Trial by Thrall (Trial #2)

by Lizzy Ford

  What if these fae-bies are the only lives I ever save, the only good I ever do in my life? Familiar despair settles into me, and I move to the next two.

  Another five seconds, and I’m on my knees but determined to finish rescuing the rest of the babies. I go to the next two babies then the next. Tunnel vision forms, and the buzzing in my ears is louder than it’s ever been. But I don’t have many more fae-bies to help, so I stumble and stagger to the last two and take their raised fists.

  I touch them and then black out.

  Some time later, I come to and open my eyes. My head feels heavy, and I’m lethargic. I gaze at the ceiling above me and register where I am.

  Tristan’s. Light glows from the direction of the living room, and the window is open to allow the cool ocean breeze access to his bedroom. It’s past dark and quiet, peaceful. I’m half tempted to stay here and doze until dawn.

  Then my nose kicks in, and the rich scent of something amazing coming from the kitchen.

  He had the courtesy to remove my shoes. I climb to my feet, wait to ensure my legs are steady, then leave the bedroom. The television plays quietly in the living area, and Tristan is in the kitchen, leaning over the stove.

  “I hope you like garlic,” he says without turning.

  “Love it.” I go to the counter and lean a hip against it, watching his lean frame. He’s dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt. His blond hair is mussed, and he’s barefoot. Already the sway of magic is tugging me towards him. I resist, not wanting to disturb him.

  “I learned to cook authentic Italian in Napoli one year.” He smiles at me. “You hungry?’

  “Starving!”

  Tristan lowers the wooden spoon in his hand and wraps me in a hug. I relax against him, savoring the sinewy strength pressed against me. There’s something addictive about his hugs.

  “Go sit down,” he says and releases me. “Balcony.”

  I smile and pad towards the balcony, whose doors are open to the city. He’s created a romantic, candlelit dinner table, complete with two chairs and a bottle of wine on ice. I sit down and look out over the city, tired from my day but also extremely satisfied with knowing I helped out in some way and proving I can do more than disrupt the lives of those around me. Today was a personal victory, one I desperately needed.

  Tristan brings me a pasta bowl filled with steaming penne and a creamy white sauce. He sets out what appears to be homemade bread in a cute little basket next and then brings us both salads and delicate plates with olives.

  “You feeling okay?” he asks when he takes his seat across from me.

  “Great,” I reply.

  But he’s not. My gaze lingers on his features. On the outside, he appears content as he breaks off a piece of warm bread. I know something is wrong, though.

  “We’ll talk later,” he says and reaches across to squeeze my hand.

  Nodding, I begin to eat. The meal is heavenly, only a million times better than anything I’ve had at any Italian restaurant I’ve gone to. I eat too much and don’t give a damn what he thinks. I love food too much to be thin like my mother. Dessert is a delicate crème brulee, served with lighter wine.

  He clears the plates when we’re done, and I wander into the living area, too full to do anything else but sit for a while. I pick a spot on the couch and am not disappointed when he sits beside me, one arm going around me.

  “That was amazing,” I murmur. “Thanks.”

  We cuddle in silence. The sense that something is wrong, that he’s troubled, remains, and I finally rouse myself to see his face. He’s holding me and gazing pensively into the distance.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  He shifts his attention to me and squeezes me against him with a faint smile. “I need to ask you something.”

  “Okay.”

  “Can you conduct interviews or whatever you need to do from here? You could talk to anyone you need to.”

  “Your apartment?”

  He nods.

  “Um, I guess. Why? Did you rent out my office?” I joke.

  “No.”

  I straighten and gaze at him. “Tristan, what’s wrong?”

  “Word has spread too quickly about your ability.”

  “So … what? Your people can’t be upset at me,” I say, puzzled.

  “Not as such. The twelve babies you healed have been cleared to go home,” he adds with a warm smile.

  “That’s awesome. Why does it sound like this is bad?”

  He takes a deep breath. “Let me start from a different point.” With some restless energy I feel through our bond, he shifts and leans forward. “Every fae woman can have exactly one baby during her lifetime, and every man can father one child. Most wait until they find their mates to give birth. It’s the most celebrated rite of passage in fae tradition, one that’s been denied nine out of every ten couples the past hundred years. When the infant mortality rate skyrocketed, so did the drug use. Men and women, most of whom lost children, sought out some way to soothe the pain. It’s even harder when you’re naturally empathic and can take on your partner’s suffering as your own. We were hit very hard by this and by a corresponding rate of suicide by overdose that reached one out of every eight women, and one out of every twelve men, before I attempted to fix it via my new drugs.”

  “I’m so sorry, Tristan,” I murmur. I can’t imagine trying to curb a drug problem and stop babies from dying. He’s got to have the worst job on the planet.

  “Thanks.” He squeezes my thigh. “The day I launched the pharma company, we began looking for cures as to why the babies keep dying. It’s been over fifty years, and we don’t have a cure, even though we’ve managed to cure dozens of serious human diseases in the process.”

