Torn

“I understand that. ” He sat up, crossing his legs underneath him as he turned to face me. “But learning to harness your power isn’t a bad thing. ”

  “I’m stronger than Duncan, right?”

  “Yes, of course. ” Tove nodded.

  “Then why is Duncan guarding me?” I asked. “If I’m more powerful. ”

  “Because he’s more expendable,” Tove replied simply. I must’ve looked appalled, because Tove hurried to explain. “That’s the way the Queen sees it. The way Trylle society sees it. And … if I’m being really honest, I agree with them. ”

  “You can’t really believe that my life has more value simply because I’m a Princess?” I asked. “The trackers are living in squalor, and we expect them to die for us. ”

  “They’re not living in squalor, but you’re right. The system is totally messed up,” Tove said. “Trackers are born into a lifetime of debt simply because they’re born here, and not left somewhere out in the world collecting an inheritance. They are indentured servants, which is just a polite name for slaves. And that is not right at all. ”

  It wasn’t until Tove said it that I realized that’s exactly what it was. The trackers were little more than slaves. I felt sick.

  “But you do need guards,” Tove went on. “Every leader in the free world has bodyguards of some kind. Even pop stars have them. It’s not a horrible thing. ”

  “Yes, but in the free world, the bodyguards are hired. They choose it,” I said. “They’re not forced. ”

  “You think Duncan was forced? Or Finn?” Tove asked. “They both volunteered for this. Everyone did. Protecting you is a great honor. Besides that, living in the palace is a sweet deal. ”

  “I don’t want anyone getting hurt over me,” I said and looked directly at him.

  “Good. ” His mouth curled up into a smirk. “Then learn to defend yourself. Move the tarp. ”

  I stood up, preparing to conquer the tarp once and for all, but a blaring siren interrupted everything.

  “You hear that, right?” Tove asked, cocking his head at me.

  “Yeah, of course!” I shouted to be heard over it.

  “Making sure it wasn’t just me,” Tove said.

  That made me wonder what it sounded like inside his head. I knew he heard things everybody else didn’t hear, but if that included things like blaring sirens, I understood why he always seemed so distracted.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “Fire alarm, maybe?” Tove shrugged and stood up. “Let’s go check it out. ”

  Page 34

  I put my hands over my ears and followed him out of the ballroom. We’d barely made it out into the hallway when the alarm stopped blaring, but my ears kept ringing. We were in the south wing, where business was conducted, and a few of the Queen’s associates were out in the hall, looking around.

  “Why is that blasted thing going off?” Elora shouted from the front hall. Her words echoed from inside my head too, and I hated how she did that mind-speak thing when she was angry.

  I couldn’t hear the answer to her question, but there was definitely a commotion going on. Grunting, yelling, slamming, fighting. Something was going down in the rotunda. Tove kept walking without hesitation, so I picked up my pace.

  “Where did you find him?” Elora asked, but this time I couldn’t hear her inside my head. But we were close enough to the front hall that she sounded quite loud.

  “He was hanging around the perimeter,” Duncan said, and I hurried at the sound of his voice. I wasn’t sure what he’d gotten himself into, but it couldn’t be good. “He’d knocked out one of the guards when I saw him. ”

  When I reached the front hall, Elora was standing halfway down the curved staircase. She had on a long dressing gown, so I assumed she’d been lying down with another one of her migraines when the alarm went off. Rubbing her temple, she surveyed the room with her usual disdain.

  The front doors were still wide open, letting an early snowfall blow in. A group of guards were in a struggle in the center of the rotunda, and the wind gusted in, shaking the chandelier above them. Duncan stood off to the side, much to my relief, because the fight did not seem to be going well.

  At least five or six guards were trying to tackle someone in the middle. A couple of the guards were really huge muscular dudes too, and they couldn’t seem to get a handle on this guy. I couldn’t get a good look at him because he kept slipping between them.

  “Enough!” Elora shouted, and a pain pierced my skull.

  Tove put both his hands to his head, pressing against it hard, and continued to do so even after the pain in my head stopped.

  The guards backed off as Elora commanded, leaving ample room for the guy in the center, and I finally saw what all the fuss was about. His back was to me, but he was the only troll I’d seen with hair that light.

