Warrior Witch: Malediction Trilogy Book Three (15 page)

I dug my nails into the table, trying not to let my frustration get the better of me. “Is there nothing of the trolls that survived? No place left on the Isle that would have meaning?”

“None that I know of, except…” He hesitated. “But no, none of the Angoulême ancestors were entombed there. The Montignys married with every other great family, but never them.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Montigny tomb in the mountains.” Martin went back to the stacks and retrieved another volume, this one filled with drawings embellished with beautiful color. “Until the Fall rendered it impossible to do so, every Montigny was interred in a mountain tomb. And when a king or queen died…” He stopped flipping through the book and spread it flat.

I stared at the drawing. “They carved their faces into the rock.”

Martin nodded. “The sculptures were too large for the humans to destroy, if they even knew they were there.”

This was the place where Angoulême was hiding, I knew it. And in the knowing, all the other pieces fell into place: the way Angoulême seemed oblivious to the flaws in Lessa’s disguise. His inappropriate familiarity with the girl who was supposed to be his daughter. Angoulême knew it was Lessa beneath Anaïs’s face, and had for some time.

“Where is this place?” I asked.

Martin flipped to a map, then went very still, his eyes wide.

“If my memory serves me correctly,” a deep voice said. “It’s right about here.” A hand that matched the voice reached over my shoulder, a thick index finger tapping a spot deep within the mountains.

A shuddering breath exited my lips, and I slowly turned around, my eyes tracking up until they met the silver gaze of King Thibault de Montigny.

“
I
must confess
,” the King said, resting the butt of his sluag spear on the ground, “that I did not think it was possible for you to look worse than you did when you first came to us.” He flicked at a soiled lock of my hair, and I flinched. “You’ve proven me wrong.”

“How did you know I was here?” It hardly mattered, but it was the only thing I could think of to say.

“I didn’t. A runner brought word of a foul smell in the library, which the librarians feared was a sluag.” He glanced around at the stacks. “I’ve spent many a long hour in these hallowed halls, so I took it upon myself to personally deal with the problem.” One eyebrow rose. “Imagine my surprise when I discovered it was my dear daughter-in-law who was the source of the stink.”

“Sewers.” My mind raced, trying and failing to come up with some way to extricate myself from his clutches.

“Hmm.” He frowned. “They have been neglected in recent days, I’m afraid.”

“Why?” I asked. “Did you kill off all the half-bloods that cleaned them for you?”

“No, they abandoned me for my son.” His eyes went to Martin. “I do not feel you need to be privy to this conversation.”

Launching myself off the stool I’d perched on, I stepped between the librarian and the King. “Don’t you dare hurt him.”

Something that looked almost like hurt flickered through his eyes, but was gone in an instant. “Why would I? Good librarians are hard to come by.”

Martin said nothing, and when I turned my head, I saw that the King had encased him in an opaque box, effectively removing him from either hearing or witnessing the conversation. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Trying to figure out where the Duke is hiding so that we can capture him and stop Roland,” I said, sticking with the truth and saving my lies for when I needed them.

“Tristan is quite capable of stopping his brother,” he replied. “Why hasn’t he?”

“Why haven’t you?” I countered. “What happened to your plan to take the Isle peaceably?”

“You happened.” His eyes narrowed. “I’ve been informed the Regent is dead, killed by a lord allegedly under my control. Lord Aiden, under the directive of my son, has taken his father’s position, and together, they have formed an alliance against me, and against Roland and Angoulême.”

“That is correct,” I said, holding his gaze. “You are well informed.”

“I am.” He tilted his head. “And you, Cécile, are a liar. Aiden du Chastelier, having failed to deliver on his word to me, is likely little more than a drooling mess of madness at this point. Tristan has taken a page from my book, and has someone else masquerading as the lord. Is Aiden still alive?”

“And well,” I lied. “I worked a spell to temper your compulsion. It troubles him still, but not so much so that we cannot keep him in check.”

“If you knew of such a spell, you would’ve used it for yourself.”

“Yes, I would’ve,” I said. “But I didn’t know of it until after I was past needing it. Anushka showed me a good many things before she died.”

“As any mother should.”

Of course he knew. Was there anything he didn’t know?

“Why are you here, Cécile?” he asked. “Why did Tristan send you and his friends to dispatch Roland? And when you failed, why did he take the risk of sending you here in an attempt to discover Angoulême’s location? Why has he not dealt with Roland himself?”

With each question, he leaned closer, until the final one brought us almost nose to nose.

“He’s protecting Trianon,” I said. “We are going after the Duke because he’s an easier target.”

