Stepsister(105)

“Pick up your sword! Come at me!” Volkmar shouted at her.

Spitting out a mouthful of blood, Isabelle raised her eyes to his. He was holding his own sword across his body to protect his gut. She knew that her only chance was to somehow get to her feet, then get him to lower his blade.

But how? she wondered.

Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak, came the answer.

“Thank you, Sun Tzu,” she whispered.

“Please,” she begged Volkmar. “Don’t kill me.”

Her enemy smiled at the fear in her eyes, at the pain in her voice. “Oh, I will kill you. But not just yet,” he said.

His arm relaxed slightly, his blade dipped a little.

With effort, Isabelle pushed herself to her feet, then tried to hobble away, dragging her wounded leg behind her.

Volkmar circled, taunting her. He’d already counted her among his kills. He had no idea that she had fallen off horses a thousand times and knew how to bury her pain. He did not know about the duels she’d fought under the linden tree as a child. How she’d practiced with scarecrows at the LeBenêts’. How she’d learned to parry and thrust, to feint, fall back, then strike. He could not see that she was feinting now. Her wound was bleeding badly, but it was not deep. The kick he’d delivered to her rib cage hurt like hell, but she had not lost her breath, her will, or her courage.

Panting, grimacing, one hand pressed to her side for effect, Isabelle stood, her head bent in supplication. She was leaning on her sword, using it as a crutch. Making it look as if she was helpless, her weapon useless.

Though her gaze was down, she could see Volkmar’s feet and his sword. The tip was only an inch or so above the ground now. He walked towards her.

Closer, she urged him. Just a little bit closer …

“You’re a good fighter, I’ll admit. For a girl,” Volkmar said, only a few feet away now. “But you’re too rash to be a great fighter. You have more courage than common sense.”

Closer … that’s it …

“The grand duke told me about you. And how you maimed yourself to marry the prince.” He chuckled. “I’ll bet you surprised him. I saw you kill him. It was a lucky thrust, of course. But still. I’m sure he never expected to see you back here, and at the head of an army, no less. He never expected much at all from a plain girl pathetic enough to cut off her own toes.”

Closer …

Isabelle tightened her grip on her sword. She took a deep, steadying breath, then slowly raised her head.

“No, of course not. Why would he? Why would you?” she asked. “But I don’t cut off toes anymore …”

And then, with an earsplitting cry, she swung her blade high and sliced cleanly through Volkmar’s neck.

“I cut off heads.”





One Hundred and Twenty-Nine


The door to Isabelle’s carriage opened.

She stepped out and strode purposefully up the sweeping marble stairs that led up to the palace’s tall, gold-washed doors. Soldiers lined both sides of the stairs. They snapped her a salute; she returned it.

This was a special day. Isabelle could barely contain her excitement.

Two footmen opened the doors for her, another ushered her inside. The grand foyer, all marble and mirrors, was illuminated by a thousand candles flickering in crystal chandeliers. As she walked through it, she thought about the first time she had come to the palace—with Tavi and Maman for the prince’s ball.

Her heart clenched as she recalled how they’d left Ella at home, sobbing in the kitchen. Isabelle had been wearing a stiff silk gown then—trimmed with glass beads, festooned with lace. Her hair had been piled up on her head in an absurd bird’s nest of a style. As she’d entered the palace, she’d caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror—and had hated the girl who’d looked back at her.

She passed that same mirror now and stopped, just for a few seconds, to look at her reflection. A different girl gazed back now—one whose bearing was confident, who stood with her head high. This girl wore her hair in a simple braid. She was dressed in a close-cut high-necked jacket of navy twill, and a long, matching split skirt that allowed her to ride with ease. Shiny black leather boots peeked out from its hem.

Underneath her uniform, a white bandage was wound tightly around her torso to help with the pain from the ribs Volkmar had broken when he’d kicked her. A line of stitches ran down the outside of her left calf where he’d opened a jagged gash with his sword. The wound was healing nicely. A field surgeon had stitched it closed after the Battle of Devil’s Hollow.

That fight had been bloody and long, but Isabelle had won it. She and her forces had descended on Saint-Michel next, where they’d removed Colonel Cafard as commander and locked him up. Then she’d headed for the king’s encampment.

She’d had the map showing the whereabouts of the rest of Volkmar’s troops. She’d attacked them one after the other, winning three more battles before she even reached the king. Once she’d arrived at the king’s camp, she’d explained who she was and why she’d come, and then she’d given the king Volkmar’s map, and his own—as proof of the grand duke’s treachery. Together they’d routed the rest of the invaders.

Tanaquill’s magic was strong. It hadn’t ended at midnight like the enchantment she’d made for Ella but had faded slowly. After each battle, when it came time for the dead to be collected and buried, none could be found. None of Isabelle’s soldiers, that is. Those whose task it was to comb the fields after the fighting found only the bodies of Volkmar’s troops, and sometimes, strangely, a small carved wooden figure tangled in the grass.