“They just roll off your tongue don’t they,” she said bitterly. “The lies. The worthless promises. How anyone would dare trust a human is beyond me.”
My back stiffened. “A bit of the pot calling the kettle black, wouldn’t you say? You lot are the deceitful ones, all vying for control over your little cage. What was your sister even thinking, bringing me to meet your aunt and trying to get me mixed up in your schemes? I didn’t choose to be here. In case you need reminding, I was kidnapped. The last thing I need is to make my circumstances worse!” I stopped talking when I realized the room had gone eerily silent—even the ever present sound of the waterfall was absent.
“A ward against eavesdroppers,” Zoé snapped. “You nearly got my sister killed once today—I don’t want her sent into the labyrinth because you can’t keep your fool mouth shut.”
“No one can hear us,” I snapped back. “Besides, who would want to listen in on me anyway.”
She strode over to the wall, pulled aside a tapestry and pointed at a hole neatly drilled in the wall. “This wasn’t here yesterday.”
My skin prickled and I had to fight the urge to rip everything off the walls to find any other peepholes that might exist.
“Élise shouldn’t have trusted you—she’s delusional, blinded by hope.” To my amazement, Zoé slid down the wall and sat on the floor. “There is no hope,” she whispered. “You didn’t break the curse. Any hope we might have had of breaking free of our bondage is gone.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“You don’t understand anything.” She closed her eyes. “They will never condescend to release us from slavery, and as long as we are cursed, we dare not attempt to force them. Magic holds the mountain up—magic of a strength that only the most powerful of the great families possess. If we destroy them, we gain our freedom only for the length of time it takes all that rock to fall down upon our heads.”
11
Cécile
“There is always hope.” Even as I said the words, I knew how hollow they sounded. The half-bloods were trapped like rats on a sinking ship. “Maybe they’ll change.”
“Not in this lifetime.”
Silence hung between us, then abruptly, she climbed to her feet. “I’m sorry, my lady. I should not have burdened you.” Looking around the room, she crinkled her nose. “I need to straighten things up before he returns.”
Now that she had mentioned it, it was more than a little obvious what I had been about.
“Have the guard take you to the glass gardens. They’re walled in—no one will trouble you there.”
And there was no way for me to get into trouble, either.
“And here, I meant to give this to you straight away.” She handed me a dark green envelope. Inside was a green and gold invitation. “Lord Marc is throwing me a party,” I said slowly, once I had read and reread the inscription.
Zoé nodded. “Then it begins.” She pointed towards the door and the sound of the waterfall returned, making me jump. “Go for a walk,” she said. “It will help clear your head.”
* * *
I was no small amount surprised to discover Albert standing guard outside the door.
“I didn’t expect to see you again,” I said, tilting my head back so I could look him in the eye.
He frowned. “Why is that?”
Perhaps because you chased me through the city and then almost killed one of my dearest friends. And put a bee in the bonnet of His Royal Crankiness in the process. “Never mind,” I grumbled. “Take me to the glass gardens.”
He led me through the maze of quiet palace corridors and out an entrance in the rear.
“The paths are lit,” he said. “Don’t wander off them.”
I set off, the white gravel on the pathway crunching beneath my feet. On either side rose glass hedgerows, each branch and leaf blown with exquisite attention to detail, guiding me towards the center of the garden. I paused from time to time to examine delicate flowers, bushes, and even trees that soared beyond the pools of light cast by the widely spaced lampposts. There was beauty all around me, but it was like walking in any garden in the darkness of night—I had no sense of the whole, only the little pieces revealed by too few circles of light.
The garden was like the whole city of Trollus—shrouded in mystery but for the few snippets of information revealed by those seeking to use me. Part of me wanted to turn my back on their problems—I wasn’t the one cursed to this place.
But another part of me was drawn to the half-blood’s conundrum. It seemed unsolvable: on one hand, they had abject slavery, and on the other, almost certain death. What would I choose, if the choice were mine?
Out of habit, I began to sing to relieve my frustration. Softly at first, but my voice was drowned out by the endless roar of the waterfall, so I sang louder. I could sing over a full orchestra, but tonight I fought the waterfall for supremacy. I walked until I found a gazebo, and it became my stage. I chose the powerful pieces belonging to heroic women, my heart hammering and my lungs aching from the sustained effort. It made me feel alive, stronger than the elements and more powerful than the seas. I sang with my eyes closed and imagined I was in faraway places, free to roam and love as I pleased. When I opened them, it seemed I had been transported far away, to a place not of darkness, but of light. All around me, the garden was glowing with an impossible brilliance. Nothing on this earth could be so beautiful.
“Heavens,” I gasped, clutching the gazebo railing and blinking at the brilliant light.
“More like hell, really, but the Artisans’ Guild has done a good job disguising it.” I whirled around. Tristan was standing at the foot of the gazebo steps. “You’ve a lovely voice. I can’t say I’ve ever heard anything like it.”
“That’s the first nice thing you’ve said to me,” I said, my mind reeling. How long had he been standing there listening?
“Don’t get used to it,” he laughed snidely, turning to go.
