“I will take your damned ruby,” she said. “But I won’t beg. And if you want me, you can stop talking and make me stop thinking. Or I leave now.”

For a single, jagged instant, she thought he might refuse. She wasn’t sure if it was fear or hope that pounded through her heart.

Then he grinned. “I will hold you to that, my lady,” he said, and kissed her again.

Erec kept his word. He stopped talking, and she stopped thinking.

But later—much later, when they lay tangled in his bed—Rachelle stared out at the darkness and couldn’t sleep and couldn’t stop thinking. She could feel Erec’s breath against the back of her neck, his arm around her waist. His skin against hers. It didn’t seem real, and yet she could remember everything they had done with perfect clarity.

She had resisted him for so long. She realized now that she had thought she would somehow stop existing if she finally gave in. Certainly her mother had always given her that impression when talking about girls who lost their virtue.

But Rachelle should have known better. She was bloodbound, after all, and being bloodbound meant knowing how easily I could never turned into Yes, I will.

Once upon a time, she would have sworn that she’d rather die than make a covenant with the forestborn, because if she did such an evil thing, she wouldn’t be herself anymore. Then she had discovered that her true self was quite willing to do any evil thing so long as she could live.

She had, all along, been a girl who was willing to sleep with Erec d’Anjou. It had just taken her three years to admit it. And admitting it hadn’t allowed her to escape anything, because she could still remember Armand, and her eyes stung with useless, helpless tears as she remembered.

WHEN VOLUND HAD FINISHED THE SWORDS, HE laid them in Zisa’s hands, and they took the form of needles. Back Zisa went to Old Mother Hunger, with the needles pinned in her skirt. There she found that Tyr’s cage was gone.

“O my mother,” she said, “where is the creature I once called brother? Is he not still meant for the offering?”

Old Mother Hunger laughed. The noise was like a storm of moths. “Surely you do not miss him,” she said.

“What is any human to me but prey?” said Zisa. “But it is my duty to feed him.”

“It is your duty to become one of us,” said Old Mother Hunger, and marked her with the black star. “Bring me the hearts of your father and mother. Do so, and you will live to see your brother-that-was when you bring him to the offering.”

So Zisa returned to her icy black lake, and saw her tribe bow down and worship her. But not her father: he stood tall and proud, ocher streaked across his face and gold in his hair, as he said, “I welcome you, child of mine.”

“Father,” she replied, “why did you offer us? Why do you serve the forestborn?”

“It is the way of the world,” he said, “that the glorious rule the weak, and take what they like.”

“That is true,” said Zisa. “And now I am glorious.”

Before he took another breath, she sliced his head from his shoulders.

The people trembled and were silent. But Zisa’s mother rose to her feet. Quietly she asked, “Does Tyr still remember his name?”

“No, my mother-that-was,” said Zisa. “Now come to my side.”

And her mother came to her.

“He will remember it again,” Zisa whispered in her mother’s ear.

“Then I can die in peace,” said her mother, and Zisa raised the sword to her neck.

Zisa cut out the hearts of her mother and father and put them in a silver chest, and back she went to the only family she had left.

“Now cook a soup and eat it with me,” said Old Mother Hunger.

I tell you, there was nothing she would not do for her brother.

25

She woke up when Erec pinched her cheek. “Good morning, my lady.”

She batted his hand away and started to sit up. Then she realized that Erec’s servants were crowding into the room, and she was naked under the blankets. She dived back down.

“Getting up?” Erec asked.

“No,” she growled.

“Don’t worry,” he said, ignoring the men who were pulling his shirt on over his head, “my valets know how to help a lady put her clothes back on.”

“No,” said Rachelle. “Send them away.”

“You aren’t planning to wear clothes today? My, that will cause talk.”

How could he be saying these things in front of everybody? But he was Erec d’Anjou: he wouldn’t hesitate to say anything in front of anybody, especially when “anybody” was the servants whose names he probably didn’t even remember.

“I am not going to display myself in front of your servants,” she said.

He slanted an ironic gaze over his shoulder. “Don’t tell me you’ve grown modest overnight.”

There was nothing she could say that he wouldn’t make to sound even more foolish, so she curled up under the blankets and waited until he was done dressing and the servants had gone before she got up and dressed herself.

Erec still watched her, but she couldn’t very well complain. She’d chosen this, hadn’t she? She had said she belonged to him. What right did she have to resent him?

“Well?” he asked her as she laced up her shirt. “Was I worth the wait?”

“No,” snapped Rachelle, because contradicting him was a habit that would take more than one night to break.

“Then you shouldn’t have waited so long.”

She threw a boot at his head. He caught it easily, and leaned forward to kiss her.

Afterward, he hung the ruby pendant around her neck. The stone was as big as her thumbnail, a faceted, glittering teardrop that hung just below the mark on her throat.

“Now all the world can see you’re mine,” he said.

“Let me guess,” she said. “You’re already planning how to show me off.”

“Surely you don’t want me to hide you away.” Erec’s hand had rested on her shoulder; now he slid it up to cup the side of her neck. It was a surprisingly gentle gesture and she couldn’t help relaxing a little.

She’d always hated the thought of being his prize on display. And yet now that it had happened . . . it was comforting to know that somebody was not ashamed of her.

“But we can hold the grand display later,” Erec went on. “I have prisoners to question and you have . . .”