Serpent & Dove

C’est cela l’amour, tout donner, tout sacrifier sans espoir de retour.

That is love, to give away everything, to sacrifice everything, without the slightest desire to get anything in return.

—Albert Camus

Screams rent the air, and the crowd scattered in panic and confusion. I lost sight of Reid. I lost sight of everyone but my mother. She stood still in the swarming crowd—a beacon of white in the impending shadows. Smiling. Hands extended in supplication.

The Archbishop pulled me behind him as the witches converged. I cringed away, unable to process the emotions pounding through me—the wild disbelief, the debilitating fear, the violent rage. The witch in black, Fate, reached us first, but the Archbishop tore his Balisarda from his robes and sliced it deep across her breast. She staggered down the steps into her sister’s arms. Another shrieked and charged forward.

Blue flashed, and a knife split her chest from behind. She gasped, clutching helplessly at the wound, before a hand pushed her forward. She slid off the blade slowly and crumpled.

There stood Reid.

His Balisarda dripped with her blood, and his eyes burned with primal hatred. Jean Luc and Ansel fought behind him. With a quick jerk of his head, he motioned me forward. I didn’t hesitate, abandoning the Archbishop and rushing into his outstretched arms.

But the witches kept coming. More and more seemed to appear from thin air. Worse—I’d lost sight of my mother.

An enchanted man with vacant eyes lumbered forward to meet the Archbishop. A witch stood closely behind, wringing her fingers with a ferocious snarl. Magic exploded in the air. “Get her inside!” the Archbishop cried. “Barricade yourselves in the Tower!”

“No!” I shoved away from Reid. “Give me a weapon! I can fight!”

Three sets of hands seized me, all dragging me back into the church. Other Chasseurs broke through the crowd now. I watched in horror as they drew silver syringes from their coats.

Reid shoved the church doors closed as fresh screams started.

Moving quickly, he began to lift the enormous wooden beam across the doors. Jean Luc hurried to help, while Ansel hovered by my side, face white. “Was it all true—what the witches said? D-Does the Archbishop have—does he have a child with Morgane le Blanc?”

“Perhaps.” Jean Luc’s shoulders strained under the weight of the beam. “But perhaps it was—all a—diversion.” With one last heave, they set the beam into place. He looked me up and down, breathing heavily. “Like the witches at the castle. They’d almost breached its walls when we arrived. Then they vanished.”

Glass shattered, and we looked up to see a witch scuttling through the rose window hundreds of feet above us. “Oh my God,” Ansel breathed, face twisting in horror.

Jean Luc shoved me forward. “Take her upstairs! I’ll handle the witch!”

Reid grabbed my hand, and together we sprinted for the staircase. Ansel pounded along behind.

When we reached our bedroom, Reid slammed the door shut and thrust his Balisarda through the handle. In the next moment, he strode across the room to peer out the window, hand darting into his coat to retrieve a small pouch. Salt. He dumped the white crystals along the window ledge frantically.

“That won’t help.” My voice came out low and fervent—guilty.

Reid’s hands stilled, and he turned slowly to face me. “Why are the witches after you, Lou?”

I opened my mouth, searching desperately for a reasonable explanation, but found none. He grabbed my hand and leaned down, lowering his voice. “The truth now. I can’t protect you without it.”

I took a deep breath, bracing myself. Every laugh, every look, every touch—it all came down to this moment.

Ansel made a strangled noise behind us. “Look out!”

We turned as one to see a witch hovering outside the window, her dun-colored hair whipping around her in a violent wind. My heart stopped. She stepped onto the sill, right through the line of salt.

Reid and I moved in front of each other at the same instant. His foot crushed mine, and I crashed to my knees. The witch cocked her head as he dove after me—after me, not his Balisarda.

Ansel didn’t make the same mistake. He lunged toward the knife, but the witch was faster. At a curt flick of her wrist, the sharp tang of magic scorched my nose, and Ansel flew into the wall. Before I could stop him—before I could do anything but shout a warning—Reid launched himself at her.

With another flick, his body flew upward, and his head smashed into the ceiling. The entire room trembled. Another, and he collapsed to the ground at my feet, alarmingly still.

“No!” Heart leaping to my throat, I rolled him over with frantic fingers. His eyes fluttered. Alive. My head snapped toward the dun-haired witch. “You bitch.”

Her face twisted into a feral snarl. “You burned my sister.”

A memory surfaced—a dun-haired woman at the back of the crowd, sobbing as Estelle burned. I pushed it away.

“She would’ve taken me.” Lifting my hands warily, I wracked my brain for a pattern. Bits of gold flickered rapidly all around her. I willed them to solidify as she floated down from the sill.

Deep circles lined her bloodshot eyes, and her hands trembled with rage. “You dishonor your mother. You dishonor the Dames Blanches.”

“The Dames Blanches can burn in Hell.”

“You aren’t worthy of the honor Morgane bestows upon you. You never have been.”

Golden cords snaked between her body and mine. I caught one at random and followed it, but it branched into hundreds of others, wrapping around our bones. I recoiled from them, the cost—and risk—too great.

