Stolen Songbird
Page 38

“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.”
“I did.” His voice cracked and he swallowed hard. “From the beginning, I wanted you. But that first night – you looked at me like I was a monster. You were terrified that I was going to make you…” He broke off, his face tightening.
“And later.” He sighed. “Being around you was the sweetest torture. I wanted to touch you, hold you, kiss you. I wanted all of you.” His shoulders slumped. “But I was afraid of what would happen if I gave in to my desire. If I let myself love you.”
“You were afraid it would break the curse?”
“That was only part of it.” I barely heard him speak his voice was so quiet. “I was afraid… I am afraid of loving you, knowing that someday you will go and leave me here.”
I shuddered, blinking fast to hold back tears. “That’s not how it’s supposed to be.” It certainly wasn’t how I’d imagined it. In my mind’s eye, I had always thought of us gaining freedom together. Walking out into the sun together. But that wasn’t what Tristan envisioned – he saw me leaving on my own and never turning back.
“There were so many things I wanted to show you,” I whispered. “Things you have never seen.”
“What sort of things?” he asked softly.
I thought about it for a moment. “I wanted you to see the world as it changes through the year, not the perpetual sameness it is here.”
“Describe it to me? Tell me about winter.”
I lay back on the silken cushions, closed my eyes, and remembered. “My father’s farm is far enough up the mountain slopes that in winter, the snow can pile so deep that only trees and houses stick out. Tiny flakes of ice fall from the sky and melt on the tip of your tongue. On the most bitterly cold days, the air is at its clearest and you can see for leagues, all around.”
The boat rocked as he shifted, my skirts pressing down against my legs as he knelt over me, his weight pressing my h*ps into the cushions. The clasp of my cloak opened with a click, the velvet soft against my skin as he pushed it back, baring my shoulders. His fingers trailed over my collarbone, leaving hot flames of desire in their wake. I felt his breath, warm against my throat, and I gasped, my heart beating so hard I was certain he could hear it. “And spring?” he whispered in my ear, his hair brushing softly against my cheek.
A smile curved over my lips. “The days get warmer, bit by bit. The sun shines. The snow starts to melt, and water runs in rivulets down the icicles hanging from the eaves. Bits of green start to poke through the snow and buds form on the tree branches. Then, in what seems like an instant, all the snow is gone and replaced by lush grass greener than any emerald, more vibrant than anything an artist could paint. The rainstorms come, blocking out the sun and turning midday to dusk. Lightning flashes across the sky and thunder echoes across the mountains. The spring rain comes down so hard and heavy that it soaks you to the bone in an instant, and the seas boil with the ferocity of the winds.”
Tristan’s lips brushed against the pulse in my throat, and it felt like I had my own storm raging inside of me. My whole body trembled as he kissed a line of fire up my neck, to my jaw, and then rested his cheek against mine. “Summer?”
“I can’t remember,” I murmured, my mind a chaos of emotion.
“Yes, you can.” His fingers ran up my sides, separated from my skin by only a thin layer of silk.
I squeezed my eyelids tighter and tried to think, tried to visualize the land, but all I could see in my mind’s eye was Tristan. All I could feel was passion, both mine and his, burning like a beacon on a starless night. I wanted him, needed him. Nothing else would satisfy the hunger building low in my belly.
“Flowers,” I whispered. “Fields of wildflowers, every color of the rainbow. The animals grow shiny and fat and the fields of wheat grow tall and golden. The warmth drives away the memory of winter and the air is so heady and wet that each breath is like a drink of water. And the sun.” My voice trembled and I wrapped my arms around his neck, burying my fingers in his hair. “The sun rises every morning like a god on fire, flushing your skin pink, giving life to everything, until he disappears beyond the horizon every night.”
Behind my closed lids, my eyes stung and I bit my lip. Tristan stroked my hair and I opened my eyes, staring into his soul, which was filled with all the sympathy, sorrow, and longing that I felt in my heart. For what I had lost. For what he had never had. And for what he never would have, if I did what he’d asked and abandoned my quest to break the curse.
“I love you, Cécile,” he said, and my breath caught. It was one thing to feel it, and quite another to hear the words from his lips.
He kissed me, gently at first, and then harder as his control vanished. My lips parted, and the kiss deepened, opening up a floodgate of heat that tore through my body. Rational thought slipped away, and all that was left was need and desire. I felt his hands on me and I tore at his coat, pulled off his shirt and dug my fingers into the hard muscles lining his back, felt his breath hot and ragged against my lips and at the plunging neckline of my dress. The air was cold against my legs as my skirts rode up, and I wrapped my ankles around him, pulling him down against me. All I wanted was him. And I wanted everything.