The hilt of his sword dug into my ribs, and I grabbed at his belt, fumbling with unpracticed hands with the buckle.

“Cécile, stop.” I barely heard him. My body felt like a wild thing, completely out of my control.

“Cécile!” He caught hold of my wrists and pinned them down against the cushions. “Enough. You overestimate my degree of self-control.”

I looked up at him, hurt and confused. “Why should you need any? We’re married. I am yours, and you,” I said, “are mine.” I struggled against his grip, but he was stronger than I was. Stronger than any human possibly could be. “Have we not sacrificed enough?”

His lips pressed down, warm and sweet. He rested his forehead against mine. “I want you. I’ve wanted this for so long.” He bit his lip. “But there could be consequences of… that.”

The chaos retreated from my mind, replaced by the cool feel of logic. “You mean a child?”

He nodded and let go of my wrists. “If we had a child, it would be as bound to this place as I am.” Smoothing back the hair from my face, he said, “Then what would you do? Stay out of obligation and give up life on the outside? Or be like your mother, and only visit when the mood strikes you?”

I jerked away from him. “Don’t say that – I’m nothing like her.”

He sat back on his heels, his face unreadable, and the combination of our emotions was a tangled web that I was having difficulty sorting through. I stared at him, and eventually it came to me: anticipation. But of what? What did he want me to say?

“You need to decide what life you want,” he said, his eyes searching mine.

I covered my face with both hands, frustrated. “I can’t do this, Tristan. I’m not like you – I can’t plan out every moment of my future, every decision I’m going to make.”

Silence.

“Of course not.” His voice was cold, but the shock of his grief stung through me like an icy spear. “After all, you never chose to come here. Never chose any of this. Who could blame you for wanting to leave? And what sort of fool am I for wishing that you would stay?”

A chill swept through me. “Tristan, that isn’t what I meant!” But he was already pulling his shirt over his head, the boat moving swiftly under an invisible force back to the tunnel entrance.

“I love you,” I pleaded, but the words sounded weak even to me. “I wouldn’t leave you here alone.”

“So you say.” His voice was emotionless, posture stiff, but the pain I had caused him made me sick. “But you’re human, Cécile, so why should I believe anything that comes out of your mouth?”

“Tristan.” I reached for him, but he turned away, moving to the front of the boat.

“We need to go back. They’ll be missing us by now.”

The boat bumped against the steps, grinding to a halt, and Tristan leapt out. It was magic, not his hands, that lifted me out of the boat, and it was magic that steadied me as I climbed the slippery steps back to the tunnel. After everything that had happened to us, it seemed that words from my own lips had done the most damage of all.

CHAPTER 29

TRISTAN

I stared bleary-eyed at the trunk of the tree, absently letting my power flow without providing it much direction. “Please, just hold it up,” I mumbled. “I don’t care how you go about it, just don’t drop any rocks.” It was the wrong way to manage the magic – the structure was architecturally complex, and with the amount of activity in the earth as of late, it required my full attention. Which was rather difficult, given that Cécile was the center of my every thought. Every day, every hour, every minute. Every bloody waking breath, which was a substantial number of breaths, considering I’d rarely had more than a few consecutive hours of sleep in the time since she’d arrived.

Which had clearly caused me to lose my mind. What other explanation could there be for my hoping she would stay? We’d kidnapped her from her family and forced her to marry someone she didn’t even know. Something that wasn’t even human. I’d treated her dreadfully for nearly our entire marriage. And still she’d saved my life. Told me that she loved me.

But what did that even mean?

