SWNOVELS Chapter Chapter Ten
Gion let me through the fortress to a drawing room that gave me pause. The ceiling’s height was unexpected, soaring above us as if we’d walked into a church. Lighting the incredible space was another crystal chandelier shimmering in the reflected light of a dozen wax candles.
“The Chevalier Roussade,” Ducasse announced after he’d nodded that Gion might return to his regular duties.
“Nephew?” a woman’s voice rose from across the room.
Seated near a massive stone fireplace was the most glamorous lady I’d ever beheld. Dressed in an exquisite gown of deep blue with her raven hair swept up and adorned with delicate cherry tree blossoms, she would command the room even were we not alone. Despite her striking ruby-painted lips and powered face, the woman appeared very young.
Maximillian stood from the sofa across from her and extended his hand for me to join them.
“Come here and let me get a look at you,” the woman said. Her voice was young but bore the unmistakable tone of aloof maturity.
I moved as quietly as possible, unable to hide the sounds of my expensive leather shoes on the marble floor tiles.
She reached out her hand, and I stared at it, dumbfounded.
Kiss my hand, child, she said without a sound. Her voice was like a bell, and I heard its sweet timbre echo in my mind.
At once, I bent over and took her small hand to my lip.
“Aunt,” I said when I released her.
“Very handsome,” she said with a subdued smile.
“That’s all,” Maximillian told Ducasse with a warm grin as if to release him as much thank him for my transformation.
The house captain bowed and closed the door to the drawing room behind him.
Maximillian stepped beside me and placed his hand on my shoulder, then gestured I should sit beside the baroness.
“Esprit, this is my wife, Gabrielle.”
I nodded to the woman, and her expression all at once became more warm and relaxed.
“We’ve waited for you for quite a while,” she said with a mild sigh.
“Forgive me,” I replied, looking down at my attire. “I changed as quickly as I could for you.”
Gabrielle let out a sincere laugh and lifted her hand to her lips as if she hadn’t meant to make fun of me.
“No, my dear, we’ve waited for you. For another lycan to come of age so near to us.” Max and I have been alone here for so many years.
Her silent voice came without the slightest effort to my mind, that the sensation didn’t startle me as it had with Maximillian. The warm sound filled my head with its crystal clear resonance.
How long?
My question caused a nearly imperceptible falter in her smile, and her eyes turned to her husband, whom she stared at with something akin to pain.
We arrived here in the early spring of 1697, Maximillian answered for her.
I furrowed my brow at his answer. I struggled to reconcile the number, certain I misunderstood.
For all his faults, my father had ensured his only son was educated. I could read, thanks to my Uncle Guillaume, who had sat with me for years to teach me letters and words and how they became sentences. It was he who taught me to read Romeo and Juliet and understand the finer meanings underlying the prose. But it was my father who taught me mathematics—to understand its ancillary language and how vital it was to everything we did. Father taught me to understand money, to see its true value, and how crucial it was to our business. He ensured I respected it and grasped how it guaranteed the possibilities and limits of our troupe’s enterprise.
And now, as I transposed the current year against the number Maximillian quoted, I shook my head.
No, I replied. Do you mean your parents arrived that year?
The man smiled and looked at his wife.
I don’t believe I knew the current year when I was your age, Gabrielle smiled again. Your father has taught it to you?
I nodded to her, waiting for either of them to correct themselves.
“Do you remember the other night,” Maximillian asked aloud, “when I came to rescue you from those men?”
At once, I saw the image from his mind as sharp as my own recollection, but without the hues of fear to which my memory held. It was the giant wolf who stood as a man, tailless, but as savage as any beast.
“Yes,” he assured me. “He is our dark protector. He guards us not only from the dangers of this world but from time itself. And so, we appear almost exactly as the day our father summoned the wolf within to guard over us.”
I was certain he meant to be poetic rather than literal.
“But it would mean that you’ve lived here for nearly fifty years,” I answered with another slight shake of my head.
Gabrielle’s countenance lightened again, as if she were delighted to watch me struggle with the idea.
There is no cause to doubt yourself, Esprit. Your math is correct, she said with her silent voice. I was a girl of eighteen when Father called forth my wolf. I have lived sixty-eight years in all.
“No,” I said at once, this time with more than a slight shake of my head.
This woman, her lovely face transformed by cosmetics, her body wrapped in exquisite attire, could not possibly be so old. She appeared far younger than my mother, who was not half the age she pretended.
It is so, she returned with gentle insistence. I will appear as I do now for far longer than the people you know.
I looked to Maximillian, searching for some reason to spring from him, but he only confronted me with another number.
“I was eight-two last month,” he said.
Sobered by the number, my rational mind leaped forward to conclude my worst fears. These were demons, both of them. The numbers they quoted me must be subterfuge, a trick to confuse me, for demons were far older than the world itself.
I felt trapped, both in this lair of theirs and in the unforgiving clothes they’d forced me to wear.
“No,” Gabrielle said quietly.
I saw the pain in her eyes that might turn into tears, and she quieted my racing mind.
“That’s not what we are,” she insisted, pressing her small hand to take my wrist. “We are not evil-doers, nor are we immortal. Our lives are extended only by the gifts of our heritage. We will all one day perish like everyone else, whether at the hand of the world’s violence or on the day time itself no longer waits to claim us.”
Exactly, Maximillian agreed.
The dizzying effect of their voices coming in random phrases of sound and silence was almost too much, and I shifted in my seat.
“I meant what I said—we’ve waited a long time for you,” she continued. “We’ve been alone here for half a century. We’ve wanted nothing more than another lycan to share this world with. Max has wanted a son…”
The baroness’ words caught in her throat, and she closed her eyes to compose herself.
The baron reached for her hand, and she smiled at him when she could.
“Forgive us,” he said with a conciliatory gesture. “We do not mean to overwhelm you. There is much we have to share with you, and so much more we want to say to you.”
I nodded, not wishing to add my apprehension to the obvious weight on their minds.
“But all that can wait until you’re ready. The simple truth is that you are lycan, the same as us. The changes in your nature have just developed. Both because of your age and your proximity to us. Gabrielle sensed you the moment you arrived in Saulieu. You appeared like a candle flame in the dark to her, igniting just before you arrived there. Had it not happened here, it would’ve happened in another town where lycan are present.”
I considered Maximillian’s words, remembering the dreams of the forest; the beast that seized me and whispered unexpected words of comfort while I stood in terror. It was a dream as unexpected as this waking moment.
“While there are no other lycan for a dozen leagues in any direction, there are dens throughout the country and beyond. Some live as we do, hidden in the trappings of human luxury. Others live in the shadows, not tolerating humans at all. Should you leave Saulieu with your family, with your troupe, other lycan will sense you when you arrive in their lands. Perhaps not with the unique precision of Gabrielle’s senses, but they will notice you soon enough. Most will conscript you to their clans or packs. Others will simply destroy you to keep their territories free of the unknown and secure. But one way or another, you’ll be taken from your human family against your will.”
I scowled at his statement, though I gave no other response. It was a sobering thought, the idea there were others who would separate me from all I loved, or worse, my very life.
“What Gabrielle and I offer is unlike anything you will receive from the others. We offer you the choice to stay here or leave whenever you wish.”