This whole situation could become an awful mess, but we didn’t have time for it.
“You had something to do with this, didn’t you?” Matt asked, his eyes locked on Finn.
“Matt, knock it off,” I said, untangling myself from Rhys’s hug. “He’s here to rescue us, and we have to get out of here. So shut up, and let’s go.”
“Somebody has to come after us soon, right?” Duncan asked, bewildered by the lack of a counterattack.
“Let’s just get out of here,” Matt said, taking the cue.
Tove released the hobgoblin pinned to the wall, and the guys all rushed ahead, leading our escape from the dungeon.
I paused, looking back at Loki. He stood in front of the cell door, looking weirdly forlorn. His earlier bravado had completely disappeared, and his golden eyes settled on me.
“Wait a few minutes to tell Oren we’re gone, okay?” I asked.
“As you wish,” Loki said simply. Something in the way he looked at me stirred up that fluttery feeling I’d had upstairs.
“Thank you for letting us go,” I said, but he didn’t say anything to that. After hearing what he’d said earlier, I considered asking him to come with us. In fact, I almost did, but then Finn jarred me from the idea.
“Wendy!” Finn snapped.
I ran to catch up, then Finn took my hand. That small touch felt strong and safe, and sent warm tingles running through me. As we raced up the stairs, holding his hand almost made me forget that he’d hurt me or that we were escaping from an enemy prison.
The cold night air hit me when we ran outside. Duncan led the way, stumbling through the dark with Rhys at his heels. Both Tove and Matt kept stopping to make sure that Finn and I were coming, with Matt’s gaze particularly wary.
The ground felt icy, and branches and rocks stung my bare feet. Whenever I slowed down, Finn squeezed my hand, and that spurred me on. The air smelled of winter, like ice and pines, and I heard an owl hooting in the distance.
I glanced behind me once, but since the palace had no windows to light it up, I could hardly make out its dark shape looming behind us.
Finn’s silver Cadillac waited for us at the edge of the trees. The moon filtered through the branches, glinting on the car, and I quickened my pace. I didn’t have the stamina to run all the way to Förening, and I had become a little afraid I might have to.
When we reached the car, Duncan had already jumped in back, and Matt stood next to the open car door, waiting for me to get there. Rhys stood next to him, but he was far more anxious, shifting his weight from one leg to the other.
“Get in the car! Let’s go!” Finn commanded, looking at them like they were idiots. Tove was the only one who complied, climbing in the front passenger’s side.
“Wendy,” Rhys said. “I can’t sit down.”
“What?” Finn looked irritated, his eyes bouncing between Rhys and me.
“I used my persuasion on him, and I got him stuck—” I tried to explain lamely, but Finn cut me off.
“Just tell him to get in the damn car,” Finn said. I didn’t understand, so he elaborated. “Use the persuasion. Make him sit in the car. We’ll sort it out when we get home.”
I looked at Rhys, barely able to make out his eyes in the moonlight, but I didn’t know if seeing him actually mattered. Using all my concentration, I told him to get in the car. A few seconds later, he got in the car and let out a massive sigh of relief.
“It feels sooo good to sit down!” Rhys said, and a fresh guilt washed over me.
Matt got in the car after him, but he didn’t close the door. He was waiting for me to get in back with him, but Finn still had my hand. He led me around the front of the car, and I got in the driver’s side. I slid over so he could drive and sat on the armrest hump in the middle.
Matt started to voice his complaints, but Finn put the car in drive. Matt swore, slamming the car door shut as Finn sped off down the road. The rest of us settled into a tense silence. I think we all had expected the Vittra to put up more of a fight, especially after the way they’d pursued me. This felt almost . . . too easy.
“That’s weird,” Duncan said. “They didn’t do anything. They didn’t even try to stop us.”
“We did just damage their army,” Tove said, offering some kind of an explanation. “I’m sure most of their people are recuperating or . . .” He trailed off, unwilling to verbalize that the Trylle had been forced to kill some of the Vittra in the attack.
