chapter 7

Light flared and I looked over my shoulder. Tristan knelt on the far side of the altar, one hand gripping the edge for support. “What have you done to me?” I choked out. There was something invading my thoughts. He was in my mind – his emotions, burning hotter and brighter than my own.

His eyes met mine. Misery and shame built in the back of my skull until I half forgot my own fear. “Stop!” I screamed, my voice rising above the thunder of the river. “Get out!”

Tristan turned away from me.

“Did it work?” More troll-lights blazed and the King was next to me, his thick fingers digging into my wrist. He examined my hand, which now bore a mysterious silver lace pattern, and then let go of me, the corners of his mouth creeping up. His attention turned to Tristan, who was watching him much as a mouse does a snake. “Did you bond her?”

“Yes.” The word was flat, emotionless.

Triumph flashed across the King’s face. “Check the River Road!” he bellowed, charging over the invisible bridge, his son forgotten.

“What have you done to me?” I repeated. “What did he mean about you bonding me?”

Tristan rested his forehead against the altar. “I didn’t do anything more to you than you did to me.”

“What does that mean?” I asked precisely, with venom.

Tristan looked up, a faint smile on his face. “Old magic, neither troll nor human, although we’ve made use of it over the years. It bonded us, or linked our minds, if you prefer.”

“I would prefer the bond ended,” I hissed. “Or better yet, never happened at all.”

“In this, we are of an accord, dearest wife. However, it is something we must both learn to live with.”

He grimaced and climbed to his feet. “Until one of us ceases to draw breath, one heart stills, one body is consigned to dust. Or in less poetic terms, a bloody long time.” Leaving me to scramble to my own feet, he fixed his attention on the mob of trolls making their way to the far end of the valley. “Unless, of course, this doesn’t work,” he said softly and half to himself. “Then we may not have long to wait at all.”

“If what doesn’t work?” I shouted, seizing hold of his arm. “Quit talking in circles and explain what is going on and what any of it has to do with me.”

Tristan ignored both tugging and words, his eyes fixed down the valley. His anticipation grew in my mind. Anticipation and fear. My own anxiety growing, I turned my attention to the hoard of trolls standing in front of the wall of rock at the end of the city.

We waited for what seemed like an eternity, then, abruptly, a collective groan of disappointment passed through the throng of trolls. Tristan did not echo them. His face was expressionless, but I sensed his relief and elation.

“Did it work?” I asked, heartily wishing someone would explain what it was.

“No,” Tristan said. “It didn’t.” He tore his gaze away from the mass of trolls and took my arm. “We should probably hide you out of the way – he isn’t going to be best pleased.” In the faint light I could see that fights were beginning to break out in the crowd, but instead of fists, the trolls struck invisible blows with magic. Screams echoed through the cavern and the air grew blisteringly hot.

“Not that it will matter if they kill you first,” Tristan growled over the noise. “Establish curfew,” he shouted at the guards surrounding us. “Get the half-bloods back under control!”

“We need to get out of here.” Tristan bolted across the invisible bridge, but when I tried to follow, my feet got tangled in the damp fabric of my skirts, slowing me down. I thought he would keep going and leave me to the crowd, but he was back in an instant. Snatching up the train of my skirt, he tore the thick fabric as easily as if it were paper and tossed it into the river. Then he grabbed hold of my wrist. “Run!”

We stopped running once we reached the safety of the palace walls; then Tristan dropped my arm and stepped ahead of me. I scurried after him through the maze of palace corridors with no small amount of difficulty. Even without the train, the skirts on my dress were heavy and prone to tangling up my feet. Pride kept me from asking him to slow down and fear kept me from falling behind. It was made all the worse by Tristan’s anxiety pressing hard in my skull. If he was afraid, what did that mean for me?

Once I was thoroughly turned about, Tristan finally opened a door and pulled me into a room I recognized as the one where we had first met. He went immediately to the sideboard and, to my surprise, bypassed the decanter of wine and poured himself a glass of water instead. He guzzled the liquid down and poured another. “Wine?” he asked.