  My mind goes to Ben’s similar struggle of generations of wolves born sterile. Infertility and the deaths of newborns. Both clans are in difficult situations struggling against potential extinction. If the numbers in the Book of Secrets are any indication, all the clans are suffering from some sort of disease, though I don’t know if the others are suffering from procreation challenges or some other kind of illness.

  “What you’ve done is incredible,” Tristan says and meets my gaze. “No fae in a very long time has been born with this ability. The fact you’re a Kingmaker …” He shakes his head ruefully. “… it’s baffling, Leslie, and so incredibly cruel, I don’t think I’ve seen anything like this in my six hundred years. Your family curse is a curse upon us all.”

  I shift in my seat, not liking his tone.

  He squeezes me before continuing. “One of the nurses posted about Sean and Bella on our internal fae boards, and by now, the entire clan knows about the twelve in the nursery. I’m already fielding too many calls from people who think we have a cure and others who want to buy your services.”

  “They don’t have to pay me to help,” I reply.

  “I know, because you won’t be helping.”

  I wait, not understanding.

  “I need for you to stay here until your week is up instead of going to the company,” he says firmly.

  It takes a minute for his meaning to sink in. “You don’t want me to help?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Startled, I search his features and then stand, unable to think completely straight when we’re in physical contact. I need to tune into my emotions right now, not be confused by his. “Why don’t you want me to help?” I demand.

  “Do you have any idea what kind of damage a week of healing will cause over the long term?” he asks quietly.

  “Damage?” I echo. “How is saving lives damaging anything?”

  “I need for you to trust my judgment in leading my clan. Focus on what you need to do in your Kingmaker role.”

  Ouch. I feel the sting of his words all the way to my core.

  He does, too, and stands, approaching me. I back away. “I need a better explanation,” I tell him stubbornly.

  Tristan stops. “Leslie, you’re here for a week. One we
ek. I’ve been the clan leader for a hundred and fifty three years, and if I live as long as my mother, I have another seven hundred years ahead of me. I must look at the bigger picture, at where my clan should be headed.”

  “I don’t understand any of this!” I snap. “How am I hurting what your clan is going to do over the next seven hundred years?”

  “The moment we take our focus off of finding a medical solution to the disease, we fall behind on discovering a cure. I cannot offer my people false hope. I can’t tell them I know how to cure them and then yank their hope away after a week. I’ve seen this happen with potential solutions several times, and it’s devastating to the people involved and our society as a whole,” he says quietly. “We’ve been on the brink of collapse more than once in the past fifty years, when a potential cure failed. I cannot allow my entire clan to fall into disorder and desperation.”

  “I have a problem with being able to help and not being allowed to,” I say, grappling with his explanation. He makes sense. He always makes sense. But sense isn’t what motivates me.

  “Think of it this way. The news that I can’t save every child out there is going to make the two thousand expectant mothers and their mates desperate. If I let you do this for a week, what do you think will happen?”

  “Babies will live,” I reply instantly.

  “There will be riots over who gets to see you, infighting, possibly even a civil war. It will unleash chaos and threaten any progress we’re making,” he says. “This choice is a terrible one. I don’t want to have to watch my people die when I can save them. But I must look at the bigger picture. Do you know what it’s like to hold the lives and futures and hopes of over thirty thousand people in your hands, to make decisions that destroy the lives of a few in order to preserve the society as a whole?”

  This hits me even harder, and the population numbers from the Book of Secrets flash through my mind. I can’t fathom that sometimes, there’s no right answer, or at least no clear-cut answer. If something is right, or if it’s wrong, then there should be no debate.

  Saving babies is right. Throwing his society into chaos is wrong.

  I’ve never considered how complicated it can be to be a leader. Ben’s discipline methods appalled me, but he, too, was operating from a position of the bigger picture, more concerned about a peaceful clan that survives long enough to find a cure to their infertility problems than the life of a single wolf who fucked up.

  Is this true of my trials? What if I find out my decision is between exiling one clan and losing them all? What if this curse is so much worse than I know, and the exile or death of an entire clan will save everyone else?

  “But those babies don’t deserve to die,” I whisper, disturbed. “How can you look me in the eye and tell me you won’t save their lives when you can?”

  “Because I have no other choice,” Tristan replies softly.

  His sorrow hits me hard in the chest, and I gasp. It’s overwhelming, and I step away from him, once more dropped into a state of frustration and confusion. The apartment feels too small for both of us and our emotions. I can’t … god, I can’t process what he’s asking me to do. Or not to do, as is the case.

  If I weren’t a Kingmaker, I could stay and help his people.

  But I am a Kingmaker, and he’s asking me to do my job and not interfere with his clan. He has every right to draw that boundary, because he understands the curse I don’t.

  How many other Bellas and Seans will die when I can save them?

  I really do fuck up the lives of those I meet.

  “I think I’m going to go,” I say, unable to handle my emotions let alone Tristan’s.

  “Leslie –”

  “It’s okay.” It’s not, which I’m sure he knows. “I’m going home. I kinda need some air and space and to think.”

  I grab my backpack and flee.

  Tristan doesn’t follow, and I make it out to the sidewalk before I unleash a string of curses. I’m too amped on emotion to sit in a cab or bus and start walking with the hope that exercise will clear my mind and drain some of my wired energy.

