But then why was the Forest appearing? Had the protections on the Château simply grown that weak?
Insubstantial rose vines climbed down her shoulder. Rachelle startled at the same moment Armand drew a sharp breath beside her, and then they met each other’s eyes.
So he really did see the Great Forest. That was good to know.
He raised his eyebrows a fraction. She shrugged. It didn’t feel like the Forest was prepared to break through and menace them—there was no least presence of woodspawn—it was simply as if the Forest were thinking of them.
“—and then,” l’Étoile-Polaire went on, “the old woman believed that the princess loved her, and said that she might help take the prince out of his cage and bake him in a pie—”
The half-seen Forest trembled around her, and Rachelle suddenly realized what story l’Étoile-Polaire was telling. And maybe why the Forest was listening.
“No,” she said. “That’s not how it goes.”
Everybody looked at her, including the eyes in the ghostly foliage, and Rachelle had to strangle a bizarre urge to giggle. They all thought she was shocking, when they were sitting in the middle of the Forest.
Was anybody ever out of the Forest?
“Excuse me?” said l’Étoile-Polaire.
“You’re telling the story of Tyr and Zisa, aren’t you?” said Rachelle.
“If you must put it so bluntly, yes.”
“You’re telling it wrong.” Rachelle heard a soft snort from her side: Armand had a wrist pressed to his face to smother laughter.
“I grant you, the old chronicles probably mentioned the ruffles a little less,” said la Fontaine, as lightly as if there were not bluebirds with heart-shaped faces sitting on her shoulders.
“Zisa didn’t win the forestborn’s favor by bringing them nectar from a hundred flowers. She killed her parents and cut out their hearts, and so she became a bloodbound.”
Everybody was still staring at her, and Armand was still smothering silent laughter. The Forest was still listening. It was, possibly, the worst idea in the world to tell this story when the Forest was listening, but she couldn’t resist. They were all so oblivious, and Armand was laughing beside her.
“Then the forestborn trusted her enough that she was able to come with them for the sacrifice. But when they had summoned the Devourer so they could offer Tyr, Zisa tricked the Devourer into letting her walk into his stomach twice and steal the sun and moon.”
“How charming,” said la Fontaine. The birds on her shoulders shivered and were gone.
“Zisa meant to kill him after,” said Rachelle. “But before she could, the Devourer possessed her. So Tyr killed her with Joyeuse just as the sun rose for the first time. The end.”
L’Étoile-Polaire’s voice was icy. “Are you saying that the first of all our kings was a murderer?”
“That is the tale as they tell it in the north,” Rachelle said blandly.
“Don’t judge him too harshly,” said Erec. He was watching Rachelle with his familiar smile; if he had noticed the Forest, he gave no sign of it. “He would hardly be a good king if he let a patricide share his throne.”
“And hardly a good man if he killed his sister,” said la Fontaine. “A grievous dilemma.” She sounded precisely as distressed as if she’d been given cakes with the wrong sort of icing.
“But he didn’t,” said Armand.
La Fontaine raised an eyebrow. “You have another version to tell?”
“No,” said Armand. “If her tale is true, Tyr didn’t kill his sister. He struck down the Devourer that had hidden itself inside her.”
Rachelle looked at him. He was no longer laughing; his elbows rested on his knees as he leaned forward, his eyebrows slightly drawn together. He seemed simply and earnestly interested in the conversation.
“Do you think that sort of detail matters?” she asked.
His mouth twitched back toward a smile. “When it comes to killing your family, I imagine every detail matters.”
“Your father will be glad to hear that,” said Erec, and Armand’s lips flattened.
Something tightened in Rachelle’s chest; she didn’t know if it was envy, or amusement, or irritation. “And do you think,” she asked, “that because Tyr didn’t want his sister dead, somehow he didn’t kill her? Do you think Zisa didn’t really kill her parents, just because she meant to save her brother?”
Bloody-handed Zisa, they called her in the village, and said that on moonless nights she forgot her quest was done and cut out the hearts of anyone foolish enough to wander the forest alone. They whispered of the sacrifices that were offered to her in the ancient heathen days, when people worshipped her as a goddess. She had won them the sun and moon, but she had become a monster.
For a moment, the mural showed a shadowy girl with two bleeding hearts in her hands. Then Rachelle blinked and it was gone.
“To the victor, the spoils,” said Erec, glancing at her in conspiratorial irony. “And also the pardon for all misdeeds.”
“No,” said Armand. His voice was soft but resolute. “I think Tyr was right and Zisa was wrong and neither one was lucky. Do you think that doing the right thing will always be pretty?”
For one moment, her throat clogged in reflexive fury, because what right did he have to mock her by pretending that he knew about darkness and hard choices—
Except he was still looking at her with that simple, open gaze. His head had tilted a little to the side, and his lips were slightly parted. He looked like she was a code he was trying to decipher.
He wasn’t mocking her. He cared about this question. Out of everyone in the room, he was the only one who cared.
“I think sometimes there is no right thing,” said Rachelle. “What should Zisa have done? Left her brother a captive waiting to be killed and left all mankind enslaved to the forestborn, just so she could pride herself on her clean hands? Or do you think Tyr would have been saved by a miracle?”
“No,” said Armand.
“Then what should she have done?”
His mouth scrunched unhappily, but he didn’t look away. Didn’t laugh. Did not pretend that anything was all right.
She realized that she actually wanted to know his answer.
“I don’t know,” he admitted softly.
She felt like she had just flung herself off a roof and was pitching downward through the air. “So you know what’s wrong but you don’t know what’s right? What use is that?”