Page 78 of The Darkest Oath

With the resignation of cutting out his humanity once more, he said in the most monotonous tone he could muster, “Of course, it was all a ruse.”

Her arms dropped to her side. She pressed close to him. “Everything?” The whisper brushed his cheek.

Her question cut deeper than any pike. He wanted to tell her that no part of her had been a ruse. That she had become the only light in centuries of darkness. But the curse weighed heavier than her accusations. Loving her would only bring her ruin.

The words burned his throat as he forced them out.

“Yes, everything.”

Each syllable was a dagger in his chest, but it was better this way. Better for her to hate him than to die because of him.

Élise sneered and punched him in the side. “You’re a pig,” she spat. Hate and hurt warred in her voice.

“The fattest kind,” he said, not acknowledging her but looking straight ahead like a good guard would do. He could feel her recoil from him, but it was for the better. Eventually, time would claim her like all the rest.

She shoved him and then spat at his feet. He recovered with ease and mounted his horse. He did not look at her; he couldn’t, or he’d jump down and beg her forgiveness.

She hit his leg with a closed fist. “I hate you,” she gritted.

“Move aside, Mademoiselle,” he said, pulling himself into the eternal stasis that had kept him from losing his mind for the last six hundred years.

He clicked his heels into the mare’s sides, and the horse jolted forward as the carriage rolled down the long road on the path to the Tuileries Palace in Paris with two bodyguards’ heads on pikes leading the crowd.

It was done.

She was free.

The carriage creaked forward, its wheels grinding against the cobblestones as the crowd surged around it. Shouts of “Vive la Nation!” rang in Rollant’s ears, mingling with the crude insults hurled at the Queen. Ahead, the pikes swayed like grim banners, their grisly trophies dripping blood under the noon sun.

Rollant gripped the reins tighter, the leather biting into his palm. The end was coming for Louis, for the Queen, for them all, but not for him. He would remain a relic of another time, a silent witness to history’s endless cruelty.

Alone.

Always alone.

And once again, Rollant would remain—an eternal witness to the fall of kings and the slow, painful decay of love. And as he rode on, Élise’s final words echoed in his mind, sharper than the jeers of the crowd:I hate you.

CHAPTER30

Betrayal of the Forgotten

FAUBOURG SAINT-ANTIONE, PARIS, NOVEMBER 1789

Élise clutchedher coat tighter around her arms as she walked the Rue de Charonne, the November air biting her cheeks. Her neck ached from the tension in her jaw, and hot tears burned behind her eyes. “How could I have been so blind?” she muttered.

All she had ever wanted was to be loved, yet Rollant—his smile and kiss—had been nothing more than a calculated lie. He’d played her, left her to feel the fool. The harsh truth clawed at her: that was why he hadn’t stayed after their kiss. It meant nothing to him. He wasn’t on a ship. He was in the palace and probably had women stashed away all over the city.

Her feet scuffed against the cobblestones as doubt gnawed at her. Would he even let her stay in the house now, knowing what she’d seen and heard? Or was that a lie, too? Perhaps it wasn’t even his home.

“Not a landlord,” she scoffed at the bitter thought, her fists tightening in her coat. “Just a loyal dog of the king. A bodyguard. An informant.” The words were ash in her mouth.

She hadn’t seen him once in the month since she’d been at Versailles, but his absence only deepened her anger, like a wound that refused to heal. He’d betrayed her—and worse, made her believe that, for a fleeting moment, she had meant something to him. She clutched her heart to hold it together.

Her pace slowed as she turned down the narrow path leading to Madame Marie’s apartment. Guilt settled like a rock in her chest, constricting her throat as the street constricted to her shoulders, walls on each side.

“If I’m such the fool he played me to be, then why does any of it still matter? Why does he still matter to me?” she whimpered, shaking the notion away. “No, others matter now, like Madame Marie.”

It was her first time venturing into Faubourg Saint-Antione since she’d left, but she had to check on her last remaining friend. She doubted Rollant would have given her enough to last this long. She imagined the children’s hollow faces, their swollen bellies from hunger, and the thought made her feet move faster. In her arms, she clutched a loaf of bread she’d baked that morning—her only offering, but hopefully enough to keep them alive until she could find more.

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