Page 44

Resolve of the Broken

The house was dark when he arrived in the late evening.

He hadn’t anticipated it would feel so alive.

He heard light footsteps within. Though he hadn’t seen élise, her presence permeated the surroundings: the garden, though wilting, showed traces of her attention, and a dress was drying on a line by the house, and chopped firewood stood stacked by the door.

Her life had grown in his short absence, though he wanted to be a part of it.

Maybe Hugo had taken his place. He hoped for it but hated it.

The thought of Hugo taking her hand knotted in his chest, but it had to be.

At least she was flourishing and would only grow at home more. It gave his bittersweet thoughts peace.

The mare nudged him as he led her into the stable as if wanting him to return to his home. But he stroked her neck and whispered, “I wish I could.” He patted her mane. “For a few nights, though, might I be your bunkmate? If you’ll have me, of course.”

The mare pawed the ground and nodded her head with a snort.

Rollant stroked the underside of her muzzle.

“I appreciate you,” he said, putting her up for the night in one of the two stalls.

As a token of his gratitude, he gave her a nice big carrot from his bag before making his bed of hay in the other stall.

The stable remained silent, interrupted only by the rhythmic swish of the mare’s tail against the wooden walls.

Lying in the shadows on a bed of hay with a belly satiated with dried venison and berries, Rollant rubbed the sweat off his brow.

The heat of July, thick in the air, made the cramped space feel oppressive.

His eyes wandered to the small home, visible through the wooden slats.

The moon illuminated the roof line. élise’s smile rose in memory.

The way she moved in his shirt. He closed his eyes and pushed that dangerous memory away.

He envisioned her inside the back room, asleep with the fire subdued for the night, maybe dreaming of him as he dreamt of her.

No. Not him. Hugo. ”She dreams of Hugo,” he muttered.

A sigh escaped. He hadn’t planned to return to Charonne, and yet there he was. He longed to see her face once more and hold her in his arms, but the latter was a futile wish. It was all futile.

It was foolish to be there, mere paces away from her, hiding like a thief under the dark veil of night. His gaze fixed again on the silhouette of the house. A budding light in the back room cast a moving shadow against the window. élise was preparing the bedroom hearth.

Knowing she was thriving, safe within the walls of his old home, should have been enough for him. But each pulse of Rollant’s heart betrayed him and rippled reminders of the ache that had grown unbearable since he’d left her behind.

“Lord God, heal my heart,” he muttered his first prayer in ages as the weight of his eternal curse pressed down on his chest. The stifling July air swallowed his voice as he doubted his divine creator would even listen to such a man as him.

The mare shifted in her stall as if mirroring his unease.

He reached out and ran his fingers along the worn leather of the saddle he’d propped against the wall as a pillow.

This was where he belonged—in shadows, in transit, never lingering long enough to disrupt the lives of others.

The ache was too great to endure for eternity.

A silhouette crossed the light—a figure he would know anywhere. His heart raced. She paused, her hand brushing the curtain aside as if sensing something beyond the glass.

He froze, his hand hovering over the saddle. His heart quickened, torn between the yearning to see her and the instinct to remain hidden. Rollant pressed his back against the hay, his breath shallow. Did she feel his presence?

“No,” he whispered, shaking his head. “She’s only checking for the night,” he mumbled.

The curtain fell back, and her silhouette vanished. The light in the window flickered once more before fading dim, as did his heartbeat.

Relief and regret warred within him. She hadn’t seen him, hadn’t come searching. Yet, that small part of him, the selfish part he despised, had wanted her to sense him, find him. To step into the stable and confront him, to demand answers he couldn’t give.

He ran a hand through his hair, damp with sweat. His promise to himself to keep his distance was as fragile as the hay beneath him. But he knew what he had to do.

Over the next few days, he would venture into Paris, fulfilling his duty to the king and staying in the unused, unattended stable each night.

He would confirm whatever chaos was sure to ensue and deliver the reports as expected.

Perhaps it would distract him from the pull of élise, the magnetic force that quickened his pulse.

But for tonight, he allowed himself to linger on the edge of her world, a silent shadow among the hay.

