Page 68 of Stolen Songbird

“I’m not sure anyone actually believes you will,” Tristan started to say, but I interrupted him.

“Oh, they believe,” I said softly, thinking of the faces of the half-bloods in the mine. “Not everyone is as pessimistic as you.”

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?”

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