Defy the Dark (25 page)

The jolt that went through Esme shook her so badly that she half leapt, half tumbled away from the window. She was leaving. She would go out of the tower and into the revel below. Her palms dampened at the thought, but her heart raced at the thought of seeing the knight, of tasting the dark air.

“When do we leave?”

Margaret shook her head. “We are not leaving. We will simply have to do without Anne. You will stay here and hope the wimple is enough. It is too dangerous. There are too many lights in the field.”

“Margaret, look.” Esme pulled the wimple aside, giving her maid full view of the horrible bruises on her neck.

Margaret bit her lip. Esme pounced.

“My father will want to see me tomorrow. If he becomes suspicious—if he notices the bruising—I don't know how I'll explain it. Please, Margaret. Taking this risk may be the only way to protect us both.” Though she was creating arguments meant to convince her maid, the truth in her words made her shudder.

Margaret rubbed her forehead. “I can't think. . . .”

Esme stepped forward. “Anne knows more about what has happened to me than anyone else. It was her own daughter who wrought this curse. She knows the danger involved with leaving the tower. We've always trusted her before. I am inclined to trust her now. With or without you, I am going to see Anne.”

Margaret nodded miserably. “I'll get you my spare cloak.”

Esme turned back to the window. Her terror and excitement were so great that the night itself seemed to quiver. The fire-haired knight was gone, and she was surprised at the disappointment that lurched through her. Had she really been so hopeful of meeting him? She really should stop wishing for impossible things.

She was about to venture out of her tower for the first time in more than a year. After overcoming that impossibility, meeting a knight seemed trifling.

Margaret returned with her arms full of gray-dyed wool. While Esme ignored her heart, chattering in her chest like a set of teeth, Margaret draped the cloak around her and fastened it at the neck. Between the concealing wimple and the hood, she was well disguised.

“See? I might as well be invisible!” she crowed.

“You may be hidden, but you're not protected,” Margaret warned. “We still have to get past the crowd, which won't be easy.”

The truth in Margaret's words stole part of Esme's glee. Her tongue was too thick and pasty in her mouth to speak, so Esme nodded, but she wasn't sure Margaret could see the movement beneath the hood of the cloak.

“It isn't too late to change your mind,” Margaret whispered.

The words unglued Esme's tongue. “Don't be silly.” She hoped her bluffed confidence wasn't transparent. With a firm step, she strode toward her chamber door, telling herself that it was no different from going down to the dining hall for dinner. “Just—you go ahead and make sure there aren't torches lit. As long as there's no direct light, I'll be safe.”

With her lip caught between her teeth, Margaret turned and scurried into the hall.

“No torches,” she called softly.

Esme breathed a sigh of relief and followed the scurrying of Margaret's little mouse footsteps. There was a small door off to one side of the hall at the bottom of the stairs. A door that led outside.

“Is anyone there?” she whispered.

“It's likely to be guarded,” Margaret whispered back. “There may be torches as well. Or lanterns. If we're lucky, it will be lanterns.”

Margaret stepped around Esme and pushed open the door. The night was so close that Esme found herself rooted to the floor, temporarily more plant than person. After all, she did not move from her assigned place, the way the rest of the world did. But she wanted to. She wanted to.

The desire to be out was strong enough to unstick her feet and propel her forward, until she had nearly smacked into Margaret's back.

“Two ladies headed alone into that madness?” The guard's voice was thick with drinking, his words slumping against one another so that Esme could barely understand him. No one had ever spoken to her like this before, and it took her a moment to realize that—to him—she appeared to be nothing more than a well-hooded lady's maid. A lamp dangled limply from the guard's fingers, and Esme shied away from it. “You two need a chaperone, mebbe?”

“There's plenty of eyes out there without adding yours,” Margaret answered in a flippant voice that Esme had never heard her use before. “Now let us pass.”

“Only if you save me a dance,” the guard wheedled.

“If your legs will still hold you up, it would be my pleasure,” Margaret answered. She swept past him, reaching back to grab a fold of Esme's cloak and towing her along in her wake. Esme let herself be pulled forward, though she swung a wide berth around the flickering puddle of lamplight.

