Hidden Huntress

by Danielle L. Jensen

  “I don’t know.” I glanced at Tristan, but he shook his head. “I never spent much time studying astronomy – there wasn’t much point. Pierre would without a doubt know, but asking him is obviously out of the question. But what difference does it make? Her magic won’t work against me.”

  * * *

  An idea began to tickle my mind and with it came fear. “Do you have my map? The list of dead women that was tucked into Catherine’s grimoire?”

  He silently retrieved the paper from a locked chest and handed it to me. My eyes roved over the names, and the years that they had died. Nearly always nineteen or thirty-eight years apart, with a few exceptions. A weak and baseless pattern. Unless it wasn’t. I set the paper on the table and pressed a hand to my mouth. I’d left my mother alone, thinking that we had years before she was in any danger. But what if we’d been wrong?

  I dropped my hand to my lap. “We need to know when the last time the full moon and winter solstice were in conjunction. We need to know all the times it has been. And we need a reliable source.”

  “I know what you’re suggesting,” Tristan said flatly, “and the answer is no.”

  “We need to find out if there is a pattern,” I said. “This might be the only way we can predict her actions. And frankly, we need to know what is really happening in Trollus.”

  “How?” He grimaced. “It isn’t as if we can waltz into the city and ask. My father’s control over Trollus is uncertain, and we can be sure that Angoulême will do everything in his power to thwart us.”

  “We wouldn’t waltz in,” I said. “We’d sneak.”

  Tristan shook his head. “Even if we managed to get into the city, there isn’t a chance of me making it all the way to Pierre unnoticed. My magic is too strong – they’ll know it’s me.”

  “Which is why I’ll go alone.”

  He leveled me with a chilling glare. “Even if it were worth the risk, it would be impossible. There are two ways into the city, and both are gated and guarded.”

  “That’s not entirely true,” Chris said, then winced as Tristan redirected his glare.

  I stood up and leaned forward until my face blocked their line of sight. “What are you talking about?”

  Chris mumbled something shockingly foul to do with goats and then sighed. “Well, they do have a hole in their roof.”

  Forty-Four

  Cécile

  We left the horses tied up, in the trees, and started toward the sea of rock concealing Trollus from the rest of the world. I was wearing a grey dress and hooded cloak, my hair expertly tucked under a black wig that Sabine had retrieved from the opera house’s collection of costumes. It wasn’t a perfect disguise, but I was banking on no one taking much notice of a half-blood girl running an errand for her owner.

  Tristan had said little since we’d left Trianon, his attention seemingly focused on guiding his black gelding on the road slick with ice and mud, but I knew better. As much as he disliked the risk we were taking to get this information, he wanted, no, needed to know what was happening in Trollus, and that made him much more reckless than he normally was. I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.

  “I thought it would be easier to see,” I muttered once we had clambered up. “Do you know which way? It’s going to take us hours to climb to the middle.” Holding my skirts with one hand, I leapt over onto the next rock, then turned back to Tristan. “It’s all right to walk out here, isn’t it? It won’t, you know…” I moved in an exaggerated wobble from side to side.

  “You’re standing on a great deal of rock, love,” Tristan said, the first bit of humor I’d seen in hours rising onto his face. “You’re going to need to eat more chocolate truffles if you intend to finish the mountain’s work.”

  A faintly shimmering platform of magic bridged the gap between the two boulders, and he strolled across, then offered me his arm. “Do you remember the last time we disguised you as a troll?”

  “How could I forget,” I said, holding tight to his arm and trying not to think about all the rock crashing out from underneath us and how far we’d fall if it did. “Only that time you were trying to sneak me out, not in.” My eyes drifted over the grey stones as I remembered when I’d decided to stay in Trollus, the way he’d kissed me, and the feeling that I finally had nearly everything I wanted. How long had it lasted? Five minutes before everything had quite literally crashed down around us.

  “Your choosing to stay was the most purely happy moment of my life.”

