Stolen Songbird: Malediction Trilogy Book One (The Malediction Trilogy) (36 page)

“When King Xavier broke the hole the waterfall came through, he had not estimated the level of flow accurately enough and the River Road couldn’t contain the water. Trollus flooded and he ordered a path blasted through so that it would flood the parade ground instead. The water seeps through the rocks at the far end, but I doubt anything much larger than a river trout could make it all the way to the ocean.”

Taking me by the hand, he led me down the steps to the edge of the dark lake waters. A small boat was tethered to a stone pillar, and once I was settled, he untied it and jumped in next to me. The gentle current soon caught hold of the boat, and we drifted slowly across the lake. It might have been romantic, if not for our mutual anxiety. He had brought me here for a purpose.

I arranged the piles of pillows around me, waiting for Tristan to speak.

“I come here when I want to be alone,” he finally said. “To think, or to sleep, sometimes. And because it is a good reminder for me.”

Light flared, illuminating the structure and revealing walls carved and painted with scenes of war. Time had faded many of the images, but not enough to completely wash away the pictures of destruction and carnage. I stared at the legions of troll soldiers, men and women, their faces beautiful but cruel. Toppled cities, piles of corpses, humans groveling at the feet of their troll overlords. Humans in chains, bleeding and emaciated, their eyes downcast and devoid of hope.

I shivered, wrapping my velvet cloak tightly around me. “I read those history books you showed me, Tristan. I am not unaware of your dark past, and I realize that you think the curse is the only thing preventing history from revisiting itself on the world.”

“If you know all of this,” he gestured at the walls, “then why does it feel like you are pushing me to find a way to break it. Bloody stones, Cécile, if we are set free, all you will be accomplishing is replacing those faces with those of your friends and family. Is that what you want?”

“Do you think I haven’t considered that possibility?” I snapped, those exact images rising up in my mind. “Do you think it doesn’t terrify me?” I forced my hands to relax from their clenched grip, smoothing my sweating palms against my skirts. “The difference between us, Tristan, is that I don’t see the future as set in stone. It has been hundreds of years! The trolls who committed those crimes are long since dead, and I don’t think those living today should have to continue to pay for their sins.”

“No, you think they should be released to commit their own.”

“Why are you so convinced they will?”

“Do you honestly believe that if the curse was broken tomorrow that my father would be any better than them?” Tristan pressed his fingers against his temples in obvious frustration. “The desire for vengeance might very well make him worse than his predecessors.”

“I know that,” I said, leaning towards him. “That’s why we wait until he’s dead. We wait until you are king. Because I know
you
wouldn’t do those things.”

Tristan looked away. “You overestimate the power I have over them. I cannot control the actions of every one of my people, and even if I could, I am not immortal. All it would take is one angry troll to slaughter hundreds of humans. Thousands even. And that blood would be on my hands, because I would be the one who unleashed him.”

“But what if you made them all promise not to?” I asked. “A carefully worded oath that would check any chance of violence.”

A sharp laugh was my answer. “And who would they make this promise to?”

“You?”

“Ah.” His eyes flicked up to meet mine. “Do you know what the best way for a troll to get out of a promise is?” He didn’t wait for my answer. “To kill the one you made the promise to. I’d be a walking target – I wouldn’t last a week.”

“Then make them promise not to!”

He shook his head. “Then they would kill you. And if I made them promise not to, one of them would pay a human to do it. Trying to control them that way doesn’t work.”

I winced and stared down at my hands, trying not to let the futility of his words take me over. “Regardless. I think you underestimate them,” I said softly. “I know I haven’t been here a long time, but from what I’ve seen, most trolls do not desire violence and oppression – they’ve seen enough of it and that’s why they are fighting for change now. It wouldn’t just be you keeping the few bad apples in check, it would be everyone.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Tristan made a sharp sound of disgust. “What then? The witch may well have saved humanity with her curse. And in breaking it, we may well be sacrificing it. If the curse is broken, your kind will lose the only power they ever had over mine.”

