Stolen Songbird: Malediction Trilogy Book One (The Malediction Trilogy) (34 page)

“Wonderful news!” the Queen exclaimed, blissfully ignorant of the tension between Anaïs and me. It wasn’t lost on the Duchesse, though she said nothing.

The three of us hurried into Tristan’s room, where he lay in the center of his bed, propped up on a pile of cushions. The frown furrowing his brow disappeared at the sight of us. His eyes locked on me and I felt relief course through him and me both. He wasn’t angry with me.

“Did they harm you?” He tried to push himself up on the pillows, but his mother scurried over and pushed him back down. “You must rest, Tristan.” She set to fluffing the pillows and tucking the blankets tightly around him like a swaddled baby.

He seemed annoyed at being fussed over, but he smiled at her anyway. “Thank you, Mother.”

Then he looked at me, taking in my severe hairstyle, the black dress, and, I realized far too late, the blood that dripped from the cut on the back of my neck. I should have cleaned it up before coming. “I’m quite well,” I assured him. “Fit as a fiddle.”

One of his eyebrows rose. “You are not suited to deception, my lady.”

The light Tristan had left with me when he thought he was dying chose that moment to zip over to the bed, flying in dizzying circles around its patient twin hovering over Tristan’s head. The result was a riot of light and shadows that caught everyone’s attention.

“It stayed with you this whole time? It should have dissipated hours ago,” Tristan said, clearly amazed. In truth, I hadn’t even noticed.

“It isn’t possible for a human to control troll magic,” the Duchesse said, tapping her chin with her index finger and watching the lights reflected in the mirror on the wall.

“Oh, I don’t control it,” I said. “It’s here because it wants to be.”

“Wants to be! Bah!” She made a dismissive gesture with her hand.

Tristan didn’t seem to be paying any attention to us. “Stop that!” he said firmly to my light. It ignored him and continued to fly madly around the room like a disobedient child. “You there,” he said, pointing at it. “Come here.” With obvious reluctance, the light slowly drifted over and landed on his outstretched hand. “It’s a bit of my magic,” he said. “But there’s something changed about it.” He stared into the depths of the light. “It seems content to maintain its purpose.”

“What purpose?” I asked, confused.

“To light your path.” The glowing ball lifted off his hand and floated over to me.

The Duchesse had a look of satisfaction on her face, but she made no comment.

Tristan cleared his throat. “I’d like to speak to Cécile. Alone.”

After the Queen left, I walked over to stand next to the bed. My fingers played nervously with the blanket, while Tristan silently scrutinized my appearance.

“Never a dull moment since you arrived in my life.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I never meant for this to happen.”

His hand closed over mine, our fingers interlocking. His skin was warm again, burning with the internal flame of magic. “It wasn’t your fault. No matter what Marc said to you, it wasn’t your fault.”

I raised my head. “How do you know what he said? You were unconscious.”

“No. I wasn’t.” He stared up at the ceiling, his thumb tracing circles over the back of my hand. “I couldn’t move, couldn’t open my eyes or speak, but I could hear. And I could feel.”

“How horrible!”

“Not entirely.” His mouth quirked up into a half-smile.

“Oh.” I flushed down to the tips of my toes. “Oh, dear.”

“And my repertoire of foul language is much increased.”

I clapped my hand over my eyes, embarrassed to the core. Then realization dawned on me. “Then you know…”

He nodded gravely. “That you used magic to heal me.”

“And failed,” I said, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

Tristan held his arm up to the light, revealing scars that looked years old. “You didn’t fail.” His eyes searched mine. “I’d suspected for some time that you might have magic in your blood. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know,” I whispered. “That was the first time I tried, and I couldn’t even get her spells right. The poison didn’t leave.”

“Her?”

I swallowed hard. Letting go of his hand, I retrieved the grimoire from its hiding place and handed it to him. It was clear from his expression that he recognized it. “You can open this?”

“Yes.”

“Does it tell you anything about breaking the curse?”

“No, but there are spells to use on trolls,” I admitted, watching as he relaxed fractionally at my answer.