  “Loki?” I said, more surprised than anything, and he turned to me.

  “Princess. ” He gave me a lopsided smirk, and his eyes sparkled.

  “You know him?” Elora asked, her words dripping with venom.

  “Yeah. I mean, no,” I said.

  “Come, now, Princess, we’re old friends. ” Loki winked at me. He turned to Elora, attempting to give her his most winning smile, and spread his arms wide. “We’re all friends here, aren’t we, Your Highness?”

  Elora narrowed her eyes at him, and Loki suddenly collapsed to his knees. He made a horrible guttural sound and clenched his stomach.

  “Stop!” I yelled and ran toward him. At the same time, the front door slammed shut and the chandelier above shook.

  Elora took her eyes off him to glare at me, but fortunately, she didn’t cause me to writhe in pain. I stopped before I reached Loki. He’d doubled over, his forehead resting against the marble floor. I could hear him gasping for breath, and he turned his head away from me so I couldn’t see how much pain he was in.

  “Why on earth would I stop?” Elora asked. She had one hand on the banister, and her knuckles grew white as her grip tightened. “This troll was trying to break in. Isn’t that right, Duncan?”

  “Yes. ” Duncan sounded uncertain, and his eyes flitted over to me for a second. “I believe he was, at least. He looked … suspicious. ”

  “Suspicious behavior doesn’t give you carte blanche to torture someone!” I yelled at her, and her expression only got stonier. I knew I wasn’t helping the situation, but I couldn’t contain myself.

  “He’s Vittra, is he not?” Elora asked.

  “Yeah, he is, but…” I licked my lips and looked over at Loki. He’d sat up a bit and composed himself some, but his face was still drawn. “He was good to me when I was there. He didn’t hurt me, and he actually helped me. So … we should at the very least show him the same respect here. ”

  “Is that true?” Elora asked him.

  “Yes, it is. ” He sat on his heels so he could stare up at her. “I’ve found that I get what I want more often with basic decency than unnecessary cruelty. ”

  “What’s your name?” Elora asked, unmoved by his statement.

  “Loki Staad. ” He held his chin up high when he said that, as if he was proud.

  “I knew your father. ” Elora’s lips moved into a thin smile, but it wasn’t a pleasant one. It was the kind someone would have after stealing candy from a small child. “I hated him. ”

  “That surprises me, Your Majesty. ” Loki smiled broadly at her, erasing any sign that he’d been in agony moments ago. “My father was a stone-cold jerk. That sounds like your taste exactly. ”

  “It’s funny, because I was going to say you remind me so much of him. ” Elora’s icy smile remained frozen in place as she descended the rest of the stairs, and Loki did an admirable job of not letting his falter. “You think you can use your charm to get out of anything, but I don’t find you charming at all. ”

  “That’s a shame,” Loki said. “Because, with all due respect, Y
our Highness, I could rock your world. ”

  Elora laughed, but it sounded more like a cackle when it echoed off the walls. I wanted to yell at Loki, to tell him to stop baiting her, and I wished I could do that mind-speak Elora did all the time.

  Right now I had to make sure that Elora didn’t kill Loki. He’d helped me in Ondarike, risking his own life. We’d only spoken a little, but he’d put himself in jeopardy for me.

  Before we left the Vittra palace, there had been a moment when I’d almost asked him to join us. I hadn’t, and I wasn’t sure if I’d made the right decision or not. There was something about Loki that I couldn’t explain, a connection I shouldn’t feel.

  Oddly, the thing that struck me the most about what Loki had done when he’d let us escape was that he’d disobeyed orders. He’d been put in charge of keeping guard over me, with insubordination punishable by death.

  Yet Loki had chosen me over duty, defying his monarch and his kingdom. That was something that Finn wouldn’t even do.

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  Elora stopped in front of him. Loki remained on his knees, looking up at her, and I wished he’d get rid of that stupid grin on his face. It only antagonized her.

  “You are a small, insignificant creature,” Elora said, staring down at him. “I can and will destroy you the moment I see fit. ”

  “I know. ” Loki nodded.