Once the black night air had settled around her, Esme had to resist the urge to laugh. Her terror had left with the lamplight, and all she saw spread out in front of her was the endless expanse of darkness beyond the fires in the field. It had been too long since she had wrapped her fingers around this much freedom. Out here, she could walk instead of pace—she could run, even.

At least until the sun came up.

Ahead of her, Margaret froze, swearing an oath the likes of which Esme had never heard pass her lips.

“What?” Esme spun around, certain that she'd wandered into some sort of light. She waited for the clawing hands of her shadow to latch themselves onto her neck—or worse. There were so many weapons nearby. The grass was littered with them and there was barely an arm or leg visible that didn't have some sort of blade strapped to it.

But the darkness was total. The shadow didn't come.

“Margaret!” A man, made somehow handsomer by the scar crossing his forehead, rushed forward and grabbed Margaret's arm. Esme ducked low into her cloak, and Margaret stepped away from her, putting enough distance between them that Esme at least had a hope of staying hidden.

“I've been waiting for you all night!” Margaret's suitor exclaimed—for it was obvious by the way his hand lingered at her waist that he was more than a passing acquaintance.

“I can't stay,” Margaret said. “I'm with my . . . cousin. Rosalie.”

Esme resisted the urge to sigh. She had never seen such a terrible liar.

“She'll be fine for a moment. Come on—one turn around the fire. You promised,” he said, cheerfully dragging Margaret away by the arm.

Esme could see Margaret's face, terrified and confused, mirroring Esme's own feelings exactly. There was danger in being alone and danger in allowing Margaret's beau close enough to discover who she was. Esme shivered as the urge to run after Margaret crawled across her skin. Before she could take so much as a single calming breath, she felt a hand against her shoulder.

“Pardon me, miss—”

She glanced over her shoulder at the voice and found herself standing a single step from the knight. Her knight.

“Y-yes?” she stammered. She knew there was only a moment before Margaret pulled herself from her sweetheart's grasp and came flying back to fetch her.

His eyes widened. “Is it you?” he whispered.

Panicked, Esme tugged the hood farther around her face, but it was too late. He had seen. He knew.

“It is you.”

“Please. Please don't say anything.”

“I won't. I swear it.” He was a knight—his oath was binding. Esme tingled with relief.

“I thought you couldn't leave the tower,” he said, keeping his voice low.

“I can—I mean, I don't. I haven't in so long, but it's—I'm . . .” Her stammering infuriated her. She sounded like a madwoman.

“You're cursed,” he whispered. “That's what they say, at least.”

She nodded.

“So it's true?” He shut his eyes. She could see him chastising himself. “I'm sorry to be so bold. Your companion looked reluctant to leave you.”

“She was. I only have a moment. And yes, the rumors are true.” Esme's voice came back to her, the words in her mouth as steady as the ground they stood on.

“They say you'll burn in the light, like one of the undead.”

“If I were a revenant, wouldn't you be in terrible danger right now?” The frustration in her voice might have been impertinent, but she couldn't stop herself. Yes, she was cursed, but she was not evil. She didn't drink blood. She wasn't undead.

The corners of his mouth twitched. “I suppose I would. But for one thing, I don't believe a revenant would be so beautiful. And for another, I have a fairly remarkable sword.” He tapped the hilt at his side.

“Remarkable enough to kill a revenant?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

His answering smile was blinding. It was brighter than sunlight, but she could stand beneath it without fear. Something bloomed in her chest, so sudden and huge in the dark cage of her ribs that she thought she would burst.

“It has been in my family for many generations. Some say it was goblin-made. Another story says it sprang up in the middle of a faerie ring.” He shrugged.

“Which do you believe?” she teased him.

His eyes blazed. “I don't need to believe either of them. The right weapon in the right hands is its own kind of magic,” he said.

Unbidden, a vision of the hands that had cursed her awoke in her memory. “I know that to be true,” she whispered. “And yet I do not even know your name.”

