On This Unworthy Scaffold, Heidi Heilig [best books to read for success .txt] 📗

my gut. I may not have resurrected Xavier Legarde myself, but it’s my fault just the same. I failed to stop Le Trépas when I had the chance. Even worse, the nécromancien escaped with a vial of my own blood. We had hoped he’d only had enough to raise the Boy King, but it seems he raised the general as well.

Le Trépas told me once that the fighting wouldn’t end until the Aquitans were all dead, but I was never foolish enough to believe him. Once they are gone, the old nécromancien will turn on the rest of us. “Know your enemy,” he had written, and I do. Le Trépas is everyone’s enemy.

I rub my wrist; I can still feel the corpse’s cold fingers there. Had the monk killed the Audrinnes as well? The guilt grows, pressing me into the mud, but it’s hard to imagine my old patrons dead or fleeing. Even during the famine of the Hungry Year, as the rebellion intensified, Madame’s riches had helped shield her from the effects of the very war such wealth had caused.

My memories of performing shadow plays in her sitting room seem like a dream, vivid and nonsensical. Had I ever been a performer? An artist . . . a shadow player? The war has stripped away all the proof I’d had—our traveling roulotte, painted and carved, burned to ash. Our fantouches, some passed down from Papa’s ancestors, all but one lost as well. Maman’s instruments—the thom and the bird flute—left behind at Leo’s theater in Luda as we fled. The theater itself too, the last place we’d performed . . . destroyed by the armée.

Suddenly I want, more than anything, to go back to Madame’s sitting room. To find the makeshift stage she ordered built and rebuilt every year; to peek around the side of the white silk scrim to see the gilded chairs lined up along the polished wooden floor. To hear the polite murmur of the audience turn into an expectant hush as they wait for the show to begin. To light the lamps, to raise my hands, to make my shadows dance across the screen.

But if Le Trépas was there, the Audrinnes must be dead too. Or corpses, raised like the prisoner was.

Now the weight in my stomach turns to heat. I start to rise again, but Cam pushes me back down. “The docteur,” he reminds me, but I’m tired of waiting.

“I’m fine!”

“You may be unhurt,” the Tiger says quietly. “But you’re far from fine. Leo’s been watching you like a hawk, and you still almost managed to get yourself killed.”

I blink at him. “He’s what?”

“He’s trying to keep you safe,” Camreon says. “But he could use your help.”

Taken aback, I stare after Leo, but he has vanished into the village. Was that why he hadn’t left my side the last few weeks? All of his tender attention—his constant care . . . was it love or duty?

“I know I’ve been without my elixir,” I say with careful calm. “And I know you’re all worried about my malheur, but I also know my own mind, and I’m fine.”

“I look forward to the docteur saying the same,” Camreon says, and though it takes all the composure I can muster, I sit back down to wait.

When the docteur arrives at last, she treats the wounded soldier first, while Matthieu stares warily at the tattoos on her back. All of her sins, written on her skin in Old Chakran. She was a monk once. When the Aquitans were in power, she would have hidden the markings with long sleeves; the skin of her arms is still paler than the deep tan on her hands. Now she wears a Chakran sarong, and the light of the setting sun is like a blessing on her shoulders.

Once the soldier has been loaded into the waiting cart, she turns to me, peering into my eyes and running her hands across my scalp. “Any ringing in your ears?”

“No,” I say—it’s not exactly a lie. The ringing has faded into a thin whine. I could almost mistake it for a persistent mosquito. The docteur narrows her eyes.

“Watch for nausea and dizziness,” she says. “But the real danger is a second blow to the head while you’re recovering. You should rest for a few days, just in case.”

I can feel Camreon’s eyes on me, but I only grit my teeth. “I’ll keep that in mind,” I say. “Can I go?”

“Take the cart,” Camreon interjects, and it isn’t worth it to argue. The wounded soldier and I trundle back to the village at the pace of the placid water buffalo, while Cam and Matthieu stay behind to bury Fontaine.

By the time we reach the village, the blood has dried on my skin, and flies are buzzing around me thicker than the souls. Leo is waiting for me in the village square, where preparations for a coronation feast are underway. “Are you all right?” he says, helping me down from the cart, and there’s nothing I want more than to fall into his arms.

Instead, I hesitate. “Have you really been keeping an eye on me?”

“Of course I have,” he replies easily. “It’s impossible to look away.”

The flattery makes me laugh, especially as I stand stinking in my filthy sarong, and just like that, I am all right. After all, Leo has known about my malheur from the start—perhaps love and duty are not always in opposition.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, shall we?” He takes my hand, leading me toward the huts. The locals in Malao have welcomed us into their homes, giving Camreon the largest one, with three rooms separated by woven screens and curtained doors made of silk. The main area has been converted into a makeshift war room, with a map of Chakrana pinned to the wall and a scattering of soft pillows in the corners.

Miu lounges among them—the fantastical dragon fantouche I had ensouled with the spirit of a kitten, the only fantouche I have left. When I step up through the hatch, she bounds