  Her dark eyes were locked on his, and she stared at him for some time before I realized she was doing something to him. Saying something or controlling him somehow. He wasn’t writhing in pain, but his grin had fallen away.

  With a heavy sigh, she looked away from him and motioned to the guards.

  “Take him away,” Elora said.

  Two of the larger guards came up behind Loki and grabbed him by his arms, pulling him to his feet. Loki was out of it after whatever Elora had done to him, and he couldn’t seem to stand.

  “Where are they taking him?” I asked Elora as the guards dragged him away. Loki’s head lolled back and forth, but he was still awake and alive.

  “It’s none of your concern where they take him or what happens to him,” Elora hissed at me.

  She cast a glance around the room, and the other guards dispersed to do their job. Duncan lingered, waiting for me, and Tove stood a few feet back. Tove would never be intimidated by my mother, and I appreciated that about him.

  “Someday, I will be Queen, and I should know what is done with prisoners,” I said, reaching for the sanest argument I had. She looked away from me and didn’t say anything for a moment. “Elora. Where did they take him?”

  “Servants’ quarters, for now,” Elora told me.

  She glanced over at Tove, and I had a feeling if he wasn’t here, this whole conversation would go much differently. Tove’s mother Aurora wanted to overthrow my mother, and Elora didn’t want Tove or Aurora to see any sign of weakness or unrest. And as much as I disagreed with her methods, I saw the need to respect her wishes here.

  “Why? Won’t he just leave?” I asked.

  “No, he can’t. I saw to it that if he tries to leave, he’ll collapse in agony,” Elora said. “We need to build a proper prison, but the Chancellor always vetoes it. So I’m left holding him myself. ” She sighed and rubbed her temple again. “We’ll have a meeting to see what should be done with him. ”

  “What will be done with him?” I asked.

  “You will attend the meeting to see what being a Queen entails, but you will not speak up in his defense. ” Her eyes met mine, hard and glowing, and in my mind, she said, You cannot defend him. It will be an act of treason, and your minor defense of him now could get you exiled if Tove reports this to his mother.

  She appeared even wearier than she had before. Her skin was normally porcelain-smooth, but a few wrinkles had sprouted up around her eyes. She held one hand to her stomach for a moment, as if to catch her breath.

  “I need to lie down,” Elora said, and she held out her arm. “Duncan, please escort me to my chambers. ”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. ” Duncan hurried over to help her, but as he dashed past me, he shot me an apologetic smile.

  I just shook my head. I don’t know what else he could’ve done. The Vittra had tried to kill me, Finn, Tove, my brother, pretty much every person I cared about, and Loki was one of them. I shouldn’t be defending the Vittra at all, but Loki was different.

  While I agreed that him turning up here did seem suspicious, he’d done nothing to justify torture. I wasn’t for letting him run wild, but I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I wanted to find out what he was doing here before I locked him up and threw away the key.

  When Elora left, I took a deep breath and shook my head. I knew I’d gotten myself a top spot on her shitlist, and that couldn’t help matters at all.

  “That was good,” Tove said, and I’d almost forgotten he was there. I turned to see him grinning at me with an odd look of pride.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. “I made everything worse. Elora’s mad at me, so she’ll take it out on Loki. And I don’t even know why he’s here or why he came alone. I’m trying to rescue him, and I’m not even sure what his motives are. ”

  “No, that went really bad,” Tove agreed. “But I was talking about the door and the chandelier. ”

  “What?” I asked.

  “When Elora was tormenting him, you made the door slam and the chandelier shake. ” Tove gestured to both of them as if that would mean something to me.

  “That was the wind or something. ”

  “No, you did that,” Tove assured me. “It was involuntary, but you did it. And that’s progress. ”

  “So anytime I want to shut a door, I just have to get Elora to torture somebody,” I said. “Sounds easy enough. ”

  “Knowing your mother, it would be easy. ” He grinned.

  We went back to train more, but I was distracted and couldn’t make anything move for the remainder of the day. After Tove had gone, I headed up to my room. I thought I’d check on Matt first, since the alarm going off had to have freaked him out, and Rhys was at school. I knocked on Matt’s door, and when he didn’t answer, I ventured inside, but he wasn’t there.

