Torn Page 5

  As she walked to the bed, I realized she was uncomfortable looking at me. Her eyes seemed to go everywhere just to avoid me. Any time they did land on me, she was quick to look away. She went over to the bed, laying my dress on it.

  “You sent them out to talk and now you won’t say anything?” I asked, growing even more frustrated.

  “I’ve imagined this day for a long time.” Sara lovingly touched the dress, smoothing it out in the bed. “Yet here it is, and I feel so unprepared.”

  “Seriously. What does that mean?” I said.

  Her expression pained for a minute, then went to the same blank, serene look she held before.

  “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to get dressed.” She turned her back to me, walking over to a folding screen in the corner.

  A fantasy scene similar to the one on the doors had been painted across on it, and a black and red ball gown hung from the edge. Sara went behind the screen, taking the dress off it, to change in privacy.

  “Do you know where Finn is?” I asked with a painful lump in my chest.

  “That’s your tracker?” Sara asked, draping the robe over the screen. I could only see the top of her head above it.

  “Yes.” I swallowed hard, fearing the worst.

  “I’m not sure where he is. We don’t have him, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Then why hasn’t he come for me? How did he let you take me away?” I demanded.

  “I assumed they detained him until they got away with you.” She slipped the dress over her head, so her words muffled for a moment. “I’m not certain of the specifics, but they had orders not to hurt anyone if they didn’t need to.”

  “Yeah, and Kyra’s orders were not to hurt me, right?” I asked wryly, and Sara didn’t say anything. “Can you just tell me if he’s okay?”

  “Loki didn’t report any fatalities,” Sara said.

  “He was in charge of bringing me here?” I looked at the closed doors behind us, realizing too late that I should’ve been asking him these questions. I thought about going after him, but then Sara came out from behind the screen.

  “Yes. And other than Kyra’s… outburst, Loki recounted that everything went well.” She ran her hands along her skirt, then pointed to the dress on the bed. “Please. Get dressed. We’re going to see the King.”

  “And he’ll answer my questions?” I raised my eyebrow.

  “Yes. I’m certain he’ll tell you everything,” Sara nodded, keeping her eyes locked on the floor.

  I decided to go along with it. If he tried to give me the run around, I would bolt. I didn’t have time to waste on vague answers and evasive language. Matt and Rhys were captive, and Rhys couldn’t even sit down.

  But I also needed them to like me, so maybe I could talk them into letting Matt and Rhys go. If that meant I had to be put on a silly little dress, so be it.

  I went behind the screen and changed while Sara continued getting ready. She put one of the necklaces that the hobgoblin had left on the table for her and let down her hair. It was black and straight, shining like silk down her back. It reminded me of Elora’s.

  I wondered what Elora would make of all this. Would she send out a rescue mission to get me? Did she even know I was gone?

  After I put on the dress, Sara tried to tie a loose ribbon on the back, but I wouldn’t let her. She had reached out to touch it, and when I snapped at her to leave it alone, her expression fell into something tragic. Her hands hung in the air for a moment, as if she couldn’t believe what happened. Then she let them fall to her side and nodded.

  Without saying anything, she led me down the hall. At the end, we came to another set of doors that mirrored the ones on her chamber. She knocked, and while we waited for a response, she smoothed down her skirt again. Crimson and black lace adorned it, and it lay perfectly flat, so I suspected this was some kind of nervous habit.

  “Come in,” a strong, gravelly voice boomed from the other side of the door.

  Sara nodded, as if he could see her, then pushed open the door.

  The room was windowless, as had been every room I’d seen, and the walls were a dark mahogany wood. Despite its massive size, the room had a cave-like effect to it. One wall was covered floor to ceiling with bookcases, and a heavy wooden desk sat nearby. The only other furniture was several elegant red chairs.

  The largest one, with intricate designs on the wooden feet, sat directly across from us, and a man sat in it. His dark brown hair ran long, past his shoulders. He wore all black – pressed pants, a dress shirt, and a long jacket that more resembled a robe. He was handsome, in a battled kind of way, and he appeared to be in his forties.

