Warrior Witch (The Malediction Trilogy #3)(62)

“Like you, I had a vision of a better Trollus. And as you have your friends and coconspirators, I had mine, your aunt being one of them. We dreamed of abolishing the enslavement of half-bloods, of setting laws that made everyone equals. That, if given the chance, trolls would choose their matches based on character and commonalities, not power. That, if given the chance to love as they wished, the classism of magic would cease to exist.” He snorted, then snatched up another bottle. “Hearing it now, it sounds like some sort of comedic nonsense a poet might spout.”

I wiped away the blood dripping into my eye as I struggled to come to terms with this vision he was painting.

“Of course, there was a girl.” He sat on a chair, the wood creaking. “There always is.”

“Lessa’s mother.”

His chin jerked up and down once. “Vivienne. She belonged to my mother and then to me, and I loved her. And she told me she loved me. That there was no one but me.”

Lost in memory, his eyes were distant and unseeing.

Kill him!

But I would’ve soon as stabbed my own heart as struck him down, because he was telling his story. And his story was my story.

“I was going to change all the laws of Trollus so that I could bond her and make her my queen. And in doing so, I believed I would start our world on a better path. I kept our relationship a secret, and when she became pregnant – as will happen easily with any girl with human blood,” he gave me a pointed look, “I hid her in the city until she had Lessa. Until I was ready to act.”

“But grandfather found you out?” I asked, fascinated by the notion that my father had not always been infallible. I knew he had killed his own father, but never considered there was a greater reason than a desire for the crown. I was beginning to believe I’d been very much mistaken in that.

“He always knew.” A bitter smile crossed his face. “It seems a universal flaw of youth to believe one’s elders oblivious to one’s undertakings.”

I waited silently for him to say more, curiosity making me forget the pain of my battered body.

“I went looking for her one day and could not find her.”

I tensed, certain that my grandfather had killed Vivienne to make a point, as my own father had done to the human peddler I’d once been so fond of.

But it was worse.

“Whispers and rumors led me to find her in my father’s bedchamber. She was his lover, and had been for some time. It had all been a plot to put me in my place, Vivienne only playing a part, every one of her words a lie. And he laughed in my face, and told me I was a fool for putting my faith in something so weak. And he did not mean just her.”

Hatred that was more than a memory filled his eyes, and I wondered if that was how I looked when I spoke of him.

“When I was done, the only way they were able to identify them was by their absence.” His jaw tightened. “After that, I turned my back on my foolish dreams, and Trollus learned to fear a new king.”

Lies or no lies, Lessa’s mother would’ve had little choice in her actions. When you were property, and especially when you were the property of a king, “no” was not part of your vocabulary, if you valued your life. But I said nothing, because he knew that as well as I, half a lifetime of regret and guilt lining his face in this rare moment of honesty.

“There was no going back after that,” he said, meeting my gaze. “At least, not for me. But I knew early where your sympathies resided, and so began over a decade of planning. I would be the people’s tyrant so that you could become their savior. Their liberator.”

I swayed on my feet, the scratch of my fingernails on the desk barely registering in my ears. “What do you mean?”

A massive concussion shattered the air, and the ground shook, both of us staggering. Righting himself, my father swore. “Stay here.”

I caught his sleeve. “Wait, you have to tell me what you meant.”

He shoved me back into the office, the door slamming shut, locked in place with magic. “Father, wait,” I screamed, but it was to no avail. I knew what that concussion had been: Roland. Too late I remembered Cécile’s repeated words of Angoulême’s strategy; too late I understood why they planned to go first after my father, who had the might of Trollus at his disposal, rather than me. Because the Duke had seen what I had not: my father would defend my life to the bitter end, whereas I’d stand back and watch him die. I couldn’t let that happen. I needed to hear more, needed to understand why he’d done what he’d done.

Picking up a chair, I slammed it against the door, wood splintering and breaking, but the magic holding strong. “Help! Someone open the door.”

Nothing.

I spun in a circle, desperate for a way out. But I knew this room well, and there were no windows. No doors. The walls were solid stone and without magic, I wasn’t strong enough to break through them. I looked up. The ceiling was polished wood, and that, that I could break.

Ignoring the pain in my body, I snatched up a piece of the broken chair. Leaping onto the desk, I slammed it against the panels until one of them broke, then I used it as a lever to pull free enough boards for me to fit through. Splinters catching and tearing at my clothes, I climbed into the narrow space, wriggling on my belly until I was certain the hallway was beneath me.

Breaking through, I dropped into the ground and started running. “The King?” I shouted at the first troll I came across. “Which way did he go?”