Igniting Darkness (Courting Darkness Duology #2) - Robin LaFevers Page 0,99

it’s about his standing with his advisors, and his continued ability to rule. The more that is undermined, the greater the threat to the queen, the convent—and Sybella.

How does one even shield oneself against a creature like the regent? I wonder as I step into the humble servant’s gown. Mayhap I will find answers to that question out there. Something is going on in Brittany, according to the Beast of Waroch. Surely Maraud and his crew—including me—could help there. We could even send reports back to Sybella and the queen.

If I can convince Maraud that is where we should go next. And, oh, how Andry and Tassin will like that—the woman who poisoned their friend returning to tell them what to do and where to go. Oddly, I relish the prospect of arguing with them about it.

I have little enough left to call my own—I take even less. My few weapons, the poisoned needles, my handful of possessions I’ve carried with me since Cognac. They hardly fill a small sack, but still, they are the pieces of my life that I have not—yet—had to leave behind.

Fortunately, no one looks at servants, especially not those hurrying by with chamber pots or pails of dirty water. It is easy enough to find the scullery, then slip through the servants’ door into the palace yard. Once outside, I keep walking, half afraid someone will call me back, but no one does.

I hurry from the main area of the courtyard toward the outbuildings, where I will not be so visible from the palace windows. Once I am well hidden among the scores of other bodies going about their palace business, I begin making my way to the fletcher’s hut.

With hindsight, I can only wonder why his original offer of help terrified me so very much.

No, not his offer, my reaction to it. That was what scared me so.

My mind—my pride—wants to shy away from this truth. Pretend I have not seen it, but pride is how I ended up on this path, and I do not wish to learn the same lesson twice.

So I take out that moment between us, that memory of when he looked at me with those laughing brown eyes of his, so solemn and sincere. “Let us help you.”

That he would set aside his plans for vengeance to help still stuns me.

Before that, no one in all my life had offered to stand by my side. Not Margot, not Angoulême, not the convent. Not even my mother, who left me to face the convent alone. He was the first, and it was so foreign to me, I did not know what to do with it.

And in that moment, his offer made me realize how hungry I was for that. How starved, just as he was starving when we first met. Only I was starving for . . . what? I cannot even put a name to it. Companionship is too weak. Support does not do it justice.

That deep hunger that terrified me. Like a starving man who will do anything to fill his belly, I feared what I would do to fill that hole in my heart. I feared I would turn my back on the convent, on everything I’d worked toward. On those I’d sworn to help.

I feared that I was weaker than I had ever imagined. And since I could not pull that weakness from me, could not yank it from my breast and cast it aside like the weed it was, I struck out at him instead.

* * *

The fletcher’s hut sits nestled between the armory and the artillery buildings. No one lingers outside. Inside is a lone fletcher seated at a table, carefully attaching gray feathers to an arrow shaft.

When I reach the far side of the hut, I pause. My pulse, already erratic, grows even more so. Was his invitation to join him sincere? He could easily have made it in the heat of the moment, with our kisses still warm upon our lips and the unexpected discovery of the chain.

No. I recall his steady, imploring gaze, and his insistence that I could take refuge with him should I need to. He was not simply polite.

Forcing aside my doubts, I pass the fletcher’s hut once more, walking slowly to give Maraud time to see me should he be watching out of view. Still nothing, other than a curious glance from the fletcher himself.

Am I early? Or is he late? Or has something caused a delay?