  I rested my head against his shoulder. “I’ve never once regretted that choice.” But we both knew what was unsaid – that our moments of happiness were so few and far between, hemmed in on all sides by disaster and tragedy. Then and now. Trying to live and love while the blood of a friend and comrade was on our hands and knowing that worse was yet to come. Did that make us appreciate those precious moments more, or did it tarnish them? I didn’t know.

  “Here it is.”

  The moon hole was much larger than I’d thought – perhaps ten feet across, and while from the streets of Trollus it had appeared to me as hope and freedom, from this perspective it seemed like the gate to hell itself. Black, menacing, and deadly. A wave of vertigo hit me, and I swayed unsteadily on my feet.

  “How high up did you say we were?”

  “I didn’t.” He pulled me tight against his chest, and I inhaled the clean smell of his linen shirt as I tried to find my balance. “I’m not worried about dropping you; it’s what happens when I put you down in the middle of a city full of disgruntled trolls that concerns me.”

  My plan seemed like a worse and worse idea with each passing moment, and I knew if I delayed any longer that I’d lose my nerve entirely. Standing on my tiptoes, I kissed him hard. “For good luck.”

  He rested his forehead against mine. “Luck is what poor planners rely upon. As long as you stick to what we agreed, you should be fine. Go straight to Pierre, find out what we need to know, and then go back to the place where I set you down. Don’t go looking for Marc or the twins or trouble, or any of the usual sorts of disasters you always seem to find.”

  I nodded, my heart beating so hard and fast I was sure he could hear it. “Right. In and out.”

  “The riskiest moment will be when you first go in and your shadow will be visible, so I’m going to move you very quickly. Don’t make a sound – I know for a fact that your voice carries well in this cursed place.”

  “Not a peep.” I was shaking, and it had nothing to do with the winter air. Removing my riding gloves, I shoved them into my pocket and wiped my sweating palms on my skirts. Before I could even think to back down, magic wrapped around my waist and hips and I lifted up into the air. I scrunched myself up into a ball, resting my cheek against my knees and gripping my ankles with one arm. With my free hand, I clutched Tristan’s magic like it was a rope.

  “You really don’t need to do that.”

  “Makes me feel better.” My voice sounded high-pitched and strange.

  “Ready?”

  I wasn’t. I really wasn’t. But I nodded anyway.

  He needn’t have worried about me making a sound. The force of being snapped backwards and down stole my breath, and before I could think, much less squeak, I was hanging suspended beneath the rocks, all of Trollus laid out below me. Letting go of my ankles, I clung with both hands to the rope of magic, trying to get my breathing under control.

  Although Tristan had assured me that it would be all but impossible for anyone to see me in the darkness, I still felt utterly exposed, and panic began to erode my self-control. There was no surviving a fall from this height. I’d be nothing more than a splatter of gore against the paving stones, my screams echoing long after my life winked out. A whimper of noise forced its way from my lips.

  Sensing I was close to cracking, Tristan began to slowly move me along the ceiling of the cavern. It wasn’t simply a matter of setting me down in the middle of the city – he needed to keep me hidden in the shadows, dropp
ing me down where the rock rested against the highest reaches of the valley. But he was working blind, entirely dependent on memory to navigate me not only to my destination, but around the magic columns and arcs and canopies that held the rock off the city. His concentration on the task steadied my nerves, and my mind refocused on what was below me.

  Trollus was beautiful. It had always felt like a dream to me, so otherworldly that it seemed impossible that it existed in the same reality as my farm, the Hollow, and even Trianon. Seeing it like this transported me back, made me feel as though I’d never left. The familiar roar of the falls, the water sparkling as it fell from the heights at the far end of the city to explode into spray and foam in the river that drove straight and true toward the mouth of the river road.

  The terraced streets rising like steps for a giant’s feet up the sides of the valley and bisected by staircases that swept and curved around the pale stone buildings. The palace was massive, white and gold and stately where it sat overlooking the river, the glass gardens lying behind it, black but for the troll-lights that lined the meandering pathways. I wondered if anyone walked those paths now that I was gone, or if the flowers, bushes, and trees had languished in darkness.

