The voices on the road go silent. The line of prisoners grinds to a halt.
“Show yourself!” one of the masked intruders calls.
The girls tense in my arms, and Louis mutters an oath.
Rixenda peers over at the trees, her face pinched with a brazen expression I know all too well. Fingertips of worry trace up and down my spine. I hold every muscle still. The sky is dark and thick with smoke and we’re a good ways back from the road.Look away,I plead. But her pale eyes lock on mine through the bramble.
One of the men starts toward us.
Rixenda wipes her palms down the front of her apron and stands taller. Sparks from the fire dance in her eyes, and I know what she’s going to do.
No,I want to shout, but it’s too late. She hefts her petticoats to her knees, steps out of line, and runs in the opposite direction. Drawing the attention away from us.
The intruder wheels around to give chase. The man at the head of the group glances at the trees, then back at his line of prisoners. Torn.
“Go!” Louis whispers as he runs deeper into the forest.
The others follow, but my feet are rooted to the spot. My throat burns as if I’m screaming, but I’m not making a sound.
The man overtakes Rixenda in less than ten steps. His sword slashes through the flesh between her shoulder blades, and her shriek raises every hair on my body. Pain shudders through me like an earthquake as I watch her hit the ground. A raw, warbling sound sputters from my lips as her blood seeps across the road.
Marie clamps a hand over my mouth. “Don’t waste her sacrifice,” she says softly. Thensheis draggingme.
I want to curl into a ball and weep. I want to lie down in the leaves and let the fire devour me. But as Rixenda’s screams fade away, her final words to me linger in my mind.
Be strong, Josse.
So I force myself to inhale. Force myself to boost my sisters higher and run. Tears streak my soot-caked cheeks and numbness settles over me—as murky as the charcoal sky. By the time we finally stop to catch our breaths, my bones have turned to jelly.
Louis leans against a tree and mumbles something about scampering about like godforsaken rats. His words slowly permeate my grief-stricken haze and spark something inside me.
“Rats …” I repeat.
“What about them?”
“If these rebels want to treat us like rats, we might as well oblige.”
Louis eyes me like I’m out of my mind. And maybe I am.
With a wave to Condé at the rear, I forge ahead, marking a straight course toward the last place anyone would think to look for royalty.
3
MIRABELLE
Our carriage rumbles away from the smoldering remains of Versailles, trailing a wake of corpses. I sit straight as a lance and stare at the frayed window curtain flapping in the breeze. Each time it billows, an icy gust whips through the compartment, but I am too numb to feel it. My tongue is too raw to form words. I squeeze my eyes shut, but the Sun King’s face fills the blackness: foam dripping from his mouth, fingers clawing at his standing ruff. I see the green glow of Lesage’s désintégrer and the courtiers’ bodies strewn across the manicured lawns, their satin gowns and jewel-encrusted doublets riddled with arrows and seeping scarlet.
What have we done?
I grip the edge of the bench, tighter and tighter until my forearms quake. No matter how deeply I inhale, I cannot catch my breath—as if invisible hands are cinching my stays. I know better than to utter a word of objection, but I must look like a cauldron threatening to boil over, for Mother takes my chin in a firm grip and forces me to look at her.
“Trust me, Mirabelle.”
I wet my lips and swallow hard.How can I trust you? You deceived me, used me. We poisoned the king.
Mother makes her voice as smooth as honey and brushes a wayward curl from my face. “This was necessary. For the greater good. We will care for the people of Paris far better than the Sun King ever did. There will be no hungry, no infirm.”
Everything inside me goes quiet. So still, I can hear the blood pounding in my ears. What does she mean,wewill care for the people?
