Igniting Darkness (Courting Darkness Duology #2) - Robin LaFevers Page 0,148

The queen is your ally. Rohan is not. She has done much to raise the status of the charbonnerie, including appointing one to her personal guard. She will continue to defend your rights.”

“If the king will let her,” a voice calls out from the back. I cannot help but wonder if rumors have spread this far or if it is simply the age-old disbelief that a man will honor a woman’s wishes.

“Furthermore,” Beast continues, “war is never good for the people. Not the charbonnerie, not the farmers, nor the merchants, nor the crofters. That is what the duchess was trying to avoid by marrying the French king. They would have looted our holdings, razed our fields, and burned our forests to win what she has brought them by marriage.”

Kerrigan shrugs. “She would have had to marry anyway.”

“And lastly,” Beast leans forward, the light from the fire reflected in his eyes, “Rohan has sought the aid of the English, and knowing the English, they see this as an opportunity not to aid a Breton noble, but to stake a claim to Brittany—perhaps even France. We have seen what the British do to our land when they cannot have it.”

Silence falls over the group as everyone remembers the horrors of the war between France and England that lasted a full hundred years. “And England has even stricter regulations surrounding the collection and use of wildwood, some jurisdictions viewing it akin to poaching.”

Kerrigan slowly lifts his eyes from the fire. “While that is most unwelcome news, how can a handful of men repel such an invasion?”

“We know where they are landing and when. And we are far more than a handful.” Beast goes on to tell him of our activity in the south and the near four thousand loyal troops that have joined in our fight.

Murmurs go up among the men who sit just beyond the light of the fire. Kerrigan thinks another moment. “We must discuss this among ourselves.”

Lazare opens his mouth to speak on our behalf, but Kerrigan waves him still. “I know Erwan trusted this man and the duchess, and was willing to join their cause. But he is the leader in the east, where the charbonnerie have more interaction with other folk than we do. I must weigh the risks to our future alongside the risks we will face in the present if we join you. Besides, you don’t just wish us to help. You wish to share our secrets, which is another thing altogether.”

Lazare lifts his chin. “I believe the woman has a right to those secrets, as she serves the Dark Mother.”

I grow perfectly still, having had no idea Lazare planned to use me as a bargaining piece. By the echoing silence around the fire pit, the charbonnerie are equally surprised.

“Which woman?” Kerrigan asks, but I can already feel over half of the eyes staring at me.

“The Lady Sybella,” Lazare says, pointing at me.

The leader stares at me with flinty eyes. “How do you come to serve the Dark Mother?” he demands.

The silence in the clearing is nearly deafening. Even the small creatures lurking among the trees and bracken have ceased their rustling. “I do not know if I serve the Dark Mother as much as I honor her,” I say, picking my way through my words. “I am a daughter of Death who is learning how to use her skills in a new world where my father is no more. That is all.”

“But they say he’s no longer—”

“They are right. He has given up his godhead and now walks the earth as a mortal. The god of death’s time on earth has come to an end.” Saying those words out loud causes the emptiness inside me to swell. I shrug helplessly. “So who was I to serve? Who was I to pray to? Especially since my gifts from him are dark. That is when I remembered the stories of the Dark Mother, how when one is out of hope, it is she who leads us out of despair. She had done this for me before, and there are times when I feel as if she is doing this for me again.”

“In other words,” one of them says, “you are undergoing your own rebirth.”

The words hang in the space between us, and I wish to snatch them out of the air, but I can’t, for there is truth in them as well.

Lazare leans forward again. “She not only honors the Dark Mother, but serves her as well.