  With the Vittra breaking in, I felt a little freaked about not knowing where Matt was. Before I decided on an all-out search of the premises, I went to my room to grab a sweater, and I found a note from Matt pinned to the door.

  Gone over to Willa’s. Be back later.

  —Matt

  Great. I ripped the note down and went into my room. But I’d told him I’d be training all day, so he didn’t need to wait around for me. I could have really used some time to talk to him, since everything felt like absolute chaos, and he was hanging out with Willa, which didn’t even make sense. I couldn’t imagine what the two of them would be doing, spending all that time together. They should be hating each other.

  I flopped on my bed and fell asleep pretty quickly. I didn’t realize I’d been that tired, but I guess using my abilities took a lot out of me.

  FOURTEEN

  stockholm syndrome

  I’d gotten used to the defense meetings after the big Vittra break-in during my christening ceremony.

  We met in the War Room in the south wing. The walls were plastered with maps. Red and green patches speckled them, indicating other tribes of trolls.

  A huge mahogany table stood at one end, a drawing board behind it. Elora and Aurora, Tove’s mother, stood at the far side of the table. For some reason, they always led the defense meetings together. Aurora didn’t trust Elora to run the kingdom, but I still didn’t know why Elora tolerated Aurora taking any amount of control.

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  Chairs littered the rest of the room, most of them mismatched because they’d been pulled from other rooms to fill the space. Our mothers commanded the meetings, so Tove and I were always the first people in attendance. It worked to our advantag
e, and we hid in the back.

  The usual twenty or so attendees were here: Garrett Strom, Willa’s father and my mother’s possible boyfriend; the Chancellor, a pasty, overweight man who stared at me in a way that made my skin crawl; Noah Kroner, Tove’s ever-silent father; and a few other Markis, Marksinna, and trackers.

  Soon the room started filling up more than normal. People I’d never seen before filtered in, including a lot more trackers. None of the trackers took a seat, because that would have been impolite with limited seating. Duncan stood behind me, despite the fact that I told him to sit down three times.

  Willa burst in a few minutes before the meeting was set to start, and she pushed her way through the crowded room. Her bracelets jangled as she stepped over a tracker, smiling brightly at me before flopping into the chair next to mine.

  “Sorry I’m late. ” Willa readjusted her skirt, pulling it down so it hit her knees. She brushed her hair from her eyes and smiled at us. “Did I miss anything?”

  “Nothing’s happened yet,” I said.

  “There are a lot of people here, aren’t there?” Willa glanced around the room. Her father looked at us, and she waved at him.

  “Sure are,” I agreed.

  The chair directly in front of me was empty, so Tove slid it back and forth with his abilities.

  Crowds tended to overwhelm him. It was too much noise inside his head. When he drained some of his power by moving objects, it weakened his capacity to hear things and helped silence the static.

  “Is it really a big deal, then?” Willa asked me and lowered her voice. “I heard you knew the Vittra that they caught. ”

  “I don’t know him. ” I shifted in my chair. “I saw him when I was with the Vittra. It’s not a big deal. ”

  “Did you subdue him?” Willa asked, looking up at Duncan.

  She was asking him directly, and not asking me if my tracker had done something. She—Willa—was treating people with basic human dignity, and it freaked me out.

  Duncan puffed up with pride, then seemed to remember that I’d defended Loki. His expression shifted to shame, and he lowered his eyes. “I saw him knock another guard out, and I called for backup. That was all. ”

  “How come he didn’t knock you out?” I asked.

  I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Duncan much since yesterday. I’d been wondering how they’d been able to capture Loki, when he could’ve rendered them unconscious with a single look.

  “He didn’t think he had to. ” Duncan looked proud again, and I let him. “My appearance deceived him, and the other guards tackled him. ”

  “What was he doing when you found him?” Willa asked.

  “I couldn’t tell exactly. ” Duncan shook his head. “I think he was peeking through a window. ”

  “He was probably looking for Wendy,” Tove said offhandedly, and the chair in front of me slid so far back, it almost hit my shins. “Sorry. ”

  “Careful,” I said, pulling my legs up to be safe.