Mortal Heart (His Fair Assassin 3)

Father Effram bows his head. “At your service, my lord.” Then he turns to my gaping self. “I know because I was once a god as well.”

“You are—were—Saint Salonius?”

“Yes.” He turns to Balthazaar once more, his face growing serious. “And this,” he says to the man who was once Death. “Does this put right all that lies between us?”

Balthazaar stares at him a long moment, then nods. “It does.” He puts out his hand. Father Effram grasps it and closes his eyes, almost as if receiving a benediction.

Balthazaar is taken to the Brigantian convent so they may tend his wounds, but it is hard—so hard—to let go of his hand. I wish to accompany him, to stay by his side forever if need be, to ensure that this is real and will not be snatched away.

But I have others I must see to.

A truce has been made, and the Breton forces have left the safety of the city walls in order to recover our dead. Every soldier seems to know that if not for the hellequin, it would be his own dead body being carried back on a litter.

Of the fifty hellequin that rode out, twenty-eight bodies are returned to us, among them Begard’s, Malestroit’s, and Sauvage’s. Slowly, I drop to Malestroit’s side. His face is no longer filled with sorrow but with serenity. I kiss the tips of my fingers, then press them to his lips. “Goodbye,” I whisper. “And thank you. May you find peace at last.”

Sauvage too is much transformed, his terrifying ferocity replaced by a peace so deep, he is hardly recognizable.

Begard looks even younger in death, relaxed, with no pinch of regret or guilt shadowing his face. I bid him goodbye as well. Father Effram joins me, and, together, we walk among the fallen hellequin. He gives them a final blessing and I bid them each farewell.

Some bodies are not recovered, and I do not know what that means. Most of those not recovered were on the sortie to the supply wagons, including Miserere. I think of his fierce, implacable face and mourn

that he may not have found the redemption he so desperately wanted.

It is only when they have all been seen to and tended, and I confirm with my own eyes that the truce continues to hold, that I allow myself to return to the palace long enough to strip out of my blood-soaked clothes, scrub the worst of the filth from me, then head to the Brigantian convent.

I am not questioned at the convent but ushered immediately to Balthazaar’s room. It is clean and smells of pungent herbs. At the door I pause, staring at the still figure on the bed, marveling that his chest rises and falls as he draws breath. Marveling that the pallor of death has left his face and he no longer appears to have been chiseled from the whitest marble.

He is, I realize, pulsing with life.

We have done it, he and I. We not only evoked one last gasp of magic from Arduinna’s sacred arrow but managed to upend the order of the world and create a place for Balthazaar in it. At my side, hopefully, although we have not discussed that.

“It is a miracle, is it not?” I turn to find a grizzled nun standing beside me, her wrinkled face alight with wonder and awe.

“It is,” I agree.

She looks up at me, tilting her head. “Are you the one he did it for?”

Her question makes me pause, uncertain of how to answer that. Did he do it for me? Or because he was finally offered a chance? Perhaps the two things cannot be separated from each other.

Seeing my discomfort, the nun smiles warmly, pats me on the arm, then goes about her business, leaving me alone with him.

“Quit lurking in the shadows.” Balthazaar’s voice rumbles up from

the bed. “That is my role, not yours.”

I cannot help it, I laugh and go to stand beside his bed. He has a most curious expression on his face. “Are you still in a lot of pain?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says, but without bitterness or distress, merely wonder. He lifts one hand and stares down at it, then looks up at me. “But pleasure too. Everything”—he looks around the room, staring at the shafts of sunlight that play upon the shadows—“everything is so much more—more delineated, nuanced. And”—he turns his gaze back to me—“exquisite.”

The warmth in his eyes almost unnerves me. I do not know what to do with a joyous Balthazaar. He takes my hand—wincing as he does so—then presses it to his lips. “I cannot believe that you have done it. Created a place for me in life.”

“We did it,” I remind him. “Not just me, but us. Together.”

He stares at me a long moment, his dark gaze unreadable, and I long to know what he is thinking. He shakes his head, as if he is not quite able to grasp it all. “No one has ever invited me to share her life before.” Then he tugs sharply on my hand, causing to me to stumble and fall onto the bed. I try to pull back, afraid to cause him more injury, but his other arm comes up around me and he shifts, making room for me beside him. Afraid I will cause him more agony if I fight him—and also because it’s where I desperately wish to be—I allow myself to be tucked up against his side.

His hand runs down my back in a long, slow caress. “The hellequin?” he asks.

I press myself closer against him, as if our closeness will diminish the sting of the words. “Most have found the peace they were looking for,” I tell him. “We recovered over half of the bodies, including those of Malestroit and Begard.”

His hand on my back stills. “And the others?”

“We found no trace of them.”

I glance up at his face as a fresh wave of an entirely different sort of pain washes across his features. “I had hoped they would all end their journeys on that field.”

“I know. What will happen to them now?”

He opens his mouth, then closes it and frowns. “I do not know. I am not sure what will happen to any of them now. Do we know yet if the arrow worked?”

I am relieved to have good news to share with him. “We know that they have called a truce and that the hostilities have ceased, at least for the moment. I would like to think that is at the command of the king as he decides how best to follow the direction his heart now points him in.”

In the silence that follows, I can hear Balthazaar breathing, a faint, ragged sound. I long to ask him about us, what will happen with us now. We had spoken of how to live without each other but had not dared to dream of what we might do if our bold gamble worked. “Have you given any thought to what you will do now that you are free?” I say.

“As long as you are at my side, I care little. Except . . .”

“What?”

He shifts uncomfortably on the bed. “At some point, I would like to meet my daughters, to see them face to face and somehow be a part of their lives.”

In that moment, I realize that if I was not already besotted with him, I would fall in love all over again. I rise up on my elbow and stare down at his face, losing myself in those eyes that now hold far more light and hope than bleakness. “Then that will be where we go first.”

Chapter Fifty-Seven

TWO DAYS LATER, THE DUCHESS is holding court in the great hall. It is sparsely attended, for the entire city holds its breath, waiting to see what the French will do. Of course, the citizens do not know of the arrow and our hopes for it, but they did witness—or heard tell of—the skirmish, and they wonder what it portends.

It is the first time I have attended the duchess since we rode out into the French encampment, as she had given me leave to tend to Balthazaar and his injuries.

Sybella and Beast are at the Brigantian convent this morning, spending some well-deserved time with their families. Ismae and Duval are playing chess while the rest of us pretend not to watch, for he is trying to teach her and she is most impatient. She does not care for his being so much better than she is at the game, and she spends most of it glaring at him.

Just as Duval captures Ismae’s second bishop and says, “Check,” one of the sentries comes hurrying into the hall, his face pale, his eyes wide. I step closer to the duchess, my hands going to my knives. Their game forgotten,

both Ismae and Duval rise to their feet. “What’s happened?” Duval asks.

“We have a visitor.” The messenger clears his throat. “It is the French king.” The disbelief in his voice is mirrored on all our faces.