Then she woke.
And she knew her heart was gone.
Rich afternoon sunlight shone on her face. She was lying in Erec’s bed, atop the silken coverlet.
The Great Forest whispered in her mind, an endless, susurrating song. And yet her mind felt more clear and strong than it ever had before.
She could feel the little sweet-salt absence inside her, where her heart used to be. She could feel the gap, but it wasn’t real. Nothing she had ever felt as a human, none of her guilt and grief, had ever been real. She was free of it all now, and it was wonderful.
There was nothing but the absence where her heart had been. Nothing but the tiny, beautiful, infinite absence that would make her weep and scream if she had any tears or screaming left.
No. It was only humans who wanted meaning and hope. She was a forestborn, and she did not need those illusions.
Rachelle got out of bed and stretched, ready to run, and dance, and kill, and sing.
Her left hand ached, and she looked at the tiny white scar. For the first time she could remember, it didn’t make her want to weep. The hurt that she felt was purely physical and completely irrelevant.
But then the ache turned into a stab of pain that drove her to her knees. Worse, her eyes stung with senseless tears. She scrabbled frantically for the easy despair of a moment before. This was nothing, it meant nothing—
Amélie’s brush stroking makeup onto her face. Armand with yarn woven between his silver fingers. Aunt Léonie kissing her cheek.
The memories wouldn’t stop. Her mind was like a whirling top that repeated nothing nothing do not care over and over, but now the top had fallen off balance and was wobbling wildly, back and forth between indifference and frenzied, grieving love.
You don’t have to feel this. You don’t have to love them.
The thought came into her head as clearly as if someone had spoken to her. Rachelle straightened up, the storm in her mind calming. She was suddenly very conscious of having one last choice.
She couldn’t feel any more longing to love the people she had known. But she remembered Armand’s voice: Maybe it’s just that, once they’re so deep in the Forest’s power, they don’t want to remember loving anyone.
Her hand clenched around the pain of the scar.
It was like trying to swallow broken glass or make her heart beat backward. But she thought of Aunt Léonie, Amélie, Armand. She remembered smiling at them, caring for them, what would they think of me now—
And it was over. There were tears on her face and she was gasping for breath, crouched on the floor beside Erec’s expensive bed.
I love them, she thought, and the words felt numb but true. I am a forestborn, and I love them.
She could still hear the Great Forest singing at the back of her mind, triumphant and hopeless and unafraid. If she listened to it, wanted it, she knew she could let it sweep away her mind again.
With a slow breath, she got to her feet. Her blood pulsed, ready for a fight.
I am Rachelle Brinon. I didn’t listen to my aunt when she told me to stay on the path and save my own life. Damned if I’ll listen to the Forest now.
She didn’t feel the slightest bit weak or unsteady as she strode to the door. Then she pushed it open and saw Erec sitting in his study.
He looked up. There was no time for fear. Rachelle thought of how the sunlight had poured drunkenly across her skin, and she let it give a swing to her steps as she strode out into the room.
He was on his feet in an instant. “My lady.”
She smiled back at him. “My lord.”
He crooked his finger, and she felt the compulsion he sent along the string that bound them, but she walked forward of her own will into his arms.
“Are you reconciled to your fate?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, and it was not a lie. She knew what her fate was and how she was going to use it, and not one part of her rebelled against it.
“You led me a merry chase.” His fingers traced over her face. She could still feel her old lust for him. She could feel, also, the draw of the bond between them. Now that she could tell the difference, they were both less terrifying.
“Would you be satisfied with less?” she asked. “What do you need me to do?”
“Kiss me,” he said, and she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.
He laughed. “I’m glad you haven’t lost your defiance.”
“I’ll make you gladder still tonight,” she said. “Right now, I’m going to run through the gardens.”
She expected him to object. To demand further submission out of her first. But he only smiled and said, “As you wish,” and a moment later she was running lightly down the hallway.
Of course she didn’t head for the gardens. She went straight for the Lady Chapel, which was dedicated to the Holy Virgin. It had been built in fulfillment of some king’s vow a few hundred years ago, but since then it had become not just a chapel but also the repository of sundry royal treasures. So unlike the main chapel, there were guards.
Rachelle walked up to them without fear; they knew her, so they wouldn’t attack until she gave them cause.
Sleep, she thought. Darkness. And power blossomed in her palms, forming great night-black flowers that only she could see. “Good afternoon,” she said as they drew to attention.
“Good afternoon, mademoiselle,” one of them said, and then Rachelle struck, her hands whipping out to slam the invisible flowers over their faces. They dropped instantly, and she stepped over their bodies and strode inside.
The Lady Chapel had no gaudy excesses of gold leaf and writhing cherubs: only white marble pillars, and slender silver traceries inlaid on the marble floor. It was a place of silence and blue shadows, which made the painting over the altar all the more jarring. It was like the gory portrait of the Dayspring that had been hung over Armand’s audience, but even worse. Not only did it show the Dayspring as a hacked-apart pile of limbs; the limbs were bleeding, twisted, deformed. The hands writhed, tendons bulging. The face was twisted in agony. The pieces were laid out in a spiral, like a scream given shape.
But Rachelle had a different goal. She turned to the side altar, where sat the statue of the Holy Virgin. Here she was depicted as the Lady of Snows, dressed all in white, with the great eagle wings she had been given to fly to the mountains and hide from the Imperium’s soldiers while she gave birth to the Dayspring. At her feet sat a multitude of candles, along with flowers, gold chains, bracelets, and earrings—whatever people saw fit to leave as offerings.