Hidden Huntress

by Danielle L. Jensen

  “No,” Anushka replied, a smile creeping onto her lips. “But I won’t put a bullet in her skull.”

  I didn’t trust her for a second, but what choice did I have? “Fine.” Turning slowly so as not to alarm the devil standing behind me, I walked into the room, ignoring the pistol that remained leveled at my head.

  Anushka pushed Sabine in after us, kicking the wooden door shut behind her. The room was a set of living quarters, well furnished and unremarkable with the exception of the heavy chains set deep into the thick stone of the walls and floor. Anushka shoved Sabine. The girl tripped over the heavy skirts and would have fallen if I hadn’t caught her.

  “Chain him.”

  “Not a chance,” Sabine said, righting herself. “Feel free to do your worst, but I won’t…”

  Anushka’s gun fired.

  Fifty-Six

  Cécile

  The swing took a thousand years to lower, and I jumped off when it was still several feet above the ground. Ignoring the startled looks, I sprinted toward the exit and into the hall, letting instinct guide me in Tristan’s direction, screaming a mental warning to him even as I felt his shock and knew it had come too late. My bare feet made little noise as I ran through the narrow corridors. If she kills him, it will be your fault, my conscience whispered, and I knew it was true. I’d thought I could have it both ways, and now I was paying for my mistake.

  The sharp bark of a pistol firing filled the corridors, and I tripped on the hem of my skirt and fell, barely feeling the pain as the rough stone floors ripped the palms of my thin gloves. A howl tore out of my chest, and I pressed my forehead against my hands, waiting for the sharp knife of death to carve my insides out and leave me empty as it had the moment I’d knelt before the guillotine.

  But it did not come.

  Tristan was furious and very afraid, but unharmed. So who had been shot?

  Climbing to my feet, I eased cautiously down the dimly lit hall, stopping instinctively in front of a heavy door. Tristan was on the other side, but who was with him? Was it only Anushka, or did she have an accomplice? For all I knew, there could be a dozen of Marie’s guards standing in the room with her. Of a certainty, this was a trap, but it wasn’t one I could run away from.

  But that didn’t mean I had to go in blind.

  Hurrying down the hall, I tried the door of the adjoining room. It was locked. But the next one wasn’t. My heart racing, I ran through the dark chambers to one of the narrow windows on the far wall. It was less than a foot wide, but for once my short stature came in handy as I unlatched the glass and climbed up onto the windowsill.

  Icy wind tore at my hair and dress, and my stomach clenched as I looked down. It wasn’t a horridly distant drop, but if I fell onto the bare stone below, my injuries would be grievous. The alternative was much worse, so I inched out onto the narrow ledge and cautiously eased my way toward the next window, my bare feet burning.

  The snow crunched with each step I took, my fingers digging into the crumbling mortar between the heavy blocks of stone. My pulse thundered in my ears as I reached the window well; and clinging to the edge, I peered in with one eye.

  It was a bedroom, both dark and empty, but through an open set of doors, I could see into the sitting room that adjoined it. Julian stood with his back to me, the gun he held leveled at Tristan’s head, indicating that Anushka had cut him off from his magic, because otherwise such a threat would be meaningless. My mother stood a few paces in front of him, smiling and gesturing with the silver pistol in her hand. And Sabine…

  My throat burned with the hurt of betrayal as I watched my best friend fasten heavy chains to Tristan’s wrists and ankles, and then toss the key at my mother. It was only when she slumped to her knees next to his feet and pressed a hand to her shoulder that I saw the dark stain on her dress, and my hurt turned instantly to anger.

  I needed to get inside that room.

  I pressed a hand carefully against the glass, but it was latched from the inside. I could break it, but there was no chance they wouldn’t hear it. A glance over my shoulder revealed the moon shining full and bright. I was running out of time.

  Then a flicker of motion caught my eye. Peering back in the window revealed the tiniest glimmer floating just inside the glass. It was my light!

  Although to call it such was almost a lie, because it had faded almost into nothingness since my flight from Trollus. But it was now my only chance.

