Crimson Bound (26 page)

“You,” she said furiously, and then Armand looked up at her half grinning, half fearful. Memory sliced through her chest: Marc, her little brother, one morning when they were supposed to be gathering up the eggs carefully for Mother. They’d started tossing the eggs instead, and when Marc threw one too hard and it cracked against her hand, he’d looked at her just like that.

The forestborn had marked her the next day.

She stooped swiftly, grabbed an egg from among the straw, and threw it at Armand. He got his hand up in time: the egg crunched against the metal of his palm. He rocked backward with a laugh.

“What is wrong with you?” asked Rachelle.

He looked at the egg dripping down his hand. “I was wondering if you would snap and kill me.”

His voice was light, but with a strange alertness. And Rachelle felt like she had been kicked in the gut as she realized that he meant it.

“What is
wrong
with you?” she repeated.

“No talent for survival, but you already knew that.” He rubbed his hand awkwardly in the hay. “That will take a while to clean off.”

Rachelle knelt beside him, grabbed a handful of hay, and started wiping away egg. “Did you really think I might kill you?” she asked quietly.

He went still. Then he looked up at her and said, “You’re angry, but you’re never vicious. You’ve been kind to me, and I’m very grateful. I don’t think you would kill me unless you received orders.”

“An assassin.” Her voice was thick and rough in her throat. She shouldn’t have felt betrayed, and yet she did. “You think I’m an assassin.”

“Isn’t that what all the bloodbound are?” His voice was very quiet. “People speak out against the King and then they vanish. Everyone knows how it works.”

“I have
never
done that.”

“Have you?”

“No, damn you, I have
begged
Erec to keep me away from those missions, and if you don’t think that was a sacrifice, you haven’t ever owed him a favor. I hunt woodspawn. I save the lives people like you are too weak to protect. That’s all.”

“But you are the King’s bloodbound,” he went on quietly, relentlessly. “You serve him and support his rule, even if you let the other bloodbound kill for you and be your sin-eaters.”

“
You
support his rule,” she snapped. “And wear silks and live in palaces because of it.”

“So now I’m not a prisoner? That’s lovely. Do you mind if I get up and leave now?”

Rachelle was drawing her hand back to strike him before she even knew what she was doing. Then she saw him bracing himself. Feeling sick, she dropped her hands. How had they come to this so quickly?

“You know what I am,” she said. “You knew when we were in my village and you said—” She couldn’t force the words out. “I have saved your life
how
many times now, and you still don’t trust me?”

“You’ve said how many times that it’s only because I’m useful?”

He did have a point there.

“Why are you so desperate to hate me?” she asked quietly. “Why
now
?”

His mouth tightened and he looked away from her. Then he said quietly, “Because I am terrified to trust you.” He let out a shaky laugh. “I was ready for any kind of jailer but you.”

And the worst thing was, she understood. She had told him, right from the start, that she was a bloodbound and dangerous, that she was his jailer and didn’t want to protect him. He was only trying to listen to her. And yet now—even now, he was biting his lip and looking sideways at her.

“You shouldn’t trust me,” she said. “You shouldn’t.”

He looked suddenly distressed. “Rachelle—”

“Do you know who was the woodwife who trained me, whom I killed to save my own life? She was my aunt. I loved her more than my own mother. She told me and she
told
me to be careful in the woods, but I thought I was clever enough to speak with a forestborn and outwit him. So he marked me. And I was too scared and ashamed to tell her until the last day, and when I did— When I finally ran to her for help, the forestborn had gotten there first.”

Then her throat closed up, and for a moment she couldn’t speak. She had spent so long trying so hard not to think of that day, but the memories were as sharp as ever and they shredded through her.

“He took his time. There was blood everywhere.” She could smell it even now, and her stomach roiled. “Do you know, when people are cut up enough, they don’t look human anymore? They look like . . . like dolls that were sewn by a monster. But she was still alive. She
saw
me, and she whimpered.

“Then the forestborn said he’d found a worthy sacrifice for me. I couldn’t move. He said this was the bargain I had made, and she whimpered again. He said he could make her live for days longer if he wanted. I would die screaming of the mark and her agony would go on and on before he let her die. Or I could kill her quickly and live.

“So I did.” Rachelle clenched her teeth for a moment, then went on, “She still tried to
escape. Do you see this scar?” She held up her hand, showing him the tiny white mark in her palm. “She stabbed me in the hand with a needle—he’d found her making charms; there was thread everywhere—but she was so weak. And so horrible. I couldn’t bear to look at her. I hated her the way you hate a spider when you’re killing it. I cut her throat and I hated her for being hurt by me.”

She dared to look at him then. Armand looked steadily back at her, his eyes solemn, and said nothing.

“Well?” she demanded. “What are you going to say? It’s all right because at least I tried to resist? Everyone tries to be good until it stops being convenient!”

“No—”

“Or are you going to tell me it was a kindness to kill her? That it wasn’t so bad, because at least I ended her suffering? I was there. I know
exactly
how bad it was, and not all the suffering in the world could make it right.”

She realized her eyes were stinging, and she scraped at them with the back of her hand.

“No,” said Armand after a moment. “It’s not all right. You should have died first.”

She had been dreading those words. She had expected they would break her. But instead, she only choked on a laugh as her hand clenched around the scar. “If I ever want to be driven to despair, I’ll go straight to you.”

“If I’d said you’d done right, you would have throttled me,” he said.

“I thought you didn’t have any talent for survival.”

“Maybe you’re teaching me.”

