“You can’t murder an entire kingdom,” Ru said, “and call it love. It’s the opposite of what Festra wants. It absolves no one.”
Taryel grunted, and Ru saw that the blade had nicked him in another place on his neck; Lady Bellenet’s grip was faltering, her movements uneven.
“Let him go,” Ru said quietly. “You want to show how much you love your daughter? Obey your god’s wishes. Let Taryel go.”
“He’s only a figurehead,” Lady Bellenet growled, and her voice was almost inhuman as it echoed in the chapel. “He is nothing. All I need is for you to fall, to plummet into the dark.”
“Don’t,” said Ru, her grip on the artifact faltering.
Lady Bellenet’s fingers tightened on the knife as she plunged it deep into Taryel’s flesh, and Ru’s world stopped.
CHAPTER 44
Lady Bellenet did not hold back. Her knife cut deep, and Taryel’s blood flowed thick and fast down his pale throat, onto the white of his shirt, the black of his waistcoat. In seconds, he would fall unconscious. In minutes, he would die.
Ru recited these facts in her mind as if they might offer up some rationality, some saving grace. Her strength was fragmenting, her knees giving way. The fingers holding the artifact were stiff and cold, numbing as she watched.
But in the haze of a grief she refused to accept, Ru knew that Lady Bellenet had wasted her final card.
And Ru now had the upper hand.
Because Ru would not let despair take her, she wouldn’t let the current of sadness pull her down into the depths of darkness. She understood now — as if she had always known it — that the golden light was the artifact’s true nature. A power born of care and affection. The darkness was a manifestation of Ru’s own pain and hurt and confusion. But when she looked at Taryel…
The golden light was loveincarnate.
The artifact’s truth was as simple as unlocking a door and pushing it open. Ru loved Taryel. She had loved him as FenVerrill. She had loved him at the Cornelian Tower, and the artifact had known it, had done its best to show her.
But she’d been a coward, afraid to admit it even to herself.
“I love you, Taryel,” she sobbed, a desperate declaration.
Taryel crumpled to the floor, his hands stained crimson where he’d tried to staunch the flow of blood. Lady Bellenet dropped the blade. It clattered metallically, echoing in the quiet chapel.
The only sound was Taryel choking on his own blood.
Ru had never seen so much of it, so much red. Taryel was supposed to be immortal. He was supposed to live forever. But he seemed to bleed for each lifetime he had lived, a sea of thick crimson spreading across the floor.
Lady Bellenet stepped sideways to keep her dainty slippers clean.
Ru stumbled forward, slipping in his blood. She half-knelt, half-fell into him.
“Taryel,” she pleaded, fumbling for his neck where the wound cut deep. She pressed the skin together, but her fingers slipped, hot and sticky. His eyelids fluttered.
“No,” she cried, a wracking sob.
He was no longer there with her. His vision would have blurred and gone. He might hear her voice in some distant way, but in a few moments, there would be no life left in him. He would be nothing but a broken shape, like Hugon in the snow.
Lady Bellenet stood watching, her eyes wide, as if she hadn’t foreseen this. As if it hadn’t been her plan all along.
Ru screamed a painful, guttural cry, pressing her face to Taryel’s chest. It no longer rose and fell beneath her. She could not imagine living after this. She couldn’t accept that his light was gone while hers remained. His soft kisses on her neck, his arms holding her close, the way he smiled at her… she would never… she sobbed, unchecked, into his blood-soaked waistcoat.
“Get up,” ordered Lady Bellenet. “The sun has passed its zenith, but we may still perform the Cleansing.”
Ru only cried out again, a muffled, plaintive wail.
“Getup,” Lady Bellenet nearly shrieked, and before Ru had a chance to react, she was yanked away from Taryel, dragged by the armpits.
“You’ll stain the ritual garments,” Lady Bellenet hissed, once more brandishing her knife. “You must do it now.”
