ARC: Stolen Songbird

by Danielle L. Jensen

  Wiping all evidence of tears from my face, I attempted to walk with purpose. But I had none. Instead I wandered through Trollus, doing my best to ignore the curious and often dark looks from the trolls who saw me pass and on the faces of my grumbling guards, always two paces behind. Eventually I wound up at the door of Pierre’s house. Knocking, I waited a moment, and then went in. “Pierre?”

  “Lady Cécile!” The little troll rolled in on his stool, a wide grin on his face that fell away when he saw me. “What is the matter, child?” Stacks of paper lifted off the only other chair in the room and settled on the ground. “Sit, sit!”

  “So sad!” He rolled next to me and took my hand, patting it gently. “I am thinking it is because of the altercation between His Highness and the human boy, am I correct? Gossip – it travels fast in Trollus.”

  I nodded miserably, my heart listening to Tristan’s emotions. Misery was gone now, and in its place was grim determination. I bit my lip and tried to keep my composure. Tristan was coming this way. It wouldn’t be long now.

  “Young men in love, they are all fools. Trolls and humans, it makes no difference.”

  “He almost killed him, Pierre.”

  The little troll’s face looked grim. “I heard as much.” He sighed. “Not a fair fight – it never is between trolls and humans. Strength from another world.”

  My ears perked up at that. Perhaps Pierre would not be so reluctant to divulge information about their history. “Is that where trolls come from? Another world?” I feigned ignorance to see what he would say.

  He smiled and pressed a finger against my lips. “Some things are better left a mystery, non?”

  The little glass balls representing the planets and moons rose up in the air and began to circle the glowing sun. I watched with fascination as they circled round and round, wondering to which one trolls might belong. Then they all fell away, until only the moon and the sun were left. They circled each other, both equally bright, one silver and one gold. Like Tristan and I.

  “Pierre, if the curse were broken, do you think the trolls would go to war with the humans to take the Isle back?”

  He looked away from me, his brow furrowed. “Yes,” he said. “With Thibault as king, I think freedom would mean much bloodshed for humanity.”

  “But what about Tristan?”

  “Tristan is not king yet.”

  “But he will be, one day,” I persisted.

  The little troll was quiet for a long time. “I do not know what he would do,” he finally said, the moon and sun settling into his hands. “I think that might very much depend on you, my lady.”

  I closed my eyes. It was an answer, but not one that helped me at all. “Pierre?”

  “Yes, my dearest lady?”

  “If you had the chance, would you leave Trollus to go above?”

  I didn’t need to open my eyes to know he was smiling. “Oh yes, Cécile,” he said. “I would very much like to see the planets, the stars.” He sighed. “I would climb the highest mountain, build the greatest telescope that ever existed, and I would watch them until my light went out.”

  A ghost of a smile drifted across my lips. “Thank you, Pierre.”

  “What for, my lady?”

  “For giving me the answer I needed.”

  The door slammed open and I turned to look at Tristan. “You need to come with me, Cécile. Now.”

  My time was up.

  CHAPTER 31

  CéCILE

  “Hang back,” Tristan snapped at my guards as we left Pierre’s home. “I’ll not have you eavesdropping on my every word.”

  They gave each other concerned looks, but the expression on Tristan’s face was enough to triple the distance at which they normally followed me.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, although in my heart, I already knew. Tristan wanted me to leave. As much as he might love me, he would never trust me; and without trust, our love was doomed.

  “River Road,” he muttered under his breath.

  I wanted to argue with him, plead for him to let me stay. But what was the point? I couldn’t make him trust me. I had no way to prove that, despite having been brought to Trollus against my will, it would now be against my will to leave. Knowing my feelings was not the same as knowing my thoughts. “The guards won’t let me pass.”

  “No. But they won’t stop Anaïs.”

  I stared up at him, confused. “What?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Tristan led me through a series of alleyways, and then stopped at a door in the back of a building. At his knock, a man opened the door and bowed deeply. “My lord. My lady.” His chocolate-brown hair marked him as part human, but Tristan did not introduce us. The man gestured to the entrance of another room, but did not follow us in.

