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“It means I need to leave.”

“No.” She shook her head. “What do we need to do? If you leave, I leave with you.”

“élise, I can’t protect you. I can’t protect a ten-year-old boy, a king, a queen.

And a sorceress tied me to them. How am I supposed to protect you across the country?

Across all of Europe?” He threw his hands up, letting lifetimes of pent-up anguish escape.

“It’s all futile anyway. Centuries! Centuries of service—all for what? Nothing!” He jolted up.

“Everyone dies,” he yelled, his voice hardening with every word. “But not me. No! I’m forced to watch while the world crumbles.” His hands curled into fists, his knuckles white. “For what? What has any of this been for?”

He screamed at the ceiling and summoned the sorceress to answer.

“Witch! You cursed me with this hollow life! Was it mercy—or punishment? Did you know what it would do to me?” His voice cracked as he threw a chair across the room, the splintering wood echoing his torment.

“I have paid my price and my debt. Release me!” he yelled and kicked the table over.

The silence that followed was deafening. A splintered leg of the chair rolled to a stop at élise’s feet.

Rollant’s breath heaved. His hands shook. He had faced battlefields and betrayals, but never had he felt this lost.

The sofa creaked as she stood and took a cautious step toward him. “Rollant,” she whispered.

He looked at her then—the fear flickering behind her eyes.

And it broke him.

His knees hit the floor. He loosened the collar of his shirt and sat back on his heels with a shaky breath. He palmed his face to calm himself. “I am sorry, élise.” He couldn’t bring himself to look upon her after his outburst. “I . . .” His voice trailed off.

She sniffled, and it crushed his heart. He had scared her and the guilt for doing such a thing was more than he could bear.

“I don’t deserve you,” he whispered, wiping his face, not realizing tears ran freely down his cheeks.

“Your curses don’t define you, Rollant.” Her voice was smooth and soft like the most decadent silk. She kneeled beside him. Her arm wrapped around his waist as her other hand gripped his and brought it to her lips.

“You call it pointless,” she said softly.

“But would Louis Charles have died afraid if you hadn’t been there?

Would he have died alone? Would I have survived the Revolution or Gabin if you hadn’t found me at the bakery?

Would Hugo and the others have all met their fate at the guillotine?

Rollant, your life isn’t meaningless. You’ve saved more than you know. ”

She pulled his head into her chest until he laid his ear to her lap and let the years’ worth of suppressed guilt, anger, and loss run down his face as a stream of tears.

She bent over and kissed his temple as she crooned, “The choices you’ve made because of your curses define you.

And those choices show me who you are—a man worth fighting for, a man worth my love and my life. ”

He brought her fingers to his lips. “What would I do without you, élise?” He brushed her off, not believing his worth.

“You’re not hearing me,” she said and turned his face to hers. “There is more to life than your duty to the crown; for once, consider what you want for yourself. Not for me, not for the king, not for France. For you.”

They locked eyes, and he swallowed hard. His brow furrowed. “For me?”

She nodded.

He caressed her hand. “I just want a simple life with you right here in Charonne. I want children and grandchildren, and when we are old, I wish to die together.”

“You are my home,” she whispered.

“And you are mine.”

It was then that Rollant realized loving and losing are part of what it means to be human and that he had shut himself off from both for far too long.

“Then maybe we stay here for a while and see what becomes of the new king,” she said, threading her fingers through his hair and brushing away his tears. “And in the meantime, if you want to, an orphaned girl is still at the Temple.”

“Marie-Thérèse,” Rollant whispered the royal daughter’s name.

élise nodded. “She has lost everything, Rollant. She is a victim of circumstance, just as her brother was. You’re the only one she has left.”

Rollant closed his eyes, letting the memory of élise’s fingers through his hair imprint upon him.

“She deserves a chance,” he said, his voice steadier now. “And I’ve spent too long letting this duty dictate my life. If I can’t leave it behind, maybe I can reshape it. On my terms.”

élise kissed his brow.

“She is not in danger, and I believe most have forgotten she is there,” he continued. “I can take fewer days at the Temple and be with you most of the week. And I promised the former king I would watch over his family,” he said.

“And you are a man of your word,” she said with a smile.

He grinned as he stared up at her. “The exiled king can wait,” he said. He exhaled, a breath so deep it felt like centuries of sorrow peeled away.

For the first time since he began training as a knight, his duty did not feel like a chain around his neck or the weight of a servant’s pierced ear. His new path had not been forced upon him. It was something he chose.