Tristan nodded and handed the grimoire back to me. “Keep it hidden,” he said. “No one must know about this.”

I stored the book back in its spot in the garderobe, and came back over to the bed. I felt nervous. Would knowing I was a witch change the way Tristan felt about me? I could hardly blame him if it did, given what Anushka had done to them. “Are you angry?” I asked softly.

He shook his head. “You saved my life, Cécile. Not many people would have had the courage to do what you did.” He sighed. “They brought me back to Trollus. I could hear them talking about what my father intended to do to you – they were acting as if I were already dead, even though they knew I wasn’t. And there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I could barely breathe and then…” He broke off, his eyes growing distant as though he were trying to remember something. “And then the venom’s power over me lifted. It was a close thing.” His gaze rested on my throat. “Too close.”

I felt magic brush across my cheek and hairpins fell to the ground all around me. Magic teased my hair out of its knot and it cascaded down my back, still damp from my bath.

“You left a part out,” I said, my voice shaking. “The part where you died.”

Tristan’s eyes closed. “I’m fine now.”

“Now,” I said, my whole body shaking. “But not before! I felt you die. It felt like my heart had been torn from my body. It felt like…” I struggled to keep calm. “You were gone,” I said, misery filling me.

“But I’m fine now,” he said, voice firm. He pulled on my hand, and I willingly clambered onto the huge bed and tucked myself into the crook of his arm, head on his chest. The spot I had wanted to be in for so long: I could scarcely believe I was there now, with Tristan, in his arms.

“How?”

“How what?”

“How did you come back to life? How is such a thing possible?”

He was quiet for so long, at first I thought he’d fallen asleep. “Someone with a great deal of power did me a favor,” he said finally. “I owe her a very great debt.”

I started to ask him who, but an icy wind smelling of frost blew through the room. A woman’s voice whispered, “It is not for her to know. We have a bargain, you and I, Prince of the Accursed Ones.”

My head went fuzzy, and I pulled a blanket up around us, pressing closer against Tristan to ward off the icy chill. What was it I had been thinking about? I couldn’t remember.

Tristan gently stroked my back, and I listened to his heart beating strongly beneath my ear. But I couldn’t relax. The King and most of the trolls hated me – the half-bloods most of all. I had jeopardized all of Tristan’s plans and put lives at risk. I was supposed to be the key to the freedom of Trollus, but I was completely in the dark about what I was supposed to do. And to top it all off, I was fairly certain that Anaïs was plotting my murder for having stolen Tristan away from her.

I felt Tristan’s exhaustion finally take over and he drifted off to sleep, but it was a long time before I was able to do the same. I could not hope for a long life if I remained a pawn constantly manipulated by those around me – learning to play Guerre had taught me that, if nothing else. I needed to take action, and soon. I began to form a plan, but eventually my mind grew heavy. I clung to Tristan as though it was our last moment together like this, which maybe it was. But there was nothing to be done about that now. Only the morning would bring answers.

 

When I woke many hours later, it was with a start. Dreams of sluag, darkness, and Tristan dying plagued my sleep. Again and again I’d relived the moment when death sliced through our bond like a scalpel through flesh. The loneliness, as though there was no one left in this world but me. I didn’t know how anyone could survive it; what sort of strength it took to live on after the loss of the one you’d been bound to for years, decades even. I thought about the black lines tracing over Marc’s hands, how he rarely removed the leather gloves hiding them and could not tolerate even the mention of her name.

My light had woken up with me, and it shone dimly as though it were still sleepy. In its glow, I gently traced a fingertip over the golden filigree inked across Tristan’s left hand, more intricate and delicate than the finest lacework. Gold, because I was a child of the sun. The first human to ever be bonded to a troll, much less a troll prince.

Tristan sighed, his breath warm against my cheek. In his sleep, he’d curled around me, his arm tucked tight against my stomach. My perpetually cold feet were warm for once, tucked as they were against his shins. My body complained mightily as I extracted myself from his grip, but despite my attempts not to wake him, his eyes opened.

“You need to rest,” I said. “You’re exhausted.”

“No time for it,” he replied, crossing the room and quickly dressing. “I need to go make reassurances to a few individuals. And there is the tree.”