  But not everything was the same.

  Dozens of massive stone columns rose up from the city streets, some grown so high that they seemed almost within reach if I stretched my fingers out. But no one was working on them now, and as I twisted around to see back toward the base of the valley, I could see why. The Dregs, which butted up against the wall of rock, was entirely barricaded in with collapsed buildings and piled debris, and behind those hastily constructed walls, there was a flurry of activity marked by tiny bobbing troll-lights. For there to be that many half-bloods in the streets meant they weren’t in the mines, and my heart sped as I considered the implications of what that meant.

  Not that I had much time to think about it. I was over the Elysium quarter now, the massive manors of the troll aristocracy gleaming with silvery troll-light as they passed beneath me. After the highest row of homes was a strip of empty space between the walls at the rear of the properties and where rockslide rested against the lip of the valley. It was patrolled once daily for any signs of sluag intrusion, but otherwise it was dark, empty, and the safest place to set me down. I stumbled a bit as my feet hit the ground, my legs feeling like pudding, and I held onto the magic until I had my balance. As soon as I let go, it unraveled from around my waist.

  I knew Tristan could feel things through his magic in some fashion, but the effect was still eerily strange, like some great sentient serpent stretched between us. Shivering, I stepped away from where it waited and retrieved the more familiar bit of power that I’d tucked into my pocket.

  After a bit of whispered coaxing, my little orb began to gleam softly, and my disguise was complete. I hurried toward one of the narrow lanes between two properties; then, looking both ways to make sure no one was coming, I stepped out onto the street.

  Keeping my head low and hidden in the hood of my cloak, I chose a brisk pace fitting a servant on an errand for her mistress and prayed no one would pay me any mind. I hardly needed to worry – the streets of this area of Trollus were quieter than the rest of the city, but never had I seen them so empty. It made me uneasy, and I almost breathed a sigh of relief when I finally passed two half-bloods on a set of stairs. It was short-lived though – they gave me a wide berth, and as much as it reduced my risk of discovery, I knew it wasn’t normal.

  The tension grew palpable as I descended toward the valley floor, magic thick and hot in the air, full and half-bloods alike all looking as though they expected to be attacked at any moment. No one spoke unless they traveled together and many of them wore bands of colored fabric around their arms. I needed no explanation to know the city was divided.

  When I finally caught sight of Pierre’s home, it was all I could do not to run toward it. Trotting up the front steps, I knocked once and then went inside.

  “Get out!” Pierre’s shrill voice made me flinch. “You never take my advice anyway!”

  He sat on his little wheeled stool at one of his desks, pen in hand and back to me.

  “Pierre?”

  The tiny troll froze, then very slowly, he looked over his shoulder. “You hide your face,” he said. “But your voice is that of the dearest girl I’ve ever known.”

  I flung myself at him, wrapping my arms around his narrow shoulders and squeezing them tight. “It’s me, Pierre. It’s Cécile. Oh, it is so good to see you are well.”

  Gripping my shoulders, he pushed me back. “What are you doing here? Is Tristan with you? Is he well?”

  “He’s well,” I said, and Pierre’s shoulders sagged with visible relief. “He’s up on top of the rock fall waiting to lift me out when I’m ready. He lowered me through the moon hole, and Pierre, I was so terrified that Trollus almost got the first rainstorm it’s had in five hundred years.”

  He laughed. “If I had any doubts that you’re really Cécile, they are chased away now.” His smile didn’t last. “Be a dear and bolt the door; the Builder’s Guild has little enough time for me, but we dare not risk one of them arriving unannounced and discovering you here.”

  I did as he asked, making certain the curtains covered the front windows. “What is happening in Trollus? It feels as though fighting will break out at any minute.”