Cécile could lie. I’d watched her do it countless times. The tiny little mistruths she employed without any real intention of being deceitful. It wasn’t in her nature to be manipulative or devious; but it was in mine. How many secrets was I keeping from her? Layers and layers, I thought. Many were those of my people, but some were mine alone. She knew it, too. Knew that I kept her in the dark, and still she trusted me implicitly. I could see it in her eyes: a blind, unfaltering faith that I would never hurt her, despite my having done exactly that on so many occasions. She lived in the present, always running off in the heat of the moment and saying exactly what she thought, rarely considering how the things she said or the decisions she made would affect the future. I was the exact opposite. Almost every action I took or decision I made was designed to affect circumstances months, years, even decades down the road. I’d always thought it was the prudent way to live, but now I feared I would wake up one day an old man, with my past wasted and no future left to live. Loving her had changed me, pulled me into the present and made me want to give myself to her as wholly and completely as I could.

But I was who I was, and I could not let go completely. Could not trust her the way my heart wanted to, because I could see the way it would go. I would give her everything I had, love her with every breath of my being. I would have months, perhaps even a year of happiness before my other plans came to fruition. Then I would be bound by my own promise to let her go, and she would leave. Closing my eyes, I watched a specter of her future self walking down River Road and out onto the beach, never looking back. The pain was worse than a spike of iron through the heart.

My mind, always attuned to where Cécile was, sensed that she was on the move. The dull throb of her misery – misery that I had caused – was a beacon allowing me to trace her progress from the palace down into the city. I didn’t like her out and about like this – the people had mixed feelings about her. Abandoning the tree, I hurried down several flights of stairs and across a bridge into the merchant district. Though she was shorter than everyone around, I caught glimpses of red hair as she walked slowly through the crowd, her guards following a few paces behind. She didn’t seem to realize that I was following. I could think of countless instances when she’d been so lost in thought that I could have walked up and tapped her on the shoulder before she’d notice me. How many times had I followed her through the glass gardens listening to her sing? How many times, and never once did she seem to sense I was there.

Or maybe she just didn’t care.

Turning down an alley, I rounded a corner to get a better view of the market and froze. Cécile was talking to Jérôme Girard’s son, Christophe. Almost without thinking, I ordered my magic to dim, letting the shadows wrap round me like a cloak.

So you can better spy on your wife.

Christophe handed her a peach, and I watched her bite into it, the yellow juices trickling down her slender fingers. She was at ease with him in a way she wasn’t with me, and it was obvious that he fancied her from the way he twitched about, the color on his cheeks, and the way he peeked down the bodice of her dress when she wasn’t looking. I felt a scowl rise to my face. He was good enough looking, I supposed. Shorter than I was, but broader, with the thick muscles all the farmers seemed to have. His hair was the color of the hay his mule was munching on, and brilliant blue eyes shone out of his tanned face. Normally he was the smiling sort, which always put me on edge – anyone who smiled all the time clearly suffered from a mental imbalance – but today his mouth was set straight in a frown. Whatever he was telling Cécile had upset her – I could feel her anguish thick on my mind – and I watched her drop the peach then bury her face in her hands. What had he said? I’d have heard about it if something had happened outside, so it wasn’t to do with her family. He was probably making up some lie about me or Trollus – something that would turn her against us.

I fought the urge to go to her side, to tell Christophe to bugger off while I comforted my wife. My Cécile. Mine.

For now. Until she leaves you to rot in the dark.

I shuddered, suppressing the thought. They were arguing now, but I couldn’t hear their words. If I used magic to amplify them, everyone near the alley would hear them as well. What he was telling her was eliciting surprise and bewilderment, which meant more lies. Cécile closed her eyes, and I saw her lips form my name. Tristan isn’t… I couldn’t make out the rest. I wasn’t what? What lies was he telling about me? Or worse, what truths?

My hands balled into fists of frustration as I watched the human boy reach down and take her hand, his thumb stroking her knuckles. I could see plainly on his face that he wanted to do more. And she didn’t pull away. She was conflicted. My chest felt hollow and I could feel my breath coming in short little gasps. He was going to take her away from me. Fury like nothing I had felt before filled the space where emptiness had once been, and I strode out into the market.

Cécile’s guards started in surprise as I pushed past them. “Don’t interfere,” I hissed. “In fact, make yourselves scarce. I’ll handle this one.”

