Warrior Witch: Malediction Trilogy Book Three (18 page)

He pointed, and I took off in that direction.

The halls of the palace were a familiar maze, and I soon guessed his path. Even deprived of my own, I could still feel the weight of his magic, and I pursued it, catching sight of him right as he slammed open the doors to the gardens. “Father!”

He turned at my voice. “Go back.”

Instead I pressed forward, grabbing hold of the front of his coat. “Roland’s come to kill you.”

His eyes bored into mine, then he looked away. “What does it matter? Without magic, they won’t follow you. All that I’ve done…” He shook his head. “It was for nothing.”

“It wasn’t.” I tried and failed to pull him back into the hallway. “If you would just listen.”

Then he stiffened, eyes going wide with shock. Fear. Pain. “Tristan–” he gasped, then he collapsed to the floor at my feet.

I
sank to my heels
, bracing a hand against the slick rock of the tunnel.
Deprived of my magic
…
It had been the Winter Queen who’d taken it. Who else could accomplish such a feat? And in all likelihood, it was my fault for putting myself in danger. Why else would he step outside the safety of the castle walls?

But why, knowing I was all right, had he continued into Trollus? Was he here to make an alliance with his father? To surrender? Or another reason all together?

I couldn’t see Martin’s face in the darkness, but his breathing was loud enough for me to reach out and pull him close. “You need to go to the twins,” I whispered. “Tell them where to find the Duke – they might be able to defeat him.” I swiftly gave instructions to the camp and the signals to use so they’d know he was no foe.

“What about you?”

I gave him a gentle shove down the road. “I’m going after Tristan.”

T
he gate stood open
, Guilluame’s corpse and one other lying next to it in a pool of blood. Though it had been hours since I’d left the king fighting the sluag, the streets were still empty, the citizens of Trollus bound by curfew.

Pulling up my hood, I kept to the shadows, avoiding the patrols of guards armed with sluag spears. The main gates to the palace were flanked by armed trolls, as were the side entrances. Sitting on my haunches next to one of the towering pillars of the stone tree, I contemplated how I might get inside. Then, from behind the palace, blossomed a familiar glow.

The glass gardens.

Only royals and members of the Artisan’s Guild were allowed to light the gardens. The guild members would be subject to curfew, and I sincerely doubted Thibault was in the mood for a whimsical stroll. Which left only one, or rather, two, other candidates. And they might just be willing to help me.

I entered through the hidden gate at the rear that Tristan had once shown me, the glass brilliant with the unearthly beauty of troll-light. I dreamed of them often, but even the limitless bounds of imagination had failed to capture their beauty. It was a place one needed to
be
in order to experience, and though I’d explored them countless times during my time in Trollus, I knew that if I spent the rest of my life walking through them, there would always a new detail to discover. The curve of an unknown flower. The vaulting height of a tree. A dewdrop balanced on the tip of a leaf.

As I searched the paths and courtyards for the Queen and the Duchesse, the waterfall roaring as it toppled from the heights, little memories layered themselves across the present. The places I had lingered, deep in thought. The songs that I had sung. The maze of hedgerows I had walked with Tristan shadowing my steps, both of us deeply aware of the other. Listening. Watching. Wanting. But neither of us daring to hope there might be a chance for us.

My chest ached as I remembered those moments. The enchantment of Trollus. Leaving had been like waking from a dream, and no matter how many nights I slept, I could never find my way back. And even if I did, it would never be the same. I stopped in my tracks, resting a hand against a tree trunk while I gave the profoundness of that loss its due.

Then I heard them.

The Queen and the Duchesse were arguing; more accurately, the Duchesse was lecturing while her sister protested with soft sounds of dismay.

I crept closer, so focused on the placement of my feet that I did not notice my sleeve catch on a bush.

Snap.

A twig, little more than a filament of glass, broke away. I reached for it, but my hand was too slow and it shattered against the ground.

The faces of both trolls snapped my direction, and I hunched down, holding my breath. Not that there was any point.

