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:The Dauphine,: Shara’s bond crackled with urgency, sharpening with vicious intent as I neared her. :It has to be.:
:Agreed.:
:Did she somehow foresee her death and my Blood finding her prisoner? Could all this be a trap for me, even centuries before I existed? But how?:
:I suspect her plot goes back much further than when this house was built. The timeframes don’t match up for the prisoner to speak Old French.:
I leaped up and grabbed one of the shattered boards overhead, flinging myself upward through the jagged boards to the attic space. The rest of her Blood had already reached her, pressed around her on all sides. A huddled, somber group. Pale faced. Several streaked with blood and pus already, even seconds after entering the space.
:Will it affect you?:
:Doubtful, my queen. I’m not Aima or human.:
Her lovely face was wet with tears, but she didn’t show any physical signs of illness. Yet.
Inwardly, her bond told another story. Her bond felt like jagged broken swords exploding through her mind.
She lifted dark, haunted eyes to mine as I squatted down nearby, still frantically scanning backwards through history, looking for when the Dauphine might have first encountered the prisoner.
“Itztli’s almost gone.” Her bond roared and howled with grief, though her words were steady. Hard. Resigned. “If he dies, I ask you to kill me, my general. Send me with him immediately. I won’t linger here watching them die one by one. I’ll be waiting on the other side of the Veil as they cross to me.”
Once upon a time, I wished I could feel something. Anything. Hear a bird. A song. Feel the warmth of the sun on my face. Never dreaming I might be here one day with such a queen. Her formidable heart. Her incredible love. Losing her would break the stone sphinx who stands guard for all time.
“It will be done, Your Majesty. Then I will follow you wherever you go.”
“Thank you.” She stroked her Blood around her. Touching them one by one. Eyes open. Making sure they saw her smile. Felt her touch. To the very end.
Even sick and dying, Tlacel and Lew helped drag Itztli to join her.
Voices below. Her human consiliari rushed to their queen, even if it meant their death. The sound of furniture dragging against wood floors as they formed a makeshift stack to reach her.
Gina gasped, covering her mouth to hold back sobs.
Kevin fell to his knees. “What can we do? How can we help?”
“Guillaume quoted something before that might be a clue.” Shara cupped the knight’s hand in hers. The tips of his fingers were blackened. Sores oozed on his arm, staining the white shirt with blood and fluid. “Behold, a pale horse. Then he said pestilence. What does that mean to you?”
“One of the four horsemen of the apocalypse,” Gina replied immediately. “It’s a quote from Revelations in the Bible.”
Kevin typed frantically on his phone and then read from the screen. “Behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over a fourth part of the earth to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.”
Shara coughed, and blood splattered the huddled Blood around her. “Goddess. It’s happening. We don’t have much time. What cures pestilence?”
“Like bubonic plague?” Kevin asked. “It’s treatable with antibiotics.”
“I can call Dr. Borcht…” Gina offered.
“No time,” Shara replied. “If the Dauphine had pestilence here as some kind of weapon, surely she would’ve had a failsafe. Something to protect herself. Show me,” she whispered intently, closing her eyes. “Show me how the Dauphine would have saved herself.”
I thought she meant me. “I haven’t Seen her—”
“Her blood lay beneath Rosalind’s in this nest. There’s a remnant. Show me!”
26
SHARA
I’d sent the Dauphine’s blood back to the Mother. Here. In this very house. I knew there must be traces of her blood in the rocks and soil below the house. Show me.
