I drew a deep breath of my own after that, followed by a lusty cry. The women thought me a miracle, moved that one had been visited upon them just as if they were the Magdalena herself.
All except my mother, who knew precisely who she’d invited into her bed nine months earlier. It wasn’t until I was four years old and clutched at her hand as she headed up the stairs with her night’s customer that my parentage was confirmed. “His heart,” I whispered into her lowered ear as I rubbed my small chest. “It’s beating strangely.”
Less than an hour later, he was dead.
It is that same panicked beating that has brought me to the lowest levels of the castle today—a heartbeat as close and intimate as if it is beating against my own ribs.
I follow the deep ba-bump through the narrow, twisting corridors of the dungeons, stopping when a gaping black hole appears at my feet. The darkness that oozes up through the metal grate is as thick and solid as a coiled snake.
At first, I think it a hatch to the river that runs nearby. Or perhaps—wrinkling my nose—the sewer. Until the next heartbeat reverberates through me, one long, deep ba-bump. I never feel the heartbeats of others unless they are close to dying. That is when I finally understand the nature of this pit.
It is an oubliette.
A dungeon designed specifically for those who do not even warrant the mercy of a clean death.
Nameless dread that cannot be explained by the presence of death thrums through me. My hand clenches. I should turn and walk away. Return to the sumptuous, brightly lit rooms of the castle proper.
I am getting ready to do just that when the heartbeat stops. The pressure in my chest grows, stretching against my ribs, seeping into the very marrow of my bones. Trepidation and despair sweep through me, as if the world itself has just been torn in two.
And then the pressure stops. Is simply gone, like the passing of the wind.
“Who’s there?”
The croaked question shatters the absolute silence, causing me to leap back. The dead do not speak.
Oubliette. To forget.
If it were called by any other name, I could turn and walk away. If it were empty, it most assuredly would hold no interest for me. But someone is down there, someone else the world has forgotten. That he is dying—well, there is no way I can ignore it now. While I was sired by the god of Death and sent to His convent to train in His arts, I have had precious little opportunity to explore them since I have left.
“Who are you?” The voice is low and hoarse, but it is the commanding tone of it that startles an answer from me.
“No one. A shadow.” My words float down into the darkness on the barest exhalation of breath. Hopefully he will think them naught but a fevered dream as he lies at Death’s door.
There is movement below, as if someone is shifting position, straining to look up. A moment later, I hear him rising to his feet. I scramble back from the hole, my footsteps quick and silent.
When I am well away from the oubliette, I allow myself to run, returning through the labyrinth of underground corridors to the main floor of the castle.
Who are you?
His question follows me like a ghost, as if the forgotten, dying man has looked into my very soul and seen the doubt and uncertainty that has plagued me for the last year.
Who, by the Nine, am I?
When I finally reach the main section of the palace, I pause to brush off my skirts and smooth my hair. I arrange my face into the bland, subservient mask I have worn for the past five years, then step into the warmth of the light.
Oddly, it is far colder against my skin than the living blackness of the dungeon.
Chapter 2
Sybella
Rennes, Brittany
One Week Later
he loss of my father, still sharp and raw, drives me to the city gates, as if I’m hoping that he will return. But of course, he does not. Even so, like one of the restless souls that still hover where their bodies fell, I hover in the shadows of the gate and stare out at the empty field beyond.
No. Not empty. A small holly bush appeared three days after Mortain fell, springing wholly formed from the earth soaked with his blood. Its leaves are dark