Magic wrapped around my waist, lifting me up and over the foliage, depositing me in front of the two women. “Why am I not surprised,” Sylvie said, crossing her arms. “We keep sending you away, but back you come.”

Queen Matilde’s eyes were wide, her full lips slightly parted. “Oh, Cécile, you look dreadful.” She shook her head. “This will not do.”

My scalp prickled, and seconds later, little bits of black rained to the ground. “Better,” she said, slender fingers plucking at one of my shortened curls, which was crimson once more. Pulling a pin from her own hair, she carefully twisted mine back from my face and smiled.

“Can’t remember what she had for lunch, but she can do that.” Sylvie’s face was sour. “Why are you here, Cécile? Thibault sent you to Trianon.”

“I didn’t go,” I said. “I had to come back.”

“Why is that?”

“Tristan’s here,” I blurted out. “He’s lost his magic.”

“What?” Sylvie barked even as Matilde exclaimed, “Where?” She rotated in a circle, eyes searching the gardens.

“Matilde, stand still!”

I swiftly explained as much as I could, along with my suspicion that it had been Winter who’d taken his power. “He walked in here of his own accord.” My eyes were burning, and I blinked furiously. “I think he’s given up and surrendered.”

Sylvie’s eyes lost focus, shifting back and forth as she delved into the problem, the expression eerily reminiscent of Tristan’s when he was deep in thought. “No,” she said. “He hasn’t. But he is about to make a mistake.”

The ground shook and I was flung against the corner of a stone bench. I fought the urge to curl up in pain, struggling instead to my feet. “Is it her? Is it Winter?” I gasped.

Magic lifted me up into the air. “Tell me what you see,” Sylvie ordered, lifting me higher and higher.

The air was filled with dust mixed with frost, and I coughed, covering my mouth with my sleeve as I peered toward the end of the valley. “There’s no one at the gate.” Other than the bodies of the guards.

She lowered me so swiftly, I might as well have fallen, my spine shuddering as my heels hit the ground. “Stay here,” she said; then to the Queen: “Matilde, find Thibault now. Hurry!”

In a blink, they were gone.

I stared in the direction they’d gone for another heartbeat, then I took off after them.

Keeping up with the troll queen was impossible, but she was heading toward the palace, so I took the shortest way I knew. There was probably nothing I could do to help, but Tristan was in there without any way to protect himself, whereas I still had magic. If Thibault or Matilde would lend their power, I suspected my spells would be just as affective against the Winter Queen as any troll.

“Mother?”

I skidded to a halt just shy of a bend in the hedgerows, my skin breaking out in a cold sweat at the sound of that familiar voice. Pressed my arm to my mouth to muffle my ragged breathing, I squatted down making myself as small as possible.

“Roland!” The Queen’s voice was serene and sweet.

“Matilde, no! Matilde!” The Duchesse screamed the warning, but it was too late. A cry of pain cut through my ears, then the rustle of silken skirts and a thud.

Tears streamed down my face, but I knew better than to move. If Roland saw me, I was dead and would be no help to anyone. But if I waited until he was gone, then there was a chance I could save Matilde and Sylvie.

“Cécile?”

I flinched at the Duchesse’s voice.

“There is no chance you stayed where I told you to, so you can come out now. Roland is gone.”

Mustering my courage, I peered around the corner. The Queen lay on her side, silver eyes blank and unseeing, blood pooling on the white stone beneath her. The hilt of a knife stuck out of her chest, the blade embedded in her heart. Without having seen it, I knew she’d reached for her son with open arms, innocent and unsuspecting.

And he’d killed her. Not because of anything she’d done, but to put an end to his father. To take the throne.

My mind was awash with Tristan’s emotion, and I shook my head to clear it as I approached. Sylvie hung limply from her twin’s back, but she was alive. For how long, I could not guess. Touching the knife at my waist, I silently contemplated whether it would be possible to separate the two, and if it was, whether I had the mettle to do it.

“No.”

I jumped at the coldness in her voice.

“Banish the idea from your thoughts,” she said. “Then come and hear me out before I breathe my last.”

