The Broken Ones (The Malediction Trilogy 0.6)(41)

“She could’ve given her word not to tell.” Tristan’s shoulders were shaking with anger, but it wasn’t, I thought, for Ana?s.

“And been sent right back here for keeping her silence.” Ana?s walked over to a dead sluag and jerked the spear out of its side. “This, at least, was quick. There is much to be said for that.”

“Stones and sky, but you’re cold,” Tristan said, shaking his head.

“Only you can end all of this, Tristan,” she said. “You’re the one capable of ending your father’s rule and putting a stop to this practice. And every life lost while you delay doing so is on you.”

“You think I’m wrong to wait?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I’m doing this to save lives, Ana?s.”

“I know,” she said, reaching down to close the lids of the dead girl. “But not in time to help her.”

No one spoke, and though it was a half-blood lying at my feet, all I saw was Pénélope. No matter what Ana?s said, the half-blood had died because of what she knew. Because she was weak, and that made her a liability.

Pénélope knew more.

Staring up at the sunbeam shining through the gap in the rockfall, I knew I couldn’t tell Tristan that I’d brought Pénélope into the fold. That I couldn’t tell Ana?s. And in the face of this, I certainly couldn’t ask them for help.

Pénélope and I were on our own.





Chapter Sixteen





Marc





The following three weeks were some of the best and worst of my life.

Trying to balance all the levels of deception made me feel like I was walking on a razor’s edge over a pit of fire, every conversation making me break out in sweat lest I reveal the wrong thing to the wrong person and doom myself, Pénélope, or the revolution in a moment of indiscretion. No one received the whole truth from me: not Tristan, not my parents, not even Pénélope, who insisted I keep her in the dark about the details of our plots in case her father should come to suspect and put her to the question. What I provided her with instead were carefully selected bits of information. Dozens of clues, which in aggregate bordered on proof that I was up to something, but nothing so damning that Angoulême could take them to the King as evidence of treason. Every time, I worried that I wasn’t giving her enough. Or worse, that I was giving her too much.

But it was worth it. Worth every anxious moment and sleepless night, because it meant another day of keeping her safe.

Spending time with Pénélope was no small challenge given that the depth of our relationship had to remain hidden from everyone. The lone exception was her father, who only smiled and turned a blind eye when she sneaked out of the house in the middle of the night, then back in before dawn, allowing her locks on her door so that neither Ana?s nor the servants could walk into her room and find it empty. He was our enemy, but in this, he was also our co-conspirator, and that fact sat heavily upon me as I deceived every one of my friends and allies.

“I’m being followed everywhere I go,” I muttered, kissing Pénélope’s shoulder as I fastened the last button on her dress before passing her the hooded cloak she wore to and from our sojourns. “It makes it hard to do anything without eyes watching me. Including spending time with you.” Then a flash of metal falling to her feet caught my attention, and I reached down to pick up a tiny steel knife. “What’s this for?”

Her jaw tightened as she took it back, careful to touch only the leather-wrapped handle. “It makes me feel better to have it around my father.”

I carried my fair share of weapons, and had a lifetime of training in how to use them. Most full-blooded trolls carried a steel blade or two – not because it was ever our first line of defense, but because they were the only effective weapons we had against the sluag. But Pénélope – for good reason – avoided steel at all costs.

“Pénélope…” I hesitated. “Unless you got lucky, a blade this small isn’t going to do more than anger your father. What’s more, he’s always shielded.”

“I know.” She tucked the knife into a hidden pocket in her cloak. “It isn’t for him. It’s for me.”

It took time for comprehension to dawn on me, and when it did, I reached forward to take the blade away from her. “No. Absolutely not.”

But she dodged out of reach, batting my hand away. “I don’t need your permission, Marc. I’ve spent my entire life being told what I can and can’t do by my father – I don’t need you attempting to do the same.”

“You can’t actually believe that I’m going to quietly accept that you’re carrying around a weapon on the chance you might need to take your own life,” I demanded, barely managing to curb the urge to take the blade back by whatever means necessary.

“Actually, I do,” she replied, walking over to the open window. “Hundreds, perhaps even thousands of lives, depend on the success of the sympathizer revolution, and despite your best intentions, I have enough knowledge within me to bring it all crashing down. If it comes to it, my life isn’t worth putting all those others in jeopardy.”

“It is to me.” I caught her hands, not wanting her to leave. Not wanting her to walk toward a situation where that little knife might come to use.