Page 111 of Sanctifier

The space beyond was cold, far too cold. Ru was glad she had worn her warmest dressing gown. Across the room, a window hung open. Dread crawled up her spine, settling at the base of her skull. It was too quiet, too still. No lamps were lit, and black cinders lay cold in the hearth. Some ashes had scattered on the floor, no doubt blown there by the wind.

Under the open window, a drift of snow had collected against the wall.

The dread coiled around Ru’s throat, tightening as she moved to the window. There was no reason to fear it. It was only snow, and the sun would rise soon. Tensing her fingers against the open window, she began to close it.

And then she stopped.

She had a horrible itching urge to look outside. Unable to resist, she ducked her head, leaned out, and peered into the dimness. She saw nothing, only rooftops and snowflakes — the window was at least eight stories up, maybe higher.

Her gaze caught on something far below, something on the ground, a shape on the flagstone pathway. She shouldn’t have seen it, let alone recognized it. She was too far up, and snow was thick on the ground. But she knew, somehow, that the shape didn’t belong there. It was a body.

She inhaled sharply, withdrawing her head. Closing the window firmly, she moved away from it, as if the body might appear there, pressed to the glass, watching.

She didn’tneedto go outside, she didn’t need to closely inspect the shape in the snow. She knew whose it was.

But she had to see for herself. To be certain.

Ru asked the guards to bring her outside, to just below Hugon’s room. They traipsed down several staircases and through a ground-floor corridor, armor clattering as they went.

It felt like they walked for hours, though it must have only been a few minutes. Ru refused to allow her thoughts to drift toward the body in the snow. She didn’t want to lose her nerve. At last, they came to a door that led outside, and they shuffled out into the snow, Ru’s toes growing instantly numb.

Ru wondered whether the regent would be at the Cleansing ceremony, whether her friends would be there. Would all the Children gather in that small chapel, shoulder to shoulder, and watch with disinterest as Ru destroyed them?

The body was easy to find. As she approached, her movements seemed to belong to someone else, a separate entity that she was watching from far away.

The snow had all but stopped falling, and the body hadn’t been there long. It had landed on flagstone, its slumped shape now starkly visible against the powdery white, the towering palace wall. Ru kicked at the snow near the body and saw that below the fresh powder, the snow was stained with red.

The body seemed to be turned away from her. She did not want to see the rest of it, the ruined face. So she knelt, her knees forming divots in the snow. The cold didn’t bother her now. It was the least of her problems.

Her guards hovered nearby, watching, but none moved to stop her as she reached out to the body. She brushed the snow away from its head, oh so gingerly. She didn’t want to feel theskull beneath its hair, terrified that it was shattered, that she would feel things where they shouldn’t be. She only wanted to be sure.

But she already knew what she’d see: pale gold hair, familiar and soft. Swallowing hard, she swept more snow from Hugon’s back. She couldn’t have explained why it felt so important to know what he had been wearing when he died.

Deep blue silk, embroidered in silver.

Ru sat back on her heels. There was no way to tell from there, his body obscured in snow, how he’d died. Had his body been tossed from the window, a final punishment? Was he pushed? Or perhaps he had climbed onto the windowsill himself, balancing half-in and half-out of the room, alone in the night, gazing below at the ground that would rush up to him and rob him of his life.

Ru knew what that pain felt like, that despair. She’d seen her own reflected in his eyes. It was just as likely that he’d seen a way out and taken it.

She realized that she was shivering uncontrollably, her feet utterly numb. Her fingers were bright red from the cold. But Ru couldn’t bring herself to leave him just yet. The last time she saw him, he was trying to save her. A weak, last-ditch effort, maybe. Too little, too late. But he’d done it for her, knowing, maybe, that he was forfeiting his own life in the act. Or maybe, he had planned to end it anyway.

It wasn’t right, thought Ru. That this would be the last she ever saw of him, a crumpled form in the snow. He had been so much more than that, a vivid, cruel, beautiful, frightened creature. But he had also been merciful.

And even in his mercy, he couldn’t save you, thought Ru.There is no one left.

Whoever Ru was now, whatever she would become, no matter the doom she brought down on the kingdom, HugonD’Luc’s hands had helped to shape her. Should she be grateful? Should she hate him for it?

Neither felt right.

Closing her eyes against her tears, Ru imagined his keen blue eyes, his dimpled cheek, that quick and deadly tongue. He had been a monster, yes. But so was Taryel, and so Ru would be.

The sun began to rise, pale over the palace. When it caught on his hair, glinting like spun gold, Ru eased to her feet. She was stiff, aching with cold, and her eyes stung.

“You were happy in another lifetime,” she murmured, and it was the last time she ever spoke of Hugon D’Luc.

CHAPTER 42

Ru was draped in white for the Cleansing ceremony. Lady Bellenet said little as she twisted Ru’s dark hair, as she fastened it at the nape of her neck. There was a horrible understanding between them now, it seemed. After seeing Gwyneth and Archie’s lives ripped from her, the empty courtiers, and Hugon’s body in the snow, Ru had finally settled at the bottom of a black well. And seeing no more reasons to continue, no possibility of a happy ending, she had simply given up trying to escape it. Lady Bellenet saw, of course, that Ru was a broken creature. Hateful and bitter, perhaps, but unwilling and unable to put up a fight.

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