ARC: Stolen Songbird

  Dropping to my hands and knees, I shone my light inside, but it didn’t reach far enough to give me much comfort. I bit my lip and remembered what Marc had told me about the sluag. Sluag were neither stealthy nor cunning – if you listen, you will always hear them coming. I sucked in a deep breath and held it, listening. All I heard was the din of my heart. There was no telltale swish, swish and certainly not the thundering call of a sluag on the hunt.

  I sat down on the cold stone floor, placing my light carefully on my lap, and I listened. To my mind, to my heart – call it what you will. I listened to Tristan’s emotions and tried to understand what he intended.

  Desperation.

  He had not, as I thought he would, instantly rounded up guards to track me down. The sharp pain I had felt under my ribs returned and I drew my knees up to my chest to try to ward it off. Tristan wasn’t coming. Disappointment chased away hope, and I forced myself to acknowledge the fact that I had hoped he would come after me. False hopes. Why shouldn’t he abandon me to the labyrinth? Whether I escaped or died trying, the result was the same – he would be free of me, the repulsive human. He’d be free to be with Anaïs. Able to claim that his aunt’s prophesy was nothing but ramblings and not worth taking seriously.

  Fear.

  That was there too, but of course it would be. His father would be angry that Tristan had allowed me to escape unbound by the oaths that kept Trollus secret from the outside world. But even the King’s anger would fade when they realized there would be no retribution from me. I just wanted to forget ever being here. I wanted to leave and let time wipe away the memory of Trollus and its people, and most of all, of Tristan.

  Misery.

  This was nothing new.

  “I don’t care,” I whispered. “I refuse to care any longer.”

  Sticking the leather handle of my light between my teeth, I got down on my belly and crawled into the tunnel.

  CHAPTER 24

  TRISTAN

  “How?” Marc demanded. “It’s locked, and I have the only key.”

  “She can pick locks,” I said, remembering our encounter in the corridor the night we were bonded.

  “We need to go after her.” Marc turned to run, but I grabbed his arm, yanking him back. That had been my first instinct too, but was it the correct one?

  “Wait.”

  Marc swore. “What do you mean, wait? If we go now, we’ll catch her before anyone notices she’s gone.” His eyes widened as he realized what I was thinking. “You can’t seriously be considering letting her make the attempt? She’s unarmed and wearing a bloody gown and heels. She’ll fall and break her neck.”

  I flinched, but kept my voice steady. “She’s wearing boots and she isn’t a silly parlor maid – she’s strong and clever. She can do this.”

  Marc shoved me against a wall. “Have you lost your bloody mind? The labyrinth is deadly, even for one of us, and she’s just a girl.”

  “No more deadly than it will be for her here.” I closed my eyes and listened, Cécile’s fear making my hands grow cold. Every inch of me yearned to go after her, to bring her back, keep her safe, and yet… “This is her chance, Marc. Her one chance to escape Trollus, and to escape me. If I stop her, she’ll only hate me for it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I wasn’t sure. Indecision racked me to the core, but there were no good options. If I interfered with her escape, not only would she hate me for it, I was certain Angoulême would make an attempt on her life. If I let her continue into the labyrinth, I risked her being killed by any number of things. But if she escaped, she’d be safe. Grinding my teeth, I forced myself to sit down on the ground and remain still. There was no good choice, because no matter the outcome, one thing was certain: I was going to lose her.

  CHAPTER 25

  CéCILE

  With no fear of imminent pursuit, I was able to move at a slower, and safer, pace. The stones scraped my hands and I felt bruises rising on my knees, but still I pressed forward. Though Tristan had not raised the alarm at my absence, it was inevitable Élise or Zoé would notice. And I had a long way to travel. The trolls could still catch me if I wasn’t careful.

  Reaching an intersection of rock, I scrambled my way up to consult the list of markers. Water ran across the etchings, and many were nearly washed away, but the one I had been following remained clear enough. Sitting on my heels, I gripped my light tightly and slid down the wet rock, landing with a splash in a pool of water that came nearly to my waist. This was new.