She bared her teeth and lifted her hands in response, eyes alight with hatred. I braced myself for the blow, but it never came. Though she thrust her hand toward me again and again, each blast washed over my skin and dissipated.

Angelica’s Ring burned hot on my finger—dispelling her patterns.

She stared at it incredulously. I lifted my hands higher with a smile, eyes lighting on a promising pattern. Backing away, she glanced at the Balisarda, but I clenched my fists before she could reach it.

She collided with the ceiling in an identical arc to Reid’s, and bits of wood and mortar rained down on my head. My heartbeat slowed in response, my vision spinning, as she toppled to the floor. I lifted my hands—groping for a second pattern, something to steal her consciousness—but she tackled me around the waist into the desk.

The desk.

I jerked the drawer open, hand closing around my knife, but she caught my wrist and twisted sharply. With a feral cry, she smashed her head into my nose. I staggered sideways—blood pouring down my chin—as she wrenched the knife from my grasp.

Reid’s Balisarda glinted from the doorway. I lunged for it, but she slashed my knife in front of my nose, blocking my path. Gold flared briefly, but I couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t think. I thrust my elbow into her ribs instead. When she broke away, doubled over and gasping, I finally saw my opportunity.

My knee connected with her face, and she dropped my knife. I swooped it up triumphantly.

“Go ahead.” She clutched her side, blood dripping from her nose to the floor. “Kill me like you killed Estelle. Witch killer.”

The words were more weapon than the knife ever could be.

“I—I did what I had to—”

“You murdered your kin. You married a huntsman. You are the only Dame Blanche who will burn in Hell, Louise le Blanc.” She straightened, spitting a mouthful of blood on the floor and wiping her chin. “Come with me now—accept your birthright—and the Goddess may still spare your soul.”

Tendrils of doubt snaked around my heart at her words.

Perhaps I would burn in Hell for what I’d done to survive. I’d lied and stolen and killed without hesitation in my relentless quest to live. But when had such a life become worth living? When had I become so ruthless, so accustomed to the blood on my hands?

When had I become one of them—but worse than both? At least the Dames Blanches and Chasseurs had chosen a side. Each stood for something, yet I stood for nothing. A coward.

All I’d wanted was to feel the sun on my face one last time. I hadn’t wanted to die on that altar. If that made me a coward . . . so be it.

“With your sacrifice, we’ll reclaim our homeland.” She stepped closer as if sensing my hesitation, wringing her bloody hands. “Don’t you understand? We’ll rule Belterra again—”

“No,” I objected, “you will rule Belterra. I will be dead.”

Her chest heaved with passion. “Think of the witchlife you’ll save by your sacrifice!”

“I can’t allow you to slaughter innocent people.” My voice quieted with resolve. “There has to be another way—”

My words faltered as Reid rose to his knees in my periphery. The witch’s face wasn’t wholly human as she turned to look at him—as she lifted her hand. I felt the unnatural energy shimmering between them, sensed the death blow before she struck.

I flung a hand toward him desperately. “No!”

Reid flew aside—eyes widening as my magic lifted him—and the witch’s black energy blasted through the wall instead. But my relief was short-lived. Before I could reach him, she’d darted to his side and pressed the knife to his throat, reaching into his coat to withdraw something small. Something silver.

I stared at it in horror. A vicious smile split her face as he struggled. “Come here, or I’ll slit his throat.”

My feet moved toward her without hesitation. Instinctive. Though leaden, though suddenly clumsy and stiff, they knew where I had to go. Where I’d always been destined to go. Since birth. Since conception. If it meant Reid would live, I would gladly die.

Chest heaving, Reid stared resolutely at the floor as I approached. He didn’t flee when the witch released him, didn’t move to stop her when she stabbed the quill into my throat.

I felt it pierce my skin as if I were in another’s body—the pain disconnected, somehow, as the thick liquid congealed in my veins. It was cold. The icy fingers crept steadily down my spine—paralyzing my body—but it was nothing compared to the ice in Reid’s gaze as he finally looked at me.

That was the ice that pierced my heart.

I slumped forward, eyes never leaving his face. Please, I silently begged. Understand.

But there was no understanding in his eyes as he watched my body fall to the floor, as my limbs began to spasm and twitch. There was only shock, anger, and . . . disgust. Gone was the man who had knelt before me and gently wiped my tears away. Gone was the man who had held me on the rooftop, who had laughed at my jokes and defended my honor and kissed me under the stars.

Gone was the man who had claimed to love me.

Now, there was only the Chasseur.

And he hated me.

Tears tracked through the blood on my face to the floor. It was the only outward sign that my heart had cleaved in two. Still Reid did not move.

The witch lifted my chin, piercing my skin with her fingernails. Black hovered at the edges of my vision, and I struggled to remain conscious. The drug swirled in my mind, tempting me with oblivion. She bent down to my ear. “You thought he would protect you, but he’d tie you to the stake himself. Look at him, Louise. Look at his hatred.”

With enormous effort, I raised my head. Her fingers loosened in surprise.

I looked directly into Reid’s eyes. “I love you.”

Then I blacked out.