Warrior Witch: Malediction Trilogy Book Three (25 page)

O
ur ruse had worked
, instilling enough doubt in Angoulême’s mind about Lessa’s loyalty that he was willing to risk coming out in the open rather than jeopardizing his puppet prince. Tracking him in the fresh snow was easy, and he set a brisk pace towards Courville. Our entire strategy was dependent on him calling Roland out of the city in order to hide him while Cécile’s “potion” wore off, and I prayed that it worked. I did not know what I’d do if it didn’t.

We ran through the night and into the dawn, and I felt no small amount of relief when his tracks broke off the Ocean Road and moved down towards the beach. I crept slowly, relying on stealth rather than illusion so that they’d be less likely to sense my power.

I reached a clearing, and stopped in my tracks at the sight of Angoulême. But it was Lessa, not Roland, who approached and my stomach clenched. This wasn’t the plan.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“So surprised,” Angoulême said. “Is that because you believed me captured or dead?”

Her eyes widened. “Why should I believe such a thing?”

“Because you sent Tristan after me. Betrayed me.”
So he had believed.

“I did no such thing,” she retorted. “I’ve followed every step of your plan. That’s why we’re here – we’re on our way to take Trianon. You told Roland it was time.”

My stomach clenched at that news, but now wasn’t the time to think about the other city. She’d said we, and that had to mean Roland. He was nearby. He had to be. And that meant I would have my chance to kill him with no fear of human casualties.

“One of the conditions of you keeping my daughter’s face was that you never lied to me,” he snarled at her. “You gave your word. Or does your human blood allow you to break that as well? Are all your promises lies?”

“I’m not lying,” she shouted. “What more must I do to make you trust me?”

I crouched in the trees, debating whether I should remain watching them on the chance Roland would arrive, or to go looking for him myself. It would be only a few moments more before Angoulême would suspect I’d duped him, and the first thing he’d do is warn my brother.

I scanned the terrain for any sign of motion, sending out delicate filaments of magic as I searched my surroundings for a source of power strong enough to be Roland.

Then my hackles rose.

Slowly, I turned my head, my eyes going up the slope until they came to rest on Roland.

He smiled. “Hello, Tristan.”

Attack, attack,
my mind screamed, but I stayed frozen in place as he trotted down the slope toward me. I braced for a blow, but all he said was, “What are you doing here?”

I swallowed hard. “Looking for you.”

He cocked his head. “To kill me?”

Yes.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said. “You’re my brother.”

Instead of answering, he sat cross-legged on the ground next to me. “I hate him.”

I risked a glance down at the arguing pair. “The Duke?”

Roland nodded, and his eyes welled up liquid bright. “He takes away my possessions. Makes me do things I don’t wish to do.”

“Like what?” My mind was scrambling. I’d come here to kill him, and in this moment, it would be so easy. He sat watching the Duke, entirely trusting that I would not harm him. But it was this very weakness that would not allow me to strike.

“He took mother.” His eyes flicked up to me as though trying to judge how much I knew before admitting his own guilt.

“He took her from me, too,” I said.

Roland picked at a leaf, chewing at his bottom lip. “He says that to be king, I’ll have to kill you, too. That it’s the only way.” He looked up at me. “But I don’t want to.”

“What do you want?” When was the last time I’d had a conversation with him alone? When was the last time I’d tried – really tried – talking to him?

“For you to tell the Duke that you don’t want to be king. That you want me to rule. Then maybe…” He sighed, pressing his hand to his head in a way that was familiar. The Duke had bound him so tightly, by name, by promises, that Roland could barely think. How much worse was his madness, his violence, because of Angoulême’s manipulation? Was it possible that once he was released from it all, that he’d be a normal little boy?

I hesitated, knowing that I was walking on dangerous ground, that the wrong thing said might trigger him. But the risk was worth it if it supported the kernel of hope growing in my heart. “If you were king and able to do anything you wished, what would you do, Roland?”

He rested his chin on one small fist, expression dreamy. “I would paint the world red.”

Foolish hope.

I rested my hands on his shoulders. They were bony, as scrawny as mine had been at that age, his unkempt hair brushing against his coat.
One quick twist, and it will be over. He won’t even feel it.
My fingers twitched, but he didn’t seem to notice, entirely lost in his daydream.

Do it, you coward!

I reached for his head, hating myself. Hating and knowing I’d never forgive myself for this.

“There they are!” He sat up straight, jostling my hands away as he pointed. “Look, Tristan. Look at all the humans.”

Dread filled my stomach with ice as my gaze jumped from the forested slope, to the beach below, and then to the open water.

