Stolen Songbird(44)

“Of course,” I murmured. Several months ago, Angoulême ordered his daughter to seduce me and spy on my activities to see if she could discover any sympathetic leanings. Ana?s had promptly told me everything. It was she who concocted the plan to pretend to do her father’s bidding, but actually feed him useless information. It had also been her idea, although I was against it, to continue the ruse of her seduction so that I might have a way to meet with the revolutionaries. I hadn’t wanted to damage her reputation, but in the end, her argument had won out. “What does my reputation matter?” she’d said. “I’m afflicted in the worst sort of way, and everyone knows it. There isn’t a man in Trollus who’d risk the odds, even if my reputation were pure as the driven snow.”

And to my shame, I’d had to agree with her.

“How is Roland?” I asked. Ana?s hesitated and my heart sunk. “Worse?”

“Yes and no. His rages in themselves are no worse, but he’s stronger. When he learned you’d bonded the human, he quite lost himself. The servants couldn’t control him and I had to step in.”

“He’s eight, how strong could he be?”

“He’s your brother, a Montigny descended from the most powerful trolls to ever walk this earth. Another few years and only a handful of us will have the power to hold him. By the time he’s grown, he’ll be nearly unstoppable. My father believes he can control him, but he’s a fool. The boy’s insane, Tristan.” She coiled a finger around a lock of hair and nibbled on the ends – a nervous habit she’d never been able to break. “I know it’s a hard thing to consider, but…”

“No.”

She threw up her hands. “Tristan, not only is he a danger to everyone around him, as long as he lives, he also puts everything you’ve worked for at risk. A steel knife in the heart would solve all our problems.”

“No!”

The air in the room grew hot, but Ana?s didn’t flinch. “You’re being a sentimental fool, which is something a king cannot afford to be.”

“Perhaps, but neither should he be a murderer. Not even my father murders trolls.” Though he’d torture them to the point that they wished they were dead…

“And here I thought you were against discrimination… but it would appear that even you, with your lofty morals, value troll lives over those of your precious humans.”

I shot her a dark look. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

“Are you certain?” Her eyes searched mine. “I know some of them are precious little pets to you, but is it possible you weigh our lives equally with theirs?” Ana?s sighed. “I, myself, do not. Oh, I recognize the need to treat them well or risk another embargo, but within reason. We are better, a higher level of being. It is like comparing dragons to mice.”

“There are no dragons here any longer, Ana?s,” I chided.

“I know.” There was longing on her face. “But when the curse is broken, perhaps they will come back. All the others, too.”

The witch had been more than savvy in her cursing. My people were not the only ones who looked for her death. “All things are possible,” I said, and Ana?s was too lost in her own thoughts to notice my non-committal response.

The silence stretched. “We have little power to control such things,” Ana?s finally said. “But we can resolve the matter of your brother.”

“Leave the matter be, Ana?s. I’m no murderer, and I’m certainly not going to kill an inno… a child.” My voice caught on the word. Innocent, Roland was not.

She tilted her head to one side. “Of course you’re not, that’s why I’d do it for you.”

Leaping to my feet, I leveled a shaking finger at her. “Ana?stromeria, you will not…” I broke off before giving the order, and slowly turned away. I could hear the sound of her ragged breathing. A bead of sweat dripped down my neck as the temperature rose, her magic responding to her fury.

“I gave you my true name as a token of trust, Tristan. To demonstrate my loyalty to you and you alone. Not so that you could use it to compel me whenever we disagreed.”

Her voice was bitter, and I had to fight down the wave of guilt it inspired. Not only because of what I’d nearly done to Ana?s, but because it occurred to me that I’d lost count of the number of true names I possessed, the number of trolls I had the complete power to compel. It was a power I never intended to use – it was enough that they knew I could, but chose not to.