Mortal Heart (His Fair Assassin 3)

“Balthazaar?”

There is a faint sigh—a movement or exhalation, I cannot tell. Slowly, as if approaching some wild, untamed creature, I reach out and lay my hand upon his chest. His muscles bunch up beneath my fingers, and, almost as if against his will, his head turns toward mine. When our gazes meet through the darkness, it is as intimate as a touch and my heart begins to beat more deeply.

“What are you doing?” His voice is strained and hardly sounds like his own.

“I thought we could . . .” I stop and swallow. Now that the moment is upon me, I fear my nerve will fail. I close my eyes and remember the look on his face when we were sparring, remember the way his hands lingered on my body. “I know you desire me. I . . . I can see it when you look at me.” For all of Sister Beatriz’s lessons, I am doing this wrong, and a slow, hot flush of embarrassment washes over me.

He grabs my hand in his, and the feel of his naked fingers against mine sends a shock all the way down to my belly. We have rarely touched, and then only when he was wearing gloves. He brings my hand to his mouth and presses his lips upon it. A brief, fleeting gesture that is all too soon over. Then he tucks my hand under my chin. “This is not what you want. Not truly.” His voice is gruff and filled with an aching loneliness, a loneliness that I know I can ease.

“But it is.” I reach for him again, only this time I let my fingers drift up to his hair and touch the soft, dark strands of it. “I want to be with you,” I whisper.

He closes his eyes for a long moment and leans into my touch. My heart lifts, thinking this means he will agree. But then he pulls himself away and puts an arm’s length of distance between us. “That is not allowed.” His voice is rough, as if the words are being dragged along shards of glass. “And even if it were, you are too young, too good, to pledge yourself to the road I must travel. To pledge yourself to me.” Then, before I can argue further, he rises to his feet and strides away, leaving me cold and alone in the dark.

When I wake, Balthazaar is not at my side, and my heart plummets as I remember last night. Sitting up, I cast a casual glance around the cave, trying to locate him.

He sits toward the back, almost out of view, staring at something he holds in his lap. I glance away so he will not feel the weight of my gaze, but I am able to keep sight of him from the corner of my eye. As I stand, he hurriedly shoves whatever he is looking at back into his saddlebag and rises to his feet.

I avoid looking at him, or even acknowledging him, while we make ready to ride. Indeed, I manage to avoid him the entire night, my efforts greatly aided by his equal desire to avoid me. When the hunt returns to the cromlech, he still sleeps near me, but does not lie down until long after I am asleep, and he rises before I wake. He spends hours staring at whatever he keeps in his saddlebag, as if trying to coax an answer from it. After two days of this, my curiosity becomes piqued.

Perhaps he is holding some token of the sins he committed when he was human, something he is using to keep his resolve strong. Perhaps giving in to mortal temptation such as I offered him will only prolong his punishment or even remove his chance for redemption altogether.

Perhaps whatever he keeps in that saddlebag will answer all these questions that plague me.

Chapter Nineteen

AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT, the next night is a busy one, with lost and wandering souls so thick upon the ground that the hellequin are able to scoop them up like fishermen with a net. “Something is wrong,” Balthazaar says when the men have captured their fourth soul. “There should not be so many in one place.”

“Unless they have all been killed at once,” Sauvage says. “Then it would make sense.” He shrugs his massive shoulders. “Maybe there has been a battle. Or a fire.”

A battle. “Where are we?” I ask.

Balthazaar barely spares me a glance. “About six leagues north of Vannes.”

“Which means we are close to the port cities, a sure target if and when the French decide to make a move on Brittany.”

He looks at me blankly.

“The impending war?” I remind him with impatience. “It is possible the French have decided to engage us, and some battle we have not yet heard of has taken place.” Not that we would ever hear of it, seeing that we pass almost no one at night and those we do pass are not inclined to stop and share gossip.

“She is right,” Sauvage says. I am so surprised I almost ask him to repeat himself, but silence my tongue before the words can escape.

Balthazaar nods in agreement as another shout goes up. The hellequin have found yet more souls. “Come,” Balthazaar says. “Let us see if we can ask one of them why there are so many.” He puts his heels to his horse and we all ride forward.

When we are close enough to the others, Balthazaar and Sauvage rein in their horses and dismount. The souls must have been those of soldiers, for they do not cower or shrink in fear from the approaching hellequin.

Now, I think. Now is my chance, when everyone is busy with the souls. I slip out of my saddle onto the ground, then wait, stomping my feet as if to stay warm in case anyone should notice me.

As if I am merely stretching my legs, I saunter over to Balthazaar’s abandoned horse. The creature has grown used to my scent after our weeks riding together. Even though he tosses his mane and blows ­loudly, we both understand it is simply for show.

I carefully unlatch the strap that holds the saddlebag closed, glancing around as I do to be certain none of the men are watching. I reach into the saddlebag and grope blindly, certain my hands will recognize the object, for I have seen enough of it from a distance to discern the shape of it.

There! My hand closes around something long and thin. When I draw it out, I see that it is an arrow. I frown. Balthazaar does not even possess a bow.

Unease slithers across my shoulders. I turn to angle the arrow so the light of the moon falls upon it. A jolt of recognition slams through me.

It is my arrow. There is no mistaking the supple yew wood of the shaft, the black crow feathers I used for the fletching, and the single dove feather that is my own signature mark.

My heart starts to race, and slowly I bring the tip up so I may see the arrowhead itself.

It is stained dark with old blood.

My blood. Blood that I smeared upon it the night of the midwinter ceremony.

Every muscle in my body clenches. I shove the arrow into the saddlebag and begin backing away, struggling to keep my steps slow and measured.

I wait a beat, then another, before allowing myself to seek out Balthazaar’s figure. When I see that he is still with the others, gently trying to coax answers from the confused souls they have captured, I allow myself to breathe again. I have time. My snooping was not spotted. I clench my hands into fists, then open them, trying to work some of the tension from my body.

I do not know what this means, except that nothing is as it seems and I now feel myself to be in grave peril. I can only assume the arrow means the hellequin are hunting me as I originally feared, although why Balthazaar has not made a move against me, I do not know. He must be playing some long game I do not yet recognize.

Or perhaps before he could send me on to the Underworld, he found himself drawn to me and thought to take his ease. For he was drawn to me—the sparks between us crackled and snapped from our first meeting.

But then why did he reject my offer? Was it a way to use my own sin of pride against me, to rub salt into the wound of wanting him? A punishment of his own before turning me over to the judgment of Mortain?

I shake my head, trying to disentangle myself from all the questions that threaten to cloud my wits. There will be plenty of time for me to ponder my foolish mistakes once I am free. For I must escape before he connects me to that arrow or, if he has already made that connection, before he decides to move.

The good news is that the hellequin have grown fully accustomed to my presence. They trust me now and are less inclined to watch my every move as they did when I first joined them.

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Morning is almost here. It is the perfect time to make my escape. I need evade capture only until daybreak. Then they will have to return to one of their cromlechs and wait until nightfall again.

I glance up at the sky and try to determine how long until dawn. Less than an hour, I think. If I do not move soon, I will be forced to spend another night with them—with him—and I do not know if I can keep my newfound knowledge hidden.

To test if anyone is paying attention to me, I remount Fortuna, then urge her to take a few steps away from the group. No one spares me a glance; they are too intent on the conversation taking place between the others.