Duncan made a few more comments about how strange it was and how Ondarike was different from how he’d thought it’d be. Nobody said anything in response, so eventually he stopped talking.
I got as comfortable as my seat would allow. Once I felt safe, my exhaustion really had a chance to take hold, and it no longer mattered where I was sitting.
I rested my head on Finn’s shoulder, taking a small, private glee in being close to him. As I drifted off to sleep, I could hear him breathing, and that definitely helped me relax.
EIGHT
predictions
It may have felt good falling asleep next to Finn, but it did not feel good waking up. My body still felt sore from Kyra’s recent attack, and the uncomfortable way I’d slept had left me full of kinks and aches.
When Finn pulled up in front of the house, I stretched, and my neck screamed at me. I got out of the car, rolling my shoulders, and Matt stared up at the mansion with shock.
Opulent and gorgeous, it really was a palace, resting on the bluffs of the Mississippi River, vines covering the white exterior. It hung off the edge, held up by thin pillars, and the entire wall facing the river was made of glass. I remembered how the mansion’s elegance had hit me when I first arrived, but now I was too angry to even look at it.
I wanted to talk to Matt about everything, but I had to talk to Elora first. She had lied to me, again. If I had known that the Vittra King was my father, I never would’ve taken Rhys to see Matt. I would never have put them in danger that way.
When we went into the house, I left Rhys to help show Matt around. I hadn’t figured out how to fix him yet, so I’d settled for telling him to stand up, and leaving Finn and Tove to help him sort it out.
Finn told me I should calm down first, but I ignored him and stormed down the hall to see Elora. She didn’t scare me anymore, not in the slightest. Oren would actually hurt me. At her worst, Elora would just humiliate me.
The palace was divided into two massive wings, separated by a rotunda that served as the front hall. All of the official business took place in the south wing, where there were meeting rooms, a ballroom, a massive dining hall, offices, the throne room, as well as staff quarters and the Queen’s bedroom.
The north wing held the more casual rooms in the house, like my room, guest bedrooms, and the kitchen. Elora’s sitting parlor was at the far end of the north wing. It was a corner room, so two walls were made entirely of windows. She spent most of her free time there, painting and reading, and whatever else she did to relax.
“When were you gonna tell me that Oren is my father?” I demanded, throwing open the door.
Elora lay on her chaise lounge, her dark gown owing out around her. Even in repose, she had an innate elegance to her. Her poise and beauty were qualities I’d been envious of when I first met her, but now I saw them as nothing more than a weak façade. Everything she did was for appearance, and I doubted that anything went deeper than that with her.
I stood just inside her parlor, my arms crossed over my chest. She held her arm over her eyes, as if the light were too painful to deal with. She was plagued by regular migraines, so that might have been the case now. Or maybe not, since she left the blinds open on the glass walls, letting the morning light stream in.
“I’m glad to see you’re safe,” she said but didn’t move her arm so she could actually see me.
“I can tell.” I walked over and stood directly in front of her. “Elora. You need to tell me the truth. You can’t keep hiding stuff from me this way, not i
f you want me to rule someday. I’d make a very horrible Queen if I was ignorant to everything.”
I decided to play it reasonable, instead of shouting all the things I really wanted to say.
“And now you know the truth.” She sounded tired of the conversation already, and it’d only just begun. She finally lowered her arm, wearily meeting my angry stare with her dark eyes. “Why are you looking at me that way?”
“That’s all you have to say to me?” I asked.
“What more do you want me to say?” Elora sat up in one smooth, graceful move. When I didn’t back down, she stood up, apparently not fond of the idea of me looking down on her.
“I was just kidnapped by the Vittra, the King of whom is my father, and you have nothing to say to me?” I stared at her incredulously, and she walked away, putting her back to me as she went over to the window.
