Page 128 of Play of Shadows
‘But you won’t even be—’
My jaws clamped shut, clenched by the will of another.
No, Corbier said.Don’t take away her final days of optimism. Allow her this one dream before endless night falls.
She turned back to me. ‘Raphan?’ she asked. ‘I thought I heard him speak, but I couldn’t make out the words.’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘It is nothing, my Lady.’ With Corbier’s assistance, I forced a smile to my lips. ‘On my oath, the Court of Flowers will rue the day they caught the attention of the notorious Sigurdis Macha.’
She laughed at that. ‘When next we meet, Veristor.’ She wagged a finger at me. ‘Not too soon, though. I must proceed carefully, methodically, else it’s I who will attract the attention of the court and their foul Orchids.’ She reached out and smoothed the front of the travelling coat Corbier had worn on his journey here. ‘Now, can you get back by yourself, or must I punch you in the face again?’
‘I fear you must,’ I said, keeping my smile in place even as my eyes stung from the coming tears. ‘Perhaps a trifle gentler this time, my Lady.’
But I was wrong. I needed no assistance to return to my own life, for in that moment I saw a ghostly blade slice the misty air between us. I stumbled backwards, the heels of my boots no longer digging into the soft grass, but slipping against the hard oak boards of the stage.
Ajelaine called out to me, but I never heard her words, for it was another’s voice shouting at me now.
‘I have you, Corbier, you red-eyed bastard! No more will the raven herald the death of princes, for now it is the prince who hunts the raven!’
I looked up to see Firan Monsegino looming over me, Pierzi’smad rage in his gaze and a sword in his hands. There was no trace of the gentle, self-doubting Violet Duke. Monsegino had lost himself to the Veristor’s gift.
And now he was going to kill me.
Chapter 65
The Long-Awaited Duel
My right arm rose up by instinct, the forte of my rapier shivering beneath the blow of Monsegino’s heavier blade. The duke raised his sword and for a fraction of an instant, I wondered whether I should bother parrying the next cut.
The Belleza lay in rubble, its valiant director buried beneath, just steps away from where Roz had been vilely murdered. The palace was under siege by throngs of well-armed Iron Orchids, grinning as they watched the Violet Duke about to slay the very actors he’d brought here to perform this blasphemous, unpatriotic play. Soon the entire duchy would belong to the Court of Flowers, and purchased far more cheaply than they could have dreamed. And the one woman who’d stood a chance of uncovering their identities had been slaughtered a hundred years ago by her husband before the truth could be found.
What was there left to fight for?
Unexpectedly, it was Corbier who answered.The truth has failed us both, Veristor. Let it be for love that we fight on.
It’s a little late for the notorious Red-Eyed Raven to be gettingsentimental, don’t you think?
Later still for you to embrace cynicism. Witness now your own memories for once. . .
In the instant between the rise of Monsegino’s blade and the fall, my own past unfolded before me: a stern-faced, middle-aged woman in a long black leather coat, checking each of the dozens of hidden pockets, filling them with tricks and traps and tools, before at last belting the rapier to her side and walking out the door, leaving behind a boy who struggles to understand how his grandmother could love him and yet be so unloving. A fine-haired, stoop-backed man, old even then, but with a grin that could have seduced the Saint of Chastity herself, tells the boy stories– all lies, of course– to make him forget his fears and loneliness. His ageing grandfather is a man driven by a love so deep that only recently has the boy, now a man himself, begun to fathom its depths.
The Vixen will have Paedar Chademantaigne in the duelling circle the moment you’re no longer alive to stop her, Corbier reminded me with cold certainty.Is that not cause enough to resist?
More than enough, I agreed, rolling into an awkward backwards somersault. I found my footing with reflexes that belonged not to Corbier but myself. Had my grandfather been right about me all along?
I’d seen what violence had done to my grandmother, how each time she’d come back a little more hardened, her soul worn a little more, like leather being stretched too thin.
I guess that’s why I learned to run.
But I was done running.
I ducked low just as Monsegino’s blade slashed for my throat. The duke, his violet eyes darkened by the all-consuming memories of Prince Pierzi, smiled as he repeated the words he’d uttered once already. ‘How many times have we crossed bladeson this very battlefield, you bloody-eyed bastard?’
He’s trapped in the moment, still waiting for the final duel with his nemesis. . .
I took up a low defensive guard, my rapier at the ready. ‘A dozen times – perhaps a hundred? A thousand?’
Monsegino levelled his own blade, the point in line with my throat. ‘Then by all the gods, let this time be the last!’
