Mortal Heart (His Fair Assassin 3)

“But only because you have been raised to wish it,” I say gently. “It was trained into you just as surely as dancing or embroidery. But just as those are not truly you, neither is this desire for independence at any cost.”

She whirls on me. “Why are you so quick to surrender? To give up?” The moment she asks the question, I realize I will have to tell her who my father is, else, when she finds out, she will feel sorely betrayed and will doubt my loyalty.

Am I being quick to surrender? Is there some weakness, some traitor blood that flows in my veins? I consider a moment. “It is not that I am so very quick to give up,” I finally say, “but rather that I do not wish to spend my life pursuing goals that others have chosen for me. If I must perish, if I must stumble and fail, then let it be in pursuit of the ideals and dreams that I hold in my own heart.”

She stares at me a long moment. “I do not want all those deaths on my conscience,” she whispers. “Indeed, it haunts my dreams, and I fear that I will not be able to live with myself.”

“I would have a hard time with that decision as well, Your Grace.” I take a deep breath. “In truth, killing holds little appeal for me.”

Her head jerks up in surprise.

“Oh, have no fear, I can fight better than most, for I am well trained, but I have never enjoyed taking life. And that was something I thought was a weakness of mine, something to be ashamed of and do penance for. I have spent my entire life praying for the strength to embrace killing.”

“And have you received it?”

“No. But I have learned something that I must share with you, something I have shared with few others.” I take a deep breath. “As it turns out, I was not sired by Mortain after all. I am not his daughter. My entire life has been a lie.” A bemused laugh escapes my throat. It still stuns me to say those words. “I have spent my life pursuing dreams and goals that were never mine to pursue. And one of the reasons I tell you this is that before you make a decision on the option that I have given you, you need to know the truth about not only me, but my true father.”

“Who is he?”

“Crunard, Your Grace. My father is Chancellor Crunard.” It is the first time I have ever spoken those words, and the sound of them echoing in the room is like a death knell for the person I have been all my life. Saying them, and to my duchess, no less, is akin to stepping out of an old skin and standing naked before the world. “There must be truth between us so you can make the best, most informed decision available to you. If I had hid my identity from you now, when you found out, you would always question my loyalty, and that would wound me greatly, for serving you has been an unexpected grace.”

She stares at me a long moment, her eyes wide and deep with thoughts. She shakes her head with a rueful smile. “I thank you for your honesty, Lady Annith, but be assured, I trust the counsel you have given me. As you say, I understand well how we can serve in spite of our parentage.”

Now it is my turn to give her a bemused look.

She smiles tightly and folds her arms across her chest. “Do you know how much Breton blood I possess?”

“No, Your Grace.”

“None. Not one drop. My father was a French noble who inherited Brittany from his wife.”

“Your mother.”

“No.” She gives a quick, firm shake of her head. “Not my mother. His first wife, the heir to Brittany, died years before I was born. My mother was also named Marguerite, but she was Marguerite of Foix, not Brittany. So you see, the whole of my life has been a lie as well.

“But,” she continues, “the cause of Breton independence has defined my entire life, and in that I am more Breton that most of the Breton nobles, who have been receiving bribes and payments from the French regent for years.

“So instead, I will think of Brittany’s true people, those who have lived here since time out of mind and who have worked the land and built the castles and cathedrals and roads. Those are the lives I must weigh.”

And just like that, I know that it is time for me to meet with the abbess once more, for we still have much that lies unspoken and unsettled between us. But it is not her, or even the convent, that I must worry about. Like the duchess, my true concern is those whose lives will be most affected—all the girls that I have loved as sisters.

Chapter Forty-Nine

THE NEXT DAY, THE ABBESS forces me to wait for a full hour before she will see me. It is a rank display of power, and all the more pitiful for it. Luckily, it serves me well, for it allows me to run through a number of different ways the conversation can go. By the time I am finally admitted to her office, I am calm and sure of what I wish to say to her.

“Annith.”

She gives no greeting, but merely says my name, so I do the same. “Reverend Mother.”

I add a shallow curtsy to maintain the pretense of respect, but it is shallow enough that she knows that’s all it is—a mere formality and devoid of the former esteem and admiration I once felt for her.

“I am hoping you are here to tell me that you have come to your senses and will be returning to the convent immediately.”

“On the contrary, I am here to tell you that this cannot go on. You cannot keep serving as reverend mother. It corrupts the very nature of what we do and whom we serve.”

Her nostrils flare with irritation. “We have no choice, don’t you understand? Besides, no one except you knows or even suspects.”

I think back to the probing glances Sister Serafina often gave me and to the openly hostile manner of Sister Eonette. “I am not sure that is true.”

“How do you propose that we go about this?” She spreads her arms wide as if it is too big a thought to put her arms around. “How do we tell them?”

“I do not know; it is not my sin to confess.” I meet her gaze steadily.

She leans back in her chair, a smile playing about her lips, a smile that sends a whisper of unease down my spine. “You are every bit as culpable as I am, make no mistake.”

I frown in confusion. “What do you mean? I was a mere infant; I did not ask to be brought there.”

She picks up a quill from her desk and examines the tip. “Do you remember the great tragedy?”

The sinking feeling in my gut reminds me of why I have been so reluctant to confront her again. “Yes,” I say quietly. “Of course I do. We lost four beloved nuns.”

She picks up a knife and begins sharpening the point of the quill. I want to shake her and scream at her to stop. Instead, I clasp my hands tightly together and wait for whatever is coming. “Do you also remember how, a few days before that, you and I went out for a walk and carried a small luncheon with us?”

The sinking feeling now turns into a sick churning. “Of course I remember.” It was one of the rare special outings Sister Etienne and I were allowed.

She finally looks up from the quill, piercing me with her cold blue eyes. “Do you remember what else we did that day, besides walk the island and picnic?”

“We picked mushrooms,” I whisper.

She sets the knife and quill down and folds her hands in front of her. “Exactly.”

Dread begins to seep into my bones. “But you said they were the safe ones!”

She tilts her head to the side. “Did I?”

“Of course you did, or else I would never have touched them!”

“Odd. I don’t remember that conversation.” She leans forward, face triumphant with victory. “It was you, Annith, you who picked the mushrooms that killed the nuns that day.”

Awareness slams into me like a battering ram. “But, but if you knew, why didn’t you throw them away?”

“I had to do something to save you from that woman. She was going to kill you. And you—obedient, besotted sheep that you were—you were just going to let her.”

My mind reels. I had thought that learning I was not sired by Mortain was surely the worst shock of my life, but even it pales when compared to this. “And you let Sister Magdelena take the blame for it

?”