  Loki had been sitting in a chair, but he stood up when we came in. Froud the small dog had disappeared entirely, and I hoped they hadn’t eaten it or something equally horrible.

  “Ah, Princess.” The King smiled when he saw me but didn’t get up. His eyes flitted over to Loki for the briefest of seconds. “Loki, you are dismissed.”

  “Thank you, Sire.” Loki bowed and hastily departed. He left me with the impression that he didn’t enjoy the company of the King, and that made me all the more nervous.

  “So are you gonna tell me what’s going on?” I asked the King directly, and his smile widened.

  “I suppose we should start with the basics,” he said. “I’m the King of the Vittra. My name is Oren, and I am your father.”

  6. Kings & Pawns

  My first thought was the most obvious: he’s lying.

  This was quickly followed by: what if he isn’t lying?

  Elora, by all accounts, had been a horrible mother who cared very little for me. I thought of the encounter I’d had a few minutes before with Sara. She had lovingly caressed my dress saying, “I’ve imagined this day for a very long time.”

  Sara stood nearby, wringing her hands. She met my eyes for the first time and smiled hopefully at me, but there still seemed to be a sadness in her face that I didn’t understand.

  I didn’t look like her, not any more than I looked like Elora. They both far surpassed me in beauty, but Sara appeared much younger, only in her early thirties.

  “So…” I swallowed, forcing my mouth to work, and turned to Oren. “You’re saying that Elora isn’t my mother?”

  “No, unfortunately, Elora is your mother,” he said with a heavy sigh.

  This confused me even more. His admission gave more credence to his words, though. It would be simpler for him to lie to me. He could’ve told me that he and Sara are my parents, and if I’d believed that, it would make it more enticing for me to stay with him and take his side.

  But he’d told me that Elora was my mother, which left me with an alliance to her, even if I did believe Oren.

  “Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

  “You need to know the truth. I know how fond of games Elora is.” Every time Oren said her name, it came out bitterly, as if it hurt to speak it. “If you have all the facts, it will be easy for you to make a decision.”

  “And what decision is that?” I asked, but I thought I knew.

  “The only decision that matters, of course.” His lips twitched with a strange smile. “What kingdom you will rule.”

  “To be perfectly honest, I don’t want to rule any kingdom.” I twisted a stray curl that had come loose from my hair tie.

  “Why don’t you sit down?” Sara gestured to a chair behind me. After I sat, she took a seat nearer to the King.

  “So…” I looked at her, smiling sadly at me. “You’re my stepmother?”

  “Yes,” she nodded.

  “Oh.” I sat in silence for a minute, taking it all in. “I don’t understand. Elora told me my father was dead.”

  “Of course she did,” Oren laughed darkly. “If she told you about me, she’d have to give you a choice, and she knew you’d never choose her.”

  “So how did you…” I floundered for the right word. “How exactly did the two of you… get together to… you kno
w, conceive me?”

  “We were married,” Oren said. “This was long before I married Sara, and it was a rather brief union.”

  “You married Elora?” I asked and anger boiled up.

  Initially, when he’d told me he was my father, I’d thought it was an illicit affair, like the one Elora had had with Finn’s father. I didn’t imagine that it’d be something of public record, something that every single person I’d met in Förening would’ve known about.

  Including Finn. When he’d been going over the Trylle history, giving me a crash course on everything I needed to know about being a Princess, he’d failed to mention that my mother had been married to the Vittra King.

  “Yes, briefly.” Oren emphasized how fleeting it had been. “We were wed because we thought it would be a good way to combine our respective kingdoms. Vittra and Trylle have had their disagreements over the years, and we wanted to create peace. Unfortunately, your mother is the most impossible, irrational, horrible woman on the planet.” He smiled at me. “Well, you know. You’ve met her.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of how impossible she can be.” I felt this strange urge to defend her, but I bit my tongue.

