“You could have waited for me to get here,” said Rachelle. “Did you leave the room as soon as you sent the note?”
She saw his body tense with readiness. “I didn’t send a note. I came here because I got a message from you.”
And that was when the soldiers kicked the door in.
The next thing Rachelle knew, her sword was drawn and she was lunging toward the nearest soldier. There was a brief, timeless chaos. Fighting humans was not as dizzily blissful as fighting woodspawn. It was partly because her gifts did not manifest as strongly when she was facing mortal enemies instead of Forest creatures. And it was partly because she knew she was hacking at human limbs and stopping human hearts.
When they were finished, she was gasping for breath. She tried not to look at the bodies that lay on the floor.
“We have to run,” she said. “The King—”
Erec shook his head. “They aren’t from the King,” he said, wiping his sword.
“The rebels,” she said, and her heart lurched. Somebody was organizing a palace coup; that was why they had lured her and Erec together, so that they could be taken out together.
“Armand,” she said, and realized this was the first time she had call Armand by his first name in front of Erec.
“Yes,” said Erec, “secure him before he gets to the throne room.”
She didn’t bother explaining as she bolted out of the room. Armand wouldn’t start a bloody revolution. He wouldn’t, and that meant that anybody doing it would have to take him prisoner, and that meant—
And then she saw Armand at the end of the corridor, surrounded by armed men.
She didn’t think about odds or tactics. Her mind flashed white fire, and then she was upon them.
She cut down two of them before they realized how dangerous she was and started to fall back. Then somebody lunged forward, and she nearly stabbed him before she realized it was Armand.
“Stop,” he said. “Rachelle, stop. It’s all right. They aren’t hurting me.”
“You don’t understand,” she said, “they’re attacking us—”
“They’re with me,” he said quietly. “They follow me.”
She could see Armand’s face quite clearly in the lamplight, his gray eyes and the flat line of his mouth. She could feel the hilt of her sword gripped in her hand, and she could hear the soft moaning from one of the men she had stabbed. But she felt like she had stepped out of her body and to the side, like some important part of her just wasn’t there anymore.
“What . . . what do you mean?”
“These are my men,” Armand said steadily. “They follow me. They are going to help me take the King off the throne and—”
“You lied to me.”
“No.” Armand shook his head, actually looking distressed. “I’ve never—”
“You lied to me,” she said, and her voice sounded like a pathetic, lost little thing. “All this time, you pretended to hate being a saint, when you were really plotting to get yourself on the throne.”
“No,” he said desperately, “I’m trying to put Raoul on the throne. You can help. Please, Rachelle—”
She raised her voice. “Anyone who wants to live had better start running.”
Armand must have sent the message to get her in the same room as Erec. So that his men could kill them both at once.
The men with him in the hall now wanted to kill her as well. When they lunged, it was a relief. She knew how to fight. She knew how to survive fighting. Her sword sliced and whirled. Blood spattered across her face. She didn’t care.
Then she turned back to Armand, and with one hand she easily gripped his collar and slammed him against the wall.
“What made you think it was a good idea to lie to me?”
He was afraid. She could see it in the way his eyes widened, his breath quickened. She could feel it with the hot, deadly instinct that throbbed in her veins. He was prey and he knew it. She was a monster, and he knew it.
“Rachelle,” he said quietly, gently. As if he had ever really loved her. As if he thought he could keep on making a fool of her.
“Where is Joyeuse?” she demanded. She didn’t need to ask if he had taken it: she knew he must have.
He met her eyes, his face bloodless and resolute. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Don’t imagine I won’t hurt you. Don’t imagine for a moment that all your pretty kisses are going to make me spare you.” She raised her bloody sword and pressed the blade against his throat. “You’re only alive because the King has use for you. When the time comes, I will help him destroy you.”
Whatever hope he’d had of beguiling her seemed to go out of him. “You were always loyal to them, weren’t you?” he asked, his voice lifeless.
“Yes,” she said, because she knew it would hurt him. “I told you I was still a bloodbound. What did you expect?”
“Well, then go ahead. Kill me whenever you want.” His voice was quietly contemptuous. “It’s the only thing you know how to do. Kill to please the forestborn and kill to please the King and kill for your beloved d’Anjou.”