Hidden Huntress

by Danielle L. Jensen

  “I love you,” she lied.

  He led her out into the sun.

  * * *

  I blinked against the memory of sunlight unseen for so long, my cheeks sticky with tears and clumped with golden powder. My mother let go of me and took a heavy step back, her own face flushed with spent emotion. Tristan stood unmoving in his chains, his shoulders slumped and face devoid of expression. He had not seen what I had seen, but he had felt what I had felt. And that was enough.

  “Do you see why they must not be let free? Why the fey cannot be allowed to return?”

  “You suffered a great injustice at their hands,” I said. “I cannot blame you for seeking revenge against Lamia, but what I cannot understand is how, after enduring that loss, that you can murder daughter after daughter to make yourself immortal.”

  “Because there was no other way,” she snapped. “Do you think I did not try? The soul needs a bond of blood for the exchange of souls to work.”

  Exchange of souls?

  “That is little comfort for me,” I said. “I’ll still be dead.”

  “You’ll be free.” Her eyes had the too-bright gleam of a zealot. “Do you think the same thing would not have happened to you if I had not intervened? He might keep you as his whore, but that’s all you’ll ever be to him. I’m saving you from a miserable fate.”

  “This is about extending your life, not about saving mine.”

  She laughed. “Is that what you think? That it is such a treat to live in fear of the trolls finally hunting me down? To carry the burden of keeping the world safe from their evil with no help and no respite? Is it so wrong after all these years of living the lives of other women that I should have a chance to live one of my choosing?”

  And everything she’d done seemed so clear. How she’d managed to go undetected for so long. The way she’d managed my career and set me up for success. Tonight’s masque. She’d been orchestrating my life so that when the time came for her to steal my body, she’d be stepping into the life she wanted.

  And once she’d done it, she intended to kill Tristan and Sabine and murder all the trolls along with them. There would be no one left to stop her, to punish her. Quite the opposite, the Regent would probably reward her beyond my wildest dreams for ridding the Isle of the trolls.

  “The world owes me this,” she said, and then her face softened. “It will be over swiftly, Cécile. I promise you that.”

  “Is that what you said to Genevieve when you chased her down in the woods?” I said, my voice shaking. “Was that the comfort you gave her when you stole any chance of her seeing her family again? Of raising her children? Of living her own life?” My body tensed with fury. “You’re every bit as bad as Lamia was. Worse, because you’ve done it over and over to your own blood!”

  “Shut up!” She snarled the words and then dissolved into a fit of activity, fetching four small silver bowls, one filled with rocks, one with water, one with lamp oil that she lit with a taper, and one that held nothing at all. Taking out a tiny knife, she sliced across her forearm, allowing blood to flow into each of the basins, and then did the same to me, the pain sharp and fierce.

  I watched in horror as droplets floated on top of the water like oil, danced weightless on the air, turned the flames a pure crimson, and sat on the rocks as round and solid as little red marbles. She placed the bowls in a circle around us, and magic surged like waves through the room, tearing at my hair. I tried to struggle, but the strength of her magic kept me frozen in place, my jaw locked shut so I couldn’t even scream for help.

  Grasping my arm so that our blood ran together, Anushka met my gaze. “The tie that binds our souls to our bodies is a tenuous thing, dearest,” she whispered. “And once it is broken, there is nothing to hold your soul in this world. It will be gone in an instant, disappearing to a place where no more harm can come to you.” She extracted an oleander blossom from a velvet bag, and without hesitation, held it over the candle flame. The petals singed and burned, smoke floating up on the air. “Goodbye, Cécile,” she said, and blew it into my face.

  My heart beat like a drum, and then it stumbled. And stopped. Pain bloomed through my chest, and I fell backwards to the ground, the sound of Tristan’s screams filling my ears. Then there was nothing. No sight, no sound, no smell. All my senses were gone, leaving me with nothing but… awareness. I was dead. I knew that much – knew that Anushka had killed me and was waiting for my soul to abandon my body so that she might infiltrate with her own. But she’d been wrong to believe that nothing bound my soul to this world, because though I had no senses, I could still feel the ties that bound me to him. And they were not ready to break.

