“If I lose,” Gwen whispered, “then I’m consigning her to a fate I can’t prevent.I’mthe one who lets her down. Who feeds her to the dragon.” She dropped her head, gazing down at the marble floor as it flickered and glowed with reflected firelight. “And even if I win, at best I’m only postponing her fate. Maybe she should just run, get out of this castle, out of this county—maybe by offering her this hope, I’m putting her in harm’s way. Even if I win, I can’t save her.”
“You can save her fromthismarriage,thismoment,” Dupont replied. “It is not for you to save her from all things that may come—that isn’t what she has asked you to do.”
“But it’s what Iwantto do,” Gwen burst out, dropping her hands to the floor to keep from losing her balance. Her gaze lifted to rest on the massive dragonslaying spear hung over the fireplace, wishing for something so simple as a monster to fight. She bit her lip against the rest of what she desperately wished to say, certain that Madame Dupont, of all people, would chastise her for letting her heart become tangled up in her mission.
But Madame Dupont only smiled a quick, dry smile, and shifted her gaze from the fire to Gwen. “If you lose tomorrow, will you care for her any less than you do now?”
Gwen blinked at her. “Of course not.”
“Then why do you assume her feelings will change?”
Gwen could feel the heat of the fire building as it spread to the logs Dupont was painstakingly stacking atop the blaze. “I... I don’t know.”
The silence spread, punctuated by the little cracks and hisses and pops of the fire, creating an expectant space that pulled at Gwen’s need to speak far more skillfully than any interrogator could have done.
Finally, unbuckling her sword belt and tossing it aside, Gwen sat down and braced herself, palms flat against the stone floor. She kept her eyes on the reflection of the fire in the marble. “I... I’m not so sure losing is what I’m afraid of.”
“Hmm.” Dupont’s voice lacked even the tiniest hint of surprise. “Go on.”
Gwen swallowed, the slight sound nearly drowned out by the crackling fire. “What happens if Idon’tlose?” she whispered, finally raising her gaze to look at Madame Dupont, watching the image of her waver slightly as moisture stung her eyes. “If I prove Iamjust as good as any of them, as good asallof them... if I win, how do I go back to my old, obedient little life when it’s over? How do I close this door again and go back to being who I was?”
The words crystallized in the air, surfacing a far deeper fear, one Gwen had not dared even to name.
Madame Dupont turned her head, looking away from the fire and inspecting Gwen’s features in the flickering light. Then she shifted her weight, easing down to sit cross-legged, gazing at the fire. “I shall tell you a story, Gwen. I was older than you, twenty-three years of age, and I was... well. You are not the first to ask whether a woman could hold a sword.”
Gwen felt herself moving, shifting to match Dupont’s body language. Even Isobelle didn’t know much about Dupont’s life before she came to the castle as a dancing instructor.
“How I practiced,” Dupont murmured. “Day and night, ignoring everything else. When the tournament came and I presented myself, as I am, as a woman, I was ready to fight them all. But they did not arrest me, or forbid me to fight, or tell me a woman may not enter. They did something far worse.” The older woman shifted her gaze from the fire and met Gwen’s eyes. In them Gwen could see a decades-old pain, as fresh and sharp as it must have been the day the wound was inflicted. “They laughed at me.”
Gwen felt a pain jolt her hands—she’d curled them into fists so tight her fingernails were digging into her palms. Somewhere within her flickered that same fury that had swept through her the day she defeated Sir Evonwald and earned her way past the qualifiers, the day she’d overheard the knights talking about Isobelle like she was nothing more than a thing they could own and use as they wished. “Did they stop laughing when they saw what you could do?”
“They never did.” Dupont’s words came quick and hard, like blows. “I ran. I let them take my defiance and my joy and replace it with shame, and when I ran away in the night, that shame is the only thing I took with me.”
Gwen could feel her eyes burning. A day ago, she would have driven her sword through her own foot rather than let Madame Dupont see tears in her eyes. But now, the moisture wetting her lashes and turning the firelight into a glittering kaleidoscope was all she had to offer in exchange for this story Dupont was giving her. A part of her refused to imagine the invincible woman she’d come to know since arriving at the castle as a broken-hearted girl,running away in the dark of night.
Another, deeper part of her could feel the truth of the tale. Could see how someone could have emerged from that crucible as some harder, stronger substance.
“That was when I made my way here,” Madame Dupont went on, glancing out at the moonlit shadows beyond the ring of firelight where they sat together. “I work here to strengthen the wills and spines of these young women—not necessarily to carry a sword, but to hold up under the blows and cuts the world wishes to inflict upon them.”
Her eyes swung back again to meet Gwen’s. “But I still carry that shame they gave me, because once you accept a thing as yours, it is difficult to cast off again. It is hard, once you have opened a door, to close it once more.”
Gwen found herself gulping for a breath, fighting to get the air past the tight knots in her chest. “You’re saying that I have to fight,” she whispered. “That it is already too late to turn back—whether I run or fight, I will be opening a door and inviting something in.”
Dupont nodded, and then took one of Gwen’s hands in her own. The gesture was so startling that Gwen looked down, staring at the woman’s strong, callused fingers, the back of her hand marked with the same black-on-brown freckles that dotted her cheeks. Her skin was dry and warm, her grip tight.
“Go on,” Dupont said. “Say the words again.”
“I have to fight.” Gwen’s vision swam with tears, and she felt one spill down onto her cheek. She could feel that fury in her belly shifting, changing, like lead being transmuted by an alchemist into something far stronger and far more precious than mere gold. “Iwantto fight.”
She blinked away her tears and refocused, meeting Dupont’s gaze, finding in it a glimpse of that same alloy of anger and pain and courage and love and thewantingof something more. The hand gripping hers squeezed.
“Whatever happens,” said Madame Dupont, “you will know that you chose to fight. You will know that Isobelle is watching, and that so am I. Even if by no one else but us, you will be seen. You will remember who you are.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Do you yield?
Isobelle woke early after a restless night, pulling a robe around herself and padding out to the main room. She didn’t know what she was going to do—knock on Gwen’s door? To say what?
