Page 51 of The Darkest Oath

“Good night, Rollant.”

Élise’s gaze fell to the dagger, where the hearth light reflected a sliver on its blade. Trust had always been a concept for fools and dreamers. Yet, Rollant’s actions spoke louder than any of the hollow promises she’d been fed before.

Her back caved, and she fell back into the feather pillow. Maybe trust wasn’t foolish, but a type of strength when put in the right person.

The balm’s tin warmed in her palm, a reminder of his touch—soothing, intended, and entirely without malice. It grounded her in the unfamiliar reality. She finished applying the balm to her arms, face, and neck, but didn’t have the strength to use it on the bruises on her legs. As she slid the balm to the nightstand, she paused.

Survival had always been an immense burden, and, in one night, Rollant had lifted it from her shoulders, offering to carry it in her stead.

The tears came slowly at first, warm trails slipping past the walls she had so carefully constructed until they flowed freely, carving paths of relief down her cheeks and soaking the pillow beneath her head. Her chest ached from the tension she had carried all night and rose and fell with a deep sigh. For the first time in years, the darkness felt less oppressive, the silence less threatening. She sighed into the pillow, her tears washing away the last traces of fear. Her eyes fluttered shut as a faint smile lingered on her lips. For the first time, she dared to believe that the kindness she’d glimpsed in Rollant might not be fleeting. Perhaps, the home, the dagger, the night—it was a start. A promise she didn’t have to fear.

CHAPTER19

The Choice of Redemption

CHARONNE, PARIS, FEBRUARY 1789

The door shutwith a soft click, yet Rollant’s heart thundered in his chest. The blind revenge that had consumed him six centuries before surged again, flooding his veins. The image of Élise’s ghastly bruised back seared into his mind. Small yet ashamed, her whisper echoed in his ears: “I cannot reach them.”

His fingers trembled with a desperate and immediate urge to act, to repay blood for blood, like a demon prodding him to the edge of fury. He pressed his nails into his palms to contain the dark tide coursing through him. He paced the room, the weight of his immortal curse pressing against him. He had once unleashed the savage bloodlust against Arnoul, and it brought him to this lonely, eternal perdition.

But Gabin deserved death. The man’s cruelty demanded it. Rollant shoved his boots on and examined his hands in the hearth light, flexing and curling his fingers, testing their strength. They would be as steel bars around Gabin’s throat.

For Élise, he would put the man in the grave in the same brutal way Gabin had handled her.

The heavy weight of his coat felt like the armor he once wore as he threw it over his shoulders. He strode toward the door, the resolve of centuries hardening his steps. He stepped into the small entry room, and the cold pressed against him, stopping him mid-stride.

It wasn’t winter’s bite paralyzing him, but the familiar absence of life. The chill swept over him like a wraith, thrusting him to the last fateful moment when his hands had been drenched in blood and vengeance outside the walls of Damascus.

Life drained from Arnoul’s wide, unblinking eyes. The iron stench of blood pressed against his senses harder than the sword in his hands. The moment of justice arrived, yet it did not bring him peace. It had not erased his pain but had only carved a steep punishment for his soul. Blood begat blood, and revenge spawned a curse of eternal solitude.

Standing before the door of his Charonne home, he faltered in his resolve to release death upon Gabin. His fist struck the wooden beam barring the door, and the sound reverberated through the room like the toll of a bell. He hit it again and again, each strike an attempt to pummel the memories from his mind—the bruises on her body, the pleading look in her eyes, the helplessness of his own restraint. He wanted to be her shield, her sword, her justice. The world had hurt her, and yet he feared causing more harm to come to her.

Her voice came. “Rollant, is someone out there?”

He swallowed his anger and took a deep breath. He glanced over his shoulder and said in the calmest voice he could muster, “No. I’m just cleaning up. Go to sleep. You are safe here.”

The bed squeaked, and then silence.

Rollant sagged against the door, his forehead resting against the wooden planks. “Curse you, Gabin,” he muttered. He clenched his fists, envisioning Arnoul’s blood on them as if it had never dried. The sorceress’ warning left him, replaced by the soft hum of the winter’s wind forcing through the small cracks where the door met the doorpost.

The room was silent except for the crackle of the hearth. Rollant turned around and stepped toward the main room. The home was a mirror of his life—sharp, precise, but empty. He threw off his coat onto the sofa and sat by the fire at the table, letting its warmth seep into his skin as his gaze got lost in the dancing flames.

Élise was safe. She lay beneath his roof, tucked in his bed, well out of Gabin’s grasp. That assurance should suffice, he reasoned while taking a deep breath through his nostrils and releasing it over his lips. He wanted to heal her wounds and give her a life of peace. Killing Gabin in cold blood would do neither. He had engaged in wars for monarchs and navigated political courts seeking honor, but this—this self-control—proved the most difficult.

“Vengeance is the Lord’s,” he whispered, pulling the words from the oral citation from his youth, six hundred years prior. It was the only soothing thought that came to him in his powerless state.

Rollant leaned back, pressing against the chair. He closed his eyes and exhaled another slow breath. He gripped the table’s edge until his knuckles whitened. “She will have peace here, even if I do not,” he whispered.

The words calmed him. His fingers relaxed as he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and rubbed a hand over his face. It took six hundred years for him to feel again, but in some way, he sensed it had been a test—a second chance—and he chose not vengeance but peace. And his choice, fragile though it felt, brought with it a glimmer of something he thought he’d lost long ago—honor. Maybe the curse could be lifted since he had chosen well the second time. Perhaps the sorceress would grant him the ability to hold love in his arms again.

He flicked the notion away. Her dark celestial being hadn’t come to inform him that the curse was lifted, and he doubted she would ever do so.

The firelight danced across the ceiling as his thoughts churned. He had two weeks in Paris, due back to the King’s side by mid-February. The king’s command echoed in his mind. The same as it had been for a year: gauge the reaction to another faulty decision.

Élise was a voice among the districts, her words reaching further than she realized. She understood the people’s needs, their anger, and their hopes. He could stay here, ask her, and deliver the king’s answers without ever stepping into Paris again. Two weeks to make sure she wouldn’t look back toward the city or fall prey to its cruelty again and still glean what he needed to answer the king.

“The king. The king. The king,” he muttered. All the royal houses had used him as the perfect instrument of power—his purpose and punishment—from the day the sorceress cursed him. Eternal life, eternal servitude. His loyalty was not born of respect or admiration but by force, an irrevocable deal he wished would end.

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