I knelt next to her, desperate to find Tristan and get him free of Trollus before Roland found him. We could hide, or find a ship that would take us to the continent.
Run and live while everyone else suffers for your mistakes.

“Thibault is dead,” she whispered, and I watched in disbelief as a tear trickled down her cheek.

“You do not know that for sure,” I said, taking her hand. “He’s strong, it’s possible that–”

“No,” she said. “It isn’t.” The air surrounding the hand I held shifted, illusion falling away to reveal blackened bonding marks. “When Thibault and Matilde were bonded, something unexpected happened. We kept it a secret, but the time for that is over.”

“I thought you hated him,” I said. “That you were helping Tristan with his plot to kill his father.”

“I did.” She smiled. “And I was. I’ve hated Thibault since he destroyed our plans over Lessa’s fool of a mother. Fought against his decision to bond my sister and made his life a living hell every day since. But over Tristan, we were united. Allies against enemies who would’ve seen that boy dead a dozen times over and comrades in our efforts to mold him into the man he needed to be.”

Like the gardens around us, I could spend a lifetime amongst these creatures and never stop being surprised at their duplicity.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she whispered before breaking into a ragged cough. “I know Thibault was cruel to his son and that you think me equally so for supporting him, but it was all to protect Tristan. Believing that Thibault was Tristan’s enemy stayed the hands of Angoulême and his followers, because they believed Thibault would kill Tristan himself before allowing a sympathizer to take the crown. It was the only way.”

She shuddered and I gripped her hand tight, knowing death would come to her in moments.

“But our methods left their scars on him,” she said. “And that I regret. Please tell him that he was loved by all his family. That he was all we hoped him to be and more. A true king.”

She went still, and I thought it over, but then she stirred. “Cécile?”

“Yes?” I asked, afraid of what more there could be to say.

“What happened to Matilde was Angoulême’s doing. Roland may have wielded the blade, but he wept as he was doing it.”

She said no more.

Reaching down, I gently brushed her eyelids shut, then the Queen’s as well. When I looked up, Lessa, still wearing her Anaïs disguise, was smiling at me.

I jerked the knife out of the Queen’s chest, holding it up as I climbed to my feet. It was coated with her blood, but I didn’t know if there was enough power in it to bind Lessa or not. Nor was I sure if I could get close enough to find out.

“I ought to just kill you and be done with it,” Lessa said, her eyes glittering with amusement at the knife. “But keeping you alive might serve a better purpose. For now.”

Run.

But my feet were fused to the ground with magic, and before I could try to throw the knife or work another spell, Lessa threw back her head and screamed, “Help! Someone help! The Queen has been murdered.”

B
eneath Trollus ran
a network of sewers. Below that, extensive caverns and vaults where grain and foodstuffs were stored. Underneath that, I discovered, was where the trolls kept their prisoners. That it was devoid of light was a given, but as the guards dragged me deeper into the earth, it seemed darker than the city, than the mines, than even the labyrinth, because it was so very far from any sort of light.

The low-ceilinged tunnels were damp with moisture, the air stale as though no one came down here very often. Or perhaps stale from the countless exhalations of prisoners who would never again see light.

The guards hadn’t doubted Lessa’s words when they’d come upon us, me holding a knife coated with blood, the troll queen and her conjoined twin sister lying dead at my feet. While most would’ve forgiven Tristan for killing his father – many even applauding him for it – having his human wife achieve the same results by killing his mother was another matter. At best, it made him a coward, and at worst… Well, the Queen had been well-loved by her people, and the Duchesse, too. Their murderer would not be forgiven.

I couldn’t even defend myself or offer up the truth. Lessa had gagged me before anyone arrived on the scene, warning the guards who took me away not to allow me to speak lest I use my witch magic upon them. They’d taken her words to heart – though in truth, I did not need to say a word to work with troll magic – guiding me at arm’s length with steel shackles, eyes wary and watching. I might have struggled still, but they were taking me in Tristan’s direction, and where he was, I needed to be.