  A blow struck me on the chest, and I gasped, light filling my eyes even as air flooded my lungs. Anushka leaned over on top of me, face white with panic and the weight of her failure. “Impossible,” she whispered, recoiling away from me.

  Her power had been expended, and I felt the weight of all her spells fall free from me. Struggling upwards, I watched her warily even as I pulled the white gloves off my hand to reveal the bonding marks brilliantly bright against my skin. “Not impossible. You cannot vanquish my soul and steal my life, because they are bound to him. Just as his are bound to me.”

  “They do not bond humans,” she whispered. “They’d never lower themselves.”

  “Sometimes, one must do the unthinkable,” I said, “for it is the only way to accomplish the impossible.” Taking advantage of her shock, I snatched up the pitcher of water and poured it down Tristan’s neck, washing away the spell. Anushka bolted for her pistol, snatching it up even as the metal manacles on his wrists shrieked apart, and for a moment, I thought he’d kill her. Bore a hole through her chest and end the curse here and now.

  But he did not.

  Instead, Tristan lifted her up in the air and deposited her back in front of me. Picking up Sabine’s knife from my belt, I turned it over in my hand, barely managing to contain the desire to embed it in her chest.

  “Cécile, have mercy.” She sobbed. “I’m your mother. I bore you, and I cared for you as a baby. Brought you to Trianon and made all your dreams a reality. Please.”

  And this was it. The future the prophesy had foretold. By binding me to Tristan, it was ensured that Anushka could not strip away my soul and use my body as a vessel for her own. Any of her descendants before or after me could have done the same, but some twist of fate had made the fey decide that now would be the time for them to reveal the knowledge they had gleaned from watching the world. And so the task fell to me.

  My eyes sought Tristan’s.

  “I’m not going to kill your mother, Cécile,” he said. “At least, not unless that is what you want.”

  I let my eyelids drift shut, not wanting to see him or her while I thought. The end of the curse was no longer an if, but a when. The body she possessed was yet young – she might live another thirty years. Three decades more for the world to be kept safe from the dark power of those like Angoulême, Roland, and Lessa.

  But what of those in Trollus? My friends, the half-bloods, and all of those who were desperate for a better life? How many of them would end up like Élise? How many dead friends would arrive in caskets at our door while Anushka lived out the rest of her years? In my heart I knew Trollus existed in a fragile moment when change was possible, but that it would not last for long. The trolls’ freedom was inevitable, and not acting on it now might well cast a blacker cloud on the future.

  “Let her go.”

  Tristan sighed, but I ignored the twist of crippling disappointment that writhed through my skull; instead I watched as Anushka’s feet settled on the ground and her arms were freed.

  “You are making the right choice, Cécile,” she said, and then the arm holding the pistol rose, and I knew she intended to kill me, and for my death to kill Tristan. For history to repeat itself once again.

  But I moved faster.

  She stumbled backwards, fingers dropping her pistol to clutch at th
e wound in her chest. But it wasn’t deep. Wasn’t enough. Knife slick in my hand, I went after her, and stabbed the blade into her again, feeling it grind against bone. Leaning over, I met her wild gaze and swallowed the lump in my throat.

  “You are not my mother. You are her killer.”

  Anushka gasped out one breath. Then another. And then she whispered, “If the world burns, its blood will be on your hands.”

  She said no more.

  A dull echo reverberated through the air, and the ground shuddered and shook. Tristan caught me against him, holding me steady, and then the earth stilled. “She’s dead,” I said, my toneless voice at odds with the cacophony in my head. The curse was broken, but the implications of that had yet to settle in my mind.

  “Cécile?” Sabine’s voice was weak, snapping me out of my thoughts. Rushing to her side, I used the bloody knife in my hand to cut away her dress.

  “The bullet’s still inside,” I muttered. “Can you get it out?”