“Wait!” The word was out of my mouth before I knew what I was saying. Tristan froze, then turned slowly back around to look at me. I hurried down the steps and stopped in front of him. “I wanted to thank you for saving my friend’s life today.”
He tipped his head to one side, eyes searching my face. “Is that what you think happened?”
“Yes.” I hesitated. His face was smooth, but his unease was a growing knot in the back of my mind. “Albert would have killed him if you hadn’t made him stop.”
“Albert’s an idiot,” he shrugged. “Christophe didn’t deserve to die just because you foolishly decided to throw yourself on him in public.”
“You know his name?” I asked, surprised.
“I know all their names. What of it? I’m sure you know the names of all your pigs.”
I rolled my eyes at the comparison. “I’m just surprised you bother, given that you supposedly hate us so much.”
One eyebrow rose. “Supposedly?”
“It’s what I’ve been told,” I said. “Although if you do hate humans, then you wouldn’t have cared if it was my fault or not. You’d have killed him anyway. And don’t give me any of that nonsense about humans being tools.”
“Nonsense?” A faint smile drifted across his face.
“Quit parroting my words back at me,” I snapped, “and answer my question.”
“But you haven’t asked one.” He tapped his chin with an index finger and waited.
He was right, I hadn’t. It was sitting on the tip of my tongue: why were you happy when we failed to break the curse? The cynical, logical side of me wondered if he was even more extreme than his father—that he would rather stay in a cage forever than give up an ounce of power—but my gut told me otherwise. He had a reason he was desperate to keep secret. I opened my mouth to ask, but nerves kept the words from coming out.
Tristan cleared his throat. “When I was a young boy, Jérôme used to let me ride around on his mule. He would tell me stories about what it was like outside, an
d I would imagine that I was a knight on his horse riding off to save the world. That the curse was broken and we’d escaped Trollus.”
Was that an answer to my unasked question? I wasn’t certain. “Do you still dream of escape?”
He closed his eyes and his misery rushed over me. “Yes, but I don’t call them dreams anymore.”
“What do you call them?”
“Nightmares,” he said, so softly I barely heard him. He was shaken, visibly so, but I didn’t understand why. What about coming out into the world above terrified him so much?
“My lady?” Zoé’s voice made me jump and I turned, half expecting to see her right behind me, but her dancing orb of light was still over by the hedgerows.
“She probably thinks I’m lost,” I started to explain, but when I turned around, Tristan was already some distance away and walking quickly.
“My lady?” Zoé called again, and I could hear the concern in her voice.
“Over here,” I called and she hurried over. Albert, I noticed, was with her. “You should come in now, my lady. It is getting quite late.”
“Quite late,” I echoed, my eyes searching for Tristan’s light.
“Was there someone out here with you, my lady? I thought I heard voices.” Albert was watching me intently, and I felt a shiver run through me like ants marching down my spine.
Zoé gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. Don’t tell.
“No,” I lied, not knowing exactly why. “I was just talking to myself.”
He frowned. “Who lit up the garden then?”
I tensed.
“Oh don’t be such a boor, Albert,” Zoé said, smiling winsomely at him. “The poor thing is miserable—I thought the gardens would cheer her up a bit.”
“Only royals or members of the Artisans’ Guild are allowed to light the garden, Zoé,” he chided, but I could see he wasn’t immune to her charms, half-blood or not.
“I know.” She lowered her head. “You won’t tell, will you?”
“I suppose not,” he said, motioning for us to start towards the palace. “Not unless I’m asked, at least. I would not care to see you punished.”
The girl smiled at the hulking troll, but said nothing.
I kept my mouth shut, but my mind was whirling about like some great machine. Zoé had just lied. Not overtly, of course, but the effect was the same. But why was she covering for Tristan’s presence when the whole city knew that we were bonded? Why was she covering for him at all when by all accounts she should hate his noble guts?
What were they trying to hide?
12
Tristan
“Idiot, idiot, idiot,” I muttered to myself as I navigated through the gardens away from Cécile, hoping Zoé would be quick-thinking enough to conceal my presence. I needed my association with Cécile kept at a minimum, or I’d risk questions arising over why I had suddenly changed my tune about her. What had I been thinking? If anyone knew I had followed her into the gardens like a lovesick puppy and then lit them up in a moronic attempt to impress her, it would undermine the purpose of my performance in the market today.
It had been a risky move to intervene and save Jérôme’s son’s life. I’d thought I’d played the circumstances well enough to hide my true motivations, but if Cécile, who’d only known me for the space of a day and knew nothing about politics, suspected me, then a savvy bastard like Angoulême was bound to have seen through my act.
Sure enough, I caught motion out of the corner of my eye as I crossed the bridge into the city proper. Plastering a smile on my face, I tipped my hat to Angoulême’s man, who at least had the decency to look embarrassed. Not that it mattered. I never bothered trying to lose them anyway.
