Page 138 of Summer of Sacrifice

This realm needs you and your kindness, my darling.

I love you now and in every life hereafter.

Ever Yours,

Cal

Chapter

Twenty-Four

AGATHA

At some point, the king had been brought into the chateau and settled in his new home. Laurent had also gotten the Druids and soldiers settled on the sprawling lawn and hills to camp. Agatha had been too busy helping Dulci and Anne prepare food to notice how far the moon had risen in the sky.

Arielle came up behind her in the kitchen, startling her enough to drop the ladle she carried. “Apologies, Aggie, but—” Grimm’s sweet sister bit her lip. “I know it isn’t my place to say, but your mother’s journals, the ones that I sensed her presence in…”

“Yes?” Agatha set her ladle aside and wiped her hands off on a towel.

“I think Seleste might need them tonight. The First Sisters, I mean. I think all four of you do, my brother included.”

Agatha regarded this Death Seer—Life Seer, as she should be called. “Did she say something?” But of course, she didn’t have to. Shouldn’t have had to. Agatha should have seen it herself.

“No,” Arielle said softly. “But I can feel it on her.”

“Say no more. Will you let Sorscha and Winnie know it’s time? I’ll go find Grimm and Seleste.”

Agatha started to walk away, but Arielle called after her. “She’s in the woods. There is a little cabin there, I think. And— I don’t think she’ll want to leave it tonight.”

“Of course. We’ll meet her there, then.”

Seleste, Then

SEVENTY YEARS AGO

Merveille was a nightmare.

Seleste had been in the city solving a case regarding a missing heirloom and was caught in the mayhem of a funeral.

Everything Cal accomplished during his reign had all but evaporated under the rule of King Leopold and his heir, his nephew Frederic Peridot I. Over the last four decades in power, the tyrants had undone all of Cal’s laws and put oppression back in place.

Leopold was even been rumoured to have tied a mixed-race couple to the legs of warhorses and had them dragged through the streets until they’d both torn open and perished.

Tragically, his nephew, Frederic, was no better.

How a vile monster like Frederic had been born of Elsie Bardot was beyond comprehension. But the young woman had died in childbirth with the boy, and he’d been raised solely by his abusive, childless uncle—Leopold, the distant cousin who had married Emmaline to further secure his position as heir to the throne after King Caliban.

Despite Cal’s intervention while he was alive, Elsie’s widower and his heir had never changed. Young Frederic had a violent temper like his deceased father and was sent away to be educated, though he’d returned as a man only more volatile. He had married and been the first in ages to produce a direct heir, his capricious behaviour was rampant.

Cal had been dead close to forty years, and all the lines he’d smudged were firmly drawn back with angry lines.

The aristocrats, clad in their funeral blacks opposed to their usual gaudy brightness, were dabbing their eyes. Meanwhile, the lower class stood at the back of the crowds, heads bent and a thick fear stooping shoulders as King Leopold was lowered into his coffin.

Seleste watched as the young Prince Frederic II shifted from foot to foot, his mother, Queen Anaïs, and his advisors prodding him, whispering in his ear until he stopped fidgeting. Perhaps this prince would someday right the wrongs of his great uncle and the new king, who was already ageing rapidly.

Seleste looked back over those gathered in dark robes around Prince Frederic II, her heart sinking. He would only bring change as Cal had if he could stand against the advisors of old and the new ones they were rumoured to appoint in the wake of the former king’s death. A chill ran up her arms and Seleste hugged her cloak tighter, looking up at the dimmed-for-daylight Strawberry Moon that would soon give way to Reaping.

King Leopold’s coffin was slowly lowered into a ceremonial grave. Walking forward on shuffling feet, King Frederic I and Prince Frederic II tossed in handfuls of dirt, the soil landing with a thunk on the coffin’s polished wood. Soon, more words would be spoken and the crowds would finally disperse. Then, the king’s coffin would be lifted from the liturgical grave and he would be taken to his final resting place—the Royal Seagovian Crypt.

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