  “Yes.” Tristan’s face tightened in concentration, but as Sabine screamed and fainted, the shards of metal pulled free of her wound.

  “Keep pressure on it,” I said, pressing his hand against her shoulder.

  Then I ran to the chest where my mother had the ingredients for her magic. My hands shaking, I dug through them, searching for what I needed for a healing spell. Tiny bottles clutched in my arms, I dropped them onto the carpet next to Tristan, and then, relying on my memory of the time I’d helped Tips, I started mixing them in the basin.

  “Fire,” I ordered, holding out a scrap of paper, waiting for the flames to turn from silver to yellow before touching it to the potion. As the fire flared up, I said, “Heal the flesh.”

  Magic came from all directions, intensified by the moon and the solstice, and I pressed my hand to the injury, feeling the power flood into her and the wound knit beneath my hand.

  Then it was over. Sabine remained unconscious, but her breathing was steady and her pulse even. Wiping my hands on my ruined costume, I slumped against Tristan, fingers gripping his shoulders as my emotions threatened to overwhelm me.

  “Why did you do it?” Tristan’s heart beat rapidly where my ear pressed against his chest, and one of his hands slipped up into my hair, gently cupping the back of my head.

  “She was going to kill me in the hopes you’d die too.”

  “That wasn’t my question.” He caught my face in his hands and tipped it up. “I could have stopped her without killing her. I would have.”

  “I know.” And I might still come to regret the choice. “Anushka was telling the truth when she said she didn’t break the mountain,” I said, seeing my memory of her memories though my eyes were wide open. “It was the mines, and the trolls knew it.”

  “Then…”

  “Alexis treated her better than he did his own wife.” I turned my head so I could see Anushka. She was a murderer, but then, so was I. “She had his child within days of the mountain’s collapse; and I think until that point, she believed none of the laws, customs, or beliefs of the trolls applied to her. That she was queen in his eyes, so their daughter would be a princess, or at least treated like one.”

  My eyes burned as I remembered the way he had looked at the baby. The life of a bastard half-blood destined for servitude means nothing… “That was not how it came to pass.”

  “She plotted and planned to flee with the child once there was a way out of Trollus, but Queen Lamia had other plans for her. She hated Anushka. When they were hours away from freedom, Lamia killed the baby right in front of her.”

  Tristan’s breath caught in his chest, but he said nothing.

  “Alexis refused to do anything to punish Lamia. Not because he didn’t think she deserved it, but because doing so would harm himself. She killed him for his weakness, but she cursed the trolls as revenge against Lamia. What the Queen wanted more than anything was to see her children rule the world, and all Anushka wanted was to take that dream from her.” Some punishments are worse than death…

  “You think she was wrong to kill them?” There was incredulity in Tristan’s voice.

  I shook my head. “She deserved that revenge, but…” I struggled to find the words to explain what I’d seen and how I felt. “She is not a god to condemn an entire race for an injustice she alone had suffered. And I could not live with myself for leaving our friends to die because I was too weak to do what was needed.”

  My words were strong, but my skin already crawled at what I had done. A decision made in an instant that would change life as we knew it. If the world burns, its blood will be on your hands…

  A slow, measured thud filled my ears like a vast drum beat by giant hands. Thump. Thump. Thump.

  Tristan’s whole body stiffened, his arm tightening around me and making it hard to breathe. “No. Not yet.”

  “What is it?” I demanded, his fear ratcheting up my own.

  A scream like nothing I had ever heard rent the stillness of the night, piercing my ears and making my heart beat in the rapid, primal way of the hunted.

  Clambering to his feet, Tristan pulled me along with him to the window and we both stared out into the night. A strange shadow flew across the sky, pausing in front of the glowing moon on wings as vast as a ship’s sails. Something so vast it defied reason. A creature that could not possibly exist outside of fairy tale and legend.

  Just like the trolls…

  Horror flooded my veins as I watched the dragon furl its wings and dive toward Trianon, and seconds later, all too real human screams cut through the night.

