Dark Triumph

My own sits on my wrist, her small leather hood with its bright red and blue feathers covering her eyes and keeping her calm amid the commotion. Julian gave her to me for my twelfth birthday. When I ran away to the convent, he watched over her for the full three years I was gone, as if knowing I’d be back. When I returned, she’d grown so used to him that at first she would go only to his wrist, not mine.

Just outside the city wall, my falcon grows agitated, turning her head from side to side and causing the tiny silver bells on her jesses to tinkle. We have reached the very place where the duchess’s men met their deaths but a handful of days ago, and I wonder if the sensitive creature can feel the lingering presence of death. The heartbreaking bellow of the last knight as he went down echoes in my ears, u

“Is everything all right?”

I look up to find Julian has nudged his mount closer to mine.

I shoot him a glance, careful to hide my agitation and fill my expression with a

He smiles. “I am glad you decided to come. I should have expired of boredom otherwise. I might even have had to shoot one of the barons, just for entertainment. They would all be grateful if they knew that your presence has spared them such a fate.”

His words strike a chord of unease. Is he fishing? Does he suspect that I am behind the scattered deaths in our party over the last few months? I twist my mouth in a cruel smile. “Do not feel you must resist shooting them on my account. I could do with some entertainment as well.”

Julian laughs, a rich easy sound that does much to alleviate my concerns. “Watching Pierre seduce Baron Vie

I turn my gaze to Pierre. He is flirting outrageously with a buxom lady in vermilion velvet. I ca

There is no love lost between Pierre and me. When he was twelve years old, he wanted to prove that he was no mere boy but a man full grown, and did so by forcing my first kiss on me when I was but nine years of age.

I was so startled by the kiss, so taken aback and affronted at this violation of my person, that I retaliated in the only way I knew how: I kissed him back. I didn’t simply return the kiss while his lips were already planted on my own. Instead, I waited until he was busy polishing our lord father’s armor, sauntered up to him as I had seen Marie the upstairs maid do to one of the men-at-arms, grabbed his smooth cheeks in my hands, and smacked him soundly on his lips.

The scar that adorns his left eyebrow is from where I whacked him with our father’s scabbard when he tried to force a second kiss.

But while I rarely have occasion to feel grateful to Pierre, today I do. If Pierre is courting Vie

I turn to Julian with a sly smile. “How long will it take Baron Vie

Julian smiles back. “Not long, for Pierre will not truly enjoy himself until he can rub the baron’s nose in it.”

Since we are speaking of the baron, I allow my gaze to drift over to him and Julliers. I can feel the rapid beating of their hearts—as if two horses are galloping far in the distance, just beyond true hearing. Beads of sweat have begun to form on Julliers’s brow, but Vie

Before either Julian or I can say anything further, the huntsman sounds his horn. It is time to hunt.

I remove my falcon’s hood, and she fluffs her wings in readiness, her sharp, keen eye sca

But I have prey of my own. Both the barons have grown ashen, and Julliers’s left arm hangs useless at his side. If he is experiencing numbness in his limbs, it will not be long now.

Then the huntsman sounds his horn again, and the hounds are off the leash, the teaming swarm of them racing toward the underbrush to flush out the game. A frantic thudding of wings follows as the startled partridge take flight.

Like heavy stones thrown from a trebuchet, the falcons drop from the sky and plummet toward their prey. A series of soft thumps follow.

But one falcon—mine—is still moving; a lone rabbit has also been flushed from the brush. The poor creature’s death squeal is harsh in the quiet of the forest, and every nerve in my body flares, for the noise made by a dying rabbit is shockingly similar to that produced by a dying man. As the falcon returns, I thrust out my arm and hold my breath, waiting to see whose wrist she will return to. When she lands on mine, I decide to take it as a fortuitous omen.

I glance once more at the two barons and wonder yet again why Mortain has marqued them for death but not d’Albret. Their sins and betrayals are small when weighed against his.

It would have me questioning Mortain’s very existence if I did not so desperately need to believe in Him, for if He is not my father, then d’Albret is, and that I could not bear.

Flushed with the pleasure of our morning’s hunt, we head back to the castle. Julliers has given his hawk to his groom to carry, and Vie

Everyone is happy with the morning, except Jamette, whose little goshawk caught nothing but a vole. “It is a good thing we do not have to eat only what we catch,” I tease her.

She glares at me, which makes me laugh out loud.

We are nearly to the city walls when I feel something watching me. It is not Julian, for Jamette is busy trying to draw him into conversation. Nor is it Pierre, who has taken full advantage of Vie

I turn back in my saddle. Are the French troops close enough that they could have scouts nearby? Or did some of the Re

Or perhaps it is no living thing I sense but the soul of one of those men who died so violently on the battlefield.

I glance over my shoulder once more. When I do, a crow flutters from a far tree to a closer one. His left wing is crooked, as if it had once been broken.

Merde.

I whip back around in my saddle. It is my very own crow. The one Sister Widona had rescued and kept in a cage when I first arrived. She used the frightened, wounded creature to draw me out of the morass my own mind had fallen into. Without that crow, I might be there still.

The convent has sent me a message. It has been four long months since I last heard from them, and I had nearly given up hope that I ever would again. But now. Now there is a message. My spirits soar just like the falcons did moments ago. Perhaps old Sister Vereda has Seen what I could not—d’Albret’s death.

“You seem restless.” Julian’s voice yanks my mind from its daydreaming. The crow’s timing could not be worse.

“Not at all,” I say.

Ever jealous of the attention Julian pays me, Jamette sticks her long nose in. “Why is that crow following you?” she asks.

“You are deluded,” I scoff. “He is not following me. I think he is after the vole you caught.”