Read Chapter 18: The Rival

The knock came not from the front door but from the seaward side—three sharp raps against the old oak of the kitchen entrance, the one that opened onto the cliff path. Isabelle had been staring at the Heart of Light, wrapped in linen on the table between her and Yann, when the sound cut through the salt-heavy silence.

Yann's hand went to his belt, where he no longer carried a knife. Old habit. He rose first, positioning himself between Isabelle and the door.

"Who comes to a castle by the cliff path at dusk?" he muttered.

The knock came again, harder. A woman's voice called through the wood: "Isabelle Marchand? I know you're in there. Open this door."

Isabelle felt the cold before she understood why—the locket at her throat had gone icy against her skin. She pressed her palm to it and stepped around Yann, ignoring his warning hand.

"Who are you?"

"The name on the deed, if the notary did his work correctly." A pause, then a bitter laugh. "Adèle Marchand. Your grandmother's other granddaughter. The one the family tried to erase."

Isabelle pulled the door open.

The woman on the threshold was a study in sharp angles—high cheekbones, a blade of a nose, dark hair pulled back so tight it stretched the skin at her temples. She wore a city coat over a silk blouse, expensive shoes that had no business on a Breton cliff. But her eyes were the same shade as Isabelle's own, that pale Marchand gray that seemed to hold weather in it.

"You're cold," Adèle said, glancing at the locket. "It knows I'm here, doesn't it? The little watchdog."

"You know about—"

"I know about everything." Adèle brushed past Isabelle into the kitchen, her gaze sweeping the room and landing on the linen-wrapped bundle on the table. "Including that."

Yann moved to block her path. "You'll stop there."

"Yann Kervern." Adèle's mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "You grandfather sailed with Yvonne's captain, didn't he? Before the storm took him. You have his jaw."

Yann's face went still in that way Isabelle had learned meant he was reining in something dangerous. "You've done your research."

"Research is the least of what I've done." Adèle pulled a folded document from her coat and tossed it onto the table, next to the diamond. "I've spent fifteen years tracing every branch of this family's poisoned tree. I know about the vanished women, the cadet branch, all of it. And I know the only reason you're standing here, Isabelle, is that you came back to the old house before I could."

Isabelle picked up the document. A notarized genealogy, updated three years ago, tracing the Marchand line through Yvonne's elder sister—a woman named Marguerite who had been declared dead in 1968 but whose disappearance, Isabelle now saw, had never been officially investigated. Adèle was her granddaughter.

"You're not a fraud," Isabelle said slowly. "You're the other branch. The one that didn't inherit the castle because your grandmother vanished first."

"Vanished." Adèle laughed, sharp and humorless. "She ran. Like so many of us did. The ones who were smart enough to see what the castle was doing to us." She stepped closer, and the cold at Isabelle's throat intensified until it ached. "You think you're the first Marchand woman to try to break the curse? You think Yvonne was the first to attempt a ritual on the island?"

Isabelle's breath caught. "The tape. You knew she made a recording."

"I know she made many recordings." Adèle's eyes glittered. "I have five of them. The ones she sent to my grandmother over forty years of letters. The ones where she confessed what she'd done—what she was planning. The ones where she begged forgiveness for choosing the castle over her own sister."

Yann hadn't moved from his position between the doors. "If you have so much knowledge, why come now? Why not take the castle yourself when Yvonne died?"

"Because the castle selects its heir, doesn't it?" Adèle's voice dropped. "And it never would have accepted me. I knew that. I've always known that. The curse doesn't touch me the way it touches you—I can stand here without that locket burning me—but it also would never answer my call. The sea god needs a Marchand woman who loves this place." Her lips twisted. "You're the one with the poison in her blood."

Isabelle set the genealogy down carefully, her mind racing. "You came to warn me."

"I came to claim what's mine." Adèle reached into her coat again, and this time she pulled out a photograph, creased and yellowed. She held it up, and Isabelle saw Yvonne standing on this very cliff, a young woman with the same storm-gray eyes, her hand resting on the shoulder of a boy.

The boy wore a sailor's cap and grinned at the camera.

"Is that—" Isabelle looked at Yann.

He was staring at the photograph, his face gone pale beneath his tan. "My grandfather," he said roughly. "As a child."