  It does neither. When I set foot in my father’s house, I’m even angrier. Tristan knows what he’s doing, but I can’t get his words out of my head, about how I’m causing turmoil, just like I did to Ben’s clan.

  Jason’s letter is in my thoughts again.

  Flinging down my backpack, I yank out the Book of Secrets and want so badly to throw it, too, into one of the many piles in the study.

  But I don’t. I open it.

  An envelope falls out. Assuming it contains the same letter from my father I already read, I start to tuck it back into the book when I see the writing on the front.

  #2

  The other envelope had my name, not a number.

  I’m tempted to ignore it, too angered by my father’s betrayal to deal with whatever he wrote. I start to set it down on the desk but pluck it up immediately.

  It smells like him, and an ache of longing passes through me.

  Dropping into the rickety chair in front of his desk, I open it. It’s dated the morning of the day my father died.

  “Dear Leslie,

  By now, you’ve read about the final trials. Please believe me when I say that I wanted to tell you. I suspected from the day I met your mother my child could be the Kingmaker to go through the final trials. When the wolf was nominated to become a candidate, and I was forced to acknowledge his suitability, unlike previous attempts by the wolf clan to ascend to power, I knew with certainty the final trials had come. I curse the day I met Benjamin Smith, but this is wrong of me, because he does not know how his candidacy has sealed your fate as the last Kingmaker.”

  “The last … what the fuck?” I blink. Just when I think I can’t be any more surprised, I stumble across something else. Leaning forward in interest, I continue reading so fast, I skip words and have to go back.

  “Our clan was created at the onset of a curse, about which you’ll learn more later on in your trials. I implore you to remain open to what the Book of Secrets has to say, no matter how hard it is. I have known of this possibility since I chose your mother, and in all that time, I could not accept that such drastic measures had to be taken. I have never looked favorably upon the clans, but I do not wish them to succumb to genocide.

  I also could not reveal the truth to you, per the Book, once I knew the final trials would fall upon you. I met the wolf two weeks before today and have checked the Book daily to see if, by some miracle, a passage appeared granting me permission to disclose the truth to you. It has not and today is my last. I am desperate to tell you, to help you, but I don’t know how.

  I believe this secret to be my personal curse, and the last two weeks of my life to be hell, knowing you, my beloved daughter, the light of my life, would go through such suffering, and I could do nothing to prepare you. What kind of father am I to keep such a secret?”

  There has to be a different way, one that doesn’t involve ruining so many lives. I’m crying too hard to continue reading and drop the letter on the desk, covering my face with my hands.

  How could I doubt him or his love for me? How could I think so cruelly of him when I know I was his world? What the fuck is wrong with me that I can’t make heads or tales of what’s going on?

  Today is the worst day of my life. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt this alone, this scared of the future, not even when I got the call about my father’s death.

  God, I miss him. It’s unbearable sometimes, and I don’t think I’ll ever understand how to accept the fact he’ll never sit in his chair across from where I sit now.

  Tristan’s sorrow is lingering, adding to my pain. Unable to finish my father’s letter, or stop sobbing, I stumble through the house and make it up the stairs to my room, where I collapse on my bed and curl up in a ball in the middle of my bed.

  I can’t take this. I can’t do this. I hate myself, my world, my life.

  I don’t sense Tristan un
til his arms around me, and he pulls me into his body. He gently tugs me away from the emotional abyss once more, from the despair, disbelief, and terror of all I’ve learned. I cling to him, needing our connection to reassure myself that I’m not lost, that there’s some good in this world, however small it may be.

  Chapter Seven

  I sleep unusually well and awaken refreshed for once. I can’t recall feeling good about waking up since long before my father’s death. If Tristan were a drug, I’d take it nightly to feel like this, almost able to tackle my world.

  He’s sleeping deeply, one arm around me. I study him in the morning light, conflicted, as usual. A man who’s supposed to lie to me, who is sentencing a generation of his people to death instead of accepting the help of a Kingmaker, whose lightest touch makes me want to melt into his arms and never leave.

  This isn’t good. I don’t know what to do about it, though.

  I leave the bed without waking him and go downstairs in a t-shirt and underwear. The stairs creak beneath my footsteps, and I glare at the crack in the wall that’s been there for at least ten years, since we had an earthquake.

  Neither Ben nor Tristan have cracks in their walls.

  Going to the door of the study, I look at the disaster before me and feel absolutely no remorse. If anything, I’m wishing I had a working fireplace, so I could start to burn the books that won’t tell me their secrets. My attention goes to the letter I left on the desk¸ and my anger vanishes.

  Picking my way through the books, I reach the desk and pick up the letter. I swallow hard and can’t bring myself to start from the beginning. There’s one paragraph left, one I haven’t read yet. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to handle reading my father’s last letters, but I force myself to do it.

  “But I am not the only one cursed, as you will soon learn. I would give my heart for the chance to spare you. Twenty one generations of Kingmakers, and not one has been able to break the curse. Now that you have the chance, I fear the cost is too great. What is the suffering of a few every generation to that of an entire clan? There’s no comparison.