Page 129 of The Darkest Oath

The man pulled him up and helped him into a deserted cart with his children. He and his wife pulled them along. Rollant’s boot heels dragged on the cobblestone as he looked up at the boy and the little girl. The boy held his wrapped foot, and the girl stared in a state of vacant numbness.

Rollant could feel his life slipping away, as it had on the battlefield six hundred years before. The world stopped, and the sounds of distant cannon fire faded to silence.

“Why?” he called out. Why then? When he was happy with Élise and finally found love again. Why had the sorceress forsook their deal at that moment? Though he had wished for mortality for centuries, he did not want it then. But it seemed, life again was unfair. Thus, he only wished, needed, to see Élise one last time.

As if fate had heard him, Élise’s face came into view. Her hands caressed his face, and her lips brushed his. Tears fell onto his cheeks. He blinked, coming out of his haze. The man and his two children stood off to the side with their cart, watching them in somber silence. The mother pressed strips of her dress against Rollant’s wounds.

“Rollant!” Élise’s voice sounded far away as he lay on the path to his land with their home in the distance. She had dropped to her knees beside Rollant; her hands trembled as they brushed his blood-matted hair from his face.

But cutting through Élise’s screams, an ethereal whisper revisited the dying.

“Do you wish to live, Rollant?” The same chill of night pressed in heavily above him as it had six hundred years prior.

Élise faded from sight as the celestial hair of the sorceress preceded her starlit face, hovering above his.

“Why now?” he croaked.

“You abandoned your duty to serve the crown and attacked royalist soldiers rather than fight alongside them. Because of your actions, Napoleon Bonaparte put down the royalist rebellion, and he will become emperor. Marie-Thérèse and Louis XVIII will never have children, thus ending the Capetian dynasty. For the first time, neither side of your deal is upheld.”

“Then let me live my life with Élise,” he said as death edged his vision.

“You would trade eternity for a few fleeting moments with a mortal woman?" she hissed. "You are nothing without me. A mere shadow of what I made you.”

She circled him like a vulture. Her dark tendrils wrapped around his limbs. “But I offer you a new purpose,” she said with an air of deliverance. “Serve Napoleon’s empire that will last forever with your service, or reject me and turn to dust?—”

“No,” Rollant said with certainty.

“You would willingly fade into dust? After all I have given you? You beg for death like a fool? You are bleeding out on a filthy street like any other worthless man." Her voice dripped with venom.

“You could live forever with an empire that will never end. You could have riches unforetold. You have paid your penance for Arnoul’s blood, and you may love again, and you say no?” the sorceress asked as if her vain promises were worth the pain of immortality.

“No,” Rollant urged.

“What of Élise and the king’s daughter? What will they do without you? The poor orphans will live a life they know nothing about. Who will take care of Élise and Marie-Thérèse?”

The sorceress had asked him the same question about Amée and Cateline to twist his reasoning and logic and to compel him to accept her offer.

Amée’s beautiful face appeared in memory as clearly as if he had seen her that morning. With the clarity of her visage, clarity of reason came with it. She and Cateline would have been fine without him. Amée would have grieved him, but she would have been well-cared for; she could have found love again or chosen to live alone. She had everything she needed. And now Élise had his fortunes and gold. She was young and beautiful. Her whole life was ahead of her, just like Amée. Marie-Thérèse was well cared for in the Temple, bored but well. He couldn’t do much to help her beyond that.

Could he spit in the face of God one more time? He knew the answer. He would not make the same mistake again. He had inflated the importance of his life, and it had cost him his humanity.

He prayed instead of answering the sorceress. “Forgive me, Lord. I only wish to say goodbye to Élise and hope for your forgiveness. Please allow me into your fold.”

Rays of light broke through the celestial hair and starlight face, dispersing the image of the sorceress who curdled an agonizing scream.

A warm, golden light surrounded Rollant and lifted him off the ground, giving way to a blinding brightness that gradually faded, revealing the crisp October day.

Fresh air filled his lungs like a babe after birth. Every breath was sharp, raw, and alive. Élise’s hands cupped his face, and her touch burned like fire—no longer muted by the dull ache of centuries. Tears blurred his vision, but for the first time, they weren’t tears of regret. They were tears of life. The cobblestone pressed into his back. The sounds of the children crying were full force in his ears. Élise’s fingers gripped his hair. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Rollant, you aren’t supposed to die.” The words tore from her lips in a frantic whisper. “You can’t. You can’t do this.”

His body was warm beneath her touch, but it was the warmth of fever, not life.

Centuries of breathing false, foreign air faded to nothingness. He had forgotten how pure the air was, how fresh and rejuvenating. Élise’s scent was of linen and lavender. He turned his face and breathed her in for the first time at the expense of agony ripping across his chest. His body ached. It hurt from centuries of abuse. But somehow, his newfound peace diminished the pain of his wounds.

“The bleeding stopped,” the mother said as she worked, pulling needle and thread from her pocket. “I’ll sew him as best I can.” She shouted over her shoulder, “Jehan, alcohol.” He produced a small flask.

Élise’s gaze never unlocked with Rollant’s. The questions flooded her eyes. “You’re not supposed to die,” she whispered in repeat, her voice cracking.

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