“Can’t it keep for one day?”

“Possibly, but I’d rather not risk it.” He buckled on his sword. “Don’t leave these rooms unless Marc accompanies you. Certain individuals misunderstand the cause of yesterday’s events, and I don’t want them going after you because of some misguided sense of loyalty.” He kissed my cheek. “Try to stay out of trouble.”

 

After he left, I tried to find ways to occupy myself in our rooms, but my mind wouldn’t focus. So much had changed in so little time – going back to how things were before I’d fallen for Angoulême’s trickery would be impossible.

Tristan was worried and upset, his uneasiness crawling down my spine like a spider. I wished I knew what was going on. What was he telling the half-bloods? Would they be able to forgive me for what had happened, or had I irreparably damaged my relationship with those who needed our help the most?

Tossing aside the novel I had been trying to read, I went through the doors and out onto the balcony, down the steps to the courtyard where my piano stood. The stack of music sat undisturbed on the bench, and after shuffling through it, I chose a lengthy piece and sat down. I had no great talent – my short fingers prevented that – but I played well within my limitations. I sat at the piano until my fingers ached, but I refused to sing. I would not call him. He would come to me when he was ready.

“You are a talented musician, but I must confess, I prefer to hear you sing.”

The keys jangled harshly beneath my fingers and I froze. Slowly, I looked over my shoulder. The Duke d’Angoulême stood at the base of the stairs, his gold-tipped cane held horizontally between his hands. “Perhaps you’ll sing for me, little bird.”

I shook my head.

“Pity.” He walked towards the piano, and I scrambled to my feet, wanting to keep some distance between us. Not that it would matter. If he’d come here to kill me, there wasn’t much I could do to stop him.

“These are my private gardens,” I said. “You have no right to be here.”

“True.” He ran a finger down the shiny surface of the piano. “But there isn’t much you can do about it, is there?”

“What do you want?”

The corners of his mouth twisted up in a cold parody of a smile. “A great many things, Cécile, and I fully intend to have them.” He picked up the delicate glass rose Tristan had given me, turning it over in his hands. “You caused quite the disturbance yesterday.”

“That was your intention, wasn’t it?”

“Indeed it was, although not in my wildest dreams did I expect it to turn out so well.” He held up my rose as if to smell it, but his eyes were fixed on me. “Did you know that when an infant is born of half troll, half human blood, its magic never reaches half that of its troll parent? And if that child takes up with a human, the resultant child will have almost no magic to speak of. The fact of the matter is, if a child has less than one-eighth troll blood, it has no magic at all. It is as weak and unintelligent as a human, as susceptible to illness and injury.”

I was silent. There was no mistaking his point.

“Magic,” he continued, “is what makes us superior. Any act that diminishes it is an abomination.”

“Except if such an act breaks the curse,” I retorted, my anger rising. “Isn’t that what you mean?”

“But it hasn’t.” He held out the rose. “So all you are is an abomination that has failed to serve any purpose.”

The rose slipped through his fingers. I gasped, diving forward to catch it before it smashed against the paving stones. At my touch, it blossomed a dusky pink.

“You two thought you’d fooled everyone, didn’t you?”

I stared up at him from my knees, fear filling me.

“And perhaps you did. Everyone, that is, except me.” Reaching down, he took hold of my arm and pulled me to my feet. “I confess, you played the part of a hellion-bride quite well. And Tristan, well the boy has been playing something he is not for so long that sometimes I wonder if he remembers who he really is.” He paused, considering his words. “You would know by now that all children receive an identical education until they are ten years of age, at which time they are educated by their respective guilds. Builders’ Guild, Artisans’ Guild, Bakers’ Guild, Miners’ Guild, and so on and so forth.”

“Make your point, Your Grace.” I tried to jerk my arm out of his grip, but his hand was as implacable as a vice.

“My daughter, Anaïs, she isn’t guild-educated. No, I saw early in her life that she had a mind fit for a particular purpose. She is military educated, you see. She is strategic, ruthless, loyal, but…” He sighed. “She is still female – her emotions make her weak.”