Armand looked around the hall. He seemed to be measuring up the people around him and finding them just barely sufficient. “The King had Raoul Courtavel imprisoned in the Château as a hostage against me. I will require some guards to free him.”
Vincent spluttered, clutching at the fragments of command. “You can’t just—”
“I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake, monsieur.” La Fontaine was approaching them with a set of palace guards at her back. “Last week, our dear, late king made a will that legitimized Prince Raoul and named him heir. I saw him sign it. I have the documents.”
“You’re lying.”
“I also,” la Fontaine continued pleasantly, halting just a step away from him, “have proof that you conspired to assassinate your cousin Armand Vareilles. And the captain of the guard believes me.” She smiled. “I would advise you not to land that blow, monsieur.”
Vincent hastily lowered his hand, his gaze flickering from side to side. He had clearly never considered that anyone would seriously contest him so quickly—especially not Armand or la Fontaine—so he had brought no supporters with him. He tried a smile; it looked rather sickly.
“I’m afraid,” he said, “that grief for my uncle has caused you to start engaging in wild fantasies—forging a will in my uncle’s name—”
And here came the Bishop, his dark cassock swinging. “I have seen the documents,” he said. “I am satisfied.”
Rachelle wondered if anyone else noticed that he hadn’t said the documents were genuine.
It didn’t matter. She could see it in the faces of the guards, of the nobles gathered around them. The Bishop and la Fontaine had helped save their lives last night. Armand was their saint. They trusted them now.
“Think what you want,” said Armand. “I’m going to free my brother and my king.”
He strode away without looking back. And so, of course, the guards and Rachelle and la Fontaine followed him. Vincent stayed behind, his mouth hanging open.
He would never be able to command anyone who had stood in the Hall of Mirrors this morning. Rachelle took a vicious pleasure in the knowledge.
Armand led them through little-used corridors to a set of small, lightless rooms. Rachelle knew them: Erec had shown them to her, and told her that they were for keeping prisoners. He hadn’t told her who was held captive behind the most well-guarded of the doors.
There were no guards now. Rachelle wondered if they had been given orders to kill their prisoners if things went wrong, and if they had obeyed those orders. But Armand strode forward as if doubt and fear belonged in another world and had no power to touch him. He had always been desperately, terrifyingly human to her, but now she could see why people bowed before him and called him saint.
“This one,” said Armand, halting in front of a door.
The guards broke it down on his command. And on the other side—there was Raoul Courtavel. Rachelle might not have recognized the tall man with the ragged beard. But when he pulled Armand into a desperate, wordless embrace, there was no mistaking him.
This was why Armand had led an armed rebellion. When Rachelle had killed his followers, this was what she had nearly destroyed.
She turned away, feeling sick. She found la Fontaine looking at her, no pride or courtly polish left anywhere in her face.
“Thank you,” said la Fontaine, looking straight into her eyes, and the words sounded more sincere than anything la Fontaine had ever said to her.
Rachelle knew she didn’t deserve them.
36
For the next two days, Rachelle was beside Armand almost every moment. And she barely said a word to him.
She knew why he kept her close, and she was desperately, stupidly thankful. Everyone knew her as one of the King’s bloodbound, as the friend—or mistress—of Erec d’Anjou. By making sure that everyone saw her as his trusted bodyguard, Armand was freeing her of suspicion. Nobody knew exactly what she had done the night of the summer solstice—neither she nor Armand had provided many details—but everyone knew that she had helped the saint to vanquish his foes.
Unlike all the other bloodbound, she would be loved forever after. It was a debt she could never repay.
One of the many, many debts.
Something held Armand back from speaking to her during the few, scattered moments when they were alone together. Rachelle didn’t speak either, because she didn’t have the right.
She’d had his love, if it had really been love. He had kissed her and said that he loved her, but he had thought he would be dead within days. It had been impossible for him to have any intention of sharing his life with her. And since then, she had thrown him away, killed his followers, slept with the man who had maimed him—and saved his life and mattered enough to be used as a hostage against him, but that wasn’t love. Exactly. Maybe.
Now Armand was not only going to live, he was the favorite half brother of the new king. He could have anything that he wanted, and if he didn’t want Rachelle . . . after the way she had treated him, it was only fair.
A lot of things were fair: the strange, uneasy looks that she got from most people in the Château, who didn’t know whether to fear or honor her. The dull heaviness and infuriating weakness of her body, now that she was fully human again. The loneliness of standing next to Armand and saying nothing.
Just because things were fair, didn’t make them easy.
Amélie went home on the second day. Rachelle wanted to beg her to stay, but she couldn’t, because she had held Amélie when she woke up sobbing the night before. She deserved a chance to go home to her mother.
“I am not leaving you forever and ever,” said Amélie, glowering as she fussed with the clothes in her trunk. “Even if you try to leave me. I will hunt you down and find you.” She snapped the lid of the trunk down. “I can do it. You’re not so much stronger than me, now. So stop looking that way.”
Rachelle choked on a laugh. “You were always stronger.”
“You,” said Amélie, “were always foolish enough to think that mattered.” For a few moments, she studied Rachelle, her mouth puckered. “Don’t leave me,” she said quietly. “Promise you’ll come visit.”
Rachelle let out a shaky breath. Amélie’s determination was like solid ground beneath her feet after she’d spent days falling.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll come, I promise.”