Stolen Songbird(28)

A second ball of light appeared next to us. “I’ll leave this with you, my lady. Though I’m not certain how long it will last,” she added, cheeks flushing faintly. “My magic has a tendency to wander. I’m sure His Highness will think of a better solution – he is exceedingly clever about such things.”

Alone, with only Zoé’s diminishing ball of light for company, I wandered through Tristan’s cluttered room. Not an inch of wall space had been left bare, and I examined the assorted collection of artwork, tapestries, and maps in an attempt to find insight into the mind of the creature I’d just married. There were landscapes, seascapes, and cityscapes I recognized as Trianon. He had a great many paintings of men on horseback galloping after foxes, boars, and deer. Unlike the other rooms in the palace, no prevailing theme dominated, only a wild and random representation of the world outside of Trollus. The normal, unmagical, Isle of Light.

A mantle took up one wall, and I saw with amusement that he’d nailed a painting of burning logs in the empty space where a real fire ought to have been. A small sitting area surrounded the fireplace, reminding me for a moment of home. But only briefly: this room was cold, unfamiliar, and empty, which our farmhouse never was. I settled down in one of the chairs, pulling my cold feet underneath me, and began to sort through the large stack of books on the table. They were novels: adventures of pirates on the high seas, tales of knights slaying dragons, mysteries set in the underworld of cities on the continent.

The door opened and I leapt to my feet.

“I see you’ve made yourself comfortable,” Tristan said, tossing his hat on the desk.

“No thanks to you, sir,” I replied, wrapping my arms tightly around my body. “You left me locked in a closet.”

“And you came to no harm, which leads me to believe the closet might be a good place to keep you in the future.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” I gasped.

“I’ve warned you about expectations before, Cécile,” he said, pulling off his coat and draping it on the back of a chair. “Be gone!” He swiped at Zoé’s fading ball of light and it winked out.

“I heard everything you two said! I know your plans for me.” I watched him cross the room towards me, not realizing I was backing up until my shoulders hit the wall. He kept walking until we were only inches apart. The top of my head barely came up to his chest and the outlines of muscle were visible through his shirt.

“Good,” he said. “Saves me from having to explain what is expected of you.”

Terror flooded me. If I screamed, no one would come to my rescue. He could do whatever he wanted to me and no one would question him. Every instinct told me to grovel and beg for mercy beneath the weight of his determination, but my knees didn’t buckle. I met his piercing metallic gaze, knowing that a defiant expression would mean little when he felt my terror as though it were his own.

His face twisted in disgust that matched the emotion pounding in the back of my head. “You can take the bed,” he said, spinning away from me. “I’ll have none of this.”

Crossing the room, he threw himself down on a chaise and pulled off his boots. I stood in silence as he sorted through a stack of books, opened one and stared at the first page longer than it would take to read. With a sigh, he tossed it back on the pile, and without looking at me even once, said, “Goodnight.” His troll-light winked out, leaving me standing in absolute blackness.

One hand pressed against the wall, I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness so I might make my way over to the bed, but it never happened. Swallowing hard, I rubbed my hands briskly over my arms, trying to ward off tears as much as the cold. He’ll hear you if you cry, I thought. Bad enough that he knows what I feel without giving him the satisfaction of hearing me break. But it was hard not to. Tristan’s melancholy magnified my own, and my weary and aching shoulders slumped beneath the burden.

This was not how my marriage was supposed to happen. A drop of blood rose on my lip as I bit it in an attempt to force away visions of what might have been. Gran’s dress, my friends and family feasting on a warm summer’s day. A young man from a good family who loved me as fiercely as the sun shone at noon. My wedding night… A fat tear ran down my cheek before I could wipe it away. The older girls living in the Hollow often whispered about what passed between two people who’d just been wed, and I’d wanted those things. But I also knew enough to recognize that I’d been lucky tonight.