  “It already has.” He passed a weary hand over his face. “The city is quite divided. After Tristan left Trollus, the half-bloods went to the King to demand their autonomy and for him to reinstate Tristan as his heir, but he refused to receive them. So they revolted and are now refusing to work until their demands are met. They’ve barricaded themselves in the Dregs, but they can’t last forever. Even if they could adequately supply themselves, Angoulême will see them put down. Already there are dead in the streets each morning, and all have been identified as those who support the half-bloods’ cause. Consorting with half-bloods not your property has become a dangerous business.”

  I clutched the fabric of my cloak against the chill drifting across my skin. “Hasn’t the King done anything to stop this?”

  Pierre shook his head. “He does nothing. He has played the two sides against each other too hard for too long, and now all have turned against him. He has made himself vulnerable by giving up control of the tree, and I think it only a matter of time until his life is forfeit. And with Tristan absent, there is no one capable of contesting Roland’s rise to the throne.”

  “The people want him to come back?” Did he want to come back?

  “They are afraid, Cécile. Tristan is their only hope.”

  I forced my head to nod up and down. “I’ll tell him.”

  Neither of us spoke for a moment, then Pierre broke the silence. “You took a great risk in coming here, Princess, and I think you sought me out in particular for a reason.”

  “I did. We need your help.” Extracting the list of names and dates from my pocket, I handed it to him. Then I explained my suspicion about Anushka’s immortality. “I need to know if there’s a pattern.”

  “Alignment of the winter solstice and the full moon,” Pierre muttered. Books floated off shelves and charts unrolled to hang in the air. I watched in silence as he flipped swiftly through the pages, eyes flicking periodically to the carefully inked charts, one hand holding a pen, which he occasionally used to jot down a date.

  Though I was desperate to know if my theory was correct, I stayed silent and out of the way until he set his pen down. “Well?”

  He handed me back my list, along with the page with the dates he’d written down. “Your thesis appears to be correct. Although you are missing one – the most recent.”

  Knowing there was a chance the unmarked grave in the woods belonged to my maternal grandmother in no way prepared me for seeing it all but confirmed in a single, scrawled date. Now I was certain Anushka was using the lives of her female descendants to make herself immortal, and dread seeped through my
veins with the knowledge that tomorrow night would be my mother’s last if I didn’t stop Anushka.

  “Tomorrow night is the solstice,” Pierre said. “It is also a full moon.”

  Before I could say anything, someone pounded at the door. “Pierre! Open up or I’ll break it down. We saw the half-blood come inside.”

  Half-blood? It took a heartbeat for me to realize whoever was outside was referring to me. Whether they’d been watching the house or noticing me had been a coincidence didn’t really matter: Pierre didn’t own any servants. He didn’t have a legitimate reason for talking to a half-blood girl. And he especially didn’t have a legitimate reason to be talking to me.

  The little troll hissed a breath out between his teeth, eyes flashing bright with anger. The room grew warm with magic, and for the first time, it occurred to me that my friend was a far more formidable force than he appeared. “Go upstairs and out the window onto the roof,” he said. “It’s one of the Duke’s men.”

  “This is my fault,” I whispered. “They’re here because of me.”

  He shook his head. “This has been a long time in coming, I fear,” he replied, taking my hand and squeezing it with his. “My allegiances are well known.”

  They were going to kill him. “I’m not leaving you to die,” I said, racking my brain for a solution. A blow struck the door and the entire house shook.

  “You have no choice. If they catch you, they’ll kill you in an instant. Trollus can afford to lose me, but losing you is quite another matter.”

  “I’ll take you with me,” I babbled, unwilling to concede. “I can carry you. I’ll take you somewhere safe.”

  Another blow smashed against the door with an echoing thud, and I knew it wasn’t stone that was keeping them out. It was magic against magic.

  “There is nowhere in Trollus that is safe. You must get away now while there is still time.”

  He was right, and I hated it. But staying wouldn’t just be risking my life – it would be risking Tristan’s, and in doing so, I’d be putting the fates of countless other trolls in jeopardy. Flinging my arms around his shoulders, I squeezed hard. “I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”