Stolen Songbird(96)

Grimly, I waded over towards the corpse, my fingers reaching reluctantly down to touch the bones and half-digested mush of fabric. Then I froze. From out in the blackness, I felt him. Like a silken cord strung between two points, one of them drawing ever closer. Tristan was coming.





CHAPTER 26





CéCILE





I was running out of time. I dug my fingers into the fabric, my heart hammering as the moments ticked by. Tristan was moving many times faster than I had, and I was all but certain he was leading his father’s soldiers towards me.



My skin brushed against a sharp edge, and I gleefully extracted the knife, sticking it between my teeth for safekeeping. “Flint, flint, where are you?” I hummed under my breath, trying to combat my panic. He was closer.

My fingernails grated across a stone stuck between two ribs, and I quickly pried it out, not allowing my mind to linger on how it became lodged there. Tristan wasn’t far now. If I didn’t get a source of light soon, he’d catch me.

I needed to find the lantern. Wary of the knife’s sharp edge, I tentatively struck the two together. Nothing. “Quit being a ninny,” I scolded myself, and smacked the two firmly together. A spark flew. I repeated the process, but the quick spark wasn’t enough to help me locate the lantern. I’d have to do it by feel.

Clutching my precious objects, I continued my search. When my hand closed over the slim metal handle of the lantern, I very nearly crowed with delight. But I was too late. I heard the sound of boots, and then light blossomed from overhead.

“Cécile?”

I froze, the sound of Tristan’s voice eliciting an unfortunate mix of emotion in my heart.

“Cécile? Where are you?”

My silence was only delaying the inevitable. “Here.” My tight throat restricted the word to a croak. Coughing, I cleared it and called again. “I’m here.”

“Are you hurt?”

I shook my head and then realized he couldn’t see me. “No.”

“I’m coming down.”

With a recklessness I would never have dared, he scampered down the slick rocks and stopped on a ledge above me. He was alone. Brilliant light filled the chamber, and I looked around and saw in an instant that if my light hadn’t broken, my passage out of the slime would have been easy. I stared at the open passage that led to freedom and struggled with my emotions. I should feel disappointment, devastation even. I had been so close. If I’d been better prepared, or bolder, I might be breathing open air. But part of me – a part that made me cringe – was glad that he had come.

A soft snort of annoyance caught my attention and I looked up. Tristan had his arms crossed and was glaring at me.

“Is it because you’re a human or because you’re a girl?”

“Is what because?” I retorted, infected by his irritation.

“Your blasted kaleidoscope of emotion!” he snapped. “One minute you’re happy, the next you are sad. Then angry. Then ashamed. Every hour I’m forced to run the gamut of every emotion that ever existed and never know the cause of a single one of them.”

I crossed my arms and scowled.

Tristan threw up his hands in exasperation. “I don’t even know whether you want me to rescue you from this mess or to leave you here in the dark.”

“Please,” I snapped. “You aren’t here to rescue me – you’re here to stop my escape. And besides, I don’t need any help from you.”

“Oh?” His eyebrows rose along with his anger. “So I take it you are wallowing around in sluag shit because you enjoy the smell so much? And you thought it would be more entertaining to navigate the labyrinth in the dark? Perhaps,” he whispered angrily, “we should stuff your ears with wool and tie one arm behind your back to make it truly entertaining for you!”

I held up the products of my search triumphantly. “See?”

“Yes, I do see,” he snapped. “I see a broken lantern that has leaked oil everywhere and a fool of a girl about to set off sparks in the midst of it.”

I looked down, only now seeing the rainbow of oil slicking across the pool of offal. “Then I suppose we should both be glad you finally decided to stop me,” I said, not bothering to hide the bitterness in my voice.

Hurt stung through my mind, and I looked up at him in surprise.

“You think I’m here to save my own skin, don’t you?” he demanded in a loud whisper. He looked away from me and shook his head.