  Ignoring the violent shivers threatening my grip on the ledge, I focused on the tiny bit of magic, Tristan’s words drifting through my mind: My magic is what I will it to be. It does what I will it to do… I’d coaxed it into brightening and dimming before, but never before had I tried to change the purpose Tristan had given it. I envisioned it as a force, like a finger hooking onto the latch and flicking it back. Beyond, I could not help but see Sabine slump against the carpets and feel the flash of panic from Tristan as he stood chained and powerless to help her.

  With what seemed like reluctance, the magic drifted toward the metal latch, and my teeth chattered together as I willed it into action. I’d lost feeling in my toes, and my fingers were following suit. If this didn’t work, I wasn’t sure I’d even be able to make it back to the other window.

  Click. The magic winked out, and I knew it was gone forever. But it had done enough.

  Pressing my reddened fingertips against the glass, I began to push it in, but then stopped. The wind was howling around the castle, and it was sure to blast into the room. My eyes burned with the pain of the cold, and then the air went still as if the world itself was holding its breath. A prickle of apprehension ran down my spine, but I ignored it and opened the window, sliding in as swiftly and silently as a ghost before carefully shutting it behind me.

  “What is it you trolls say?” My mother’s voice was mocking. “ ‘All humans are liars’? You had to know there’s no way I’d let the girl live. She knows too much, and I’ve not endured all these long years through lack of caution.”

  “As though you don’t know a hundred ways to wipe the knowledge from her mind,” Tristan snarled. “You did this to provoke me and hurt Cécile, not out of necessity.”

  “Don’t presume to simplify my motivations, Your Highness. The curse I set on your kind required the death of a troll and the sacrifice of a human. With you and her, I will finish what I started five centuries ago.”

  She jerked her chin at Julian. “He’s no danger now that he’s chained. Go track down Cécile – there’s little chance of her stumbling upon us, and we’ll have need of her shortly.”

  “Yes, love.” Julian hid his pistol in the waistband of his costume, and I would have cringed as he kissed her cheek in passing, but my mind was on her words. If she didn’t know that I could find Tristan, that meant she didn’t know we were bonded, and there had to be a way to use that to my advantage. Keeping to the shadows, I crept closer to the door, hoping Tristan had noticed my presence.

  He had.

  “Really?” It was Tristan’s turn to mock her, and he did it well. “I’d heard you’d a taste and a talent for ensnaring powerful men, but I see your predilections are for those young enough to be your son. You’ve fallen far indeed if manipulating children is all you’re now capable of. The great Anushka, guilty of murder, regicide, infanticide, and… the bedding of orphan boys.”

  He was baiting her, trying to distract her so that I could make my move. Except I didn’t have one. Regardless, my mother only laughed. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Julian isn’t for me – he’s for Cécile.”

  Tristan lifted one brow. “Seems it will be a short courtship, given you intend to kill her tonight.”

  “On the contrary, Cécile will have a long and glorious career with Julian at her side. It’s Genevieve whose time has come to an end.”

  Tristan’s confusion mirrored my own, and my stomach tightened, knowing that her plans were not as we had thought.

  “All will become clear in time,” she said. “But the gir
l need not suffer for so long as that. The power of her sacrifice will keep.”

  In a quick motion, my mother caught hold of Sabine’s ankle and jerked her away from Tristan. He swore, and the steel chains holding him in place groaned with strain as he pulled against them. “If you harm her, I’ll tear the heart from your chest, witch.”

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, troll.” Anushka knelt beside Sabine, and I watched in horror as she pressed the mouth of her pistol to my friend’s chest. “I did promise I wouldn’t put a bullet in her head,” she added with a smile.

  I had to stop her, but I didn’t know how. I had no materials or time for a spell, and what was the strength of my power against hers?

  Her finger tightened on the trigger, and I lunged out into the room. “Stop!” I threw as much magic into the word as I possessed. Her hand froze and her eyes went blank. But only for a second, and then they went wide and overly bright.