“Folly,” the King snarled. “Kill the Duke and Roland will be free to slaughter at will, which he is sure to do. Capture the Duke, and he will only order the boy to rescue him. This plan of yours is rife with flaws, and not one my son would ever agree to without more cause and justification than you’ve provided.”

“The Winter Queen sent a dragon to attack Trianon – the city needs to be protected.”

He grimaced as though my words were utter lunacy. “Tristan’s two clowns are quite capable of managing whatever that meddlesome trickster sends their way, and he knows it. Winter is…”

I shifted uneasily, and the King noticed, hissing out a breath between his teeth.

“Ah. Winter is the problem. That’s why he remains within the iron ring of the Regent’s castle.” He stared through me, eyes shifting as he thought. “What has she done to him?”

“Nothing.” I was afraid to say more, knowing he’d pick the truth out of whatever lies I spun. He was too intelligent. Too experienced with deception. A true mastermind of manipulation.

His gaze shifted to the spear in his hand. “The sluag.” His fist clenched around the steel. “A life-debt.”

I tensed and then swore silently for giving myself away. Not that it mattered – he knew.

“And what does that thrice-damned frigid bitch want from my son?”

His jaw tightened and the metal of the spear groaned, bending under his grip. I’d seen him irritated before. Angry, even. But nothing like this.

“We don’t know.” My voice shook. “She told me she wanted to meet with him to discuss an alliance. It’s why I’m disguised.”

Thibault’s jaw tightened. “No. No, he must not agree to that. You need to go back to Trianon. Tell Tristan to stay put behind those walls. I’ll…” He grimaced. “I’ll deal with Roland.”

“Do you know what it is she wants?”

“I have my suspicions.”

But before he could elaborate, a slithering sound reached our ears, and the troll-lights at the end of the row flickered, then went out. I went very still like a rabbit that’s scented a fox; but the King straightened, eyes searching and head cocked, listening. Hunting.

“Three,” he murmured. “No, four.”

Four sluag. My hands and feet went cold, my pulse thundering in my ears. I’d never heard of sluag hunting together, but why else would they converge like this? Unless someone had sent them…

The magic encasing Martin dissolved, and I mouthed, “Sluag,” at him. He nodded once, and picked up his discarded spear. The tip of the weapon trembled.

Barooom.
One of the sluag called out; then another answered,
Barooom.

“I hear you,” the King said, then he lifted his arms. The bookcases around us shot back, row after row sliding away as though they weighed nothing, their momentum carrying them even as the sluag’s power melted away the King’s. Several of them toppled, and a squeal of pain rang in my ears as one of the creatures was crushed.

We stood in the middle of a large empty space, devoid of anything but the books that had fallen off the shelves, the only light that which hovered over the two trolls. But it was flickering.

The King picked up a volume and glanced at the title. “Tax law.” He smiled, and the book burst into flame, first the silver of magic, but then the yellow and red of natural fire took over. A shadow moved between two fallen shelves, and their balls of light winked out.

Martin stepped closer to me, twitching with every shiver of motion in the shadows, but the King seemed unaffected. Unafraid. Lighting several more books on fire, he tossed them in a circle around us, creating a perimeter of flame.

A stinger flashed out from the darkness, whipping toward the King’s face, but he batted it aside with his spear and laughed. “You’ll have to do better than that, vermin.”

The sluag shrieked and lunged, its white bulk surging toward the troll even as I sensed motion behind us. I screamed a warning, but the King was already moving.

With impossible speed, he launched the spear in his hands at the first sluag, the force of the blow driving the point through its maw and out the other side. Whirling, he snatched the weapon Martin clutched, and slammed it into the body of the creature attacking from the rear, catching the fleshly stalk of its stinger and wrenching it from its throat.

The sluag writhed, slimy body slamming back and forth in its death throes, but he calmly approached it and pulled the weapon from its flesh with a nauseating slurp.

The flames were burning low, their paper fuel nearly exhausted, and I watched their glow diminish with growing trepidation. There was a third – I could hear it moving through the stacks – and not even the King of the trolls could see in the dark. The building shuddered, and a cloud of dust rolled over us as part of a wall tumbled in, the calls of at least two more sluag audible over the smash of rock hitting the marble floor.

“When I give the word, Martin,” Thibault murmured, gaze tracking the sluag’s progress, “I want you to take Cécile and run.”

“Where, Your Grace?” The librarian’s voice was surprisingly steady considering how tight his grip was on my arm.

“Out of Trollus and back to Trianon.” He lifted his spear. “Go to Tristan’s favorite place to contemplate his woes; there is a passage leading to the surface.”

The lake.

“Tristan told me of no such passage.” Even now, I found it impossible to trust Thibault.