“Yes, Tristan. Look at all those humans.” Angoulême’s voice drifted up the slope. Cutting. Cruel. “Roland, kill him.”

My brother whispered one word before his body went stiff, power manifesting with vicious heat: “Run.”

“
I
t looks
like a sheet of fabric being torn from the middle out,” I said, throwing another log on the fire and giving Martin an encouraging nod. “Or a piece of paper.”

“Your analogy is not becoming any more helpful with repeating,” he replied, scowling and plucking at the air. “I feel so useless. I should be able to feel the press of Arcadia against this world, but I feel nothing.”

And I felt no relief to the press of my promise to the Summer King. It was as though, despite removing the iron from Martin, despite making him fey once more, that I’d accomplished nothing. Because he could not go back to Arcadia, and that, ultimately, was what the fairy king wanted. There was another piece. Something that I was missing. But what?

“You aren’t useless,” I said, holding my hands over the flames. “Without your bravery, we wouldn’t even know removing iron from trolls was possible. It’s just that there’s another step in the process that we haven’t figured out yet. But we will.”

And hopefully soon. Beyond fulfilling my promise, there’d be advantages to having someone with fey magic on our side. In fact, I couldn’t stop thinking about all the advantages we’d gain as we sat around the fire waiting for Tristan to save the world. Or die trying.

Chris had finally lost patience and gone hunting, Victoria had somehow convinced Vincent to chop wood, much to the detriment of the forest, and my gran was busy gathering what plant life hadn’t been razed by troll-fire. The only thing I could think to do to keep my mind off Tristan was to help Martin, but all it had amounted to was frustration.

“You’d know if something was wrong,” the librarian said, focusing on solidifying his form so that he could pat me on the arm.

I got to my feet and began to pace, tension singing through me from head to toe. Everything
wasn’t
fine. Tristan was in the thick of it, and the constant bombardment was making me physically ill. I’d wretched up everything I’d eaten for breakfast, and now I was dizzy and tired.

A deep sense of reluctance filled my core and my mouth tasted abruptly sour. I shoved one of the mint leaves Gran had given me into my mouth and chewed furiously.

Then a jolt of panic hit me and I staggered, Victoria catching hold of my arm. “Something’s happened,” I said. “Something’s not right.”

In the distance, explosions of bright color filled the sky and Victoria swore. “That’s Marc. Trianon’s under attack.”

Chris ran into camp right as the earth began to tremble. “Earthshake,” Chris shouted, but as I was thrown to the ground, I knew that wasn’t it. Trees toppled as the intensity increased, and my ears popped with the sound of an enormous thunderclap.

I pushed up on my hands and knees in time to see Chris point and say, “God in heaven, what is that?” A white cloud of mist roared toward us like an ocean wave, and as it passed over our heads, a wall of heat hit my face, turning what snow remained on the trees to water.

“Is Roland attacking Trianon?” my gran asked, her face pale.

“Wrong way,” Chris said, helping me up, both of us swaying as the ground shook again. “That cloud came from the direction of Triaucourt.” His eyes went to mine and I nodded, trying to keep my fear in check. “Tristan’s fighting Roland.”

I grasped Martin’s shoulders. “You need to figure out your fey magic, we need to see what’s happening.”

“I can’t! I don’t know how.” There were tears on his face, but I didn’t care, because Tristan was in trouble, and I didn’t know how I could help him. “Try harder,” I screamed.

He shoved me away, and I fell into Chris’s arms. “I can’t!” he shouted. “You might have cured me, but you didn’t fix the problem, because I can’t go back. I can’t feel the press of the worlds. There is no connection.”

Can’t feel… No connection.

I struggled out of Chris’s grasp. “The Élixir,” I demanded. “Where is it?”

Martin blinked at me, then fumbled at his robes. “It’s gone,” he said. “It’s not here.”

My heart was racing, Tristan’s panic mixing with my own. “Did Angoulême take it? Think!”

“I don’t know, I don’t know.” He tore at the pockets of his robes, and I swore. Because the robes weren’t real – they were a manifestation of his magic. His real robes lay in a heap in the tent. I only prayed the vial was with it.

I sprinted across the camp, stumbling as the ground shuddered, falling through the tent flaps to land on my knees. Martin’s blood-stained clothing was in a heap in the corner, and I rifled through it.

“Please be here, please be here,” I muttered. Then my fingers brushed against something cold, and I jerked the vial free from the fabric.

I threw myself out of the tent and nearly collided with Martin. “Drink it,” I said. “Now.”

