Igniting Darkness (Courting Darkness Duology #2) - Robin LaFevers Page 0,87

keep expecting the old fear to come rushing at me, but it does not. I am genuinely curious who will win this battle of wills.

When the regent speaks, her tone is more conciliatory. “Would one hundred thousand gold crowns help ease the pain of that broken promise?”

I can practically hear the wheels of Pierre’s brain calculating his options. “If it must,” he finally says.

“It must. Now leave. And do not approach me directly again.”

The door opens just then, the light from their lantern bright amongst all the darkness. It takes them a moment to see me. When they do, an intricate moment of silence follows.

The regent speaks first, her voice tinged with relish. “Are you not going to greet your brother, who has come all this way for the festivities?”

Beside her, Pierre watches me, his face hidden by the shadows thrown off by the lantern.

“No,” I say simply. “I do not think I will. I would rather he wasn’t here at all.”

She clicks her tongue. “Such unwelcoming words from a sister.”

I fold my arms, considering her. “Has it ever occurred to you there’s a reason I wish to avoid him? Wished for my sisters to avoid him?”

“What possible reason could justify the ways you have cast aside your familial duty?”

At first I think she is simply prevaricating, but as I study her more closely, I realize she is deeply serious.

Pierre chooses that moment to intervene. “Thank you, Madame, but I do not wish to pull you into our family’s disputes.”

I nearly laugh. He has pulled her in as thoroughly as a snake swallowing a lizard.

“Of course not,” the regent says. “I must get back to the festivities anyway.” She crosses the long vestibule and disappears up the staircase.

As Pierre walks toward me, I savor the heat of the pebble against my thigh and realize I am no longer afraid of him. When he is close enough, he takes my arm in his. The scar across the back of his hand has not healed well. “If you’d wanted to see me so badly, you need only have written. It wasn’t necessary to kill five—no six—of my men to summon me. If you want my attention, you have only to ask for it.” He has changed, I realize. Grown more subtle. He lifts his hand, as if intending to touch my cheek. Curious, I let him.

His fingers are cool and dry, and I feel no fear, no revulsion, no doubt. Only fury. But a quiet fury that burns as hotly as the pebble at my leg. “My goal was not to rouse your interest, but to keep our sisters safe from the men you sent for them.”

His hand falls from my face. “They are no more ruthless than you. Indeed, that is why I sent them. I needed men who could get past you. But once again, I underestimated your cunning.” He leans forward and brings his mouth closer to my ear. “You have been in France for what—two months now?—and have killed six men.” He pauses as a thought occurs to him. “That I know of.” He shakes his head in true admiration, something I have never seen on his face. “The d’Albret blood has never flowed stronger than it does in you. Surely you recognize that now.”

Once, those words would have grated on me like a rasp on soft wood. All my life my family, my brothers, the entire be-damned French court, have tried to define my darkness for me.

“Come home,” he whispers. “To your rightful place. If we combine our forces, we will be unstoppable. Your dark talents are wasted here.”

Definitely more subtle. This is no threat, but him offering me the most advantageous of opportunities. “I could even let you raise our sisters and have a say in their marriage arrangements.”

As I stare into Pierre’s eyes, I finally understand that I am not as dark and ruthless as he is. I am far darker and more powerful than he could ever be.

A knowledge both primitive and true rises up from deep within me, and I feel the power of the Dark Mother fill me. Understand in my bones that while I have been broken and beaten and beyond despair, I have also rebuilt myself and have risen from the ashes of my own funeral pyre.

“You are mistaken. Not a single drop of d’Albret blood flows in my veins. I was sired by the god of death, not your puling father. For the last six years, I have trained