“Put her in here,” one of the trolls muttered. His light gleamed against the heavy steel door, which swung open on oiled hinges to reveal mildew covered stone walls of a tiny space. Then he shoved me inside, and all there was to see was blackness. The shackles on my arms clinked, but they were nothing compared to the walls closing in on all sides, the space barely larger than a coffin.

Stay calm!
I ordered myself, but I didn’t know how I was to do so when I’d been effectively buried alive. Tristan was very close, but what good was that with us both entombed and me gagged? Snot bubbles snapped and splattered against my cheeks as I struggled to breathe through my nose, through my tears, but I couldn’t get enough air.

My lungs fluttered like the wings of a sparrow, and I clawed at the liquid magic filling my mouth. But it did no good. I was drowning on my own tears, on my own panic, and my elbows slammed against the walls, tearing my skin and bruising the bone.

“Cécile?”

His voice did as much as a mouthful of air to calm me, and I rested my forehead against the door, my breathing steadying.

“There’s a gap at the base of your cell,” he said. “Reach down, and you will feel my hand.”

I dropped to my knees, scrabbling around until my fingers found his, warm and familiar. Fresh tears threatened, and I bowed my head, pressing my face against our linked hands.

“Say something. Tell me you’re all right.”

My nails dug into his skin, and I shook my head, strands of my hair brushing against our fingers.

He was silent, then, “They’ve gagged you? Squeeze once for yes, twice for no.”

I squeezed once for yes.

“They told me that you killed my mother and my aunt–” He broke off. “Is it true?”

He didn’t want to believe it, I could feel it. But there was doubt there, too, and I couldn’t blame him for it. Maybe I’d done it in a desperate attempt to save him, or maybe I’d decided to finally have my revenge. I squeezed twice.
No.

His relief was staggering, but short lived. “Lessa?” he asked.

No.

Then reluctantly, “Roland?”

I didn’t want to answer, because he already shouldered too much of the blame for his brother’s actions.

“Cécile?”

A tear dripped off my nose.
Yes.

He pulled his hand away from mine, his pain making my teeth ache. I shoved my fingers through the hole, my fingernails scratching against the stone, but my manacle caught on the edge, holding me back. He’d drawn away, pulled in on himself. And as I rested my cheek against the wall, very faintly, I could hear him weeping. In a moment, he’d lost nearly all his living family, the remaining two the perpetrators.

They loved you,
I mouthed against the wall, wishing he could hear, though the knowing might make it worse.

“It’s my fault.” His voice hitched. “Because of me, the gates were left unguarded. They might not have been able to stop him, but they would have slowed him down. Given my father enough time to get to her.” A sob tore from his throat. “He knew. That’s why he was running to find her, and I stopped him. Stole those precious seconds that might have made a difference.”

And I’d sent the Queen and the Duchesse running straight toward Roland. If I hadn’t told them Tristan was in the palace, perhaps they would’ve stayed hidden in the garden maze for those precious seconds. We were both complicit. But we weren’t at fault, and neither was Roland.

I clawed my nails against the stone, snagging and tearing them in an attempt to get his attention. “Stop.” Tristan pressed my hand against the ground. I retracted my arm, then turned my hand over and slid it back through, catching hold of him. Flattening his palm, I traced the letters. L.I.S.T.E.N.

Slowly, but methodically, I spelled out my message:
I was there. Spoke to Sylvie before she died.

His hand stiffened at the mention of his aunt, but I continued.
Angoulême made him do it. Roland wept as he struck the blow.

Silence.

I saw red even in the darkness, and Tristan said, “I’m going to rip his heart out for this. I’m going to make him pay.”

I agreed with the sentiment, but how we would accomplish the act was another matter. Roland might not wish his brother dead, might hate the Duke as much as we did, but he was wholly under Angoulême’s control, which made him an unreliable ally, to say the least. Even if he did somehow help us kill the troll who held his leash, the world would be no better off with us having our revenge. He’d be violent and uncontrollable, and without his magic, there would be no way for Tristan to stop him. Try as I might, I could not see a way through.

I squeezed Tristan’s fingers tight, refusing to give up, and a shiver ran through my body. It was cold, and growing colder by the second.

She was coming.