Page 10 of The Darkest Oath

As if sensing his gaze, her eyes snapped back to his, and she tugged the strap to cover the bruise. It was a telling indication that someone had made the bruise, not by accident.

He chewed his lip at the many women he had seen beat over the years and remembered how a fire of righteous anger burned in his chest at each injustice. But he forced himself to remain still before Élise by reminding himself he was only there for a month to answer the king’s request, and he would not become entangled in these people’s lives. There was a reason why he lived in the attic of the palace. It was easy up there to pass the days and no longer care.

She shifted uncomfortably under his silent stare with shoulders drooping. “So, who is this Amée woman you spoke of?” she asked, tilting her head back with shadowed eyes. Her voice hardened, likely to shield herself from anything he might say.

“Amée,” he whispered. The name hit him hard out of his trance.

He wished Élise hadn’t asked about his late wife. The name still tasted like ash on his tongue after centuries. The wound in his heart had never healed. Rollant blinked, forcing himself to look away from Élise. His heart clenched, not just from the memory but from the cruel realization that no matter how deeply he cared, he would always be alone.

“Someone I once loved and lost,” he answered her. His tone gave away more depth than he intended.

Élise’s face softened for a moment before she scoffed with a smirk. “You think me a fool? You are, but what? Twenty-five years at most? What loss could you possibly know?”

The corner of his mouth curled up in sorrow as he remembered his Amée and sweet Cateline. His gaze turned inward. “Yes, twenty-six, but it is still a time capable of great loss.”

Élise shifted her weight again, regret flashing across her features. Her tongue swept across her plump bottom lip as if wishing to recall her words. She sighed and dropped her arms. “I am sorry, Monsieur. I didn’t mean to offend.”

“No apology is needed,” he whispered. He had seen Amée and Cateline from afar, watched them grow, but never dared to hold them until Amée asked to die in his arms once she had fallen ill in her advanced age. It was then he knew the curse was real, watching Amée take her last breath in his embrace. They had lived long lives without him. The Black Death swept through a hundred years later and took all of his descendants with it. He buried them on his land, isolated and hidden in the Chartreuse mountains. Every time he returned to his first home, he brought bags of flowers to place over their graves and roses for Amée.

“You have tearful eyes at her memory,” Élise whispered and took a small step closer. “It’s best not to let the men here see them.” She wrapped herself in her arms and loosened the shield she had put up. “I truly apologize for mocking your lost love,” she spoke in a hushed tone. “Most men do not care about their women—not the sailors, anyway. It’s always the next port, the next conquest.”

Rollant blinked back the sting of pending tears. He had not felt the urge to cry in more years than he could count. He pushed those memories down where he kept them.

“You are too kind, Madame,” he said, returning to the present, though a bitterness coated the edge of his expression. But his voice remained warm in the character of a common former naval soldier.

Her eyes turned down. “Mademoiselle,” she whispered with a blush rising on her cheeks.

“Mademoiselle,” he repeated, barely hearing her. She wasn’t married.

They locked eyes briefly before Élise shifted, putting space between them as though remembering he was a stranger. He scanned the room, and a few men were looking his way and speaking behind cupped hands.

“Don’t mind them. They are just wondering who you are. Never seen you before,” she said.

“Well, to further ease their worry,” Rollant said. “You can tell them I am from Nice,” Rollant said. The truth sat easier on his lips. He was born in the post-Roman town when the homes were still made of stacked stone with pitch roofs. He came from a long line of knights and soldiers in medieval Provence. His family surname was reminiscent of the mountains where his family had forged deep roots: Montvieux, “old mountain.”

Élise sighed again with a smile, releasing some tension between them. “You are very observant. We don’t trust newcomers easily, but if you seek freedom, then you are one of us—until proven otherwise.”

“I have craved freedom for a long time,” he said, biting back the pain that rose inside of him as he thought of every painful death he had suffered and every rebirth. Freedom was a fleeting, unattainable dream.

“Happy to hear it,” she said and fidgeted with the sleeves of her shirt. “What is your name, Monsieur, since you know mine?”

Rollant inclined his head as the heat of embarrassment kissed his cheeks. He had been rude and forgotten to introduce himself.

“Rollant Montvieux.”

He dropped the “de” from his name to not signify his noble origins and draw suspicions.

Her eyebrow lifted. “Rollant, not Roland?” she asked with a coy smile. “Your parents must have had a fondness for Old France,” she said.

“They passed when I was a boy, so I could not ask them.”

Her smile softened, and a dark hue flashed in her eyes. “My mother also passed when I was young. My father did not want me, so I was sent to live with my aunt.” She studied him as if she wanted him to speak, but he did not know what to say to her.

They stood in silence with the weight of shared loss hanging between them. Were they trading scars? Rollant straightened up. He knew not to trust these quiet moments—they led to attachment, to weakness, to pain.

“Do I pass your check?” he asked, a polite smile returning as if polishing armor.

Her eyes ran over his face and broad chest, and she returned his gaze with a small, lighthearted smile. “For now.”

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