CHAPTER 30

CéCILE

Christophe handed me a peach from a basket in the cart and I bit into it, relishing the sweet juices that filled my mouth and trickled down my fingers. “Summer is nearly gone then?” I asked, eyeing the cart full of produce.

“Aye. Harvests have already begun.” He frowned, his tanned skin crinkling a bit around eyes as blue as my own. “Just one endless season down here, I reckon.”

I shrugged. Snagging another peach from the cart, I sat down on the fountain edge and bit into it. Chris moved over to sit next to me, but the dark glares on my guards’ faces made him lean against the wagon instead.

“Have you seen my family? Are they well?” It was information I probably could have gotten from the trolls’ many spies, but it was better coming from Chris, who knew me. Knew my family.

“I saw Fred in the Trianon markets a week ago,” Chris said, picking at one of his fingernails. “He’s not been back to the farm much, I don’t think, though he says your father and gran are well. I think he…”

“You think he?” I prompted, curious.

Chris sighed, letting his hands fall to his sides. “I think he blames himself for not being in Goshawk’s Hollow – thinks if he’d been riding with you, nothing would have happened. And it’s been so long now. No sign of bones, but also no word from you, so everyone thinks that you’re…”

“Dead.”

He nodded and lowered his voice. “I’d tell him otherwise, if I could, but I can’t even get my lips to form the words. Makes me sick to my stomach to even try. I’m sorry, Cécile.”

I stared at the half-eaten peach in my hand, not feeling hungry anymore. It was one thing to know that my family missed me, but quite another to know my brother blamed himself for my disappearance.

“Fred was talking about resigning his post with the Regent to go looking for you. Now he was drunk as a skunk when he told me this, mind you,” Chris added, “but I know for a fact that your mother has offered a reward for any news about where you are. I think it’s she who’s pushing him to it.”

I buried my face in my hands. “He can’t do that. All he ever wanted was to be a soldier!” From between my fingers I mumbled, “My mother, she… she was upset that I left?”

“Aye. Tore up her apartments in the palace and then had the Regent send soldiers out to scour the countryside for you.”

“She did?” I looked up, stunned. Never in my wildest dreams had I thought my mother would be so grieved by my loss.

Chris nodded and to my surprise, he knelt down in front of me. I inhaled, and I could smell the tang of ocean spray, the sweetness of hay, and the hint of sweat from exertion under the sun. He smelled human. He smelled like home.

“She’s offered fifty gold pieces for word of you, Cécile. And she’s a wealthy woman – she could pay more. Enough to buy you from them.”

I felt suddenly cold and the peach fell from my stiff fingers, rolling next to the wagon wheel. “No.”

“Just think it through, Cécile. The trolls love their gold. Your mother could pay them whatever it is they wanted, you could swear magic oaths to keep your mouth shut about Trollus, and you’d be free.”

“No.” It was the only word I could manage.

“It could happen, Cécile,” Chris insisted, mistaking the meaning of my refusal. “For trolls, there is always a price. We just have to figure out what yours is.”

I shook my head rapidly. “No, Chris. I don’t want to leave.”

His eyes widened. “Why?”

“I won’t leave Tristan. Not for anything.” I met Chris’s stunned gaze. “I love him.”

Shock turned to disgust and he recoiled back on his heels away from me. “You can’t be serious.”

“I love him,” I repeated. “I won’t leave. Ever.”

“How can you love one of them?” he asked, his face twisting like he had bitten into something bitter. “They’re monsters, Cécile. Wicked, nasty, selfish, greedy monsters. I’ve seen them slit a man’s throat for whistling at one of their women. I saw another man smothered with their magic because they thought he’d lied to them. Oh, some of them might be pretty enough to look at, I’ll give you that, but inside they’re as cold as steel.” He glanced at my troll guards who, although they were too distant to hear our words, looked none too pleased with the exchange. “Cécile, they aren’t even human. He isn’t human. You might as well be in love with a pit viper.”