“She wasn’t like you—”
“She killed. She was exactly like me. And like her, I will die for my sins and go to hell. But at least I’m not fool enough to think that bloodbound won’t bring death all around them.”
Then she shoved him away and stalked out of the room.
“Do you really believe you’re going to hell?” asked Erec.
“I don’t see a way to doubt it,” said Rachelle, not looking down at her hand. She was still acutely conscious of the crimson thread tied to her finger.
They were finally back at the Palais du Soleil, just inside the vast main courtyard, where lamplight glinted off the wet blue-and-gold tesserae that covered the ground in a vast mosaic. A few minutes ago, the bells had rung out two in the morning, but on one of the grand balconies above them, light and music spilled out into the light, and Rachelle could glimpse the brilliant swirl of silken dresses.
“But you’re bloodbound,” he said, with a quizzical tilt to his eyebrows. Rain glistened on his cheekbones. Despite the dingy coat and cap he had worn to infiltrate the coffeehouse, despite being soaked by the rain, he still looked as elegant as a court portrait.
“I believe it because I’m bloodbound,” Rachelle snapped. “Or did you forget how we’re made?”
She remembered it with every breath.
“Did you forget? Bloodbound become forestborn, the lords of the forest and beloved of the Devourer, who grants them the life to dance ten thousand years and never die.” He tossed off the words as if they were nothing, without a break in his long, easy stride. “And what never dies, cannot be damned.”
Her feet stopped. For one moment, she was back in the Forest, listening to her forestborn gloat: I bring you good news of great joy.
“Believe me,” she said, “I do not forget. Not for one moment do I forget that if I live long enough, I will become one of the monsters that did this to me. And believe this also, I would rather be dead and damned. I will be.”
She realized she was shaking. In the distance, the music tinkled on, as if all the world were an orderly music box and none of them were doomed.
Erec’s hand landed on her shoulder. “You’re a strange woman, do you know that?”
She went rigid at his touch, and for an instant she wanted to turn and strike him.
For all his knowing airs, Erec had no real understanding of the Great Forest’s power. Like so many people, he thought that the Devourer was no more than a myth told by the forestborn. And unlike most people, the forestborn were the best thing that had ever happened to him. Becoming a bloodbound had raised him from being a landless bastard to the King’s right hand. He could talk all he wanted about living for ten thousand years, but he’d never really thought about what that would mean.
She barked out a sudden, pitying laugh. He would have such a surprise, and so soon.
“Normal women don’t survive the forestborn,” she said.
“Then survive them for ten thousand years. That’s the only victory for us, don’t you think?”
Suddenly Erec seized her hand and pulled. She stumbled forward a step, her body automatically moving to break the grip and take him down. But he spun her effortlessly in another direction, and then another, and suddenly they were moving in time to the music.
They were dancing.
Rachelle didn’t know any of the court dances Erec did. But he whirled her through the motions, and her body followed with the same unholy grace it had in a fight. Except here, for one moment—her heart beating in her ears, the courtyard lights spinning around her—that grace didn’t feel like anything wicked or deadly.
The music stopped. Erec spun her out one final time, then twirled her back into his embrace.
“Ten thousand years of this,” he said. “Would it be so terrible?”
It took Rachelle a moment to speak. Her heart had already been beating fast in the dance, and now she was clasped against his body, his arms warm around her waist.
“It wouldn’t be like this,” she said. “We’d be monsters living in the woods.”
“Are you sure? Maybe the forestborn have palaces and balls as well.”
Her laugh was almost fond. “If you can believe that, clearly you were marked by a different kind of forestborn than I was.”
“Oh? Was yours not elegant enough to satisfy you?”
She remembered his soft voice laughing and coaxing her. She remembered rough tree bark digging into her back as her mouth was forced open.
“Would you call a rabid animal ‘elegant’?”
“Maybe, if it was pretty enough.” He leaned down a little closer. “But if that’s not what you crave, how about me? If you must die soon, at least you could enjoy tonight.”