Bastien by Alianne Donnelly Read Free Book Online Page B

myself I never knew I had, and the hole left behind is quickly filling with resentment.
    Damn Louis for bringing me here, and damn Lilith for making me this craven for something I never should have had to begin with. I hope the both of them rot in hell.
    Outside, it’s day time. Frost makes the dry grass crunch beneath my shoes. The hag is not there, but I didn’t expect her to be. I look for the rose and instead find a single tarot card.
    The Hanged Man.

    Chapter Ten
    Dreams used to mean little to me. Vague snatches of images, faces I knew or not, voices saying things that made no sense. They were nothing more than the imaginings of a tired mind after a busy day of revelry and drink. Rarely did I wake after a dream and think it had any meaning beyond the immediate.
    I was a fool.
    Dreams are far more than anyone gives them credit for. I doubt even fortune tellers and mystics know what their dreams are trying to tell them. A tarot card appears on a table. They grasp for meaning based on what they were taught about the card. A King of Pentacles, for example, is supposed to mean a prosperous man with a family and estates. It means wealth, luck, and contentment. A King of Pentacles is what the hag ascribed to me. She called herself the Hierophant.
    I wonder if perhaps her deck was stacked.
    Not a night goes by now when I do not dream. Dark visions of pain and torment, chains and emptiness. A presence nearby, kept away, out of sight. I call out to it, will it to approach, but it shies away with fear. Every time it does this, I hear a creature howl in agony inside my chest as it dies a little more.
    I pour over books on mysticism, superstitions, magic and clairvoyance. I spend hours and days in my library, hardly eating, trying to reason out what it all means. Vague portents of doom are all I find. Any one of the elements in my dreams can be explained by these books, but all of them together make no sense at all. I make myself half insane trying to unravel it, eagerly retiring to my bed each night, waiting to dream something more to help me understand.
    I stop hoping for the woman of Strength. She is well and truly gone, not a hint of her left behind, not even her rose. I study the card so much it’s worn and fraying. I purchase several more decks, hoping that one of them will hold an image different from the one I have. I find a fist, a warrior, a bulwark, a mighty oak, but no woman. And no rose.
    Why would a rose signify strength? Roses are delicate things, finicky about where they grow and how they want to be cared for. They have long stems which break easily, and heavy blooms which weigh them down, making them even more fragile. Their only defense is the thorns.
    My garden is empty. On my order, all the plants and flowers were torn out to make room for roses. They are already planted, waiting for spring to bloom into their full glory. I find myself counting the days until the first blossom opens.
    I don’t like what this obsession has made of me. I’ve become a hermit, no longer interested in any of my usual sins. When the endless cycle of frustration and fervor is at its worst, I even contemplate seeking out Louis. Perhaps he knows more than I do. Perhaps once I tell him that I am no longer seeing Lilith and he is welcome to her and the damned elixirs, he will settle his feathers and speak to me as a friend once more.
    On a sunny winter day, that hope has me mounting my horse and riding into Fauve.
    The village is battened down against the cold. People avoid the outdoors most days, but today the sun is warm enough that it lures out the children and with them everyone else. They call greetings as I pass. I wave absently as is my duty, but ignore them for the most part.

    Louis’ estate is set far enough from the village that he can see the whole of it from his windows. I give my reins to one of his hostlers and knock. There was a time when I would simply enter and seek him out. I’m afraid that time has passed.
    The