“My son doesn’t know half as much as he thinks.” He took a few steps toward the stacks. “Lessa needn’t have left if she’d wanted to see the faces of her ancestors, and neither did her puppet master.”

He was speaking in code, which meant he believed that Winter was watching. And that she’d try to stop me.

“Run!”

Martin didn’t hesitate. Hauling on my arm, he dragged me across the room. We leapt over piles of books, climbing over the fallen shelves until we reached the side door.

“It’s stuck!” he hissed, hand scrabbling at the handle.

My dagger.

“Break it down!” One of the sluag screamed, and I cast a backward glance toward Tristan’s father. He stood at the center of the dying flames, powerful, brilliant, and fearless, and for an instant, I saw the ruler he might have been.

As though sensing my scrutiny, he turned his head. “Run,” he commanded.

And I obeyed.

The door lay in splinters on the street, and Martin stood staring at it as though it was the first time he’d ever used his formidable strength. I grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the palace grounds. But as we rounded the corner of the library, we ran up against four guards.

“Sluag in the library,” I shouted. “His Majesty is fighting them alone. Go!”

For a moment, I wondered if I had erred. Whether they’d see it as an opportunity to rid themselves of their King once and for all. But not one of them hesitated.

The librarian seemed at a loss of how to make his way unseen through the city, so I took the lead, scampering down back alleys and through courtyards, always keeping to the shadowy routes my friends had shown me.

But that could only take us so far.

The gate to the River Road was closed, and several armored trolls stood before it, silver eyes watchful. The right branch of the river and the narrow path running next to it were undefended, but there was no way to reach it without the guards seeing us.

“Will they stop us?” I whispered even as I recognized Guillaume amongst them and knew I couldn’t risk him spotting me. He was as much Angoulême’s as Albert had been.

“They’ll do more than stop us.” Martin rested one hand against the building. “Curfew is in effect, and even if it wasn’t, there’s no reason for us to go to the lake. It was Prince Tristan’s haunt, and his father’s before him.

“Then we’ll have to rely on illusion,” I muttered. “Once we’re by them, there won’t be anything between us and the outside.”

Martin’s shoulders shook, and I realized he was laughing. “As if that were some small thing,” he said. “You’ve been fraternizing with the nobility – the most powerful amongst us. What they can do… The detail. The concentration.” He shook his head. “The guards will see right through my attempt and then question our duplicity.”

“You’re something of a defeatist, Martin.” I chewed on my bottom lip, considering our options. Which, near as I could tell, were none. “It’s not a good trait.”

“I prefer the term realist.”

“I’d prefer you thought of a solution.” The city had gone mostly silent, but there was no way of knowing whether it was because the King and his men had killed all the sluag, or whether the sluag had killed them and were now hunting for us.

“How long can you hold your breath?”

All thoughts vacated my head, and I turned to stare at him. “Why?”

“A human once came in through the falls in a barrel. He survived the impact. It’s possible,” he said, cringing as though the speculation were physically painful, “that I could replicate a barrel with magic.”

“Possible.” All too clearly I remembered how I’d almost killed myself leaping into the river, saved only by the quick thinking of Élise. The rapids were as deadly now as they’d been then – more so, given the freezing temperature, chunks of ice smashing against the bars blocking the river’s path to the sea. If Martin misjudged his capability, it would be us smashing against those bars. He might survive it. I certainly wouldn’t.

He licked his lips. “Maintaining the structure itself will be simple enough, but I’d need to render it opaque so we wouldn’t be seen, which makes any form of navigation a challenge. And there would be a limited amount of air to breathe, so…”

If he passed out, his magic would lose its form quickly, and we’d be bodies in the water.

Leaning out of the building’s shadows, I peered at the tiered streets lining the valley walls. Here and there, lights flickered, and I knew we were running out of time. “You don’t have to do this,” I said. “You could hide. It’s me they’re after.”

“I want Angoulême to pay for what he did to Élise,” Martin said, rising into a crouch. “That won’t happen if you’re dead. And besides,” he added, taking my arm and drawing me through the shadows toward a bridge embankment. “The King does not take kindly to those who disobey his orders.”

“He might be dead.”

“I don’t deal in mights.” He pulled me close, wrapping an arm around my ribs, his fingers digging into my side. “Deep breath.”

I sucked one in, but it didn’t seem like enough. There wasn’t a chance for another. Magic closed around us, blocking out sight and sound, but not the sensation of falling. We hit the water on our sides, and my elbow slammed painfully against the magic. Up and down we plunged, rolling and rotating like a log in the frothing rapids. Dizziness and nausea swept through me, and no matter how hard I tried not to, I gasped in little breaths with each jarring bounce.