Her shoulders slumped. “I only wanted what was best for my sister,” she said, then turned.
Her hand was pressed against the injury, but that did nothing to hide the crimson rivulets of blood tracing the pale skin of her chest. I lurched forward, the sound of Ana?s screaming her sister’s name loud in my ears as she bolted past.
She did not make it far.
Ana?s’s body jerked to a stop, tangled in invisible threads of the King’s magic, her head snapping forward with a crack. She went limp and would have crumpled to the ground, but Tristan caught her, her head lolling against his shoulder, body paralyzed until her magic healed her broken neck.
“Help her,” she pleaded. “Help her, Tristan. Please!”
Face ashen, Tristan lowered Ana?s to the ground. “What’s the point in this, Father? Far be it from me to judge what you find entertaining, but standing here and watching a lady bleed seems beneath you.” Pushing past me, he walked to Pénélope, extracting a handkerchief from his pocket and reaching for the hand she had pressed against the injury. “She must have been struck by a piece of the broken blade. Bad luck, but it will m…” His final word stuck in his throat as the injury was revealed.
A tiny shard of steel protruded from her flesh, blood seeping out around it. But what made my heart lurch were the black lines of iron rot already snaking out and away from the wound. In a flash, Tristan jerked out the shard and pressed the handkerchief to the injury, but it was too late. Everyone had seen.
And everyone knew.
“Tragic,” the King murmured, then glanced over his shoulder at Ana?s, who was dragging herself to her feet. “So very, very tragic.” Then he turned back to the Duke. “The truth always outs, Your Grace. And we must all pay the consequences when it does.”
Chapter One
Pénélope
The sharp clang of steel against steel made my hand twitch and my paintbrush along with it, leaving a streak of black where none had been intended.
“Drat,” I muttered, accepting the proffered rag from my maid and dabbing at the errant paint.
The swords crashed together again and, despite it having been three weeks since the accident, I flinched. I wondered if I ever would not.
Sighing, I rested my wrist on my knee and shifted to watch my sister fight. Ana?s was harrying her opponent backward across the yard, dulled practice blade flashing with the skill not of one trained since she was old enough to hold a sword – though she had been – but of one who’d been born to battle. She fought as I imagined a viper would, so quick I scarce saw her move but she was there, her deadliness a matter of speed and agility rather than brute strength.
My eyes took in the whirl of motion, envisioning how I might capture it with paint, but my hands almost instinctively reached for my pencil and sketchbook, because nothing else would ever capture my sister’s exquisite beauty and strength better than crisp lines of black against a plane of white. Ana?s needed no embellishments, and that’s all color would be.
She feinted left but struck right, her blow landing square against her opponent’s side with an audible crack. Tristan swore and stumbled, his gloved hand pressing against ribs that were almost certainly fractured.
I swallowed hard, trying my best not to think of the bones knitting and reforming, bruises rising and fading within seconds. Or to think about what happened when they did not.
“I can’t recall the last time I bested you at this, Ana?s,” Tristan grumbled, hand dropping from his side. “It’s not very sporting if I’ve no chance at winning. My pleasure in your company is diminished by the broken bones.”
Ana?s smiled and slapped the flat of her blade against the palm of her gloved hand. “Are you suggesting that I let you win, Your Highness?”
“Would that be so dreadful?” He closed the distance between them, his cheeks curving with a smile as he gazed down at her.
For a handful of seconds, her face was filled with the naked adoration of a girl well and truly in love. And my heart broke, the sharp little pieces digging into my soul as I watched her bury the feelings behind a cocky smile, the tip of her blade flicking up to catch him beneath the chin.
“Yes, it would. If you wish to beat me, you’ll merely have to try harder.”
The two stood silent and unmoving, and I knew that a conversation passed between them in the wordless language of those who knew each other well. It was beautiful and wretched, and my eyes moved without thought to the image on my canvas.
“Enough banter.” Marc stepped out of the shadows where he’d been leaning against the wall, nudging the sword he held into both their ribs, driving them apart. “Tristan, I saw Ana?s’s feint plain as day, and you would have, too, if you’d been paying attention.”
My heart beat faster in my chest as he walked between them in my direction. Then he stopped, knocking a fist against an invisible barrier of magic blocking his path. “Ana?s, let me through.”
She blanched. “Oh. Sorry, Marc. I–” Breaking off, her gaze went to mine, then away.
My stomach clenched. Bad enough that she’d been protecting me, but worse that she hadn’t wanted me to know she was doing it.
The guilt on Ana?s’s face. The pity on Tristan’s. I hated both sentiments, but the last thing I wanted was to make my sister feel worse, so I said nothing. Dipping my brush in a pale grey, I turned back to my work, hoping my expression wouldn’t betray me.
Marc stopped in front of my easel, and though I did not take my attention away from my brushstrokes, I felt his presence keenly. My skin prickled and I was sure that even if I had been blind and deaf, I would still have known it was him standing beside me.
“She’s only trying to protect you, Pénélope.”
“And she is wise for it.” I added a touch more black to my grey. “Perhaps if she’d always been so vigilant, circumstances would be different.”
The truth always outs… My father might not have cared to believe it so, but there had always been a certain inevitability of my secret – my affliction – being discovered. If only it had delayed its happening, its discovery might not have even mattered. Certain things could not be undone. Like the bonding of two trolls.
“But she was not, and they are not,” he said. “And Ana?s blames herself for what happened. It was her blade that shattered.”
“And his that broke it,” I hissed, furious that my sister should feel guilt when Tristan did not.
“Do you think he doesn’t know that?”
I lowered my brush, not wanting to touch this particular piece with anger in my heart. “Can we please not discuss it? Already it weighs upon every aspect of my life, and I hoped to find some respite from it here.”