"He was four years old when that was taken," Adèle said. "And Yvonne was twenty-eight. She's wearing her wedding ring in the photo. Your grandmother was already married by then, Isabelle—to a man who died at sea before she ever lived in this castle." She lowered the photograph. "Do you know why she never told anyone about that marriage? Because she wasn't cursed. She was never cursed."

Isabelle felt the floor tilt beneath her. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying the curse is a lie." Adèle's voice was silk wrapped around steel. "Yvonne and my grandmother created it together—made themselves disappear, made their daughters disappear—to hide what was really going on here." She gestured at the linen bundle. "To hide the Heart of Light. Because the diamond isn't a pledge to a sea god. It's a weapon. A store of power accumulated over three hundred years of Marchand women pouring their love, their devotion, their blood into the sea to feed it."

Yann's hand closed around Isabelle's arm. "Don't listen to her."

"Listen to me," Adèle said, her gaze locked on Isabelle. "I don't want to break the curse. I want to use the diamond. With the power in that stone, I can undo the laws that bind us—the inheritance that passed you the castle, the magic that keeps the Marchand women bound to this cliff, everything. I can free every woman in our line who ever vanished. All it takes is one Marchand woman on the island at the lowest tide, offering the Heart freely."

"That's what I planned to do," Isabelle said, her voice barely a whisper.

"No." Adèle shook her head slowly. "You planned to destroy it. To close the bargain, dissolve the power. That's what your vision taught you, wasn't it? Equal sacrifice—blood and stone given freely. But a free offering can serve two purposes. It can close a curse, or it can redirect it."

The cold at Isabelle's throat was unbearable now. She could feel the curse listening, feel the sea hunched like a predator beyond the walls.

"You want me to give you the diamond," Isabelle said.

"I want you to perform the ritual," Adèle corrected. "And I want to be the one standing at the gate when you do. You give the offering without asking—once the power flows, it has to go somewhere. I'll be there to catch it." She stepped closer, and for a moment her sharp face softened into something almost like pleading. "Yvonne wasn't cursed, Isabelle. She was a guardian. The curse was invented to keep women away from the stone—to make them afraid of the sea so none of them would ever think to claim the diamond's power. Every woman who vanished didn't die. She chose to disappear and start over somewhere the magic couldn't reach."

The photograph trembled in Isabelle's fingers. "Then why did Maëlle's spirit warn me? Why did I see her failed ritual?"

"Because Maëlle was the first guardian, and she failed." Adèle's voice dropped to a whisper. "She tried to destroy the diamond and the sea god rebuffed her—but the god didn't curse her. He bound the power to her bloodline so it could never be destroyed, only passed. Every guardian since, Yvonne included, has carried the same burden: keep the secret, keep women from sailing on the full moon, keep the diamond hidden. And you, Isabelle, are the last guardian. Because there's no one left after you."

Silence fell across the kitchen, broken only by the distant crash of waves against the cliff.

Yann's voice came rough from behind her. "Is there a way to know she's telling the truth?"

Isabelle looked down at the locket. It was cold—colder than it had ever been—and she realized suddenly that it had been cold since Adèle walked through the door. Not warning of danger.

Recognizing kin.

Slowly, she lifted the linen from the Heart of Light. The diamond pulsed with its faint, heartbeat warmth, and in its facets she could see the faint reflection of Adèle's face, the same Marchand shadows and lights.

"You're not here to help me break the curse," Isabelle said quietly. "You're here to take its power for yourself."

Adèle didn't deny it.

"And if I refuse?"

"Then you'll do exactly what Yvonne did. You'll choose to vanish. Choose to disappear and let the secret die with you." Adèle's gaze moved to the photograph still in Isabelle's hand. "But you won't, will you? You love Yann too much to leave him. You love this castle too much to let it fall. You'll fight to save them, and you'll do whatever it takes."

The locket burned cold against Isabelle's throat, and she understood.

Adèle wasn't offering a choice. She was offering a trap.

And the worst part—the part that made Isabelle's stomach drop—was that she was right. Isabelle would do whatever it took.

She looked at the diamond, pulsing warmly in her palm, and then at Adèle.

"Show me the recordings."