  Elora had been cold, bordering on cruel at times, but for some reason, when Oren put her down, it offended me. But I nodded and smiled like I agreed completely.

  “It’s amazing I even managed to conceive a child with her,” he said more to himself, and I cringed at the thought of it. I didn’t need to picture Oren and Elora being intimate. “Before you were even born, the marriage was over. Elora took you, hid you, and I’ve been searching for you all these years.”

  “You did a horrible job of it,” I said, and his expression hardened. “You do realize that your trackers have beaten me up on three separate occasions. Your wife had to come in and heal me so I didn’t die.”

  “I am terribly sorry about that, and Kyra is being dealt with,” Oren said, but he didn’t sound apologetic. His words were hard and angry, but I hoped that was directed more at Kyra than me. “But you wouldn’t have died.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked sharply.

  “Call it a King’s intuition,” Oren answered vaguely. I would’ve pressed further, but he continued, “I don’t expect you to greet us with open arms. I know Elora’s already had a chance to brainwash you, but I’d like you to take a few days to get to know our kingdom before making a decision to rule here.”

  “And what if I decide not to stay here?” I asked, meeting his eyes evenly.

  “Look around our kingdom first,” Oren suggested. He smiled, but the edge to his voice was unmistakable.

  “Let my friends go,” I blurted out. That had been my motivation for speaking to him in the first place, but all this talk of parentage had gotten me sidetracked.

  “I’d rather not,” he said with that same weird smile.

  “I won’t stay here if you don’t let them go,” I said as firmly as I could.

  “No, you won’t leave if they’re here.” The gravel in his voice made his words carry greater severity. “They’re insurance, so I can be sure that you take my offer very seriously.”

  He smiled at me, as if that would counteract the veiled threat, but the wicked edge to his smile made it worse somehow. The hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I was finding it harder to believe this man was my father.

  “I promise you, I won’t go anywhere.” I struggled to hide the tremor in my voice. “If you let them go, I will stay as long you want.”

  “I’ll let them go when I believe you,” he countered reasonably. I swallowed hard, trying to think of another way to barter. “Who are these people that have you have such concern for?”

  “Um…” I considered lying to him, but he already knew I cared for them. “It’s my brother, er my… host brother or whatever, Matt, and my mänsklig, Rhys.”

  “They’re still doing that practice?” Oren raised a disapproving eyebrow. “Elora absolutely despises change. She refuses to break from tradition, so this shouldn’t come as a shock. But it’s so outdated.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “The whole mänsklig business. It’s a total waste of resources.” Oren gave a dismissive wave at the whole idea of it.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “What do you do with the baby you take when you leave a changeling?” When a baby is left, then another baby has to be taken.

  “We don’t take a baby,” he said. My stomach twisted when I imagined them killing an infant, the way I had once feared the Trylle did. “We simply leave them behind, at human hospitals or orphanages. It’s none of our concern what happens to them.”

  “Why don’t Trylle do that?” I asked. Once he said it, it made sense, and I wondered why everyone didn’t do that. It would be easier and cheaper.

  “They think it gives them a bargaining chip. If the changeling decides not to come back, they have their offspring so they can milk money out of the host family.” He shook his head, as if he thought nothing of it. “We don’t need to hold their children hostage.”

  “I see,” I said dryly. Oren apparently didn’t realize the irony of his statement, in that he was holding hostages himself.

  “It’s a moot point, anyway,” Oren exhaled deeply. “We rarely even practice changelings anymore.”

  “Really?” I asked. For the first time since I’d met him, I might actually agree with him about something.

  “Changelings can get hurt, lost, or simply refuse us,” Oren said. “It’s a waste of a child, and it’s killing our lineage. We’re far more powerful than the humans. If we want something, we can take it. We don’t need to risk our progeny in their clumsy hands.”