  “About time. Do you think I have all day to waste sitting around waiting on you?” Anaïs reclined on a sofa, smirk firmly in place. I scowled at her and her grin grew even wider. “No need for that, Cécile. I am doing you a favor, after all.”

  “No, you are not,” Tristan snapped. “You are doing me a favor and it is from me whom you will collect.”

  She got to her feet and made her way to Tristan’s side. The parlor seemed too small to contain the three of us. Anaïs was too close, and the satisfaction on her face made me want to hit her. Not that that would go well.

  “You don’t do anything that doesn’t benefit you in some way, Anaïs.” I felt too drained, too tired, to deal with her today. Even at my best, she was better. “This is no favor.”

  “As you like.” Anaïs laughed. “Turn around, Tristan. I’m not your wife. Yet.” A wink accompanied this last bit, and the urge to strike out became almost unmanageable.

  “Get on with it, Anaïs,” Tristan said darkly, but he turned around.

  “Help me,” she said, turning her back to me. “We need to switch dresses. I’d never wear something like that.”

  “It’s going to take more than a dress for anyone to mistake the two of us,” I replied. But I began undoing the gold buttons running down the back of her gown. Her skin felt soft and overheated beneath my fingers, the lace of her undergarments reminding me of the tattoo on Marc’s fingers, black against porcelain white.

  When she was unbuttoned, I pulled off my own dress, needing no assistance to extract myself from its forgiving design. When she turned around I flushed, profoundly grateful that Tristan had his back turned. Fully clothed she was the most beautiful girl I had ever met. Half-naked, I was certain she was every man’s fantasy. Beside her, I felt like the troll. Shorter, plumper, with a smaller chest and a bigger behind.

  We put on each other’s clothes, her dress so tight I could hardly breathe and mine hanging off her slender frame. Then she pulled off her shoes and as she settled onto her bare feet, I realized she wasn’t all that much taller than me after all. “You’re short for a troll.”

  She raised one finger to her lips and then handed me the shoes. “No one needs to know that.”

  I put them on, wobbling on the high platforms and wondering how I would get more than two steps without falling. In the meantime, Anaïs pulled a black wig out of her bag, along with a golden-framed mirror. “Hair is tricky,” she muttered.

  It took a bit of doing to get all of my red hair tucked beneath the wig, and my ribs began to ache from my extra-tight corset. Sweat trickled down my back as I took one shallow breath after another. Anaïs held up the mirror and examined her face. “Now for the illusion,” she said, and her brow furrowed in concentration. I watched in amazement as her black hair turned red and her features shifted until the girl looking back at me was my mirror image.

  “Now, for you.”

  Warm magic washed over my face, but otherwise I could feel nothing. “Done,” she said, my face smirking in a way that betrayed the girl lurking underneath. I’d never make that face. She handed me the mirror and I held it up to my face. An unhappy looking Anaïs stared out at me, silver eyes and all.

  “You should
n’t frown like that,” she said. “You’ll get wrinkles.”

  I lifted my hand and made a gesture that was extremely unladylike.

  Blue eyes widened and Anaïs-as-me shrugged. “Just saying. Tristan, you can turn around now.”

  He turned and looked from one of us to the other. “It will do.” He took my hand and squeezed it in a way that was probably meant to be reassuring. But it wasn’t. All this costuming and deception was just a step in the process of us being torn apart. “Please don’t make me do this, Tristan,” I whispered. “I don’t want to go.”

  He shook his head. “I have to know, Cécile.” He bent to kiss me, but I turned away, not fond of the idea that he’d be kissing Anaïs’s face, not mine.

  “This is all very touching,” Anaïs said, interrupting. “But my magic tends to grow bored and wander if unattended. You’ve got maybe half an hour with my face and then it will fade.”

  Tristan nodded. “Where will you be?”

  “In the glass gardens, wandering around and looking forlorn.”

