between them.

“This morning I tried to murder someone who had hurt my friend, and—and then I accepted the transformation into a forestborn.”

The words were ragged, insufficient. They made everything she’d done sound so stupid. But also much smaller, and the words started to tumble out faster and faster.

“I have lied, and on my way to Rocamadour, I stole both food and money. I slept with Erec d’Anjou. I have not attended chapel in three years. I killed a woman who had gone mad when transforming into a forestborn. I have said very cruel things. To seal my covenant with the forestborn, I killed my own aunt. I cut open her throat and I killed her. Because she was terribly wounded and I wanted to spare her, but also because I wanted to live. I killed her.”

Then was no sound but her breathing.

“For your penance,” the Bishop said finally, “say three rosaries, one for each year of your sinful life, and offer them for the people you have harmed.”

“That is not remotely enough,” she snapped.

“Do you need also to confess doubts about the power of God to forgive sins?”

“Yes,” she admitted after a few moments.

“In that case, for your penance, say only one rosary.”

Rachelle couldn’t say anything to that. Her throat was too tight with three years of unvoiced keening, and her eyes burned with unshed tears. It felt like every inch of her was raw and bleeding.

But now they were at the part of the ceremony where she wasn’t supposed to speak. The Bishop laid a hand on her head and said swiftly, “The Dayspring who bid the sin-eaters rise and walk now bids you rise from your sins. In his name and by his power I command and adjure all unclean spirits to depart from you, and I release you from every penalty of excommunication and bond of interdict, and I absolve you from all your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Dayspring and of the Paraclete. Amen.”

All of her sins, gone like that. She didn’t feel relieved or joyful; she felt dizzy and confused, and the Forest still hummed in her veins. She had groveled and begged and told the most horrible truths. And nothing had happened, except that a man who once hated her had said she was forgiven.

She opened her eyes and climbed to her feet. The Bishop was still watching her, his shoulders tense, and she realized that he still was not entirely sure she wouldn’t attack him.

And yet he had absolved her.

“Thank you,” she said.

He regarded her another moment. “I believe Mademoiselle Leblanc was right about you.” He knocked on the door, and Justine slipped back in.

“Well?” said Justine. “Reconsidered your ways?”

“The King has made an alliance with the forestborn,” Rachelle blurted out, “of whom Erec d’Anjou is one. Tonight, they’re going to awaken the Devourer by offering Armand Vareilles as a sacrifice to be possessed. I’ll try to stop them, but I don’t know if I can. Joyeuse can kill the Devourer once he’s possessing a human body again, so you have to get it out of here. If I can’t stop the sacrifice—I don’t know what they’ll do to the Château—Joyeuse has to be out of their grasp so someone can try to kill Armand. When he’s the Devourer. Did I mention, you have to get out? Also, Raoul Courtavel is locked up somewhere in the Château as a hostage against Armand Vareilles.”

The two of them stared at her a moment.

Then the Bishop said, “The Devourer is just a heathen—”

“He’s real. I’m a forestborn, I
know
. And he’s coming back tonight unless we stop him.” She squashed a sudden impulse to say,
I had a vision and the Lady of Snows told me so.
“Listen, you know what Erec d’Anjou is like. Even if you don’t believe that the Devourer is returning, believe that Erec thinks he can summon him back, and that he’ll destroy anyone who stands in his way.”

The Bishop looked at Justine. “That is something I would wager on,” she said.

“You believed in my sins,” said Rachelle. “Please. Believe me in this.”

The Bishop stared at her for a long moment. At last he said, “Very well.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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R
achelle strode down the halls of the palace. She cupped her hands, and thought,
Armand. Find him.
Mounds of tiny blue flowers glimmered in her hands; she blew on them and they spiraled up into the air where they drifted for a moment before eddying to the left.

She followed them. And she realized that she had known exactly how to use the power of the Forest to find someone. A little chill went down her spine, but she kept walking.

She had half expected some sort of dank dungeon, but the flowers led her to the east wing, where the less important nobles were housed; the hallways were narrower, and the rooms ranged from small to barely larger than a cupboard.

And then she saw the forestborn with the plump fingers standing outside a door. Again Rachelle thought,
Sleep
, and again the large, dark flowers blossomed in her hands. She took a step toward him—and he turned, his human appearance falling away as he drew his sword. The face that remained behind was human in shape, but filled with a horrible, beautiful power.

Rachelle ducked and rolled just barely in time to avoid the blade slicing off her head.
I should have known he’d sense it
, she thought, ripping her sword out of its sheath. He lunged at her again.

It felt like lightning seared down her spine. Her whole body lashed out, so fast that she didn’t even see her sword cut into his neck. But she saw the blood spurt. It seemed to take forever, and though her body was now as sluggish as cold honey, she made it arc out of the way. Blood spattered against the floor.

Then time was normal again, and she was standing by herself in the hallway, a beheaded man at her feet. She’d dodged the blood while it was flying, but now it was pooling around her boots.

