Page 53

Dawn

I drag Aimé-Victor Augier through the dense woodland, ignoring his feeble struggling and muffled cries for help.

“No one is going to come for you, princeling,” I snarl at him, slackening my grip on his collar as he stumbles over a log. “They’re all fast, fast asleep.”

“Please,” he whispers brokenly, and I refuse to look him in the face, to see the tear tracks on his cheeks. “Please don’t do this. After everything… I trusted you. We all did.”

The last words hit me like a fist in the gut, and I flinch. Aimé notices and gives a brittle, agonized laugh. “So there is some humanity still left in you. Please, Odile, you—”

“Shut up!” I snarl, unable to take his sniveling anymore. With all my force, I shove him through the tree line.

Aimé crashes to his knees on the uneven, muddy earth of the lakeside, right at the feet of a black-cloaked figure in a feathered mask.

“You delivered on your promise,” Regnault says delightedly.

Aimé drags in a ragged breath as he recognizes the sorcier.

He tries desperately to get to his feet, an act made difficult by the rope binding his wrists securely behind his back.

I sneer as I watch him struggle. Ahead, a cold wind sends the lake waters rippling, harsh and accusatory.

The fog is thin today, eddying around the decaying dock and blurring out the grimy orange dawn smeared overhead.

It makes Regnault, with the Couronne du Roi gleaming in his hair, look all the more menacing, all the more mythological, as he bears down on the Dauphin.

I have to force my eyes away from the crown. “I hope this makes up for my mistakes,” I say to my father.

Regnault glances at me, his eyes lightless. “Almost,” he says, and then cocks his head at Aimé, birdlike and malevolent. Aimé tries to move away, but he only loses his balance and falls onto his back, meeting the mud with a squelch.

“Little tarasque,” Regnault croons at him. “Fooled into capture, just like the creature you carry on your banners.” He reaches down and seizes Aimé’s jaw. “How I will enjoy watching you bleed out at my feet.”

“Careful,” I caution Regnault as Aimé begins to tremble. “Those ropes will not hold if he turns into the beast again.”

Regnault gives me a knowing look and pulls a dagger from his belt.

“You think I did not come prepared?” he asks, letting me see the sticky yellow substance coating the blade—more of the Sorcier’s Bane potion, I realize, like the one the Step-Queen stabbed me with.

With a snick, he sheathes it once more. “I must wonder—how did you manage to capture this one?” He points his chin at Aimé.

There’s true suspicion in the question, barely veiled. “Was he alone?”

“He was with his guard and intended. I drugged them.” I bare my teeth. “Still had some of those herbs I tried to use on you and failed.”

“Impressive,” he says, but his eyes are flinty, cutting into me and through me. “I have one more mission for you to prove your loyalty.”

“And what is that?” I demand, holding his gaze.

“Once we are in the temple, you will be the one to kill the Dauphin.”

Aimé whimpers miserably. “No. You can’t. Odile, please, don’t do this.”

I give him a pitying look before turning back to Regnault. My heart aches, but I say the words without hesitation. “Whatever you ask of me, Papa.”

Regnault’s gaze softens, and I feel truly wretched. He does love me, I realize. It is a twisted love, a self-serving love, perhaps the only way he knows how to give love at all. But it is love. And some part of me still craves it, despite everything.

“I am glad you came to your senses, little owl,” Regnault says sincerely. “Come, it’s time.” He looks toward the lake before reaching down and seizing Aimé by the arm. The Dauphin cries out as Regnault hauls him to his feet, and my heart clenches.

No, I tell myself. Don’t pity him. You’re the villain, this one last time.

I follow Regnault onto the dock, the brittle wood bobbing under our feet and sending frantic ripples across the lake.

He stops at the very end and releases Aimé’s arm, then extends his hand over the lake.

He traces spell-thread after spell-thread, his face set hard in concentration.

I watch in morbid fascination as he spins a thick cobweb of magic.

Finally he lowers his hand.

For an instant nothing happens. Aimé turns wide, anxious eyes to me, and I throw him a quick wink, trying to appear confident.

Then the lake shrieks.

It’s a sound like claws drawn over stone, like the scrape of a whetstone over a sword.

The formerly placid black waters of Lac des Cygnes begin to bubble and churn, sloshing and rising up in great waves.

On the far bank, the flock of swans startles and takes to the air one by one, fleeing the awakening lake.

At the very end of the dock, the water begins to swirl.

It whirls and whirls until there is a narrow, dark tunnel leading from the dock under the water’s surface, plunging into the lake’s belly.

Uneasiness fills me. The tunnel is too steep to walk down, the walls formed of restless, swirling water—we will have to jump in and slide through it.

And all it would take is for Regnault to cast another spell for those walls to close in again, drowning us all.

So I can’t give him the chance.

“Now!” I shout, unsheathing a dagger from my sleeve.

A figure leaps from the trees, nacreous wings spreading with such force that they rattle the treetops.

Diving like an arrow, Marie slams into Regnault, sending him toppling.

As soon as she does, I run to Aimé and slash his bonds before turning back to Regnault and Marie.

Regnault loses his balance, his back smashing into the dock—the Couronne slips off his head and falls onto the wood with a metallic clang.

Regnault scrabbles for it, but Marie is faster.

She seizes the crown and tosses it to Aimé—just as a hulking golden shape slams into her, sending them both crashing into the bulrushes that surround the dock.

“Marie!” I scream as one of the metal tarasques from the chapel pins her under the water. Regnault scoffs, wiping a trickle of golden blood from his nose. “Did you really think I would come to greet you without reinforcements?” he asks.

“Did you think we wouldn’t?” I reply, seething.

That’s when the first gunshot rings out.

Regnault stumbles, snarling in pain, as the shot nicks his arm.

I seize the moment to spring forward, a knife at the ready.

Before he can recover, I run it firmly across his leg, golden blood gushing across the blade.

Nausea fills me at the sight, but I don’t have time to feel guilty as another gunshot ricochets from the shell of the tarasque, the sound echoing over the lake.

It does little damage, but it’s enough to distract the creature and allow Marie to come up for air, beating her wings desperately against the water.

“Go!” she shouts at Aimé and me.

“Guards, protect Marie!” Aimé commands. At his cry, the guardsmen step out from the tree line, muskets raised and swords drawn, Damien at their head.

The tarasque whirls upon them, uttering a shrill cry; there comes an answering screech from nearby, and the second tarasque charges out, barreling into the guardsmen.

Chaos breaks out. I want to run to Marie, to protect her, but a hand seizes me from behind. I turn to meet Aimé’s eyes. He shakes his head minutely.

“We have to go.”

I know he’s right, but it doesn’t make it any less difficult to turn my back—to leave behind my brother and my lover and my injured father.

But I have to do this.

Aimé takes one of my hands in his, the other clutching the Couronne to his chest. Together we jump into Lac des Cygnes.