I rested my elbows on the table and stared at the grimoire. “Clearly it wasn’t the two of us being bonded under moonlight. It must be something we need to do. What exactly did your aunt say?”
He stared at me, his reluctance palpable.
“I’ve a right to know, don’t you think?”
“Fine. It was in verse. They always are, but don’t ask me why, because I don’t know.”
I shrugged. “I like poems.”
“Eyes of blue and hair of fire Are the keys to your desire.
Angel’s voice and will of steel Shall force the dark witch to kneel.
Death to bind and bind to break Sun and moon for all our sake.
Prince of night, daughter of day, Bound as one the witch they’ll slay.
Same hour they their first breath drew, On her last, the witch will rue.
Join the two named in this verse And see the end of the curse.”
He recited the words quickly. “It isn’t very good, as far as poems go. But it is clear.”
Clear on the surface, maybe, but binding the two of us obviously wasn’t all it would take.
Tristan settled down in the chair across from me, nibbling on a fingernail. “Any ideas?” He seemed oddly nervous given that we sat alone in a library.
I brooded on it for a moment, not liking the only idea that came to mind. “I think we need to track her down and kill her.”
Tristan rubbed his hands across his eyes. “Do you think we haven’t tried?”
“I don’t know what you have or haven’t done,” I snapped, annoyed that he was fighting me on this. “No one has bothered to tell me.”
“Then let me tell you now. For years after the Fall, humanity avoided Trollus like the plague, which wasn’t surprising given the way they’d been treated. But eventually, greed drove them back.”
“Gold?” I asked.
“Always the gold. Trollus had plenty of wealth, but no food. When the first men found their way back in, do you think that is what Xavier asked them for? No. First, he sent them after her. Wealth beyond their wildest dreams if they could produce the corpse of the witch. Countless women resembling her were slaughtered, but never the right one. His people were dying of starvation, but his entire focus was on hunting her down. Only when his own larders grew lean did he turn his resources to establishing trade for food. And they called him the Savior for it.”
“If there was ever a chance of finding her, it was then. Her face was well known. But the humans were not unhappy with the results of what she had done.” He tapped the book in front of me. “This doesn’t tell the whole story – not even half of it. There are things we did that no king would allow to be written, because that would mean they could never be forgotten.”
“Such as?”
“Such as feeding humans the flesh of their own dead while troll aristocracy feasted in their palaces. Sending humans like rats into the labyrinth with promises of riches if they found a way out. Slaughtering human babies and using their mothers like milk cows for troll infants. And once the humans had all fled, doing the same to half-blood women.”
I held up a hand to make him stop, his words making me feel breathless and unwell. What he was telling me was shocking, but looking at the expressions of the kings above us, I could well imagine them giving the orders.
“But human memories are short, it seems,” Tristan continued. “They soon forgot the atrocities of Trollus, or perhaps their greed overwhelmed their fear. They agreed to continue the hunt for the promise of gold. When it became clear she would not be found through her physical description, the hunt turned on women who followed her practices.”
“The witch trials?” He had my attention now. The trials happened once a generation, at least. I’d been ten the last time a mob of men swept through the Hollow looking for women who were uncannily skilled with herbs or predicting the weather. Calling them trials wasn’t even the truth, because anyone the mob accused was burned to death.
Tristan nodded. “Hundreds of years and thousands of women slaughtered and for what? We’re still trapped like rats in this hole. She’s still alive and no doubt has a good daily chuckle about our worsening predicament. And my father continues to send men out hunting for her, when he knows that it’s useless. It is like trying to thread a needle with a battering ram. It’s a waste of time.”
“It isn’t a waste of time,” I argued. “Your aunt told me the prophecies always come true.”
The anxiety in him rose to a fevered pitch. “I want you to drop this, Cécile. I don’t want you to spend another second thinking about it.”
“What is wrong with you?” I demanded.
“Leave it,” he shouted, jumping to his feet. “Do not pursue this any further!”
I realized then that he had duped me. “It isn’t that you don’t think the curse can be broken,” I said, snatching hold of his arm. “It’s that you don’t want it broken at all. Not even once you are king. Not ever.”