Rachelle sucked in a strangled breath. Her body was shaking, but she didn’t feel afraid or disgusted; her mind was wrapped in the cold, dark calm of the Forest. She imagined that cold wrapping around her body, stilling it, and then she tried the door. It was locked, so she kicked it open and strode inside.

The room was small and completely bare except for the once gaudy, now fading red wallpaper. At the center stood Armand. And beside him, holding a knife to his throat, stood Erec.

“Good afternoon, my lady,” said Erec. “I was starting to hope you would never come.”

“What are you doing?” asked Rachelle. She couldn’t look away from the glinting
metal pressed against Armand’s throat. Such a tiny weapon, and it would take such a tiny motion to slice through the skin and let the blood come pouring out. The Forest’s dark calm couldn’t stop her from shaking anymore, because this was what the Forest did: it made her watch the people she loved die.

“You need to get better at lying,” said Erec. “I could tell you were still clinging to your human heart, and I knew you would come here to rescue him. Or are you going to claim you’re here to serve the Devourer?”

“I—”

“Don’t bother. I can see you’re tracking our kinsman’s blood into the room,” said Erec. “You’re not truly one of us yet.”

“Isn’t killing kin a forestborn specialty?” said Armand. “Shouldn’t that make her—”

Erec seized a handful of Armand’s hair and yanked his head to the side. “As for
you
,” he said, his voice low and deadly calm, “had I known what you would do to my lady, I would have cut out those pretty eyes weeks ago and sliced that clever tongue in two.”

“Stop it,” Rachelle snapped. “Stop hiding behind him and face me. Or are you afraid I’ll beat you again?”

“It’s flattering when you have eyes only for me,” said Erec, “but do please take note that you’re in no position to demand anything.”

A hand dropped onto her shoulder, burning cold. Rachelle whirled—but her arm had already gone numb, and the sword dropped from her fingers. Behind her stood three forestborn, hooded and cloaked in blue, and behind them, the Forest was fading into the wallpaper.

Her knees gave out. The nearest forestborn—the one who had touched her—caught her by the shoulders. The hood fell back from the forestborn’s face: it was a tall, dark-haired woman as lovely and lifeless as the moon.

“My son is intemperately fond of you,” she said, “but I am not.”

Rachelle tried to break free, but the last strength was leaving her body. The woman clasped her tight and sat down, laying Rachelle’s head in her lap so that she could see Armand.

And then she pressed a knife against Rachelle’s throat.

“I can’t have my lady escaping,” said Erec to Armand, “and none of us can allow
you
to escape. So here is what will happen. You have carried the shadow of our lord for six months. You already hold a little of his power, and I know you’ve learned how to use it enough to raise an image of the Forest. You are going to let one of us borrow that
power to summon the Forest itself in a ring around the Château, so that nobody can get in or out.”

Rachelle’s mouth was numb and sluggish, but she managed to say, “Don’t—”

And then the tip of the blade dug into her throat. The power that held her in place dampened most of the pain, but she could still feel the stomach-turning intrusion of metal into her throat, and the blood dribbling down her neck.

“She’ll heal from this much,” said Erec. “And from a bit more. But not if we take her head off.”

Armand’s eyes had gotten very wide. “You’re bluffing.”

“I believe you thought that when I said what would happen to anyone you told. Your mother discovered you were wrong.”

“You love her—”

“And therefore I will not let her be taken from me.”

Armand said nothing. His expression was unreadable.
He won’t
, thought Rachelle,
he can’t, he won’t—

“Such a pity,” said Erec, turning away.

“Wait!” Armand’s voice was raw and desperate. “Wait. I’ll do it. Just don’t hurt her.”

“Oh?” Erec turned back to him. “And where was this compliance when your dear mother’s life was at stake?”

Armand’s mouth pressed together.

Rachelle tried to shout,
Stop
, but between the knife and the paralysis, all she could do was make a soft choking noise. Armand shuddered and met her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

One of the other forestborn stepped forward: she had the face and the form of a fourteen-year-old girl, but an awful sense of age and power clung to her face.

“Grant me your power for this deed,” she said.

“I do,” he whispered.

And she sang, if it could be called singing: one low note, haunting and unearthly, that made Rachelle’s skin burn and shudder. She did not exactly see, but she more than felt the Forest growing up in a ring around the Château, shadows unfolding, dark flowers blossoming, ready to trick and maze and kill anyone who attempted to pass through it.

She realized that the forestborn had stopped singing, that the note had been ringing on and on in her head. The knife was gone from her neck; and she lay by herself on the floor. She blinked. Armand had gone.

That made her bolt upright. Erec caught her by the shoulder; he was the only one in the room now.

“Careful,” he said. “Our little song seems to have taken you quite strongly.”

Rachelle tried to speak, choked, and then hacked up a giant clot of blood.

“I think the knife had something to do with it,” she said afterward.

“You’ll need to take less heed of such things, if you’re going to survive as a forestborn,” he said, kneeling beside her.

“Who says I’m going to survive?” asked Rachelle.

The Forest had been summoned so quickly. The Bishop and Justine couldn’t have gotten out fast enough. Were they still hiding somewhere in the grounds of the Château, or had they been lost in the Forest itself?