  Cursing, I bent my head beneath the low ceiling and waded forward. The water grew deeper until it brushed my chin. I had never considered not being able to maintain my route. I was a fool for it – Marc had told me the labyrinth was always changing. I swam forward, my light unaffected by immersion in the water, and it was then I saw the source of the flooded passage. The way ahead was filled with rock. Cave-in.

  My heart skipped a beat and I splashed backwards, eyes on the stone above me, which seemed deceptively solid. My way was blocked and I would need to find another. Wading back, I climbed onto the boulder and weighed up my options.

  There were two: turn back or go upwards and to the right. I refused to consider the first – I had come too far for that. But next to the markers pointing to the right were ominous curved lines – sluag.

  Even though the water was icy, I felt hot. I kept imagining the white bulk of the sluag rearing up in front of me, its poisonous stinger shooting out like a whip. My beam of light trembled as I pointed it into the passageway. I closed my eyes and listened.

  Silence. And fear, both Tristan’s and mine. His had grown considerably and that could only mean my absence had been noted and his father’s wrath was at hand. The trolls would be after me now if they weren’t already. I had to hurry.

  The passage to the right soon opened up into a wider space. It was easier for me to pass through, but it also meant more room for even the largest of sluag. I could smell them. I stepped softly and tried to keep the rasping of my breath to a minimum. They hunted by sound. It was the sound of our shouting that had lured the sluag to Luc and me before. If I kept silent, I might pass unnoticed. From the stench, it seemed likely that at least one of them had fed recently and maybe it wouldn’t be hungry enough to seek me out.

  I pressed my hand against the damp wall to steady myself against the slippery drop ahead. Gripping the handle of my light, I navigated the sharp rocks, clinging to them with my free hand as I eased my way down.

  I took a step forward and my heel slipped, sending me crashing down hard on my bottom. “Don’t scream, don’t scream!” My voice was a harsh whisper as I fought to stop my slide forward, but the surface was sheer and my clutching fingers found no purchase on the slick stone. I smashed up against a rock and bounced sideways, a sob escaping my throat before I managed to suppress it. All I could do was protect my light. It was possible I might survive a broken limb and battered ribs, but if I lost my light, it would be the end of me.

  I slid faster and faster. The light shining between my feet showed only slick rock and never ending blackness, and then suddenly, there was nothing beneath me. I was flying out over nothingness. I screamed, my hands flailing to break my fall. The light-stick flew out of my grip and with dull horror, I heard it smash just before I splashed into a shallow pool of water and slime.

  A vile stench filled my nostrils as I gasped for breath in the utter blackness. I was coated in foulness that even my panicked mind recognized as sluag shit, and I groaned when my fumbling hands brushed against the skeleton floating in the pool. My aimlessly searching fingers latched hold of something cold and smooth and I pulled it out of the slime. The heavy metal shape felt familiar in my hands and my fingers roamed over it. A duck. A golden duck.

  This was Luc’s corpse.

  I shoved my filthy sleeve into my mouth to muffle the sobs that I could not suppress. There was no way out. A shower of pebbles rained down onto the pool, and my howls cut off abruptly as I held my breath
to listen. But nothing else stirred. I huddled in terror in the cold wetness of water and offal next to Luc’s bones. I had no sense of direction; not even of up or down or the size of the space around me. The darkness was unforgiving and my frozen body refused to reach out to discover the limits of my circumstances. I was terrified. It was not like the terror of running from a wolf, always knowing you can turn and fight. It was not like the sense of drowning, where there is a chance to flee to the surface. From this darkness and this place, there was no escape. I could neither run nor hide, and no one can fight the dark. All there was left for me to do was die.