“And what do you want to teach me?” she asked wearily. “I already know I ought to be dead.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” said Armand. “What good would that do?”

“At least then I’d get what I deserved. Like your precious Bishop says.”

“You know,” said Armand, “my mother used to say that if we all got what we deserved, we’d all be dead. And yet somehow God refrains from smiting us. Whatever you ought to have done then, dying won’t undo it now. And I’m glad I got to meet you.”

“You,” said Rachelle, “are insane.”

“You,” he said, “are not the first one to tell me that. And one more thing. I don’t believe you’re damned.”

“Then what am I?”

He let out a breath. “I think . . . you are not content. You have power and beauty and
strength that others could only dream of. You could be immortal. But you are never content. Not when you’re at the center of the court and not when you’re riding with the Wild Hunt and not when you’re cutting down your enemies with a sword. So you cannot be damned.”

Her throat tightened. It was unfair—it was absolutely unfair that his voice could make her heart beat with jagged, idiotic hope.

“Pretty words,” she said. “But a bit heretical. I don’t recall hearing that any of the damned were content.”

“They’re content to stay in their sins.” He grinned at her, and it felt like there was no space or barrier at all between them, like his smile was happening inside her heart. Without meaning to at all, she smiled back.

They were both fools, perhaps.

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A
s soon as the sun set, they slipped back down to the wine cellar. Rachelle laid her hands on the floor, and the door appeared before them.

Armand got to his feet. “So how do we use the charm?”

“Normally we’d hang it over somebody’s bed.” She pulled out the charm, which had been hung like a scarf around her neck. “Or we would if this were a regular sleep charm. I suppose instead we throw it over the lindenworm’s coils.”

“That sounds strangely easy,” said Armand.

“Well . . . this sort of charm needs to be awakened.”

“And that means?”

“A lot of things that I spent years learning. But what it comes down to is that I have to
hold the charm in place and concentrate for a moment.” And now that she was saying it out loud, her heart was finally starting to pick up speed.

“While the two heads try to bite you?” Armand asked dubiously.

“Last time it took a moment to wake up. As long as I awaken the charm faster, we’ll be all right.” Rachelle hoped that the words didn’t sound as stupid to him as they did to her.

Armand shrugged. “Well, I don’t suppose it will be the craziest thing I’ve ever done.” He pulled back his sleeve with his teeth. Rachelle shifted the charm to her left hand and drew her sword.

The door swung in. Darkness fell.

Instantly Rachelle lunged forward, flinging the charm while clinging to one end. She let herself feel the soft fibers against her skin, and inside her mind she
reached
as she tried to awaken the charm. For one moment she had it—she could feel the power humming through the charm—

Then she remembered the way Aunt Léonie had smiled at her the first time she managed it, and the way she had shuddered when Rachelle laid the knife against her throat, and the power was gone.

Four eyes opened.

There was no time to think, only move. Rachelle drew her sword and slashed, cutting off the nearest head, then dodged to the side and tried to cut off the other. But she moved at the wrong angle; her sword only got halfway into the creature’s neck and got stuck. The lindenworm screamed and reared up, tearing the sword from her hands—and then the other head was already grown back and surging toward her.

Rachelle ducked just in time. At least she still had a hold on the sleep charm.

“Armand!” she shouted. “Distract it!”

She didn’t noticed if he did or not; all her attention was on the lindenworm’s two swaying heads—and her sword, stuck in its neck. When the head with the sword lunged at her, she was ready. She rolled to the side, grabbed the sword, and wrenched it free. The next moment, she had sliced off the head, but the other was hurtling toward her—

Armand flung himself at the other head, hitting it right where the neck began and throwing his arms around it. “Do it!” he yelled.

Rachelle grabbed the charm, ducked as the head lunged at her, slammed her sword into the neck and down, pinning it to the floor. The lindenworm bucked and writhed beneath her, but she was pressing the charm against its neck and trying, trying,
trying
to
awaken it—

And the charm sang in her mind, and the lindenworm went slack beneath her. Its eyes were still open, but the glow had dimmed; when she looked closer, she saw that the pale film of its inner eyelids had slid across its eyes.

It looked like the creature could still see her. But when she waved her hands in front of its nose, it didn’t move. She kicked it lightly in the head, and all that happened was that its scaled outer eyelids finally shut.

Rachelle’s breath shuddered out of her. She thought,
I really did it. I’m still alive.

Then she remembered what Armand had done. She looked up.

There was more light now, she realized: torches blazed on the walls, as if celebrating the lindenworm’s defeat. But she couldn’t see Armand anywhere, just the vast tangle of the lindenworm’s body, scales gleaming in the torchlight.

“Armand?” she shouted, climbing over the body. “Where are you?” Her heart pounded because if he was dead—if he was dead—

“Here.” His voice was muffled. “I’m a little tied up.”

And then Rachelle saw a foot sticking out from under the lindenworm’s coils.

“Buried, more like,” she said, her voice shaky with relief, and she set about untangling him. He was still gripping the lindenworm’s other head; it jiggled when she started to pull him free, and in an instant she had her sword drawn.

“I think it’s asleep,” said Armand, letting go of the head.

Rachelle sheathed her sword. “I know that,” she said. “But you, what were you
thinking
?”

“That it was going to bite you and then we’d both be dead?”

“You’re an idiot.”

“You are not the first to tell me that.” He smiled, and it felt like ground glass in her chest, because she was sure he had smiled like that at his forestborn, and he would smile like that every other time he tried to do the right thing. And she knew what happened to good people, from the Dayspring right on down to Aunt Léonie.