“I’d feel more sympathetic to your plight if you hadn’t run away.” She folded her arms over her chest, almost hugging herself as she stared out at the river owing below. “I specifically forbade you from leaving the compound, and we all told you it was for your own protection. After the attack, you knew firsthand the dangers of leaving, and you left. It’s not my fault you put yourself in that situation.”
“Because of the attack I thought they’d be too injured and afraid to try anything like that again!” I yelled. “I didn’t think the Vittra would have any reason to keep coming after me, but I would’ve if I had known about my father.”
“You took your life into your own hands when you left, and you knew it,” Elora said simply.
“Dammit, Elora!” I shouted. “This isn’t about placing blame, okay? I want to know why you lied. You told me my father was dead.”
“It was far simpler and cleaner than telling you the truth.” She said that like it would make everything okay. It was easier lying to me, so that’s fine. I wouldn’t want to make her life complicated or anything.
“What is the truth?” I asked her directly.
“I married your father because it was the right thing to do.” She didn’t say anything more for so long I thought she might not continue, but then she said, “The Vittra and Trylle have been fighting for centuries, maybe forever.”
“Why?” I stepped closer to her, but she didn’t look at me.
“Various reasons.” She gave a slight shrug. “The Vittra have always been more aggressive than we, but we’re more powerful. It led to an odd power structure, and they were always jostling for more control, more land, more people.”
“So you thought marrying Oren would end centuries of fighting?”
“My parents thought so. They had arranged it before I even came to Förening.” Elora had been a changeling, like I had, though she rarely spoke of it. “I could’ve contested it, of course, the way you contested your name.”
She said that last part somewhat bitterly. As part of returning to the Trylle, I was supposed to undergo a christening ceremony and change my name to something more fitting. I hadn’t wanted to, and thanks to the Vittra busting up the ceremony, I hadn’t had to. Elora had relented and allowed me to keep my own name, and I’d been the first Princess to do so in our history.
“But you didn’t contest it?” I asked, ignoring her little jab at me.
“No. I had to put my own wants behind the greater good of the people. That’s something you’ll have to learn to do.” The light shone on her hair as if she had a halo. She turned back to the window, and it was gone.
“If a simple wedding would end the abhorrence, then I had to do it,” Elora continued. “I had to think of the lives and wasted energy of both the Trylle and Vittra.”
“So you married him,” I finished for her. “Then what happened?”
“Not a lot. We weren’t married for very long.” She rubbed her arm, stifling a chill only she felt. “I’d met him a handful of times before the wedding, and he’d been on his best behavior. I hadn’t loved him, but . . .”
She didn’t finish her thought, and the way she let it hang in the air led me to believe that she had cared for him.
I couldn’t imagine Elora caring for anyone. When she flirted with Garrett Strom, it seemed like a show. I’m not sure if they were actually dating or not, but he seemed to like her and hung around a lot. Plus, he was a Markis, so she could marry him if she wanted.
Both Finn and Rhys had told me of a secret, long-standing affair that Elora had had with Finn’s father, after my own father was gone. He’d been a tracker and was married to Finn’s mother, so they could never be together openly, but Rhys claimed that she truly loved him.
“What happened after you were married?” I asked.
Elora had been lost in thought for a moment, and when I brought her out of it, she shook her head.
“It didn’t go well,” she said simply. “He wasn’t outright cruel, which made things harder. I couldn’t leave him, not without just cause. Not with so much riding on it.”
“But you did eventually?”
“Yes. After you were conceived, he . . .” She paused, searching for the right word. “He became too much for me to bear. Right before you were born, I left him, and I hid you. I wanted a strong family to protect and shelter you, should he come looking.”
“Is that why Finn started tracking me so early?” I asked.
Trackers usually waited to retrieve changelings until they were eighteen or so, once they were legal adults with access to trust funds. Finn had been following me around since the beginning of my senior year, making me one of the youngest changelings ever to return.