  But the very idea of ending it here, interned in a pool of offal with an idiot like Luc, struck fury in my heart. I wasn’t injured or starving. There was hope yet. I began to move, feeling around in the pool in search of Luc’s pack. The trolls must have given him a lantern to replace the one I’d lost, and I was certain his pack would contain a flint for lighting it.

  My fingers brushed against rough fabric, and I hauled it upwards, knowing from the weight that it was the sack containing the rest of his gold. I felt around inside, pulling out smooth coins one after another until I determined there was nothing of use inside. I started sorting through the gold on the floor, but found nothing but metal and rock belonging to the mountain. No flint.

  “Where did you put it?” I muttered, forcing myself to concentrate and remember the moment I had seen Luc first light the lantern. I remembered the desperation I’d felt at being deprived of sight, the splatter of water against my face as he’d climbed out of the pool, and the sound of steel striking against flint. And sight. In my mind’s eye, I saw the glow of light, and the movement of him tucking the small rock into his coat pocket.

  Grimly, I waded over towards the corpse, my fingers reaching reluctantly down to touch the bones and half-digested mush of fabric. Then I froze. From out in the blackness, I felt him. Like a silken cord strung between two points, one of them drawing ever closer. Tristan was coming.

  CHAPTER 26

  CéCILE

  I was running out of time. I dug my fingers into the fabric, my heart hammering as the moments ticked by. Tristan was moving many times faster than I had, and I was all but certain he was leading his father’s soldiers towards me.

  My skin brushed against a sharp edge, and I gleefully extracted the knife, sticking it between my teeth for safekeeping. “Flint, flint, where are you?” I hummed under my breath, trying to combat my panic. He was closer.

  My fingernails grated across a stone stuck between two ribs, and I quickly pried it out, not allowing my mind to linger on how it became lodged there. Tristan wasn’t far now. If I didn’t get a source of light soon, he’d catch me.

  I needed to find the lantern. Wary of the knife’s sharp edge, I tentatively struck the two together. Nothing. “Quit being a ninny,” I scolded myself, and smacked the two firmly together. A spark flew. I repeated the process, but the quick spark wasn’t enough to help me locate the lantern. I’d have to do it by feel.

  Clutching my precious objects, I continued my search. When my hand closed over the slim metal handle of the lantern, I very nearly crowed with delight. But I was too late. I heard the sound of boots, and then light blossomed from overhead.

  “Cécile?”

  I froze, the sound of Tristan’s voice eliciting an unfortunate mix of emotion in my heart.

  “Cécile? Where are you?”

  My silence was only delaying the inevitable. “Here.” My tight throat restricted the word to a croak. Coughing, I cleared it and called again. “I’m here.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  I shook my head and then realized he couldn’t see me. “No.”

  “I’m coming down.”

  With a recklessness I would never have dared, he scampered down the slick rocks and stopped on a ledge above me. He was alone. Brilliant light filled the chamber, and I looked around and saw in an instant that if my light hadn’t broken, my passage out of the slime would have been easy. I stared at the open passage that led to freedom and struggled with my emotions. I should feel disappointment, devastation even. I had been so close. If I’d been better prepared, or bolder, I might be breathing open air. But part of me – a part that made me cringe – was glad that he had come.

  A soft snort of annoyance caught my attention and I looked up. Tristan had his arms crossed and was glaring at me.

  “Is it because you’re a human or because you’re a girl?”

  “Is what because?” I retorted, infected by his irritation.

  “Your blasted kaleidoscope of emotion!” he snapped. “One minute you’re happy, the next you are sad. Then angry. Then ashamed. Every hour I’m forced to run the gamut of every emotion that ever existed and never know the cause of a single one of them.”

  I crossed my arms and scowled.

  Tristan threw up his hands in exasperation. “I don’t even know whether you want me to rescue you from this mess or to leave you here in the dark.”

  “Please,” I snapped. “You aren’t here to rescue me – you’re here to stop my escape. And besides, I don’t need any help from you.”

