“To do what? Help another lad claim my duchy?” he asked, but could not quite summon the bitterness and resentment he had once felt.
“Was it ever truly yours?” she asked him delicately. “Was it not a gift from the Fountain to your ancestors? We hid the scabbard in Kingfountain because it’s intended for someone else. The sword will be reclaimed one day to aid a new king, a righteous king. It is so simple to limit our view of the world to our immediate surroundings,” she added, gesturing to the resplendent garden. She sidled a little closer and held onto his arm as they walked. “There are worlds beyond imagining, Gentle Duke. Worlds without number. There are times and seasons for them all. I go to join the ranks of others who have gone before me. But I will wait for you, Alen. I will wait until your journey is done. And when it is finished, I will meet you and Jianne and your unborn child here in the garden. I will care for them while you linger. You will feel differently then. Believe me. Trust me. Farewell, Gentle Duke. For now.”
She released his arm and it felt as if tree roots had squirmed through the grass and entangled his feet, forcing him to a halt. She kept walking ahead, looking back at him with an inviting, promising smile. His heart was breaking as he watched her leave.
“Genette!” he called after her. There was a stab of sunlight in his eyes, forcing him to look away. He blinked rapidly, trying to see her through the blaze.
And that was when he awoke.
He was cold, though that was hardly an adequate word to describe it. His body was rigid and stiff and his face was numb from being pressed against the ice. The prick of light in his eyes came from the actual sun, cresting a snowy peak with brilliant wonder. It hurt to look at it, but he could still hear the murmur of the fountain water from the garden in his dream. There were clouds in the sky and the sunlight bathed them in dazzling hues that made him want to weep for their beauty. His vision drifted lower, finding the boulder. He saw the Maid chained there, frozen. Dead.
As his senses began to return to the pain and cold of his mortal confinement, he registered the sound of crunching bootsteps and garbled voices. With half-veiled lids, he saw the soldiers inspecting the camp.
“They’re all dead, including the girl,” one of them said, sniffing against his leather glove.
“I can’t believe it. Deford will be furious. He won’t believe this.” The second soldier’s tone was incredulous, full of awed disbelief.
“I just don’t understand. All the nightwatch were slain by sword, yet there is not one bloody sword among them. The girl is chained to the rock like when we left her. Did they all go mad and kill themselves?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to make of it. Where is Brant?”
“He’s over there. Oy, Brant! What did you find?”
Alensson’s body was painfully stiff, but he didn’t dare move. There was no way he could fight at the moment, and he knew he was in trouble. These were all the king’s men and he wasn’t one of them. If they noticed he wasn’t wearing the tunic—
Then he noticed that he was wearing one of the soldiers’ tunics. His own cloak was draped across him, covered with freshly fallen snow. How had this happened? Then he remembered and the grief crashed over him like storm-driven waves onto a rocky shore. He had fallen asleep when Genette had kissed his eyes and uttered the word of power. What had she done in the interim?
“This one fell trying to escape,” a man shouted from a distance. “He’s got a wound in his back from a spear by the looks of it. No spear around, though. No weapons at all. Whoever killed them left.”
“Are you sure the girl is really dead?” one of them asked worriedly. “Someone could have switched her body for another!”
“You think me daft, man? You guarded her just as I did. Tell me that’s not the strumpet from Occitania. She’s frozen to death. But I’d know that face, that hair. You want to know what I thinks? I thinks one of these fools tried something foolish with her. You know what I mean. And she cursed them to kill one another. If we hadn’t bound her to the stone, she’d have escaped all right. And then we’d all be in the river. At least she’s dead.”
“At least she’s dead,” his partner agreed thankfully. “What do we do?”
“We fetch a wagon and bring them down to Dundrennan. What else do you think? There were six soldiers who come up here last night. And there are six soldiers left. They’re all dead. We have the bodies to prove it, including hers.”
Alensson wondered if Genette had hidden one of the bodies beneath the snow or shoved it off the edge of the mountain.