He closed his eyes, daring to dream—not of the eternity that stretched ahead of him but of a fleeting life that might have been, a life where her fire warmed more than the corners of his imagination.

* * *

The early morning sun crept through the cracks, and the slight change in darkness forced Rollant’s eyes to slits. The crick in his neck sent a painful wave rippling through his back. He sat up and massaged the crick out of his neck with a sigh.

He hopped up and set to work. After he’d poured water and shoveled hay for his bunkmate, he slipped out of Charonne before the rooster crowed and any prying eyes were out in the fields.

The clatter sounded louder as he approached Paris, as if the very threads of the city itself were unwoven.

Not taking any chances of running into Gabin, he went north once he entered the city walls into the district of Popincourt.

Anger crackled in the air like thunder after a lightning strike.

The feeder roads allowed him to see what took place on the main streets, and so that was where he stayed and observed the storm brewing like the pelting rain before the flood.

He did not want to stay in one place too long and risk anyone asking questions.

So he cut over to Le Marais and Les Halles before heading south to Bastille.

Every district was the same: mobs gathered in the streets, spewing hate for the king in dismissing Jacques Necker.

They rioted and tore into the wealthy’s homes and businesses, parading busts of the former minister and shouting curses against the monarchy.

Nothing surprised him. It was all as he had expected.

He’d come back for another few days and see the people settled, but given the tensions and centuries of abuse, he felt the tides turning.

These people had their children out, destroying property and stealing from the slightly better off.

He wasn’t sure when their backs would break, but it seemed Necker’s dismissal had fractured the spine of the Third Estate.

As he turned north toward Popincourt to avoid Faubourg Saint-Antoine, a voice he knew too well caught his ear. He stopped mid-stride and turned to see if his ears had betrayed him.

élise stood on an overturned crate, her fiery gaze sweeping the gathered workers and tradespeople as she spoke. Her audience cheered.

Desire and dread clashed in his chest. She had promised to remain in Charonne, away from the growing chaos in the city, but it was clear her fire would not allow her to stay. Paris called to her, and she had answered.

She spoke with conviction, denouncing the injustices that had driven Paris to the brink of self-implosion.

“The time for waiting is over,” she boomed. “The king dismisses the one minister who dared to listen to us, who dared pull back the curtain on the royal treasury, who dared reveal the filthy liars and fat pigs who sat on us and lied, saying, ‘We are all starving.’”

The crowd roared in agreement.

Pride and apprehension filled his heart as he listened to her and watched the light in her eyes flame. Her words held power, but power was dangerous.

He glanced at the King’s Guard Regiment, scanning the crowd, likely searching for the most egregious offenders.

Yet they did nothing. The shadows of the Bastille loomed over the mob, as if the king was about to squash their revolt with the five thousand royal soldiers encamped on the Champ de Mars. Still, the troops did nothing.

élise’s voice rose as the soldiers did as ordered: nothing.

“The king commands military force to subdue us, to take back the National Assembly at Versailles. He will oppress us not! We shall take it back!”

The audience chanted with her, “Take it back! Take it back!”

He lingered at the edge, keeping to the shadows, hoping the guards would not find her speech “egregious.”

Rollant kept a steady distance as élise wove through the chaos.

He did not let her out of his sight. She moved north to Le Marais with purpose.

Her fire and beauty drew people to her like moths to a lantern.

Embers of revolution remained in her footsteps.

Stolen pamphlets leaked from her arms as she slipped them to workers and tradespeople.

Rollant singled out her voice as the riot’s racket faded in his ears.

“The Bastille still stands; its walls are a prison for our voices!” élise shouted, her words igniting shouts of agreement in the crowd. “Will we let them silence us, or will we make them listen?”

Rollant’s chest tightened. The city was an inferno waiting for a single spark, and élise was a match.

He watched from the side streets trailing her as the shadows of the crowds grew bolder, louder.

He had seen this city change over the last year, and élise transform from a passionate speaker into a revolutionary leader.

The girl who had once sought justice now stood at the heart of the chaos.