  What had I done?

  Fifty-Eight

  Cécile

  Swearing under his breath, Tristan went back to the other room and scooped up Sabine, depositing her on the bed. “She’ll be as safe here as anywhere,” he said. “The castle walls are rimmed with steel – the dragon won’t be able to breach the perimeter.”

  “What do we do?” I said, pulling one of the blankets off the bed and draping it over Anushka’s corpse, more to spare Sabine the sight than out of any sentiment. The woman was nothing to me. “How do we stop it?”

  Tristan picked up the knife and pistol from the blood-soaked carpet and handed them to me. “We don’t. I do. Keep a steel weapon on you at all times – those who come will have even less tolerance for the metal than a troll. Stab one while it is corporeal, and you’ll likely kill it.”

  “I don’t know what that means.” I followed him into the corridor, trotting to keep pace with his long stride.

  “If it takes a shape.” He stopped in his tracks and gripped my shoulders. “I should have told you more before, but I did not believe they’d come so soon. They must have been watching.” He took a deep breath. “There is too much to explain, and we’ve no time for it. Stay within the castle walls, and you’ll be safe.”

  I nodded in understanding if not agreement, as I had a sinking suspicion that he had no intention of remaining safely behind walls.

  We ran toward the front of the castle and out into the darkness of the night. The torch flames danced wildly with the force of the wind, the sudden thick snow descending from the sky, carpeting the ground. It was painfully, unnaturally cold, and I would have retreated back if not for the warmth of Tristan’s magic wrapping around my body.

  The gates were closed, and the walls were lined with guards too fixated on the monster flying above the city to notice anyone coming up from behind them. “Open them,” Tristan demanded once we reached them.

  “Are you mad?” one of the guards replied, eyes wild. “Do you know what’s out there?”

  “Open the gates!”

  I turned to see Lord Aiden striding towards us, but there was something about his voice that seemed… off. “Cécile,” he added under his breath, and gave me a wink as he passed. It was my brother, disguised as Aiden with troll magic.

  “But, my lord, there’s a…”

  The look my brother gave him, using Aiden’s face, sent the man scampering to the mech
anism that opened the steel portcullis.

  “I trust you can kill that thing,” he said under his breath.

  “We’ll find out,” Tristan replied. “Either way, I’ll be needing your sword.”

  In grim silence, we watched the heavy steel rise in its stone casement, the screams of the terrified people running in the city streets sending chills down my spine. The dragon wheeled and dove, coming up with victims in its mouth, their blood freezing into ice before it reached the ground. Frost billowed from its mouth with each roar, coating the city with ice.

  “Do not step beyond the walls,” Tristan said once the gates were open, and then he walked out onto the bridge.

  “Anushka is dead,” I whispered, gripping my brother’s arm.

  Fred tore his gaze from Tristan. “The curse is broken?”

  I nodded. “Fred… There’s something I need to tell you.” I didn’t know how to say it. How to tell him that our mother was dead, and that I’d been the one who killed her. But before speak, Tristan shouted in a language not of this world, his voice amplified by magic so that the creature would hear.

  “Whatever it is can wait,” Fred replied, and I nodded in silent agreement.

  The dragon drifted in lazy circles around the castle, listening to whatever Tristan was saying. It was enormous – easily the size of a ship, and I could not fathom how Tristan intended to kill it.

  Tristan ceased speaking, and the dragon came round to hover above the bridge, massive wings sending blasts of wind that tore the banners from their moorings.

  Thud, thud, thud.

  Then the creature opened its maw, and a blast of ice hurtled through the air toward him. And smashed up against a wall of magic. Chunks of ice crashed onto the bridge and into the raging river below, and then the dragon jerked down. It shrieked in fury, trying to retreat up into the air, but invisible ropes of magic held it in place. The bridge shivered and the walls shook as Tristan bound the creature to them, drawing it down and down until it crashed into the bridge, knocking the railings into the river.