  “Oh?” His eyebrows rose along with his anger. “So I take it you are wallowing around in sluag shit because you enjoy the smell so much? And you thought it would be more entertaining to navigate the labyrinth in the dark? Perhaps,” he whispered angrily, “we should stuff your ears with wool and tie one arm behind your back to make it truly entertaining for you!”

  I held up the products of my search triumphantly. “See?”

  “Yes, I do see,” he snapped. “I see a broken lantern that has leaked oil everywhere and a fool of a girl about to set off sparks in the midst of it.”

  I looked down, only now seeing the rainbow of oil slicking across the pool of offal. “Then I suppose we should both be glad you finally decided to stop me,” I said, not bothering to hide the bitterness in my voice.

  Hurt stung through my mind, and I looked up at him in surprise.

  “You think I’m here to save my own skin, don’t you?” he demanded in a loud whisper. He looked away from me and shook his head.

  I let the broken lantern slip from my fingers. “Why else?” I asked. “Duty?” I flung the word at him.

  His eyes snapped back to meet mine. “To hell with duty. I came for you – I came because I was afraid you weren’t going to make it. I came because I couldn’t stand the thought of something happening to you.”

  A soft gasp filled my ears and I dimly realized it had come from my lips. This was not what I had expected. And even though I didn’t know entirely why, I knew his statement changed everything.

  The ropes of power that wrapped around me were blissfully warm as they lifted me out of the slime and settled me on the ledge next to Tristan, holding me steady until I had regained my balance. I looked down at the place where I’d almost met my end. The pool was murky and faintly green, but beneath the floating skeleton and scraps of fabric, there lay a carpet of glittering gold. “It’s Luc.” I gestured below. “My purchase price.”

  Tristan scowled. “Then he got what he deserved. The labyrinth always kills the greedy ones eventually.”

  “No one deserves this,” I whispered, imagining what it would be like to be paralyzed and have the flesh stripped from your body. A shiver ran down my spine, and I wrapped my sodden cloak around me.

  “He lied to you. He stole you from your family. He sold you with no more regard than a trader sells a side of beef.” Tristan’s hands balled up, and my own teeth clenched from the fury emanating from him. “If any man deserved to die, it was him.”

  I regarded the bones that had once been Luc, finding it hard to hate a dead man, no matter what he had done. Besides, there was another side to the bargain. “And you purchased me, with as much regard as a nobleman buying a side of beef.”

  “I did not!” His silver eyes locked with mine and I shivered at the intensity in them. “I fought this arrangement at every turn. I’ve told you that.
”

  “He gave you the choice. I was there.” My lip trembled. “I heard you agree to me with my own ears. But the whole time, you wanted it to be her, didn’t you?”

  Tristan sighed and the heat left his eyes. He wiped a weary hand across his face and looked down at the glittering pool of gold. “Anaïs and I are only friends.”

  “Oh,” I said, my voice weak.

  “We have never been anything more and we never will be,” Tristan continued, “but we pretend we are in order to give me the time and privacy I need to meet with my followers.”

  “Oh,” I repeated. “I thought that maybe before I came that you and her…” I trailed off as he shook his head. “Did you ever consider it?” I asked, my mind having a difficult time coming to terms with what he was telling me.

  Tristan frowned. “Do you really want to go down that path?”

  “No,” I said quickly, pressing the heel of my hand to my forehead. “Anaïs is a sympathizer?”

  “Not precisely,” Tristan said. “But I trust her implicitly, so that isn’t so much the issue. Her father, Angoulême, is head of those who wish to keep troll bloodlines pure. He wants to ban all human-troll interactions, ban any human from stepping foot within Trollus, and to conduct all trade at the mouth of the River Road. He also wants to purge the city of anyone with less than pure blood. He’s suspected my leanings for a long time, and this isn’t the first time he’s tried to use Anaïs against me.”

  His lips clenched together in a bitter smile, and I could feel his hatred of the Duke sear through my mind. A hatred I was beginning to share.