“Oh no. Do not start leaking. Ismae, come over here and hug her so we can all pretend it never happened and get on with our lives.”
Ismae’s gaze meets mine as she moves away from the fire. “Of course I am amazed and admiring of all that you have been through.” When she reaches me she wraps her arms around me and holds me close. “As you say, it is all just a little overwhelming.”
“Thank you,” I whisper. As long as I know they are still my friends, as long as I know that our connection cannot be broken, I shall be fine.
Once they leave to see to their other duties, I go to stand before the fire, feeling once again as if I have been completely upended and remade anew, when in truth, I have barely caught my breath from the first time my life shattered before my eyes.
But this—this is different. This is no shattering, but rather some great knitting together of the broken pieces into a stronger whole.
I feel cleansed, not only of sin—but of artifice. I am stripped down to nothing but my raw self. As uncomfortable as it makes me feel, there is freedom in it as well, for there is no place left for others’ expectations and desires of me to hide. The worst things that I could have ever imagined have happened.
I turn and stare at my saddlebag, tossed carelessly in the corner. Slowly, I cross the room and kneel beside it. I reach in, down to the very bottom of the pack with the crumbs of hardened cheese, and retrieve the small calfskin-bound journal that I took from the abbess’s office: the Dragonette’s accounting of me, my childhood, of all the things she did to me, and all the ways I failed and showed my weakness. I have not read all of it, but I do not have to. I lived it. I remember. But I am not that child anymore. My younger self served me well, as well as any child in her circumstances could have. But I have new strengths and skills that I can rely on.
I feel the weight of the pages in my hand, the heft of the secrets and shame written there, the complexity of the ties that bind me to the convent. Then I turn and hurl the journal into the fireplace. As I watch, the orange and gold flames lick at the pages, making them curl in on themselves and shrink like a dying creature. I close my eyes, feel the heat of the fire against my face, my arms, my heart, and let those same flames burn away the last vestiges of shame and humiliation and mortification. They are simply scars now, like the silvery white marks around my waist, a path to show how far I have traveled in order to get where I am. But they are no longer who I am, if ever they were.
And with that new realization comes another—I have always loved Death. Not as a father, but as a true champion, for that is how he first came to me. He showed me a capacity for love—for acceptance—that was greater than that of any human heart I had encountered.
Even Sister Etienne, as much as she was fond of me, or perhaps even loved me, our time together was always interwoven with her need to see that I was happy. She needed me to be happy like a fish needs water to swim—and so I quickly learned to be happy when I was with her.
Mortain’s was the only love that placed no demands upon me, the only one who loved me for simply being. His love was as unwavering and constant as the sun. It was what gave me the strength to keep going. The faith to keep trying. The hope I needed to persevere. That was him all along—whether I called him Mortain or Balthazaar, my heart knew him, recognized him.
Filled with this new awareness, I leave the room and begin making my way to the battlements. He never saw my love as a flaw or a weakness, but instead accepted it, letting it flow into him like a stream tumbling across parched earth.
I eased his dreadful aloneness as much as he eased mine, and I welcomed that feeling, that I had something to give him in return.
Is that not as good a reason to love someone as any? Is that not, in fact, at the very root of why anyone loves another?
As I reach the landing and shove open the heavy door, I have another flash of understanding. On some level, the Dragonette saw all this. She saw the special connection I shared with our god and that was why she punished and shamed me. Not because she did not believe me, but because my seeing him set me apart from her made me special in my own way rather than by her efforts.
I walk to the far end of the catwalk, my head so full of this jumble of thoughts that I do not even see Mortain standing against the battlement until I nearly plow into him. He puts his hand out to steady me.
“My lord! I am sorry. I did not see you. Normally, you are lurking in the corners or skulking in the shadows, not standing in plain sight.”
His mouth quirks, ever so slightly. “I never skulk, and lurk only sometimes.”
I shoot him a disbelieving glance, then join him at the parapet, looking out over the eastern part of the city, past the wall to the fields below. “The French army will be here tomorrow,” I tell him. “The day after, at the latest.”
He pulls his gaze from the darkened streets and fields and turns it upon me. “I know. I can feel it, all those souls loosening from their bodies in preparation for their imminent deaths, like so much wheat making ready to loosen from the sheath. She has lost already, you know. Your duchess.”
Although he says nothing I do not already know, it is hard to hear it from the lips of a god. “I know. She knows. We all know.” I look up and study his profile, which is as still and calm as the stone beneath my hand. “Can you see what will come to pass? Do you know what will happen?”
He gives a single shake of his head. “No, for I am not all-seeing. Only Death is my realm, and I know well enough when it is near.”
“Do you know who among us will live and who will die?” I cannot help but think of Duval and Beast, of stalwart Captain Dunois, trying to turn a fractious, undisciplined group of mercenaries into a cadre of men who can withstand a siege. I think of the duchess and wonder if they will let her live. And what of us? Those who serve the old gods, the convent? Will we be punished for our role in helping her?
“Not yet. It is too soon. And even once the marque is upon someone, it is not a guarantee of death. There are too many variables, many of which I do not control. It is only when one of my daughters serves within my grace that I am able to exert some small portion of control on things.”
Suddenly, he turns to me, his eyes burning. “You could come with me,” he says. “Come to the Underworld and be my queen.” Even as I gape in shock at this invitation, he shakes his head and turns away to look back out over the countryside. “No.” His voice is heavy with despair. “It would only force you to share my prison with me, and I will not subject you to that.”