  “Well, well. It seems you will never cease astonishing me with your resourcefulness, Cécile.” She sat back on her heels. “You have a way to find your troll master, do you darling? They are normally reluctant to carry charms and such, but I suppose five hundred years of captivity is enough to change even them.”

  “Let her go, Mama.” Why did I call her that? “Please. She’s done nothing to deserve this. Let her go.”

  “I need her.” Her eyes were unblinking. Calculating.

  I shook my head, ducking under one of Tristan’s chains as I moved closer. “You need him. But Sabine doesn’t have to die – someone else would serve.”

  “True,” Anushka replied, sitting back on her heels. “But she is here and likely to die from her other wound anyway.”

  “You don’t need to curse the trolls again,” I said, desperately trying another tactic as the blood soaked into the carpet beneath Sabine. “I tried to break them free and I failed. I can’t do it. I don’t want to do it.” The lie slipped easily from my lips.

  “And yet this one is free.” Rising to her feet, she walked around me to stand in front of Tristan. “Which means it’s possible, and a more permanent solution is in order.”

  Taking advantage of the moment, I dropped to my knees next to Sabine. Tearing a strip of fabric from my skirt, I bound her shoulder as tightly as I could manage. My friend was pale and shaking, and if she didn’t get help soon, she’d bleed to death. She smiled bravely, then catching my hand, she placed it on her opposite forearm. Beneath the sleeve of her dress was something hard. A knife. I carefully extracted it, hiding it in the mesh belt of my dress.

  “I’m weary of this life.” Anushka’s voice was soft. “I want the chance to live as I wish. Not to spend my days in fear that the trolls will catch me or that a foolish regent will burn me at the stake. Before, I was too blinded by hurt to see what needed to be done. But no longer.”

  Kill her! I clenched my teeth against the rush of compulsion. She had the pistol pointed at Tristan, and it might go off if I stabbed her. Still, I edged closer.

  She reached a hand to brush the hair off Tristan’s face, withdrawing it only when he lunged at her, his face taut with fury as he strained against the chains. “You have the look of Alexis,” she said. “But I suppose that’s no surprise. You all have the look of each other. Base things that you are.”

  Turning away from Tristan, she went to a chest and pulled out a jar. Something moved from within. Keeping one eye on me, she set her pistol on a table next to a basin of what looked like lamp oil. Touching a candle to it, she waited for the flames to flare brightly, then she opened the jar and dumped in the contents. I caught a glimpse of a large spider, legs thrashing, and then it was gone, consumed. She murmured some words under her breath, and suddenly I couldn’t move, my legs frozen in place and my arms paralyzed at my sides. Helpless.

  “You see, Cécile,” she said, leaving the pistol where it lay and coming toward me. “That’s what they are. Base. To the human eye, they are so very lovely, but to their ancestors, the immortal fey, they are wretched, ugly, and colorless things. Trolls. With his death, I will curse them never to draw another breath, and no one in this world or the next will mourn their loss.”

  I spat in her face, because it was all that I could manage.

  Lifting one black sleeve, she wiped it away. Then she slapped my cheek hard enough to whip my face sideways. “Of all the disobedient daughters I’ve had over the centuries, none caused me half as much trouble as you.”

  My eyes watered from the pain and I blinked. “I’m sure if they had known the truth about you, they’d have fought harder.”

  “The truth?” The look she gave me was ripe with pity.

  Going to the window, she pushed back the drapes and eyed the moon. “Time enough.” Her heels made muffled thuds against the carpet as she walked back to Tristan. “How did you know Cécile was mine?”

  He laughed silently. “You of all people should know that the fey see all they wish to behold.”

  She cocked her head to one side. “If that is so, why did they wait so very long to help you?”

  He lifted one shoulder and let it fall. “What is five hundred years to those who watched time begin and will endure beyond its final hour?”

  She snorted. “Which is your pretty way of saying that you don’t know. Maybe they wanted to see you suffer?”

  “Perhaps.” He smiled at her. “But a base creature such as myself has no business speculating about the motives of his immortal betters. Does it unnerve you that, even now, they are watching?”

