Queen of the Night (The Revanche Cycle Book 4) Read Free Page B

that. Betraying them and all they fought for.”
    She turned, her eyes burning with cold fury.
    “We are taking the Holy City. We are taking the papal throne. And Emperor Theodosius, or whoever has stolen his crown, will crawl at my feet and beg forgiveness for raising arms against his true and rightful pope. No. Nobody is going to stop me, Amadeo. We’re taking Lerautia.”
    Amadeo threw up his arms. “ How? ”
    “We’ll figure it out on the way.” She cast a hard glance across the battlefield. “Rally the troops. It’s time to leave.”

CHAPTER THREE
    From his suite in the papal manse, Carlo Serafini could look down upon the inner gardens. He’d sit in a chair by the window, cradling a goblet of red wine and watching the hours pass by. The sun slowly crawling across the sky, and the shadows shifting below. A tree of black iron stood at the heart of the garden, its gnarled limbs and razor-sharp leaves spreading out over the flower beds.
    His father had always hated that tree.
    “ I promised I wouldn’t tear it down ,” he’d told Carlo more than once, “ but when I’m gone? Rip it out by its roots. My father wanted to make a statement about the Church, to show its strength, its unyielding nature, how its limbs can’t be bowed or broken.
    “ My father forgot, though. He forgot that a tree made of iron can’t bear fruit .”
    “One more,” Carlo murmured, tossing back another swig of wine. “One more promise I didn’t bother keeping.”
    He ran the back of his hand over his mouth, feeling three days of rough stubble on his cheeks. His ermine robes were stained, looking more like a beggar’s rags than papal vestments, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d bathed. Not that it mattered. His only visitors now were the soldiers who guarded his door and brought him his meals and his drink. Keeping him sealed away from the world while a usurper ruled in his name.
    He needed more wine.
    He shoved himself up from the chair and shambled across his suite, past the unmade bed, to the decanter by the door. His captors were generous about keeping it filled. A small mercy, letting him live out his last days in an alcoholic fog. Tiny flecks of brown danced on the surface of the crimson wine, shavings of some exotic herb.
    There was nothing left for him now but to drink and reflect on his failures. Pope. He’d become pope. He couldn’t even remember why he’d wanted to in the first place. Cardinal Accorsi was right: he’d never been anything but a puppet, dancing on Lodovico Marchetti’s strings and then Accorsi’s. Everything he’d done on his own, everything he’d ever tried to accomplish, had been a failure.
    My great legacy , he thought. Carlo, the worthless drunkard .
    He lifted the decanter in a shaky hand, poising it over his empty goblet.
    Do I have to be?
    He stared at the wine. Drinking wine wasn’t something he even questioned, any more than one might question drinking a glass of water. He’d lived in a constant haze for so long he’d forgotten what it felt like to go without it.
    More to the point, he didn’t want to go without it. The idea of facing the world without a drink in his hand was alien, terrifying. When he drank, the hard edges of life turned soft, the cold of autumn became cozy and warm. The wine was his safe place, his escape from…everything.
    And where has that gotten me? he asked himself. I had the whole world in the palm of my hand, and I lost it. No. I didn’t lose it. I threw it away .
    He set down the decanter.
    “I don’t want this,” he said to the empty room, his voice hitching. “I don’t want to be like this anymore.”
    I can stop tonight , he thought. One quick drink, for now, to steady my nerves .
    He reached for the decanter. Stopped himself. Made himself walk away. He walked straight back again. He balled his hands into fists and paced the floor of his prison, arguing himself into a drink, then arguing himself out of it, over and over again.
    He