  He had a point, but I wasn’t sure that it was much better than Elora’s. She worked more of a con job, and Oren proposed outright theft.

  “She was unwilling to change the old ways.” His face grew darker when he spoke of her. “She was so set on keeping the humans and trolls separate that she made their lives irrevocably tied, but she couldn’t see the hypocrisy of it. She saw it as nothing more than having your children raised by nannies.”

  “It’s entirely different,” I said.

  I thought of my childhood, to my host mother that had tried to kill me, and to my bond with Matt. I couldn’t imagine any nanny taking care of a child in the same way.

  “Exactly.” He shook his head. “And that’s why our marriage didn’t work. I wanted you. She gave you away.”

  There was a twist to his words, some sort of flawed logic I couldn’t quite pinpoint. But I felt myself surprisingly moved by him, even if I didn’t entirely believe him. That was the first time any of my parents, host or real, had ever said they wanted me.

  “Do I…” I said, refusing to let myself be overcome by emotion. “Do I have any siblings?”

  Oren and Sara exchanged a look I couldn’t read, and Sara stared down at her hands folded in her lap. She was the opposite of Elora in almost every way. Physically they were strikingly similar with long black hair and beautiful dark eyes, but that’s where the parallels ended. Sara spoke little, but conveyed a warmth and submissive nature that Elora would be incapable of.

  “No. I have no other children, and Sara has no children at all,” Oren said.

  This fact seemed to sadden Sara further, so I had a feeling the lack of children had not been her choice.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “She’s infertile,” Oren announced without provocation, and Sara’s cheeks reddened.

  “Um… I’m sorry. I’m sure it’s not her fault,” I fumbled.

  “No, it’s not,” Oren agreed heartily. “It’s the curse.”

  “Pardon?” I asked, hoping I’d misheard him.

  I didn’t think I could take any more of the supernatural. Trolls and abilities were enough without adding curses on top of it.

  “Legend has it that a spurned witch cursed the Vittra after we stole her child for a changeling.” He shook his head as if he didn’t believe it, which gave me some
relief. “I don’t give much thought to that. It is all part of the same thing that gives us abilities, the thing that we’re descended from.”

  “What is?” I asked.

  “We’re all trolls. The Vittra, the Trylle, you, me, Sara. All of us are trolls.” He gestured around. “And you’ve seen the trolls that live around here, the ones that look like hobgoblins?”

  “You mean Ludlow?”

  “Exactly. They’re trolls, Vittra, the same as you and me,” Oren explained. “But they’re an abnormality that only seems to plague our colony.”

  “I don’t understand. Where do they come from?”

  “Us.” He said it as if it made sense, and I shook my head. “Infertility runs rampant among us, and of the few births we have, over half of them are born as hobgoblins.”

  “You mean…” I wrinkled my nose, feeling a bit grossed out. “Vittra like you and Sara give birth to trolls like Ludlow?”

  “Precisely,” Oren said.

  “That’s actually kinda creepy,” I said, and Oren wagged his head like he didn’t entirely disagree.

  “It’s a curse of our longevity, not a bitter old woman’s spell, but here we are,” he sighed and smiled. “You, obviously, are far lovelier than anything we could’ve hoped for.”

  “You can’t imagine how pleased we are to have you with us,” Sara agreed.

  Looking at her hopeful face, it finally dawned on me. I understood why the Vittra had been coming after me so aggressively and so relentlessly. They didn’t have a choice. I was their only hope.

  “You didn’t marry Elora to unite your people,” I said, eyeing Oren up. “You did it because you couldn’t have kids. You needed an heir to the throne.”

  “You are my daughter.” He raised his voice, not so he was shouting, but enough to make it boom through the room. “Elora has no more right to you than I do. And you will stay here because you are the Princess, and it is your duty.”

  “Oren. Your Majesty,” Sara said, imploring him. “She has been through a tremendous amount today. She needs to rest and recuperate. It’s impossible to have a reasonable conversation when she hasn’t fully healed.”