He’d claimed it was because I moved around so much, they were afraid of losing me, but now I suspected that they’d been afraid the Vittra would get to me first.
“Yes.” Elora nodded. “Thankfully, I wasn’t yet Queen of the Trylle when we separated. Oren may have been King of the Vittra, but he was only a prince here. He had no standing over the kingdom. Otherwise things could’ve gone a lot differently.”
“When did you become Queen?” I asked, momentarily distracted from information about Oren.
I couldn’t imagine Elora as a Princess. I knew she must’ve been young and inexperienced at one time, but she had the regality of someone who had always been Queen.
“Not long after you were born.” Elora turned to me. “But I am glad that you’re here.”
“I almost didn’t make it back,” I said, trying to elicit some concern from her. She raised an eyebrow but said nothing. “Their tracker, Kyra, beat the crap out of me. I would’ve died if Oren wasn’t married to a healer.”
“You wouldn’t have died.” She brushed me off, the same way everybody seemed to when I told them of Kyra hurting me.
“I was coughing up blood! I think a broken rib punctured a lung or something.” My ribs still ached, and I’d been certain that I would die in that dungeon.
“Oren would never let you die,” Elora said dismissively. She stepped away from the window and sat down on the chaise lounge, but I stayed standing.
“Maybe not,” I admitted. “But he could’ve killed Matt and Rhys.”
“Matt?” She was confused for a minute, an expression that looked unusual on her.
“My brother. Er, my host brother, or whatever you wanna call him.” I grew tired of trying to explain him as anything else and decided that from here on out, I’d just call him my brother. As far as I was concerned, he still was.
“Are they here now?” Her expression shifted from confusion to irritation.
“Yeah. I wasn’t going to leave them there. Oren would kill them to spite me.” I wasn’t sure if that was true or not, but it felt true.
“You all made it out of there, then?” For a second she sounded and looked as if she actually cared. It was nowhere near Matt’s level of concern, but at least it resembled something human and loving.
“Yeah. We did. Finn and Tove got us out of there without any problem.” I furrowed my brow, remembering how easy it had been to escape.
“Di
d something happen?” Elora asked, homing in on my unease.
“No.” I shook my head. “And that’s just it. Nothing happened. We practically walked right out of there.”
“Well, that is Oren for you.” She rolled her eyes. “He’s too arrogant, and that’s always been his downfall.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s powerful, very powerful.” Elora’s tone held a sense of awe I hadn’t witnessed from her before. “But he’s always thought that he could take anything he wanted and no one would stop him. It’s true most trolls are too afraid to cross him. He incorrectly assumed I would fall into that category.”
“But I’m your daughter. He didn’t think you’d even try?” I asked dubiously.
“Like I said, he’s too arrogant.” She rubbed her temple and settled back on the chaise.
Elora had the gift of precognition, as well as some other telekinetic powers. I didn’t know the extent of them all, but I hoped to get a better grasp soon.
I turned to look at her paintings more closely, which she used to predict the future. She only had two completed in the room, and one she’d recently started. The new one only had a swatch of blue painted in the corner, so I couldn’t get anything from that.
The first finished one showed the garden behind the house. It started under the balcony and ran down the bluff, surrounded by a brick wall. I’d only been in it once, and it had been idyllic, thanks to the Trylle magic that kept it perpetually in bloom.
In her painting, the garden was covered in a light snow that glimmered and sparkled like diamonds. But the stream, flowing like a waterfall to a fountain in the center, hadn’t frozen over. Despite the wintry scene, all the flowers were still in full bloom. Petals of pink and blue and purple glistened with a light frost, making it all look like an exotic fairyland.
Elora had a breathtaking skill for painting, and I would’ve commented on it if I’d thought my opinion mattered to her. The beauty of the garden painting enraptured me so much it took me a moment to realize there was something dark lurking in it.
Trylle Page 31