  “Are you certain you want to do this, Anaïs?” Tristan and Anaïs stared at each other for several long moments. I flinched at their familiarity. It was something he and I had never had. “He won’t let you off easily for helping me.”

  “I’ve never said ‘no’ to you, Tristan. Never denied you anything.” She lifted her chin defiantly. “And I never will.” They exchanged more long looks, and then Anaïs turned and walked out, comfortable in my flat shoes.

  Tristan waited a few moments and then took me by the arm, leading me back into the city and down the valley towards the River Road. I walked blindly, not seeing anything or anyone. It took every ounce of control to keep my face serene, my steps even on Anaïs’s impossibly high shoes. “Don’t say anything,” Tristan muttered. “They’ll recognize your voice.”

  My nerves reached a fevered pitch as we approached the heavily armed and very imposing trolls standing to either side of the gate. They bowed low and one of them lifted the heavy bar holding the gate shut. It swung open silently on greased hinges.

  “Haven’t noticed any fallen rock, my lord,” one of the trolls said.

  “There’s never a problem until there is,” Tristan said, his arm drawing me forward.

  The incline of the road was steep, the rock smooth, and everything was slick with water. We hadn’t gone far when I was forced to take off my shoes and walk barefoot. The road was perhaps ten feet wide, and the river, white with rapids, flowed only a few feet below.

  Tristan didn’t look at me as we walked, but he did let go of my arm to take my hand instead. I held on as tight as I could, trying to memorize the way his skin felt beneath mine, the way his thumb rubbed the tops of my knuckles. Every step I took was one closer to the moment he’d make me leave him. When I saw the glow of sunlight appear ahead, fear lanced through me. It was the end of the tunnel. It was the end of us.

  And the fear wasn’t just mine. Tristan’s dread had grown into something close to terror as we neared the light at the end of the tunnel.

  “Will it do anything if you get too close?” I asked, suddenly uneasy.

  Tristan jumped at my voice. “No,” he said. “No, it isn’t that.” Suddenly, he stopped and held up his hand, knuckles rapping against something that sounded like glass but which I suspected was infinitely stronger. “No. It isn’t that,” he repeated. Then he staggered back away from the barrier with a groan, and slumped against the wall.

  “Tristan!” I dropped to my knees in front of him, terrified the curse had hurt him somehow. He grabbed hold of me and pulled me close. Tugging off the black wig, he buried his face in my hair, his whole body shaking. “I can’t lose you,” he whispered, and I felt him brush away Anaïs’s magic so that I was myself again.

  “Then why are you doing this?” I demanded. “Why did you bring me here?”

  “Because I can’t live this way, Cécile. I feel like I’m losing my mind. I live every moment on edge, thinking that I’ll turn around and you’ll be gone. I never know whether you’re telling me what you feel or what you think I want to hear. I need to know that you’re here by choice, not because you were never given one.” He pulled away so that he could look at me, and I saw his eyes and cheeks were streaked with tears.

  I brushed one of them away, staring at the gleaming droplet sitting on my fingertip. “I didn’t think trolls could cry.”

  He blinked. “Another myth?”

  I shook my head. “No, I… When I first came, I thought trolls didn’t feel sorrow like we do. Pain like we do. Loss like we do.” I pressed the tear to my lips, tasting its sweet saltiness and thinking of all the many times the trolls had proven that notion false. “I was wrong.”

  We sat on the road for a time, my head resting against his chest, both of us watching waves crash against the shore, pushing the river in and then drawing the flow out. A warm breeze blew into the tunnel, smelling of salt and seaweed, carrying with it the sound of gulls. This was the closest Tristan would ever get to the world outside of Trollus. This one small and unchanging view of the ocean.

  “Tristan?”

  “Yes?” He was voice was raspy, thick with emotion.

  “Are you really giving me a choice? You won’t argue with what I decide?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “I won’t stop you.”

  “And if I want to stay, you’ll let me? You won’t make me leave?”

  His eyelids twitched against his cheeks, but he didn’t open them. “It is your choice to make.”

