Hyacinthe would be dragged away for questioning. Or execution. Probably both, one following on the other. He might well deserve it, too. Oak knew, as his sister did not yet, that Madoc had spoken with the former falcon many times in recent months. If Hyacinthe was responsible, Oak would cut his throat himself.
But what would come after that? Nothing. No help for their father. Lady Nore bought herself time to build the army Jude described, but eventually Elfhame would move against her. When war came, no one would be spared.
He had to act quickly.
Mellith’s heart. That’s what Lady Nore wanted. He wasn’t sure if he could get it, but even if he couldn’t, that didn’t mean there wasn’t a way to stop her. Though he hadn’t seen Suren in years, he knew where she was, and he doubted anyone else in the High Court did. They’d been friends once. Moreover, Lady Nore had sworn a vow to her. She had the power of command over her mother. One word from her could end this conflict before it started.
The thought of seeking Wren out filled him with an emotion he didn’t want to inspect too closely, as drunk and upset as he already was. But he could plan instead how he would use the secret passage-way to sneak out of his sister’s room once she was asleep, how he would interrogate Hyacinthe as Tiernan packed up their things. How he would go to Mandrake Market and find out more about this ancient heart from Mother Marrow, who knew nearly everything about everything.
The conspiracy would wait. It wasn’t as though they could make their move without a candidate for the throne standing by.
Oak would save their father. Maybe he could never fix his family, but he could try to make up for what he’d already cost them. He could try to measure up to them. If he went, if he persuaded Wren, if they succeeded, then Madoc would live and Jude wouldn’t have to make another impossible choice.
They would have all forbidden him from going, of course. But before they had a chance, he was already gone.
CHAPTER
1
T
he cold of the prisons eats at Oak’s bones, and the stink of iron scrapes his throat. The bridle presses against his cheeks, reminding him that he is shackled to an obedience that binds him more securely than any chains. But worst of all is the dread of what will happen next, a dread so great that he wishes it would just happen so he could stop dreading it.
On the morning after he was locked in his cell in the stone dungeons beneath the Ice Needle Citadel of the former Court of Teeth, a servant brought him a blanket lined in rabbit fur. A kindness he didn’t know how to interpret. No matter how tightly he wraps it around himself, though, he is seldom warm.
Twice each day he is brought food. Water, often with a rime of ice on the surface. Soup, hot enough to make him comfortable for a scant hour or so. As the days stretch on, he fears that, rather than putting his torment off, as one puts a particularly delicious morsel to the side of one’s plate to be saved for last, he has simply been forgotten.
Once, he thought he recognized Wren’s shadow, observing him from a distance. He called to her, but she didn’t answer. Maybe she’d never been there. The iron muddles his thoughts. Perhaps he only saw what he so desperately wanted to see.
She has not spoken with him since she sent him here. Not even to use the bridle to command him. Not even to gloat.
Sometimes he screams into the darkness, just to remind himself that he can.
These dungeons were built to swallow screams. No one comes.
Today, he screams himself hoarse and then slumps against a wall. He wishes he could tell himself a story, but he cannot convince himself that he is a brave prince suffering a setback on a daring quest, nor the tempestuous, star-crossed lover he has played at so many times in the past. Not even the loyal brother and son he meant to be when he set out from Elfhame.
Whatever he is, he’s certainly no hero.
A guard stomps down the hall, driving Oak to his hooves. One of the falcons. Straun. The prince has overheard him at the gate before, complaining, not realizing his voice carries. He is ambitious, bored by the tediousness of guard duty, and eager to show off his skill in front of the new queen.
Wren, whose beauty Straun rhapsodizes over.
Oak hates Straun.
“You there,” the falcon says, drawing close. “Be quiet before I quiet you.”
Ah, Oak realizes. He’s so bored that he wants to make something happen.
“I am merely trying to give this dungeon an authentic atmosphere,” Oak says. “What’s a place like this without the cries of the tormented?”
“Traitor’s son, you think much of yourself, but you know nothing of torment,” Straun says, kicking the iron bars with the heel of his boot, making them ring. “Soon, though. Soon, you’ll learn. You should save your screams.”
Traitor’s son. Interesting. Not just bored, then, but resentful of Madoc.
Oak steps close enough to the bars that he can feel the heat of the iron. “Does Wren intend to punish me, then?”
Straun snorts. “Our queen has more important things to attend to than you. She’s gone to the Stone Forest to wake the troll kings.”
Oak stares at him, stunned.
The falcon grins. “Worry not, though. The storm hag is still here. Maybe she’ll send for you. Her punishments are legendary.” With that, he walks back toward the gate.
Oak sags to the cold floor, furious and despairing.
You have to break out. The thought strikes him forcefully. You must find a way.
Not easy, that. The iron bars burn. The lock is hard to pick, though he tried once with a fork. All he managed to do was snap off one of the tines and ensure that all subsequent food was sent only with spoons.
Not easy to escape. And besides, maybe, after everything, Wren still might visit him.
Oak wakes on the stone floor of his cell with his head ringing and his breath clouding in the air. He blinks in confusion, still half in dreams. He’s seldom able to sleep deeply with so much iron around him, but that’s not what woke him tonight.
A great cresting wave of magic washes over the Citadel, coursing from somewhere south, crashing down with unmistakable power. Then there is a tremble in the earth, as though something massive moved upon it.
It comes to him then that the Stone Forest is south of the Citadel. The trembling is not something moving upon the earth but something disgorged from it. Wren did it. She has released the troll kings from their bondage beneath the ground.
Broken an ancient curse, one so old that for Oak it seems woven into the fabric of the world, as implacable as the sea and sky.
He can almost hear the cracking sound of the rocks that imprisoned them. Fissures spider-webbing out from two directions at once, from both boulders. Waves of magical force flowing from those twinned centers, intense enough that nearby trees would split apart, sending the ice-crusted blue fruit to scatter on the snow.
He can almost see the two ancient troll kings, rising up from the earth, stretching for the first time in centuries. Tall as giants, shaking off all that had grown over them in their slumber. Dirt and grass, small trees, and rocks would all rain down from their shoulders.
Wren had done it.
And since that is supposed to be impossible, the prince has no idea what she might do next.
Since he’s unlikely to be able to sleep again, Oak goes through the exercises the Ghost taught him long ago so that he could still practice while stuck in the mortal world.
Imagine you have a weapon. They had been in Vivi’s second apartment, standing on a small metal balcony. Inside, Taryn and Vivi had been fussing over Leander, who was learning to crawl. The Ghost had asked about Oak’s training and been uninterested in the excuse that he was eleven, had to go to school, and couldn’t be swinging around a longsword in the common space of the lawn without neighbors getting worried.
Oh, come on! Oak laughed, thinking the spy was being silly.