“But why?”

I was shaking, my fear so intense I barely kept control over my body. “It binds. That’s what the magic does. Not just hearts and emotions, but worlds. Drink it – drink it now.”

Snatching the vial out of my hand, he tore open the stopper and poured the contents down his throat. The noise of the battle faded into white noise as I watched him. As I waited. “Did it work?”

Instead of answering, he slashed one hand through the air, tearing a hole in the world’s fabric.

A sense of relief filled me, but it was short-lived.

The view through the portal was of Trianon, and all of us forgot the battle being waged between Tristan and his brother.

“Stones and bloody sky,” Chris whispered.

The walls of Trianon still held, and I could see the half-bloods standing atop them, but that wasn’t the source of our horror. Surrounding the city was a teeming horde of people some thirty feet deep – more at the gate – every one of them fighting to get inside. They were pushing and shoving, some crawling over heads and shoulders while others were on their hands and knees, digging into the earth. There were bodies on the ground, some still, some writhing in pain, but man, woman, or child, no one stopped to help.

“What are they so afraid of to behave this way?” Martin asked.

“They are the islanders who were forced to swear loyalty to Roland,” I said, icy sweat dribbling down my spine. “He’s commanded them to breach the walls.”

Chris picked up a rock and threw it against a tree, staggering as the ground trembled again. “This wasn’t supposed to be their plan,” he shouted. “We were supposed to have time. Roland was supposed to march with them. If we’d known, if I’d known–” He broke off, dropping to his knees and burying his face in his hands.

“More and more keep arriving,” Victoria said, pushing me out of her way so that she could get a better view. “Where are they all coming from?”

“Does it matter?” I demanded.

“Yes.” She waved her hand through Martin’s misty form. “Earn your salt, fey, and go do some reconnaissance.”

Martin crawled through the small opening and disappeared.

“Victoria,” I whispered, my tone causing her to look at me sharply. It was taking every ounce of control I had to keep from breaking down, from letting everyone know just how dire the situation was. I stared into her silver eyes:
he’s not winning.

Her jaw tightened and she gave a slight nod. Then Martin reappeared. “There’s a highway of magic stretched between Courville and a beach just outside of Trianon,” he said, squeezing back through the hole. “It’s covered in skiffs filled with humans – hundreds of them!”

“Of humans?” Chris demanded.

Martin shook his head, eyes wild. “Hundreds of skiffs.”

Which meant thousands of people out over open water entirely at Roland’s mercy. Once again we’d underestimated Angoulême’s ingenuity: he hadn’t fallen into our trap. We’d fallen into his.

I
ran
like I had never before. Roland’s magic hammered against my shields, knocking me to my knees and leveling the forest, leaving nothing but smoking ruins and steam.

I couldn’t kill him, not with a city full of civilians balanced precariously on his magic.

I couldn’t flee, not without risking him dumping half of them into the ocean to lure me back.

There was no option but for me to engage. I kept to the coast, sending out feelers of magic deep into the water to test the steadiness of Roland’s bridge. It was solid. That’s why he’d been sighted standing on the beach: not because he’d been fascinated with the water, but because he’d been building, preparing, for this moment. Holding up those thousands of people was costing him nothing, but if he dropped them and I had to catch them, it would cost me everything.

Cutting down onto the sand, I risked a glance out to sea and confirmed my hope. The skiffs were moving, propelled by a dozen or so trolls that no doubt had been responsible for forcing the people into the wooden craft in the first place. All I had to do was keep him engaged until they were across. Never mind that it might take them hours.

Skidding to a halt, I turned, waiting for Roland to cusp the hill so that I could launch an attack of my own.

His short legs were pumping hard as he came into sight, tear-streaked face a twisted mixture of wrath and desperation, and never in my life had I hated Angoulême more. Who did this to a child? Who used an eight year-old boy as a tool to slaughter their enemies, especially when said enemies were the boy’s own family members?

But conflicted or not, Roland didn’t hesitate to attack. Our powers collided with thunderclaps that shook the earth, explosions of heat melting snow for miles around. His strategy was nearly as mindless as my mother’s had been, but as with her, his total disregard for his own safety or the destruction he was causing allowed him to channel more power into his offensive.

Not that it should matter: he was eight. A child. A decade from realizing the potential of his power.

He struck again, and my magic shuddered violently. Again, and my heel slipped. Again, and I had to take a step backward or risk falling.

A wicked little smile blossomed on his face, and fear twisted up my spine like a snake. Contrary to popular opinion, I was not the most powerful troll living.

Not even close.