Stolen Songbird (The Malediction Trilogy, #1)(121)

“True,” the King said, stepping in between Tristan and me so that we were blocked from each other’s sight. “But Tristan doesn’t know that – and even here, he controls the actions of his half-breeds on the streets. He has their names. I want this played through to the end. I want to see how far he will go.”

The half-bloods were dying in the streets for me – I had to do something.

“I opened Anushka’s grimoire,” I whispered. For all the politics and intrigue between Tristan and his father, I knew that the King’s desire to break the curse trumped them all.

He hesitated.

“I know her secrets – the magic she used against the trolls. If you stop this now, I’ll tell you everything.”

The King laughed. “Oh? If you have the witch’s spells, why don’t you use them now?”

The smell of blood was thick on the air, heady and metallic. Ana?s moved, the end of the sluag spear dragging against the carpets. I didn’t dare look in her direction, though. I could only trust that she would know what to do.

“You’re lying,” he said, leaning over me. “You know nothing.”

My breath came in short, shallow gasps. With every minute that passed, more people would die. And I had only once chance to end this.

“I know enough to stop you,” I whispered.

A cup flew across the room and blood splattered against the King’s face, hot droplets raining down onto my cheeks. The northern words felt foreign on my lips, but I instinctively knew what they meant.

Bind the light.

I felt strength surge into me, rising from the earth beneath us. Wind rushed through the room, cold and fresh, pushing away the burned stench of the battle. But as it had when I healed Tristan in the labyrinth, it was from the blood that I drew power, directing the strange magic in a way no troll could use it.

“Not possible,” the King hissed.

“Sometimes,” I whispered, “the truth hurts.”

The King collapsed backwards, Tristan’s magic binding him to the floor and muffling his curses.

“Cécile!” Tristan was at my side in an instant. “Are you all right?”

I shook my head. “Help Ana?s.”

I watched as he knelt beside her, blood running in bright red streams down the steel sluag spear. “Ana?s?”


She opened her eyes. “Kill him, Tristan. Now, while you have the chance.”

I watched him turn to look at his father. From my position on the bed, I couldn’t see the King, but I could well imagine the fury in his eyes. Cut off from his magic by my spell and physically restrained by Ana?s’s and Tristan’s magic, he was helpless. Yet I doubted he was afraid – for all his faults, cowardice was not one of them.

Tristan drew his sword, examining the sharp steel edge as though he’d never seen it before. “I can’t,” he whispered. “Not like this.”

“He’ll eventually break free, Tristan. You have to do it now,” Ana?s argued, her voice strained. I closed my eyes, her words faint noise in the background of my mind. She was right, but I knew that Tristan wouldn’t be able to kill his father. Not in cold blood while he lay helpless on the floor, no matter how much the King might deserve it.

“Then let me do it!” Ana?s’s words interrupted my thoughts and I opened my eyes.

“No,” Tristan said, his voice resolute. “You will not.”

Ana?s slumped lower against the wall. “I need you to pull the spear out, then. It’s troubling my magic.” Her hand stretched out in front of her, fingers reaching for something invisible.

“You’ll bleed to death,” Tristan argued.

“I’m as good as dead, and if you think otherwise, you’re a blasted idiot.” She smiled, beautiful as ever, despite the gore. “I’ll keep him bound for as long as I can, buy you some time. Now go.”

Tristan remained frozen, face full of indecision.

“I can’t leave you like this,” he said.

“You owe me a good number of favors, Tristan, and I’m calling them in now. Get Cécile out of here, and leave the slate between us wiped clean.”

Tristan nodded slowly. “You’ve never failed me, not once.”

“And I don’t intend to now,” she whispered. “Go, and live.”

I watched in silence as Tristan took hold of the spear haft. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For everything. For not being able to give you what you wanted, for not…” His voice broke. “For not giving you what you gave me.”

“Don’t,” she whispered.

He shook his head. “You deserved better.”

“I love you,” she said, her tears turning the blood on her lips from red to pink.

Tristan’s hands trembled around the spear. “Ana?stromeria,” he said, the name spoken as though it were an invocation. Her pupils dilated, fixing on him with a preternatural intensity.

“No more tears,” he commanded, and her eyes immediately dried. The words he spoke after that were in a language I’d never heard before – one not of this world. But I could tell from his tone they were a valediction – a final farewell between friends. When he finished speaking, Tristan leaned forward and kissed her. When he pulled back, the spear came with him.