His face softened. “Rylan Sedgewick.” He offered a small bow. “And yours?”

“Surely you must know my name, Sir Rylan? Isn't it dragged out along with the rumors?”

“I would rather hear it from your own lips,” he said.

“I am Esme. My father is the Duke of Lanford.” She dipped her head, acknowledging his bow.

“I am better pleased than you know to make your acquaintance. And while I am being overly bold—what is it that makes those beautiful gray eyes of yours look so sad?”

“My own shadow,” she whispered. “It hunts me.”

Instead of being starred with disbelief or narrowing in horror, Rylan's eyes glittered with a warrior's hunger.

“Have you not found a way to make the hunter into the hunted?” he asked.

Esme shrugged. “When I am out of direct light, my shadow is powerless. I must avoid the sunlight. Moonlight. Fire. Then I am safe.”

“But it still imprisons you,” he protested. “A life without light is nothing but an enormous shackle.”

“Indeed it is,” she agreed. “But it's the best that can be done. Fire doesn't burn a shadow. Axes pass through it. I am the only one who can touch it.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Esme saw Margaret hurrying toward them.

“My maid is coming,” she said simply.

Rylan's face fell. “I must see you again. Please.”

“It's impossible. I can't leave the tower,” Esme said, the words crushing her with the weight of their finality. “My father doesn't allow visitors.”

“You left the tower this evening,” he countered.

“It was a matter of utmost importance,” she said.

“So is this,” he assured her, and though there was jest in his voice, his eyes burned with a coal of truth that made her breath hot in her lungs.

Margaret was getting closer, her step quickening when she saw Esme was speaking to Rylan.

“I will wait,” he assured her. “Every night, no matter how many it takes. I will be out here.”

“I can't let you do that. Not when I have nothing to offer you.” The words broke in her mouth, their new-made edges so sharp she swore her tongue was cut.

“Give me a token to remember you by, then,” he bade her.

Esme swept her hands across the cloak—the pockets were empty. She had no handkerchief, she wore no brooch. Her panicked fumbling sent a wayward lock of hair tumbling out of the wimple that bound her neck.

She shoved it back and then froze as her hands brushed the ribbon that held the rest of her hair. The same ribbon she'd waved to acknowledge his victory.

How appropriate.

Hurrying, she yanked the ribbon free, and the length of blue satin, woven thickly with silver threads, slipped from beneath her wimple.

Rylan held out his hand and she pooled the ribbon into it. He curled his fingers over it as gently as if she'd laid a flower in his palm.

Esme turned, expecting to find Margaret at her back. Instead, she was startled to see her maid hurtling past them. Esme spun again, nearly as dizzy as the dancers. Her eyes found the head of untamed gray hair even before she spotted Margaret.

They didn't need to go to Anne after all.

Anne had come to them.

With her walking stick aiding her limping gait, she stomped to Esme and Rylan, who stood transfixed. Margaret raced over, breathless and unkempt.

“You've gotten yourself out of the tower. Good girl.” Anne's voice creaked and cracked and she spoke—as usual—without preamble or politesse.

“I thought you commanded me to come.”

Anne cackled, low and smoky. “I did. The dregs in my teacup said you were due for an escape. I suppose Margaret didn't mention that to you.”

She had not. Esme looked at Margaret, who had set her jaw so tightly that her chin jutted. She turned her attention back to Anne.

“This is not exactly an escape, as you well know. A change of scenery, perhaps, but unless you come bearing a way to break this curse . . .” Esme let the unsaid end of her sentence hang in the air.

Anne sagged beneath the weight of it. “You know I cannot do that. When they killed my daughter, they took away the only person who could undo the hex.”

Rylan jumped, his hand going to the hilt of his sword. “Your daughter was the one who cursed the Lady Esme?”

“Aye. Her own baby sickened and died on the day of Esme's christening. Blind with grief, my daughter twisted a bit of magic that should never have been done. She gave her baby Esme's name and then stole Esme's shadow. She thought if she bound her own baby's spirit into Esme's shadow, it would slip into Esme's body from the shadow, becoming flesh again.”