“I’d prefer an explanation.”

He gave me a curious look. “I suppose there is no way you could know.”

Passing a tired hand across his face, he nodded. “Fine. We are cursed, and by we, I mean trolls, not you and me; although perhaps you might consider yourself so. Nearly five centuries ago, a human witch broke the mountain in two, burying Trollus in rock. Through magic, we were able to keep the city from being crushed; but suffice it to say, it took a significant length of time to dig a way out, only for the trolls to discover that the witch had cursed them to the confines of Trollus for as long as she drew breath.”

“If your ancestors were half as irritating as you are, I can understand why.”

Tristan glowered. “This is no laughing matter, Cécile.”

“Why not?” I said. “You think everything else is.”

“We’ve known each other the space of three hours and already she thinks she knows me,” Tristan muttered. “Do you want the rest of the story, or not?”

“As I was saying, all of those trolls and their descendants have been trapped within the confines of the city for the past five hundred years, while you humans carried on your merry way above. Three weeks ago, my aunt – you may remember her, tiny woman, practically inseparable from my mother – anyway, she has the gift of foresight. She foretold that when a prince of night bonded a daughter of the sun, the curse would be broken.”

“I’m the daughter of the sun,” I said, my mind racing.

“Far cleverer than you appear.” Tristan stuck his head out into the hallway and looked both ways before slamming the door shut.

“But the magic didn’t work. You bonded me and the curse is still in place.”

“Correct again. Remind me to choose you for my team if we ever play charades. I like a stacked team.”

“But how does the curse work?” I envisioned trolls turning into stone and crumbling to dust once they passed out of the darkness and into the sun.

Tristan went to a drawer, removed something, and handed it to me. It was a small sphere of glass and, inside, what appeared to be a highly detailed miniature version of the city of Trollus. “It is like being enclosed in an impenetrable glass bubble,” he said. “One that humans and animals and water can pass through, but which we cannot. As if pulling a mountain down on our heads wasn’t enough.” He muttered the last bit under his breath.

The sound of boots coming down the hall caught both our attentions.

“Hide in here.” Tristan pushed me into a small closet. “Be silent – your life may depend on your discretion.” The lock clicked shut. Kneeling down, I peered through the keyhole and waited.

I didn’t wait long. The door slammed open, the King’s bulk filling the frame as he passed through. Tristan’s anxiety spiked, but to his credit, he didn’t even flinch. I wished desperately that the bond would allow me to read his mind, but despite my best efforts, all I felt were his emotions. And even then, it was hard for me to decipher what was mine and what was his.

“Never mind her,” Tristan said, “I’ve got her locked up safe.”

“Good, good,” his father replied, rubbing his hands together. He was breathing hard, and big drops of sweat beaded and ran down his fleshy jowls. I half expected his heart to blow out of his chest, and I didn’t feel at all bad for wishing it would.

Tristan poured his father a glass of wine. “From what I gather, all did not go as planned.”

An understatement, if I had ever heard one.

The King took a long swallow of the red liquid. “No.”

Tristan hung his head. “You are disappointed, I expect.”

“I’ve gone through a great deal today and still the curse remains. How do you think I feel?” Tristan answered without hesitation.

The King eyed his son with critical interest, considering his words. The glass drained, he motioned for Tristan to pour him another. “What do you propose?”

“I propose,” Tristan said, pouring the wine nearly to the rim, “that we bind her with oaths swearing her to secrecy and send her on her merry way.”

“Or we could just cut off her head. The dead, as they say, tell no tales.”

My blood ran cold and I had to clamp a hand over my mouth to keep from gasping aloud. Tristan’s apprehension rose, but the shrug he gave his father told another story. “You could, although given that I’ve just been bonded to her, the process would cause me no small amount of discomfort.”

“Attached to the little thing already?” the King smirked, the chair he settled into groaning beneath his weight.

