Warrior Witch (The Malediction Trilogy #3)(99)

“Where are you going?” Angoulême demanded.

Roland stopped in his tracks, and even from the distance where we watched, I felt the ground tremble. “You’ve made it quite clear, Your Grace, that I’m responsible for dirtying my hands for you, but I did not realize that you intended to reciprocate.”

Marc snorted out a laugh. “Madness aside, he’s got a Montigny tongue on him.”

Angoulême scowled. “Don’t be long.”

“That’s hard to predict,” Roland replied, strolling off into the woods.

“You pushed him too hard,” Lessa hissed once he was out of earshot. “He hates you. And you heard him – he knows who I am.”

“What of it?” The Duke broke the roll on his plate into tiny pieces, eating none of them. “He is under my control and no threat to you or me.”

“Is he?” Lessa shoved aside her untouched tray. “If he looks hard enough, he’ll find a way around your commands. Around his promises. There is always a way around.”

“Speaking from experience?”

Lessa recoiled, then leaned forward, catching at the Duke’s sleeve. “My family cast me aside,” she whispered. “Yours took me in. Gave me everything and taught me everything. Do not let Tristan and Cécile’s lies turn you against me – you know I’m loyal. And they’re dead.” She reached up to touch his cheek and he slapped her hand away violently.

“Not while you’re wearing her face.”

Lowering her arm, Lessa glanced around, then let Ana?s’s face melt away to reveal her own. “Ana?s was loyal to Tristan, not to you,” she said. “I killed her because she was a traitor.”

“You killed her to further your own ends,” Angoulême snarled. “Ana?s was my child, and you slaughtered her. Then you lied to me about it.” He leaned closer. “Lied like a cursed human.”

Lessa crouched in on herself, realizing, I thought, that she’d made a mistake in killing Ana?s. That Angoulême had cared more for his daughter than he’d let on, and that it was only his unwillingness to disrupt his plans that kept him from having his revenge. But that might not always be the case.

“I’ll give you another,” she said. “And once our child is strong enough to hold the throne, we can be rid of Roland.”

Angoulême’s anger fell away, and he stroked a finger down her cheek. “I can’t help but admire your ambition, darling. Your willingness to see your entire family dead in your pursuit of the crown.” He leaned forward and whispered something in her ear, her face growing still. Then he sat back. “You promised to love me. Remember that.”

“I love you,” Lessa whispered. “I always have.”

“His cruelty really does know no bounds,” Marc murmured, and I moved away from the portal, unwilling to watch any more of this abuse. Never would I have thought to have cause to feel sympathy for Lessa, but to be forced to love that monster? I sighed.

Then Martin spoke. “Roland’s gone some distance from the camp. He’s waiting.”

“You ready for this, Cécile?” Marc asked.

My pulse was loud in my ears, my ice-cold hands drenched with sweat, but I nodded at Martin and the world tore open to reveal the monster with whom I needed to form an alliance.

Hissing in surprise, Roland leapt back and swiped at the tear, but his magic passed through it as though the opening wasn’t there.

“This is fey magic,” I said to him. “You cannot attack it.”

The violence fell away from him, and he tried again to pluck at the edges of the tear before giving up and acknowledging me. “Why aren’t you dead?”

“It’s not for lack of your master trying,” I said, crossing my arms.

“I am King,” Roland replied, his face twisting. “I have no…” His throat choked off the lie, and I could all but feel his fury. “What is it you want, human?”

“Revenge.” I hesitated, terrified of saying something that would trigger one of the traps the Duke had placed in the boy’s mind. “Angoulême has taken everything from me, just as he has taken everything from you.”

“He gave me the crown, just as he said he would.”

“Has he?” I asked, then before he could respond, “For your brother’s sake, will you hear me out?”

“Tristan cares not what I do.” Roland said, eyes going to his boots. “He’s dead.”

It was no answer, but I knew I had him – that he’d listen. “I know the Duke forced you to kill your parents and your aunt,” I said. “And to… attack your brother.” I bit the insides of my cheeks. “He has your name and he controls what you do.”

The barest hint of a nod.

“How can you truly be king if you are controlled by another?” I asked. “He is only using you for your power, Roland. To eliminate any who are strong enough to contest him.”

Silence.

“You know that is Lessa pretending to be Ana?s? That he betrothed you to his lover who is also your half-sister, and if that were not awful enough, he intends to cuckold you and pretend the child is yours. And when that child is strong enough to hold the throne, he intends to kill you and your sister so that there are no Montignys left. So that there are none alive more powerful than him.”