  I kissed him hard, drinking in the taste of him. I felt punch-drunk and reckless, willing to say whatever it took to keep him from making me leave. “Then I’m staying. I want to be with you – forever.” In the back of my mind, I knew I wasn’t considering the full extent of my words, but I had faith Tristan would succeed in everything he set out to accomplish. That perhaps it would take a year or two, but my isolation from the world would not be a permanent thing. It couldn’t be.

  He held me against him, hand stroking my back, but I didn’t feel the sense of relief from him that I had hoped for. “You are impetuous, love,” he said softly. “You think with your heart, not with your mind.”

  “So?” My voice was muffled against his chest.

  “You can’t make the decision here. Troll magic is too thick. Half of what you feel is what I feel. You don’t know what you want.”

  “Yes, I do!” I shouted against him, my voice muffled by the fabric of his shirt. “I want you.” I dug my nails into his shoulder, inhaling the clean scent of him. “I want you.”

  With me clinging to his shoulders, Tristan got to his feet. Then he took hold of my wrists, gently tugging them free, and pushed me through the barrier. I stepped through the sticky thickness, and the roar of emotion in my mind subsided into a faint murmur. I gasped aloud, hating the loss, and I tried to go forward again, back to him. But Tristan held up one hand. “Go out into the sun and remember all the things you would give up for a life with me. If you decide not to come back, then…” He swallowed hard and tossed me a heavy purse that clinked when I caught it. “This should keep you for a time.”

  “And if I decide to come back?”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  I turned and looked out towards the ocean. The river poured into a small cove that had once been the harbor of Trollus before time and breaking mountains changed the coastline. Where I stood was still partially in shadow from the overhanging rocks. The trolls were cursed to darkness even here.

  I started walking to the beach, picking my way carefully over the rocky cove until the summer sun hit me like a wall of heat. I turned my face to the sky and stared at the yellow orb, my eyes burning from the pain of so much light. Then, I started to run. Faster and faster, my feet sinking into the wet sand until I reached the water’s edge. Catching my skirts up high, I waded in, relishing the feel of wide open space as the salty water slammed against my shins. I spun in a circle, my burning eyes taking everyth
ing in. The seagulls flying high above me. The mountains a virulent green, with the exception of the broken one, its veins of quartz and gold glittering. I ran down the beach to the edge of the rock fall and up a path until I reached grass. I flopped down, gasping for breath. Everything was lush with the peak of summer and I basked in the warmth, letting it soak into my bones. Everything around me was bright and alive, and I realized Tristan was right: I had missed it.

  But would I miss him more?

  Curling around onto my side, I rested my head on my arms and plucked blades of grass. “Think, Cécile!” I ordered myself. But it was hard, because Tristan’s sorrow was a hard knot of pain in my mind. “You think I’ve left,” I whispered to a little wildflower growing just out of arm’s reach. A big part of me wanted to leap up and run back to him, but would I regret my impulsiveness later?

  Think about what you’d be giving up to be with me. Tristan’s voice echoed in my head.

  My freedom, for one. If I turned my back on Trollus, the possibilities were endless. I could go back to the farm to live with my father. I could travel to Trianon to live with my mother at court. I could sing on the great stages, or travel across the strait to see the continent. If there was one thing my time in Trollus had helped me do, it was to conquer my fear of the unknown. Up here, I could do anything. I would do anything.

  Alone? I grimaced. I had my family and friends in the Hollow, but it wasn’t the same. Gran was getting on in years, and my father was busy with the farm. My brother was busy with his soldiering, and it would not be long before he married a girl and started a family of his own. Fred would inherit the farm and all the land when father passed, and there would be no place for me anymore. A new wife wouldn’t want her husband’s younger sister living with her.

  I sighed, the idea of growing old alone heavy upon me. Never again to be kissed or touched by a lover. To remain a maid until I was wrinkled and grey and beyond caring about such things. Maybe Tristan was right. Maybe I would forget him in order to have a life with someone else.