Enchantée(120)

“There are rules, of course,” he went on, “because what is a nobleman without rules and honor? He who draws first blood is the winner. He may stop the fight then, if he chooses. Or if he allows, the duel goes on, until one of us yields.” Séguin closed his hand around Camille’s, the one that held the shard.

“And if he does not yield?”

He squeezed Camille’s hand. Tight, tighter, until the shard bit into her palm. Pain raced from her hand through her arm to her shoulder. With an effort, she forced her hand open. The shard fell to the ground. Blood limned its edges.

Camille’s hand oozed scarlet, and underneath the smear of blood ran a deeper, wine-dark gash where the glass had cut her. She pressed it to her skirts to stop the bleeding. In response, the dress rippled against her palm.

Séguin leaned closer, his voice slippery as silk. “And if he does not yield? I will kill him. Just think of all the sorrow I will take from you then. It could last years. A lifetime.”

Over Séguin’s shoulder, she saw Foudriard throw his arm around Lazare’s shoulders and walk him away. He glanced back at her, his face anguished.

“Go stand with the others,” Séguin told her. “I need to choose my weapon.” With a smile of satisfaction, he stepped on the mirror shard and ground it underfoot. He then strode through the grass ten or fifteen paces to where his second, the Chevalier Lasalle, stood waiting beside a stack of black sword cases.

Her hand had stopped bleeding, but it ached. Worse was the damage to the shard of glass. She stooped and tentatively parted the grass. Most of it was gone, smashed into pebble-sized fragments, but one or two longer pieces remained. As she picked the largest one up, it flickered in her hand, like silver.

Something from nothing.

Slowly, she made her way to where the other people stood. They took in every detail—readying it for court gossip, Camille guessed, and she could just hear, among the whispered words: magician.

Chandon could not rise from his chair when she approached. Less than two days had passed since Séguin’s party, but Chandon was already much, much worse. Whatever Séguin had done to him—was doing to him—had blanched his skin and carved the flesh from under his cheekbones. Once impeccably fitted, his pearl-gray suit hung painfully loose, though he still wore his sword on a flamingo-orange sash. His hair was streaky with stale powder and greasy pomade. And his smile, when he saw Camille, was sad, the stretched smile of an old man.

“How quickly things have changed, madame, in just a handful of hours,” he said without his usual spark. “I fear congratulations are in order?”

Camille fell to her knees by his chair. “I have married him,” she choked. “To save my sister. I fear it was the wrong thing to do.”

“Oh, ma petite. We do our best, don’t we? You his wife, and I his sorrow-well, one dance-step from the grave, and all to protect—as best we can—those we love. How low the mighty are fallen. Both of us pawns, and—apparently—neither of us very good at chess.”

Camille threw her arms around him and pressed her face against his shoulder. “I don’t know what to do.”

“We’re gamblers, aren’t we?” He coughed. “We’ll find something to turn to our advantage.” He did not sound certain.

“But Lazare is the finer swordsman, isn’t he?” Camille said, hoping that by saying it she made it true.

“Everyone knows it but Séguin. He’s too blinded by the color of Lazare’s skin to recognize how much his superior our boy is.” Chandon gestured across the field to the trees. “Here he comes now.”



* * *



There was not much time.

Lazare stood so close that their bodies almost touched, the air between them charged, like a living thing. His beautiful face was utterly razed. “You came here with him?”

“Yes,” she managed.

“Was it our fight at Versailles? You could not forgive me?” He clenched his hands into fists. “I cannot forgive myself.”

“Hush,” she said, softly. She glanced to where Séguin and Lasalle were examining the sword-cases. “Séguin convinced Sophie to agree to marry him. She believed it was love, but it was his way to control me. I’ve only made things worse. He will be able to torture us both, to get what he wants.” She wanted to embrace him, feel the safety of his arms around her, but instead, she squared her shoulders.

“And what does he want?”

“Me.” Her voice was flat. “I told you. He’s a magician.”

“But not like you?”

Camille heard the hope in his voice. “A magician—even I—needs sorrow to work magic, either the magician’s sorrow or someone else’s. To save himself the pain, Séguin used Chandon. By threatening to have Foudriard sent away, he inflicted misery on Chandon so he could use his sorrow. That’s what they fought over, that time when we played cache-cache. Chandon is nearly dead from it. He’ll use me next, until I become a husk.” A sob gripped her throat. “Until I am gone.”

Lazare took her face in his hands. “Look at me, Camille. You are not next. I swear it. Do you hear me? I swear it.”

Lazare’s honor was fierce and righteous, but how could it mean anything against someone like Séguin?