Keeping Christophe alive hadn’t been up for debate, but following Cécile into the gardens and telling her the truth? Inexcusable. For one, I couldn’t trust her, and two, the more she knew the greater danger she was in. If everyone believed her to be nothing more than a failed experiment in my father’s quest to break the curse, they’d let her be. But the minute anyone thought she could be used against me…
I ground my teeth in frustration. I hadn’t thought it would be this hard, even though Marc had warned me. “The bond changes everything,” he’d said. “Whether you like her or not, keeping her safe will become your ultimate priority.” Lo and behold, I’d been awake all of last night fretting about the tiny cut on her foot and whether the cold damp of the city would cause her to catch a chill. She’d shivered uncontrollably in her sleep until I’d warmed up the room, forcing me to spend the rest of the night dripping sweat.
And that voice. The strange acoustics of Trollus had filled the city with her song, luring me to her. And when I’d seen her standing in the dark, so fierce and defiant with hair like flames trailing loose down her back… If I wasn’t careful, she would be my undoing.
I turned into the Dregs, negotiating the narrow streets until I came to a ramshackle house leaning against a tavern. Anaïs stood in the shadowy doorway, a smile touching the corners of her lips when she saw me. “You’re late.”
“My most sincere apologies.”
She slid her arms around my neck and leaned in for a kiss, but I turned my face at the last minute so that her lips landed on my cheek. For me, this was a ruse—a valid reason to be skulking around the Dregs in the middle of the night; but for Anaïs, it was something more. Nudging the door open with my foot, I swung her across the threshold, her giggles filling the street until I shut the door behind her.
She clung to me even after I’d dropped my hands from her sides, dangling from my neck like a child. “Let go, Anaïs.”
“What if I don’t want to?” she purred into my ear, holding on easily without assistance. I walked from room to room with her feet banging against my knees, ensuring we were alone in the house, setting barriers against eavesdroppers and whispering to my magic to set off firecrackers if anyone came in.
I looked down at Anaïs. “Please?”
She made a pouty face, but let go of my neck. It was one of the things Angoulême never seemed to understand about his daughter. No one made Anaïs do anything. All you could do was ask and pray she was in an amicable mood. I didn’t thank her though. That would imply she’d done me a favor, and I already owed her enough as it was.
“You’re in a foul temper,” she said, watching as I tossed my hat across the room before flopping face down on the bed.
“Tired,” I mumbled into the dank-smelling pillow. “And I missed dinner.”
“New little wife keep you up all night?”
I glared at her with one eye. “Don’t start.”
She shrugged. “There’s already a rumor going about the city that your first-born son will reach out and shatter the barrier with his little fist.”
“They may have a long wait.”
“That isn’t what I heard,” Anaïs said, examining the contents of a basket sitting on the floor. “I heard two of my maids talking. They heard from the kitchen staff, who heard from one of the groundsmen, who heard from one of your wife’s maids that you are a vile wheezing hog. The lady Cécile reckons she’s never been so mistreated in all her life, and she’ll never read another romance novel because the knowledge of what she’s missing breaks her heart.” She plucked a pastry from the basket. “Éclair?”
I munched on one of the pastries and counted the cracks in the ceiling. Well played, Cécile, I thought, if perhaps a tad overacted.
“I assume she’s lying?” Anaïs nibbled on an éclair, expression mild, but I wasn’t fooled.
“Assume what you want—it’s none of your business.”
She laughed. “My business or not, I told my father what I’d heard and added in a bit about how you were never ever cruel to me. Given that he finally thought he’d found a way to discover where your loyalties truly lie, he was furious. He was certain you’d be sweet to her in private.”
“Of course,” I murmured. Several months ago, Angoulême ordered his daug
hter to seduce me and spy on my activities to see if she could discover any sympathetic leanings. Anaïs had promptly told me everything. It was she who concocted the plan to pretend to do her father’s bidding, but actually feed him useless information. It had also been her idea, although I was against it, to continue the ruse of her seduction so that I might have a way to meet with the revolutionaries. I hadn’t wanted to damage her reputation, but in the end, her argument had won out. “What does my reputation matter?” she’d said. “I’m afflicted in the worst sort of way, and everyone knows it. There isn’t a man in Trollus who’d risk the odds, even if my reputation were pure as the driven snow.”
And to my shame, I’d had to agree with her.
“How is Roland?” I asked. Anaïs hesitated and my heart sunk. “Worse?”
“Yes and no. His rages in themselves are no worse, but he’s stronger. When he learned you’d bonded the human, he quite lost himself. The servants couldn’t control him and I had to step in.”
“He’s eight, how strong could he be?”
“He’s your brother, a Montigny descended from the most powerful trolls to ever walk this earth. Another few years and only a handful of us will have the power to hold him. By the time he’s grown, he’ll be nearly unstoppable. My father believes he can control him, but he’s a fool. The boy’s insane, Tristan.” She coiled a finger around a lock of hair and nibbled on the ends—a nervous habit she’d never been able to break. “I know it’s a hard thing to consider, but…”
“No.”
She threw up her hands. “Tristan, not only is he a danger to everyone around him, as long as he lives, he also puts everything you’ve worked for at risk. A steel knife in the heart would solve all our problems.”
“No!”
The air in the room grew hot, but Anaïs didn’t flinch. “You’re being a sentimental fool, which is something a king cannot afford to be.”
Stolen Songbird: The Malediction Trilogy I Page 11