“What are you doing?” Tristan, in my ear again.
My head cleared slightly. This game is mine to play, Captain. And it will require no bloodshed. “Let me down,” I whispered back. “Please, Captain. Trust me, I beg of you.”
“What if he—”
“Tristan, please.” I did not raise my voice. But he stilled as if I had shouted. “They do not wish a battle any more than we do. If I overmatch this man in wits, there’s no shame in losing to a d’mselle in the woods. Twill be out of a tale, and we shall go our way.”
A long pause, during which the bright-eyed bandit folded his arms and regarded us. I could not be certain, but I thought I sensed a smile on his weather-darkened face.
Stiffly, Tristan dismounted. I half-fell from the saddle into his hands, but he lifted me down so lightly it looked as if I had planned it. He set me on my feet, yet his touch lingered at my waist. “As you like, Vianne,” he said softly.
That was strange enough, but he set me free. I half-turned, and made my way through the screen of horses and my Guard. My legs shook with effort. The Aryx rang quietly, a bell-tone I suspected they would not hear. My eyes threatened to fall closed, I forced them wide and set myself the task of walking straight.
“Captain—” Jierre did not like this turn of events.
“Ware now,” Tristan said over his shoulder. “If he makes a single move toward her, kill him.”
The sense of wrongness returned, a giant sharptooth fish sliding through dark water, stalking. The forest floor was no floor for dancing, but I made my passage as gracefully as I could and stopped ten paces from the man.
I lifted my gaze slowly. This was the moment we would first truly match wits, the bandit and I, and much depended on it.
Jierre swore. But softly, and I did not flinch.
The bandit regarded me. His eyes were the color of the sea during a storm, thickly lashed with charcoal. Wide cheekbones, a generous mouth even now curving into a half smile. There was a shade of familiarity to his features, one I could not quite place. “Well,” he said. “I spoke half in jest, thinking you a boy. Yet you are fair, d’mselle.”
I blinked. His speech was now accented like mine — the half-singing sharp consonants of the Court. I straightened, wishing I’d half a chance to comb my hair, or a decent dress to be seen in. “I am Duchesse Vianne di Rocancheil et Vintmorecy.” My shoulders went back, my chin lifted. My head pounded, and blackness clouded the edges of my vision. Oh, no, do not, please. Let me not be useless this once. They are depending on me. “You are?”
Did I imagine a swift darkening of his face? “Adrien di Cinfiliet, at your service.” His pale eyes flicked up past my shoulder. I set my jaw, determined not to sway on suddenly numb feet. “And honored to have your acquaintance.”
So Adrien Jirlisse is a use-name. What is a nobleman doing here? “And I, yours.” My voice came from very far away. “What is a nobleman about stealing purses in a wood, sieur? May I ask?”
He shrugged, his pale eyes searching as they sought to read my countenance. “Hiding. Is it not obvious?”
“Hiding from what?” I have you now, my fine bandit. No man can resist a woman’s wide-eyed interest. Even if I do look a maying jest, dressed as I am.
“If I were to tell a stranger, even one so fair, I would have poor skill at hiding, would I not? You owe me a game of riddlesharp, d’mselle.”
And I begin to suspect you will be more than my match. “I do.” I swayed, cursing my unruly body. Tristan inhaled sharply. “And I—”
Whatever I wished to say was lost in rising darkness. The world shrank to a pinprick, a rushing black wind descending on me, plucking at my hair and twisting hot lead into my marrow. The stink of it filled my throat, branches snapping as hot wind pressed down like a giant’s hand.
“Vianne!” Tristan, shouting. I fell sideways, his hands no longer gentle, catching me bruising-hard.
Confusion. Jierre di Yspres bellowing.
The Aryx woke in a blinding flash, a convex mirror of power, twisting fire poured into a shield of glass. Another door thrown wide, knowledge tipped into me as if I were a wineskin, overflowing, stretching, pushing through me.
The reek was shoved aside, and I heard a snap as of a ship’s cable breaking. The hunting-spell, cheated, turned back on itself, and I felt a moment of fierce satisfaction that it would recoil on its maker. Twas a piece of Court sorcery akin to a killspell, but requiring much more care and skill, and if I had not the Aryx standing guard under the surface of my skin I would not have known.
Down, I thought incoherently. Down! I will not be used, no matter what god gave you to the Angoulême—
The tide of flame retreated, folding down into itself. The Great Seal of Arquitaine released me.
It obeyed.
Men’s voices. Tristan, very near. “If you’ve killed her—”
I heard my own voice. “Tristan — the Duc—”
“What?” Jierre di Yspres. “Shall I kill him, Captain?”
“Back — get back—,” I gasped. It took so much, to ride the Aryx’s shifting supple flare of power that was even now fighting the insidious spells that had been dragging us down for days, kept from us only by the Seal’s sleepy defense. We had not even realized, so blind to the subtle sense of wrongness, the growing exhaustion.
“Carry her,” someone said, all pretense of levity fled. “We shall take her to the village. Risaine will know what to do.”
“I swear to you, if you do aught to harm her—” Tristan’s tone was soft, conversational, but furious all the same.
“You think I would harm a helpless woman? Ho there, Timarche, lead them to the village. We shall follow with the d’mselle. Tis safe enough; they’re no Orlaans dragoon.”
Darkness, again, and I knew no more.
Chapter Seventeen
My auntie was at Court once too.” The voice was familiar, but not one of the Guard. “Left under a cloud, as I am sure you well know.”
“It matters little.” Tristan, tense and exhausted. Someone held my hand, ran a callused thumb over my knuckles. “I care not a whit.”
“I can see what you do care for. Look, she wakes, and pretty as a maiden in a tale.” Shifting cloth. Smoke, and meat stew, and baking bread. I lay on something soft. I groaned, sought to make my eyes open. They did not obey, foolish things. Or perhaps they had seen enough, and would brook no more.
Am I blind? Sometimes, after the half-head, I felt this weak, and my vision would not work properly. The irrational fear of blindness would rise, and I would be too frail to combat it.
“Vianne?” Tristan, soft and hopeful. I had never heard that tone from him before. “Do not seek to speak, simply rest. You are safe enough.”
“Aye to that, d’mselle.” I thought I recognized this, too — the man in brown. The bandit.
Or was he? A bandit who spoke as a courtier hiding in the Shirlstrienne? And the Seal had chosen that moment to push aside the spells weighing us down, making it impossible to move.
How long had we been feeling the effects? Why did I not know? I sought to keep them safe. Inexcusable inattention, Vianne. You must do better. You must do more.