The King's Eye

Chapter 41

 I woke alone amongst the trees, stars twinkling against a clear sky. Night. It was night. Shooting up from where I lay on the ground, I tried to take in the world around me. A low grunt and the sound of something large stirring behind me made me jump to my shaky feet, the uneven ground making me falter.

Running into the beast that loomed over me, I realized it was not a monster from a fairy tale, but a horse who was quite worried. Felix. My shoulders sagged with relief, the too large clothes shifting awkwardly against my body. He hadn't left me. You slept the daylight away, I sighed. "Allons." Leveraging my weight into the tree next to me, I pushed off and sunk back into the saddle.

With a slight kick of my heels, Felix began walking through the crunching leaves that had greeted us when we entered the woods. In my feverish daze I had not realized just how far we had gone into the trees, but the further he walked toward the edge of the pillared trunks the more I realized it was too far. Marie-Sophie-Victorie Dupont, you will be brave. You will make it out of these woods. And You will leave this world behind once you do.

The words repeated on a loop within the walls of my mind, drowning out the leaves under hooves but not the voices I now heard carrying in the distance. Had Jacques found me? He had to know I was gone by now, at least. I pulled the reins, stilling Felix under me. I hadn't even covered a third of the distance and I had failed. It was the only thing I had been good at in all the time I had worked under his majesty. I had done nothing on my own. I couldn't even run away.

Ahead of me shadows atop horses walked by slowly, oblivious to my presence. Their voices carried through the treeline in casual conversation making me linger in the shadows.

"When are they going to be printed?" An aged voice asked.

"Tonight. And sent out in the morning. He is wanting to waste no time." Whoever he was, was not alone in that. I had wasted too much time. "We'll go there first to ensure everything is ready," the gravelly familiar voice said.

"After Desmoulins released..." The voice paused as if trying to remember something.

"Discours de la lanterne aux Parisiens." That voice. Why did I know that voice? "Did you read it?"

I could almost hear the scoff as he said, "Yes. It was an interesting take."

A faint laugh came through the trees. "Desmoulins is a crazy bastard. After the stunt he pulled at the Bastille, I'm surprised he still has followers."

"You say that as if Marat is not one and the same."

Felix shifted as the sentence left the older gentleman, making the younger familiar man stop. "Did you hear that?"

"It was probably just the deer," he said with annoyance.

My eyes had adjusted enough to see him turn his horse around, but we could not move. I begged whoever was listening from the heavens to keep Felix from shifting again.

"I will catch up."

"Matis, we have a deadline."

"I said, I will catch up." Waiting until the hooves of the other man's horse went silent into the night, he dismounted his horse and pulled out a dagger from his boot. "I know you are out there," he growled.

A shuddering breath left me that I knew was too loud as he took another step toward us. Marie-Sophie-Victorie Dupont, you will be brave. You will make it out of these woods. And You will leave this world behind once you do. I screamed it internally again and again as I led Felix out onto the path to meet my supposed brother. "Despite not being raised by her, it is nice to know you are still like our mother."

In the darkness I could barely make out his features, but I knew a smile had formed on his face as he replaced the dagger in his boot. "Devilishly good looking?" He joked.

"A traitor," I spat.

"Am I not on the same side as your husband?" He spat back as if he were Anne in one of our many petty arguments. How could he be like Anne... "Does the assassin know you are out here alone?"

"I don't know what side my husband is on anymore," I frowned. "And as for knowing where I am. No, he does not."

Another laugh left him. "You are insane if you think he will not find you. He will hunt you down as if you are an assignment."

"I am well aware of that." I kicked at Felix's sides, forcing him forward and brushing past the man with my mother's eyes. "Now if you'll excuse me."

"Wait." He called after me. "How did you know?"

I glanced over my shoulder at him. "Know what?"

"That we are...siblings," he said quietly.

"You have her eyes," the sorrow in my voice took me off guard. My fingers ran along my face, uncomfortably. "And her nose."

He nodded before getting back on his horse and trotting to catch up. "I will accompany you to the city, if that is alright." I gave him a curt smile, polite. "It may keep me in good graces with the assassin, but also I would rather not let my sister be alone on this road at night."

I stopped Felix. "Stop calling him that."

He furrowed his brow in response.

"He is just Jacques to me." Felix began walking on cue, no guidance needed. "Not the assassin all of you know him as. Just Jacques." After a few moments of silence, I finally asked him about the conversation he was having before our encounter began. "You were talking about printing a paper?"

"Are you really a spy?" He asked playfully, the smile fading once he looked at me. I knew my expression was nothing but serious from the tension in my forehead. "If you must know, yes. We are to meet at the printing press and then help make sure everything is distributed as intended."

The idea of running away suddenly faded as a plan began to form. In my fear I had spoken too soon. Maybe I was not a failure after all, and I just had to wait for the right moment to seize an opportunity. I liked to think that maybe Jacques would be proud of me, but knew too well that he would be cursing over the question I was about to ask. "Can I help?"