Igniting Darkness (Courting Darkness Duology #2) - Robin LaFevers Page 0,169

next to me, she nudges my shoulder with her own. “Don’t leave him alone with them too long. You never know what they might try.”

I smile down at the twig I am playing with. “I am glad they like him. He is honorable and has a most generous spirit.”

She nudges me again. “It does not hurt that he is well-built and strong, and looks as if he knows how to please a wom—”

“Maman.” I smile and shake my head.

“Do you like your life, Genevieve?”

The question catches me off-guard, her gaze intense as it tries to peer into my very soul. “It has many advantages,” I say. “Although there have been periods that were harder than I imagined they would be.”

She gives a little shrug of her shoulders. “That is true of all lives.” Then she reaches for my hand, tugs it. “Come.” She rises, pulling me along with her toward the back corner of the garden, where she plants the turnips and carrots and onions every year. She glances around, as if to ensure there is no one to see.

She counts off twelve paces from the east corner of the hen house, then takes the stick I still carry in my hand. She kneels on the ground and counts out four hand lengths and begins to dig. When she is done, she looks around once more, then pulls something from the ground. As I kneel down beside her, she brushes it off, and thrusts it into my hand. “Here.”

Dirt still clings to the small cloth bag, the leather cord nearly eaten away by worms and the damp. My hand shakes a little as I open it. Shiny gold coins wink out at me.

“What is this?” My voice trembles.

“It is for you,” she says, pleased with herself. “I have always told you I wanted you to have choices. I have kept this so if you did not like the life you were living, you would have something to start over with.”

She did not take the coins for herself. She took them for me. Even then, determined that I should have not just one more choice than she did, but several.

“Maman, you and Sanson could use this. The tavern still needs a new roof.”

My mother waves her hand. “The tavern will always need a new roof, the beds new mattresses, and the pot more mending. But you, you are my only daughter, and I have always wanted more for you.”

“The day you left me at the convent, why did you not turn back to bid me goodbye?”

She cups one hand, still gritty with dirt, around my cheek. “You were having a hard enough time parting ways. I did not want you to see me weeping.”

I throw my arms around her and allow myself, allow us, to have the hug we denied ourselves that day. And just like that, the entire world shifts, casting itself in a new light. Her words have removed the bandages from a wound I never had, but carefully guarded and protected nonetheless.

I wipe the dampness from my face and give the bag back to her. “Keep it for me. I’ll come back when I have need.” And I mean it. That small bag has opened up yet another road on my horizon, and it will be there should I need to take it.

 Chapter 96

Sybella

Chateau Givrand sits on a small finger of land that thrusts aggressively into the sea, the waves lapping at the base of the west wall of the castle. It is made of thick, rough gray stone with narrow arrow slits for windows. One wall of the main tower is still reddened and blackened by a centuries-old fire. It is old, and the chateau is of little strategic value now that silt has reduced the usefulness of the nearby port. Everyone will assume that Pierre has returned to his stronghold in Limoges. Few—if any—even know of my family’s holding south of Givrand. It is the last place anyone will think to look—if they even remember it at all.

There is only one approach, a long narrow road that leads to the square courtyard built upon the rock. When we are safely inside the keep, they remove my shackles and Pierre leads me to the wide spiral stairway that leads from the castle yard to the main hall.

The first floor of the keep is used for storage, the second is the guards’ room, and the two upper floors have been given over to the family apartments.

Pierre leads me