Page 62 of Sanctifier

The air grew colder as they descended, stale and old. It was different from the air in the dungeon of the Tower, deeper and earthier.

After what felt like an eternity, they stopped their descent. The stairway opened out into a cavern of white stone, no larger than Ru’s bedroom in the palace. Water fell from stalactites into tiny pools at the room’s edge.

She didn’t see the Children until it was too late to turn and run. Hugon’s fingers gripped her elbow, viselike, in the same moment the trio came into view. Inda, Ranto, and Nell were just as they had always been — inanimate, empty, as if the humanity had been drained from them, leaving only a husk behind.

Ru shuddered. If she had experienced just a fraction of what Lady Bellenet was capable of, she couldn’t bear to think what it was like for the Children.

A flash of memory, blood in the dungeon, Lord D’Luc’s knife. What would it be like to watch your friend die and not feel a thing?

Her throat was closing up; she couldn’t breathe. The last time she had been alone in an enclosed space like this, with Lord D’Luc and the Children looking on, something in her had broken. She had watched someone die.

And then she saw it. In the center of the cavern stood a table, simple, hand-carved. The sort of table that might have been used in her childhood home, where her father might have placed a loaf of fresh-baked bread or served tea by the fire. But the thing on the table, naked and shining black, was of another world entirely — another life. The dark one that existed within Ru and Ru alone, tormenting her until she would one day, inevitably, crumble under the weight of herself.

It all came flooding back — every demonstration, every death, every painful press of Hugon’s hand against her skin, as if it were happening now, over and over, forever.

“I don’t want to,” Ru said, nearing hysteria. She fought Lord D’Luc’s grip like an animal held captive. Her voice sounded faraway, a shrieking thing, some helpless creature. “Please.Please, don’t make me. I’ll do it. I’ll do it at the solstice. Not now. Please.”

The Children flowed around the table like specters, moving toward Ru and Lord D’Luc in case they might be needed. Their vague eyes stared out at Ru.

Her legs were losing feeling. They were going to buckle, and she would fall to the floor, or into despair, or both at once. As she always did. Falling, again and again. Helpless in the dark. She might have taken the artifact in her hand then, if she could reach it, and put an end to things once and for all.

Ru’s pain was unbearably heavy.

Hands caught her under the armpit. They lifted her, preventing her inevitable crumpling to the floor.

“Get out,” said Lord D’Luc.

Inda opened her mouth in unspoken protest. Water dripped like a metronome in that cold, deep cavern.

“Out,” Hugon spat. An order from a lord, sharp and wild-edged.

They did not disobey this time. One by one, the Children moved away from the table, from the artifact. And one by one they passed Ru, not once catching her gaze, or pausing as they went. And in a moment, they were gone, and the cavern was empty.

Empty but for Ru, and Hugon, and Taryel’s heart.

Somehow, Ru found her feet. She wrenched herself from Lord D’Luc’s grasp, crossing the cavern and huddling against the wall like a cornered animal, unable to stop the overwhelming surge of memories and feelings, a poisoned well overflowing. Vividly, in her mind’s eye, she watched as Hugon twisted her wrist, as he choked her, as he drew blood.

“Stop,” Hugon said, running a hand down his face. He did not pursue her. His shoulders slumped. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Why did you send the Children away?” Ru asked, terrified of what he planned to do.

He stared off toward one of the pools on the floor as if transfixed by the dark water.

“D’Luc is a Mekyan name,” he said quietly.

Ru tasted blood and thoughtlessly lifted a finger to touch her lip. It stung, and she hissed through her teeth. Had she bit it?

Hugon didn’t react. “It comes from a long line of rich Mekyan blood. An aristocratic line. I am the oldest son and the last. My father entrusted me with the family’s legacy. Our lands, our homes. There was a hill where I grew up, thick with cypress trees. I would lie beneath them, feeling the dance of sunlight on my face. Ants would walk across me. Once, a hummingbird alighted on my knee as if I were safe. Not threatening in the least. I felt… free, then.”

Ru wrapped her arms around herself tightly. She shivered; the fear had kept her warm, alert, but now it was fading.

A subterranean draft caught Hugon's hair. He did not turn to face Ru but continued speaking as if to the walls or stalagmites. As if, in acknowledging her presence, he would be unable to go on.

“When I was a younger man,” he said, “no older than twenty, I met a girl. She was… beautiful, though that seems a paltry word to describe her. She was radiant. A girl who could have charmed the world if she’d tried. But instead, she focused her attention on me. Me, a young man with no accomplishments, a reader of many books, and still a boy in so many ways. But she said that I was kind. That I made her feel safe.”

For a moment, he paused, rubbing his eyes with two fingers. Ru thought he might be done with the story, that he’d lapsed into a trance of some kind. But—

“Delara,” he said suddenly, “you understand what love is. Don’t you?”

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