“She was brought here to serve a purpose,” Tristan scoffed. “What I am attached to is my life. You know the risks.”

The King chortled at this and his son laughed along with him. Tristan’s words were surprisingly painful to me – not that I had any reason to expect anything different. I’d been brought to Trollus to lift the curse – and I’d failed. Why should he care what happened to me now? But why would my death jeopardize his life?

“As it turns out,” the King said, laughter cutting off abruptly, “she’ll be neither leaving nor dying.”

Tristan froze, and this time the shock on his face matched that in his mind. “Pardon?”

“Your aunt believes it premature for me to give up on her fulfilling the prophesy. She proposes we keep her around for a while longer, and that you should treat her as any man does his wife. We need to give the people some form of hope or who knows what sort of trouble they’ll cause.”

Tristan blanched. “You can’t be serious?”

The King raised one eyebrow.

“She’s a human.”

“I noticed.” The King took another mouthful of wine, leaving a red stain on his upper lip.

“You want me to…”

“Yes. You’ve bonded her, and now you shall bed her. I can’t say I relish the idea of a bunch of half-bloods running about the royal nursery, but quite frankly, I’d breed you to a sheep if that is what it took to break the witch’s blasted malediction. You’re seventeen years old, time to man-up.”

“I don’t care for mutton.” Tristan crossed his arms. “It’s too tough.”

“Well then count your lucky stars that your dear Cécile isn’t a sheep,” the King said, climbing to his feet. “I’m certain you’ll find her markedly more tender.”

I pressed back against the closet, bile rising in my throat. They were discussing me as though I had no more value than a side of meat, and… My mind refused to delve any further into what else they were discussing.

“This isn’t a debate, Tristan. This is an order – do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Tristan said, plainly out of glib retorts.

His father patted him on the shoulder. “It will be worth the cost once you are outside in the sun – just imagine, eventually you’ll rule lands wider than the eyes can see.”

“Who wouldn’t want that?”

The King nodded, satisfied. “Good lad.”

As the door shut behind him, I let out a huge gust of breath that I hadn’t noticed I’d been holding. “Tristan,” I whispered. “Get me out of here.”

He didn’t move from where he sat on the arm of a chair.

He looked up, his troll-light casting eerie shadows on his face. “I’ll send someone to let you out,” he said. “I need to…” He got to his feet and, ignoring my pleas, left the room.

The knot of emotion residing in my mind did not depart with him. Resting my head against the closet door, I attempted to thrust aside my own feelings to better focus on his. Which was an exercise of frustration. He was unhappy, that much I could say, but it was hard to pick specifics out of the seething stew of emotion. And what good was knowing specifics anyway? What good was knowing how he felt? What possible advantage could such a connection give me?

Tired, sore, and more than a little scared, I settled on the floor. My skirts rustled as I arranged them to make myself comfortable. I could probably have picked the lock, but there seemed no point. The closet was darker than the darkest of nights and the room no better. I could not escape without light, and that would be hard to come by in this place.

I needed to get away. Any hope the trolls would let me go had been dashed by the conversation I had just overheard. The King intended to keep me in Trollus indefinitely, and he had expectations of what I would do while I was here. At best, I was an instrument for breaking a curse, and at worst, a broodmare for what they called half-bloods. The very idea made me shiver. It wasn’t Tristan who repulsed me – despite the fact he wasn’t human, he was handsome, and if I were being honest with myself, the strange drink they’d given me had drawn out stirrings of desire I would gladly do without. Clearly the same had not occurred for him. To him, I was little better than a sheep. And the idea of spending the rest of my life with someone who was disgusted by me made me cringe. Because I would never be able to escape it – even standing on far sides of the city, I would still be able to feel it.

I leaned my head against the shelves, exhaustion starting to take hold of me. Only as I started to drift off to sleep did it occur to me: if the trolls had been trying to break the curse for five hundred years, why had Tristan been so happy when we failed?