“But at what cost?” I argued. “There has to be a better solution.”

“The witch found the only solution. I will not undo her work.”

I stared at him, aghast. “You make her sound like she is some sort of saint, but let me assure you, she is not.” I searched his stony expression. “Why do you insist on believing trolls are so evil?” And why did he seem so bent on proving he’d been painted with the same malevolent brush?

Tristan twisted away from my scrutiny, and the lights surrounding us blinked out, leaving only my own to light our passage across the lake. “I think it is in our nature to be selfish, and in our capacity to do a great many evil things,” he eventually said.

“There are evil humans,” I argued. “And I don’t see you suggesting we be all locked up in a cave.”

“How much damage can one human do? Even the Regent of Trianon, who commands a great army, could do nothing compared to one of us. One troll could reduce Trianon to rubble and kill all of its inhabitants. His magic could protect him not only from blades, but stop a bullet shot directly at him. Not even a cannon ball has the force to break through our shields.”

“But why would a troll want to do those things?” My words sounded pitiful in the face of his logic. He was right. Trolls had the potential for great destruction. But I did not see evil as part of their nature. “Not all of them are Angoulême!”

“But enough of them are,” he said, gently. “And I can’t execute hundreds of my people because of what I think they might do, Cécile. It’s better this way. Once we gain control over Trollus and I can complete my plans, it will be possible to live here without magic. Perhaps as generations pass, the troll blood will become diluted enough by humans that the witch’s curse will no longer be effective.” He took my hands in his. “We are too powerful for this world – it is better that we remain caged.”

“Too powerful for this world because you don’t belong here,” I said, pulling out of his grasp. “Maybe you should go back where you belong.”

Tristan grew very still. “We can’t. Otherwise I would send them all back in an instant.”

My breath caught. I had not expected him to be frank. “Where?”

“Here, but not here. The in-between place of shadow and light.”

“Well, that’s certainly vague.” I scowled at him. “Does it have a name?”

He nodded gravely. “It does, but it’s better you don’t know it. There is power in a name, and I’d rather not bring their attention down on us at the moment.”

“Who?” I demanded. “Are there other trolls there?”

“Yes, although I suspect they’d object to being called so.” He grimaced. “Humans were the ones to first call us trolls and we encouraged the moniker because it held no power over us. But it is not what we are.”

I pressed my hands to my temples. “What are you then?”

Tristan shook his head. “It is best that you don’t know.”

Always with the secrets. It seemed he knew everything there was to know about me, but every time I peeled back a layer of his mystery, another lay beneath. It made me angry that he always kept me in the dark. He seemed to think it was for my own good, but I wasn’t a child. I deserved the truth. Whether because of the look on my face or the anger he sensed from me, Tristan started talking.

“Those of our kind have always been able to move between worlds or wherever we pleased, and usually caused a fair bit of trouble wherever we went,” he said. “Fourteen hundred years ago, my ancestors came to this place, the Isle de Lumière, and fell in love with the gold.” He thought about it for a minute. “Love isn’t even the right word. Obsession is probably better. But they could not bring it back with them. There is no gold in… where they were from.”

Reaching into his pocket, Tristan pulled out a gold coin, turning it over in his hand. “Neither, as it turns out, was there iron. But here, there is iron in everything. In the water. In the plants and animals we eat. In your blood.” His eyes flickered away from the coin to meet mine. “They discovered they had been here so long that they couldn’t go back. The iron infecting their bodies wouldn’t allow it. And in staying, they lost their immortality.”

He pulled back the sleeves of his coat and shirt, revealing the scars on his arm – the only scars he had at all. “We are sensitive to iron still. Injuries caused by steel heal slowly. If they are bad enough, we can bleed to death.”

I clapped a hand over my mouth. “I’m so sorry – I didn’t know.”

