Chapter 1009: Confessions (Part Two)

Ever since his crimes had been exposed, Roseen had wondered if she’d been someone the lecherous baron had his eyes on, but to hear it straight from his lips had still been shocking. To see the way her friend reacted to it, though, was even more so.

"I just, when he said your name, I couldn’t... I couldn’t let him say any more of those vile things. Not, not about you, I couldn’t..." Cossot said as she clung to her friend.

She thought that she’d prepared herself to do what needed to be done. To strike the blow on Dame Sybyll’s behalf because it was a thing that needed to be done. Because Dame Sybyll couldn’t bring herself to kill one of the few people left in this world who were still her blood kin.

But when the time came, it hadn’t been his crimes that moved her hand, or her desire to spare Dame Sybyll from needing to kill a member of her own family.

Her hand had moved to shield Roseen from harm, and when the moment was upon her, she hadn’t even realized that she’d moved until the deed was already done. The knife wasn’t just sharp, it was unlike any blade she’d ever held, and she barely felt resistance at all when it parted the captive baron’s flesh, more like a spoon through soft pudding than a knife cutting meat. And just like that, less than a dozen heartbeats later, Ian Hanrahan died, choking on his own blood as his heart pumped the red liquid of life onto the cold dungeon floor.

"Thank ye," Sybyll said, resting a hand gently on Cossot’s shoulder. The darkness had left her eyes, and her hair no longer danced in a phantom wind. She still seemed less human than she had before, as if she had drained away a portion of her strength and majesty when she used her sorcery. Or perhaps it was the imminent approach of dawn that left her looking almost frail as she offered what comfort she could to the young woman who had claimed Ian Hanrahan’s life.

"Ye did what I couldn’a do, an’ ye did what had ta’ be done," she said gently. "But dawn is upon us, an’ I need ta’ rest. Cossot," Sybyll said as she took a handkerchief and gently wiped away the blood that had splattered on the young woman’s face. "Go upstairs an’ seek out Lady Heila. She can help ye ta’ clean yerself up an’ find a place ta’ bed down fer tha’ day. I’ll see ye’ again when night falls."

"All, all right," Cossot said, pulling back from Roseen’s embrace and looking hesitantly toward the door. She wanted to go, she wanted more than anything to leave the cramped place where Ian Hanrahan’s cooling body lay, but at the moment, she didn’t want to step away from Roseen, and Dame Sybyll seemed to have turned her attention to her dearest friend.

"Cossot," Sybyll said, cursing herself for needing to rush against the coming of the sun. But as she looked into Cossot’s lost and trembling eyes, she realized that she’d made a grave mistake in holding back too much about her intentions.

She was now certain that she’d been right about the potential she saw in the brave young woman who stood up in the great hall when so many others cowered and hid under tables, but Cossot didn’t know or understand why all of this had been so necessary.

The young woman had succeeded in transforming herself from helpless prey into a fledgling predator, but with that transformation came a great deal of loss. There were tender parts of her that had been cut just as deeply as Ian Hanrahan’s neck, and those tender parts would never be the same again, if they healed at all.

Sybyll herself had cut those parts of herself away years ago, even before Lady Nyrielle had transformed her into a vampire, but she’d forgotten what it meant to lose them. When she had transformed herself from a victim into an avenger, she’d known why she was doing it, and she was driven by intense hatred and an unrelenting desire to see the people who had wronged her and her mother die.

But Cossot didn’t have anything close to that, and her brief, momentary impulse to protect Roseen wouldn’t be enough to carry her through the day unless Sybyll could give her something to strive toward.

"Cossot," Sybyll repeated. "Ye’ve done what I couldn’a do, and I’ve seen tha’ truth of what’s in yer heart. But, I have a confession of me own ta make," she said as she looked into the other woman’s limpid eyes. "I know what Lady Heila said ta’ ye, but she were wrong about me intentions fer ye. Ye aren’t a woman meant ta’ be a maidservant or lady-in-waiting tha’ way tha’ Lady Heila is fer Her Dominion or Madame Zedya is fer me Mistress."

If all she wanted was a loyal servant who could follow behind her, even when she walked into the darkest of places, then acting as a scribe would have been enough, and that was exactly why Sybyll hadn’t asked more from Roseen than what she had done. Well, that, and one other test that had nothing to do with whether or not Roseen was capable of serving her and everything to do with whether or not she would allow Roseen to follow along beside Cossot.

Now that she’d seen what she needed to see, however, it was time to find a way to make things right after the series of blunders that had led her to nearly breaking a young woman whom she intended to nurture and guide for many years to come.

"I never intended ta’ have ye follow tha’ path tha’ Lady Heila did," Sybyll said. "Ye have courage in yer heart, an steel in yer soul an’ I’ll need both of those at me side in tha’ days an’ years ta’ come. Not as a maid-servant, but as me squire, an’ when tha’ time comes, an’ yer training is complete, as a knight in yer own right."

"A, a knight?" Cossot asked, shocked at the notion of it almost as much as she was shocked by the fact that Dame Sybyll had even considered her worthy of such a position. "But, I’m not strong enough to wield a sword and I don’t know how..."

"Did ye think I were always a mighty woman?" Sybyll said with a wry smile, tugging at the corner of her lips. She’d thought the notion that she would become a knight was ludicrous once as well, when Mistress Nyrielle introduced her to Sir Thane, but that was before she received the Potence of Blood, the powerful gift that made her unique among Nyrielle’s progeny.

"I can do fer you what were done fer me, but there’s much more to it than just a bit of sorcery an’ I have no time ta’ explain it all now. I’ll speak wit’ ye more when night falls again," Sybyll promised as she gently tucked a stray lock of hair behind the young woman’s ear. "Ye don’a need ta’ decide anything just yet. I want ye ta’ understand what it means ta’ choose this life an I will na’ force ye. I believe in ye, but fer now, ye need ta’ rest almost as much as I do. So go. See Lady Heila an’ get yerself settled."

"I’ll send yer friend to ye soon," Sybyll added as she turned her gaze to Roseen. "But first, I have a few words meant fer her alone..."