Mortal Heart

Sybella gives my shoulders once last squeeze—so hard it is almost painful—then begins pacing again. “I shall kill her,” she says at last. “Clearly, she does not deserve to live. Clearly, she is not serving Mortain or even the convent—”



“But is she marqued?” Ismae asks quietly. “For unless a marque has appeared in the last hour, or exists under her gown, I have not seen it.”



Sybella’s face grows white with frustration, then she tosses her head. “It doesn’t matter. I shall kill her anyway.” And though she does not mean it—at least, I do not think she does—her saying it brings me great comfort. I take a deep breath and let myself feel the absence of the weight of all the secrets I have been carrying.



Well, not all the secrets. “There is more,” I offer shyly.



Sybella gapes at me, looking so comical that I must tamp down a desire to laugh. “More?” she says.



“I also have a lover.”



Sybella stares at me a long moment, then whoops out a laugh while Ismae has a turn at gaping at me. “I thought so, but then you said nothing, so I was uncertain.”



A smile catches at my lips. “I knew that if anyone could guess, it would be you.”



“But when have you had time to take a lover?” Ismae asks. “And where?” She looks around the room we have shared as if searching for signs of our stolen moments.



“You have not asked me who,” I point out.



“I’m not sure we can bear to learn of it,” Ismae says faintly.



“He is a hellequin.” They both stare at me, struck beyond speech. “Or so I thought. Until I learned that he was only masquerading as one. It is actually Death Himself whom I have taken to my bed.”



Chapter Fifty-Two



BOTH ARE SPEECHLESS for a long moment. Then Sybella huffs out a sigh and runs her hand through her hair. Ismae simply continues to stare. “Is this a jest of some sort?” she asks weakly.



“No, it is the truth.” Then I tell them of the night Isabeau died and the small boon I asked of the hellequin, and how that in turn led to me learning his true identity.



“But—but he is our father,” Ismae says.



My heart sinks as I realize I was right; this has the power to cause a divide between us, a divide that the revelation of my parentage did not. “Your father,” I point out. “Not mine.”



“The duchess came within a handbreadth of marrying my father,” Sybella reminds Ismae. “And I did not think any less of her for it.” Sybella’s voice is calm and free of any judgment. Of course, with her own family’s twisted past, she would have the easiest time understanding.



A new wave of horror crosses Ismae’s face. “Are you going to marry Death?”



“Marry him?” My laughter is tinged with mania.



Sybella’s face softens with sympathy. “Do you carry his child?”



“No!” My hands drift to my stomach. “At least, I do not think so.” Indeed, I had not even considered that, although clearly that is at the heart of his relationship with women.



“I’m sorry, Annith.” Ismae gets up from the bed to stand in front of the fire. She puts her hands out toward the flames, as if they have grown cold suddenly. “It just feels so . . .”



“Overwhelming?” I offer.



“Yes, but also unbelievable. Twisted. Like some cautionary tale of long ago. I feel like a snake must when he has accidentally swallowed a goat and is struggling to digest it.”



Sybella stares past Ismae into the flames. “I am beginning to think that love itself is never wrong. It is what love can drive people to do that is the problem. And this particular love is far less misplaced than some,” she says dryly. “Besides”—her voice turns thoughtful, as if she is considering all the complex knots that must be untangled—“I am certain that the rules governing human hearts do not govern how the gods may love. We have only to think of the old tales to know that. Even better,” she adds with a twinkle, “consider how furious the abbess will be.”



That surprises a laugh out of me, and she joins in. Ismae does not, but she does smile, which gives me hope. Sybella reaches out and pinches her cheek. “Do not be such an old wart. Does it not make perfect sense that our beloved Saint Annith has captured Death’s heart? Who else among us could have done so?”



I roll my eyes. “After all that I have told you, you should realize just how poor a fit the title of saint is when applied to me.”



Her face grows serious once more, filling with sincerity. “I think you deserve it now more than ever,” she says.



I let her words wash over me, as healing as one of Sister Serafina’s balms. “Thank you,” I whisper, unable to stop the tears that spring to my eyes.



“Oh no. Do not start leaking. Ismae, come over here and hug her so we can all pretend it never happened and get on with our lives.”



Ismae’s gaze meets mine as she moves away from the fire. “Of course I am amazed and admiring of all that you have been through.” When she reaches me she wraps her arms around me and holds me close. “As you say, it is all just a little overwhelming.”



“Thank you,” I whisper. As long as I know they are still my friends, as long as I know that our connection cannot be broken, I shall be fine.



Once they leave to see to their other duties, I go to stand before the fire, feeling once again as if I have been completely upended and remade anew, when in truth, I have barely caught my breath from the first time my life shattered before my eyes.



But this—this is different. This is no shattering, but rather some great knitting together of the broken pieces into a stronger whole.



I feel cleansed, not only of sin—but of artifice. I am stripped down to nothing but my raw self. As uncomfortable as it makes me feel, there is freedom in it as well, for there is no place left for others’ expectations and desires of me to hide. The worst things that I could have ever imagined have happened.