He grinned. “Despite what you might think, I’m not so vain as to prefer death over a few scars.” But the smile was short lived, slipping from his face as he placed the coin back in his pocket. “Bound to this world, they set to conquering and enslaving its inhabitants. They were unstoppable until that fateful day that Anushka brought down the mountain.”

I frowned. “What about all the trolls who weren’t here? What happened to them?”

“Almost every troll was,” Tristan said. “It was King Alexis’s birthday. But those who were not found themselves inexplicably drawn back to Trollus until everyone was bound within its confines.”

“And what about your nameless brethren from the nameless place you come from? Do they still visit this world?”

“They dare not. Coming to this world means getting caught up in the curse. But they are watching.”

“Ah.” I stared into the depths of the dark water, understanding sinking in. He wasn’t protecting me by keeping the knowledge secret, he was protecting himself. From me. “So Anushka knew the real name of your kind. And because of what she did with it, you don’t trust me enough to tell it.”

“Yes.” He said it so simply, the admission that he did not wholly trust me, and it stung.

“The sluag,” I said, pushing aside the hurt. “They come from there too?”

He nodded. “Yes, although they are minions of the dark court. It’s possible they followed us here on their own, but I suspect
she
sent them. And keeps sending them, which is why we can’t seem to get rid of the damn things.”

“She?”

He traced a finger around the hilt of the sword, obviously considering how much he wanted to tell me. “The in-between spaces is ruled by two courts. My many-times-great uncle is the King of Summer.
She
is the Queen of Winter.”

A shiver ran through me, and I swore I could smell the scent of ice and frost on the air. A memory tickled the back of my mind, but for the life of me, I could not bring it into focus. “I assume she must remain nameless.”

His fingers tightened around the hilt.

“You say there is power in a name, but I know yours and it doesn’t seem to do me any good.”

The silence hung long and heavy. But I could feel his guilt.

“Or not.” My voice cracked and I clenched my teeth.

He sucked in a breath. “You know what I am called, but not the name that binds me.”

I recoiled away from him to the far end of the boat, but it wasn’t far enough. “Take me back,” I hissed. “I’ve had enough of this – I don’t care to be near you right now. I am tired of your deception.”

“Cécile, please.” He reached for me, but I clambered to my feet, causing the boat to rock wildly. “I’ll swim back if you don’t turn the boat around.”

He withdrew his arm. “Please, Cécile, let me explain.”

I watched him warily.

“If you knew my true name, you would have complete and utter control of me,” he said softly. “You’d be able to compel me to do whatever you wished, and I would have no choice but to do what you ordered, whether that be to slaughter one or slaughter thousands. I would have no liberty – I would be your slave.” He grimaced. “I’d be a weapon.”

“And is that what you think of me,” I replied, gripping the edge of the boat for balance. “That I would use you that way?”

His shoulders trembled. “I don’t know!” The water of the lake surged and the boat plunged up and down, threatening to overturn.

I fell to my knees on the cushions. “Tristan!”

He jerked, looking around as if surprised at what he had done. Then he bowed his head. “I’m sorry.” The water stilled, becoming as smooth as glass, the effect managing to be somehow more frightening than the waves. “I wish I was not what I am.” His voice was twisted with anguish. “I wish I was not who I am. I wish I had met you in different circumstances, in a place far away from here, where there was no magic, politics, and deception. Somewhere where things could be different between us. I wish I was someone else.”

He raised his head. “But I am what and who I am, and all the wishes in the world will not change that.”

All my anger fled and I sank down onto the pillows, my fingers twisting the tassels on one of them as his words sank in. And with them came the understanding of the enormous responsibility that came not with his birth or position, but with
what
he was. And there was nothing that could change that. Yet still I had to ask. “How do you wish things were between us?”

One corner of his mouth turned up. “How can you ask that? You know how I feel – you feel what I feel.”

I shook my head. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell what emotions are mine and what are yours. There were times that I thought maybe you…” I sighed. “But then I’d decide it was my own wishful thinking.”