  Her expression tightened. “Let them watch. Let them bear witness to the end of the trolls.”

  “We’ll see,” Tristan replied. “Pulling a mountain down on our heads was not enough to destroy us, so we may yet endure your spell.”

  Recoiling, naked surprise broke across her face. “You think I broke the mountain?” She threw back her head and laughed. “Why would I have done such a thing? And how? Ah, you see, Cécile? They cannot lie, but they are the masters of deception. What great steps they must have taken to erase the truth and cast blame so that five centuries later, a Montigny prince himself believes such a falsehood to be true.”

  “You’re lying.” Tristan’s voice was flat.

  “No, Your Highness, I am not.” She licked her lips, then smiled as though they’d been rimmed with sugar. “The greed of the trolls broke the mountain. You mined the earth too viciously, and it was she who took revenge.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Tristan snarled, but I could feel his doubt.

  “What if the words came from the one you love?” Her eyes flicked to me. “Would you like to see my memory of that day, Cécile? I know you’ve meddled in such magic before.”

  She was talking about Catherine. How much had she extracted from the witch before killing her? “You murdered her.”

  “She gave me no choice. She should have learned the first time not to cross me, but still she insisted on meddling,” she said. “Now do you wish to see the truth? If not, it matters little to me.”

  Except that I could see that it did. There was anticipation in her voice and an intensity in her stare that betrayed her. I might not have known her true identity, but that didn’t mean I didn’t know her. She wanted me to see what happened, but for what purpose, I wasn’t certain. To prove she wasn’t a liar? To gloat? Seeing wouldn’t change anything, but it would delay her plans, and maybe Tristan would think of a way to get free. I nodded. “Show me.”

  Going back to her chest, Anushka extracted jars of dried plants that I did not recognize, putting a pinch of each into a basin, along with what I thought was a tortoise shell. On top of it all, she drizzled a dense and foul smelling liquid. With a touch of a lit candle the potion burst into flames, and she set the smoking basin between us.

  “Look at me and inhale,” she said, and then in a different tone she added, “Remember.”

  The smoke seared my nostrils, and with the word, magic rose in a torrent, from the earth, the sky, the flames, and the water th
ey burned upon. Infinitely more power than she needed, but it was rich and heady on the air, ready for the taking.

  Then the room fell away, and when I opened my eyes, I lay beneath the sun in the heat of summer. This was different from when I’d taken Catherine’s memory – then I had been but a witness. Now I was myself, but I was also her.

  I lounged on a divan, my fingers trailing through grass so lush it felt like streamers of velvet. In the distance, the royal palace gleamed in the sun. It seemed far vaster than I remembered, but perhaps that was because I’d only ever seen it cloaked in shadow.

  I – no, Anushka lay in the gardens, but they were not made of glass. Instead, a natural beauty that the trolls would later try to mimic with their art surrounded her. Flowers, plants, and trees all rose up in a wild yet cultivated abandon, and through her eyes, I drank in colors more brilliant than any I’d seen. Tiny creatures with gossamer wings flitted between the flowers, the blooms opening with the touch of their tiny hands. It was a charmed place, as magical as the garden that now stood in its place. Only her eyes were not for the flowers or their tiny gardeners, but for the troll approaching her.

  I recognized King Alexis from his portrait, but no painting could capture the arrogance of the man walking toward me. His utter surety that he was the most powerful creature in this world, and by that right, would one day rule it all. Dropping to his knees next to the divan, he caught Anushka’s face between his hands and kissed her deeply. My mind clambered back and away from the feel of it.

  Anushka turned her face away from his. “Someone might see.”

  “Let them.” His voice was a growl in her ear. “I care not.”

  “She does.”

  Alexis sat back on his heels. “And since when do you care about that?”

  I sensed this was an old argument that had been picked up in the middle, what I’d seen and heard not enough to account for the heat of emotion in Anushka’s heart and the flash of annoyance in Alexis’ silver eyes.