He frowned. “Why is that?”
Perhaps because you chased me through the city and then almost killed one of my dearest friends. And put a bee in the bonnet of His Royal Crankiness in the process. “Never mind,” I grumbled. “Take me to the glass gardens.”
He led me through the maze of quiet palace corridors and out an entrance in the rear.
“The paths are lit,” he said. “Don’t wander off them.”
I set off, the white gravel on the pathway crunching beneath my feet. On either side rose glass hedgerows, each branch and leaf blown with exquisite attention to detail, guiding me towards the center of the garden. I paused from time to time to examine delicate flowers, bushes, and even trees that soared beyond the pools of light cast by the widely spaced lampposts. There was beauty all around me, but it was like walking in any garden in the darkness of night – I had no sense of the whole, only the little pieces revealed by too few circles of light.
The garden was like the whole city of Trollus – shrouded in mystery but for the few snippets of information revealed by those seeking to use me. Part of me wanted to turn my back on their problems – I wasn’t the one cursed to this place.
But another part of me was drawn to the half-blood’s conundrum. It seemed unsolvable: on one hand, they had abject slavery, and on the other, almost certain death. What would I choose, if the choice were mine?
Out of habit, I began to sing to relieve my frustration. Softly at first, but my voice was drowned out by the endless roar of the waterfall, so I sang louder. I could sing over a full orchestra, but tonight I fought the waterfall for supremacy. I walked until I found a gazebo, and it became my stage. I chose the powerful pieces belonging to heroic women, my heart hammering and my lungs aching from the sustained effort. It made me feel alive, stronger than the elements and more powerful than the seas. I sang with my eyes closed and imagined I was in faraway places, free to roam and love as I pleased. When I opened them, it seemed I had been transported far away, to a place not of darkness, but of light. All around me, the garden was glowing with an impossible brilliance. Nothing on this earth could be so beautiful.
“Heavens,” I gasped, clutching the gazebo railing and blinking at the brilliant light.
“More like hell, really, but the Artisans’ Guild has done a good job disguising it.” I whirled around. Tristan was standing at the foot of the gazebo steps. “You’ve a lovely voice. I can’t say I’ve ever heard anything like it.”
“That’s the first nice thing you’ve said to me,” I said, my mind reeling. How long had he been standing there listening?
“Don’t get used to it,” he laughed snidely, turning to go.
“Wait!” The word was out of my mouth before I knew what I was saying. Tristan froze, then turned slowly back around to look at me. I hurried down the steps and stopped in front of him. “I wanted to thank you for saving my friend’s life today.”
He tipped his head to one side, eyes searching my face. “Is that what you think happened?”
“Yes.” I hesitated. His face was smooth, but his unease was a growing knot in the back of my mind. “Albert would have killed him if you hadn’t made him stop.”
“Albert’s an idiot,” he shrugged. “Christophe didn’t deserve to die just because you foolishly decided to throw yourself on him in public.”
“You know his name?” I asked, surprised.
“I know all their names. What of it? I’m sure you know the names of all your pigs.”
I rolled my eyes at the comparison. “I’m just surprised you bother, given that you supposedly hate us so much.”
One eyebrow rose. “Supposedly?”
“It’s what I’ve been told,” I said. “Although if you do hate humans, then you wouldn’t have cared if it was my fault or not. You’d have killed him anyway. And don’t give me any of that nonsense about humans being tools.”
“Nonsense?” A faint smile drifted across his face.
“Quit parroting my words back at me,” I snapped, “and answer my question.”
“But you haven’t asked one.” He tapped his chin with an index finger and waited.
He was right, I hadn’t. It was sitting on the tip of my tongue: why were you happy when we failed to break the curse? The cynical, logical side of me wondered if he was even more extreme than his father – that he would rather stay in a cage forever than give up an ounce of power – but my gut told me otherwise. He had a reason he was desperate to keep secret. I opened my mouth to ask, but nerves kept the words from coming out.
Tristan cleared his throat. “When I was a young boy, Jér?me used to let me ride around on his mule. He would tell me stories about what it was like outside, and I would imagine that I was a knight on his horse riding off to save the world. That the curse was broken and we’d escaped Trollus.”