Her father scowled at Isabelle and said in a sepulchral tone, “Princess Isabelle des Zephyrs, have you claimed your sorcery?”
“No, Father,” Isabelle said evenly, even as she cringed inside; it was going to be one of those audiences, another attempt to wake the nascent bloodshadow Father was convinced she had to possess. This hormougant was only the latest petitioner to have some plan for her sorcery’s miraculous vivification. What would it be this time? Would it be another potion, a diet, a strange regimen of exercises, or would he resurrect old favorites like attacking her with his bloodshadow and trying to provoke hers into a response?
“The time has come to determine once and for all, in the eyes of the Temple, if you are truly unhallowed or merely obstinate and spiteful. Only a hormougant can make that decision.”
Despite her father’s nasty tone and the warning Jean-Claude had put in her ear, a hope flickered in Isabelle’s chest. Could this truly be the last time she had to endure trial by ordeal?
She regarded the hormougant with increasing interest. “Enlightened, I … Can you certify that I am unhallowed?” No more tests. No more torture.
“Indeed,” he said.
Her father snarled. “Are you so eager to reject your birthright, then? Do you think it is not good enough for you?”
Isabelle winced. “No. Of course not, but, Father—”
“No one who rejects their saintly blood is any child of mine.”
Tears stood in Isabelle’s eyes, and she felt as if she’d been kicked in the chest. It was stupid to talk to him, stupid to think he’d ever care about her, but she couldn’t stop trying. “I don’t reject it. I just don’t have it.” Having a bloodshadow would make her a true Sanguinaire, a proud link in an endless chain stretching back to the Risen Saints. Not having a bloodshadow was a defect even worse than a wormfinger. Without sorcery, no one would ever want her.
“Your denial is insincere,” her father said. His bloodshadow rippled at his feet like a restless snake.
The hormougant said, “Do you consent to the test?”
Isabelle summoned all her courage. If Marie could be brave in front of all those Iconates, then Isabelle could be brave here. She cast a glance at Marie for strength. “Yes.”
The hormougant nodded to the comte. The comte fixed his gaze on Isabelle’s friend and said, “Lady Marie du Bois.”
Marie popped up like a startled doe. “Excellency!”
Isabelle’s breath caught; what was her father doing?
“You are my daughter’s handmaiden sworn to her service, bound to her need, subject to her command, and protected by her mighty hand. Yes?”
“Yes, Excellency.”
“Then it is her duty to protect you.”
The comte’s shadow darted across the floor toward Marie. Marie hopped away, but des Zephyrs’s sorcery grabbed her gray shadow by its ankle and jerked her to a halt.
“Father, no!” Isabelle bolted toward Marie, but adult hands snared and held her fast.
The bloodshadow pierced the boundary of Marie’s shadow and began filling it up, the red stain spreading through the gray silhouette like ink spreading in water.
Marie screamed and tried to pull away, but the sanguine rot spread to her shadow’s legs and arms, making her movements dull and sluggish.
“Stop!” Marie screamed, even as the color drained from her skin. “Please!”
“No!” Isabelle surged against her captors. She knew what it felt like to be mauled by a bloodshadow, the icy razors of pain, the mind-sucking soul numbness.
“You can stop it, Isabelle,” her father said. “Your bloodshadow can fight mine. Stop denying your birthright.”
Isabelle reached within herself, searching inside for something, anything, but there was no answering will echoing up from the depths of her soul, no tincture in her inner darkness.
“Please! Mercy,” Marie begged. In the middle of the marble floor, she looked like a fish mired in mud, her body slowly writhing, useless limbs flopping, mouth agape, and eyes staring.
“Stop!” Isabelle wailed. Not Marie. No!
Isabelle wrenched free of her handlers and sprinted toward Marie. The color drained from Marie’s features. Her hair turned white. Her flesh became translucent. Isabelle tried to cover her, to somehow get in the way, but a strand of her father’s bloodshadow whipped out and pinned her shadow by its neck. Suddenly, she couldn’t move at all. Her body might as well have been made of wood. There was nothing she could do. About anything. Nothing!
“Fight like a sorcerer!” her father spat.
“I can’t!” She had tried. She had searched. There was no magic in her.
“You are weak,” her father said. “Worthless.”
Marie’s whole body arched. She loosed a horrible haunted wail. Isabelle could see all the way through her skin and flesh, all the way to her bones.
Tears flooded Isabelle’s cheeks and she thought her chest would explode with helpless horror. “Stop. Please!”
The comte said, “The weak cannot protect their own. They deserve no mercy.”
Marie’s wail became a deathly keening, a threadbare sound, unraveling into nothing.
“Are you satisfied, Sleith?” Father asked the hormougant.
“Yes. Isabelle is unhallowed.”
The bloodshadow withdrew from Marie, gorged and sated, its color thick, rich, like the finest wine. The bloodshadow’s grip on Isabelle’s body released as if cut. She stumbled forward and hugged Marie around the shoulders, but her friend’s skin was ice cold, her expression slack, her transparent eyes unfocused as a doll’s.
“Marie!” she shrieked. “Come back!” She rounded on her father. “Bring her back!”
“She will not return,” her father said. “She is a bloodhollow now, but do not worry; she will serve you as she always has, only a bit more … docilely.”
Isabelle squeezed Marie tight, as if that could force heat and life back into her numb flesh, even as she cursed her father. “I hate you! I hope you die!”
Marie shrugged Isabelle’s grip off, and Isabelle stepped back, but the hope that bloomed in her mind died when Marie’s ghostly features warped and her father’s visage emerged from within. “But if I die, so does your friend. I am the only thing keeping her alive. As a bloodhollow, she is an extension of me, my eyes and ears and hands and voice, and she will keep watch on you … always.”
Many sets of hands took Isabelle by the arms and tugged her, sobbing, from the room. Bloodhollow Marie trailed behind.
CHAPTER
Three
Crepuscular light angled in the wide window of the single modest room Isabelle occupied at one end of the servants’ wing of the Chateau des Zephyrs. In one corner stood a small printing press Jean-Claude had somehow acquired for her. Most of the rest of the room was filled with books and art supplies, like the back room of a museum without all the dust.
Isabelle sat on the low couch that served as her bed and had Marie lift her feet, one at a time, and spread her toes so Isabelle could check them for bruises. Her transparent flesh made such insults difficult to see, but even minor wounds could fester and spread.