I turn and stare at my saddlebag, tossed carelessly in the corner. Slowly, I cross the room and kneel beside it. I reach in, down to the very bottom of the pack with the crumbs of hardened cheese, and retrieve the small calfskin-bound journal that I took from the abbess’s office: the Dragonette’s accounting of me, my childhood, of all the things she did to me, and all the ways I failed and showed my weakness. I have not read all of it, but I do not have to. I lived it. I remember. But I am not that child anymore. My younger self served me well, as well as any child in her circumstances could have. But I have new strengths and skills that I can rely on.



I feel the weight of the pages in my hand, the heft of the secrets and shame written there, the complexity of the ties that bind me to the convent. Then I turn and hurl the journal into the fireplace. As I watch, the orange and gold flames lick at the pages, making them curl in on themselves and shrink like a dying creature. I close my eyes, feel the heat of the fire against my face, my arms, my heart, and let those same flames burn away the last vestiges of shame and humiliation and mortification. They are simply scars now, like the silvery white marks around my waist, a path to show how far I have traveled in order to get where I am. But they are no longer who I am, if ever they were.



And with that new realization comes another—I have always loved Death. Not as a father, but as a true champion, for that is how he first came to me. He showed me a capacity for love—for acceptance—that was greater than that of any human heart I had encountered.



Even Sister Etienne, as much as she was fond of me, or perhaps even loved me, our time together was always interwoven with her need to see that I was happy. She needed me to be happy like a fish needs water to swim—and so I quickly learned to be happy when I was with her.



Mortain’s was the only love that placed no demands upon me, the only one who loved me for simply being. His love was as unwavering and constant as the sun. It was what gave me the strength to keep going. The faith to keep trying. The hope I needed to persevere. That was him all along—whether I called him Mortain or Balthazaar, my heart knew him, recognized him.



Filled with this new awareness, I leave the room and begin making my way to the battlements. He never saw my love as a flaw or a weakness, but instead accepted it, letting it flow into him like a stream tumbling across parched earth.



I eased his dreadful aloneness as much as he eased mine, and I welcomed that feeling, that I had something to give him in return.



Is that not as good a reason to love someone as any? Is that not, in fact, at the very root of why anyone loves another?



As I reach the landing and shove open the heavy door, I have another flash of understanding. On some level, the Dragonette saw all this. She saw the special connection I shared with our god and that was why she punished and shamed me. Not because she did not believe me, but because my seeing him set me apart from her made me special in my own way rather than by her efforts.



I walk to the far end of the catwalk, my head so full of this jumble of thoughts that I do not even see Mortain standing against the battlement until I nearly plow into him. He puts his hand out to steady me.



“My lord! I am sorry. I did not see you. Normally, you are lurking in the corners or skulking in the shadows, not standing in plain sight.”



His mouth quirks, ever so slightly. “I never skulk, and lurk only sometimes.”



I shoot him a disbelieving glance, then join him at the parapet, looking out over the eastern part of the city, past the wall to the fields below. “The French army will be here tomorrow,” I tell him. “The day after, at the latest.”



He pulls his gaze from the darkened streets and fields and turns it upon me. “I know. I can feel it, all those souls loosening from their bodies in preparation for their imminent deaths, like so much wheat making ready to loosen from the sheath. She has lost already, you know. Your duchess.”



Although he says nothing I do not already know, it is hard to hear it from the lips of a god. “I know. She knows. We all know.” I look up and study his profile, which is as still and calm as the stone beneath my hand. “Can you see what will come to pass? Do you know what will happen?”



He gives a single shake of his head. “No, for I am not all-seeing. Only Death is my realm, and I know well enough when it is near.”



“Do you know who among us will live and who will die?” I cannot help but think of Duval and Beast, of stalwart Captain Dunois, trying to turn a fractious, undisciplined group of mercenaries into a cadre of men who can withstand a siege. I think of the duchess and wonder if they will let her live. And what of us? Those who serve the old gods, the convent? Will we be punished for our role in helping her?



“Not yet. It is too soon. And even once the marque is upon someone, it is not a guarantee of death. There are too many variables, many of which I do not control. It is only when one of my daughters serves within my grace that I am able to exert some small portion of control on things.”



Suddenly, he turns to me, his eyes burning. “You could come with me,” he says. “Come to the Underworld and be my queen.” Even as I gape in shock at this invitation, he shakes his head and turns away to look back out over the countryside. “No.” His voice is heavy with despair. “It would only force you to share my prison with me, and I will not subject you to that.”



I can see in his eyes, even though they are averted from me, and feel from the timbre of his voice just how sorely his entrapment chafes at him. Just how thoroughly it has corroded not only his view of the world, but his view of himself.



And that has been my gift to him. Not just now, or in the last few months, but since I was young, I have always seen him as a man and honored the gifts he brings to the world. I have loved him for those things long before I understood the nature of who he was.



I reach out and take his hand in mine. “I would gladly share your prison, but I am not worthy of such an honor. I am bastard-born, and mortal through and through, as I have surely proven to you over and over again throughout the time we have known each other.”