Page 76 of Stolen Songbird

“I wondered,” I started tentatively, “if it was hard knowing that everyone’s lives depend on your magic; if you worry about an earthshake coming like the one that wrecked the city.”

He started walking again. “I cannot stop the world from moving. All I can do is be prepared for when it does.”

Looking around, I saw we were alone and closed the distance between us. “You didn’t answer my question.”

The only sound in the street was the roar of the waterfall. Finally, he spoke. “I used to have nightmares about it falling down. I’d wake up certain I’d heard rocks raining on the city streets. But not anymore.”

“What do you dream of now?” I pressed, the desire to understand what went on in his mind like an itch I could not help but scratch.

“I dream of other things.” Tristan’s face was unreadable, but my mind filled with the same intense heat that had seared through me when I’d watched him change his shirt.

Desire. The word rippled through my thoughts, bringing a flush of heat to my cheeks.

“I was to leave to go live with my mother in Trianon the day that Luc brought me here,” I blurted out, desperate to change the subject. “I was going to sing on stage, you see. It was my dream…” I broke off, expecting one of the many nasty comments he usually made to me in public.

Instead I saw curiosity on his face. “It was your dream…” he prompted.

“To sing on all the greatest stages,” I said. “Not just in Trianon, but in the continental kingdoms as well. My mother… She’s very famous, but she never leaves Trianon. Ever. She rarely even comes to visit us.”

“They live apart, your mother and father.” It wasn’t a question—I knew that he knew all about me.

I flushed. “Yes. When my father was young, he left the farm to go live in the city. He met my mother, and they… well, she had my brother, my sister, and me. When my grandfather passed, my father went back to take over the farm and he brought us with him. She wouldn’t leave Trianon.”

“But she’s his wife,” Tristan said indignantly. “She is duty-bound to go wherever he wants her to go.”

“Not according to her,” I said. “And besides,dutyhas got nothing to do with it. What matters is that she didn’tlovehim or us enough to give up her career.”

“You consider love more important than duty, then?”

I hesitated. “I suppose it depends on the circumstances.”

Tristan slowly shook his head. “I think not. Otherwise individuals such as your mother, who clearly love themselves above all things, will use love as a defense of their actions. And who would be able to argue against them? Duty,” he said, pointing a finger at me, “is what keeps selfishness from inheriting the earth.”

“How bitterly pragmatic.”

He glanced down at me. “I find a certain comfort in pragmatism.”

“Cold comfort,” I retorted.

“Is better than no comfort.”

I rolled my eyes, irritated with his circular logic. But he had a point. Staring down at the paving stones, I remembered the silent sorrow on my father’s face whenever my mother’s name was mentioned. “He always gave her whatever she wanted,” I said quietly.

“And at what cost to you and your siblings?” Tristan asked. “He sounds weak.”

“He isn’t!” I retorted, my indignation rising. “He’s a good and strong man—it’s only her to whom he always gives in. I love my father. I miss him.” Sorrow shrouded me and I wrapped my cloak around me tighter. “I don’t even know her. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen her since I was small.” My throat felt tight and I blinked rapidly against the sting in my eyes. “Not that it matters anymore.”

“It matters.” His voice was low, and even if we hadn’t been alone on the street, no one would have heard but me. He slowed his pace, looking over his shoulder at me. The weight of the promise he’d made to me hung in his eyes—the promise for which he’d asked nothing in return. To set me free. I focused on filling my mind with gratitude, knowing he would feel it, and hoping he would understand what it was for. Almost too late did I see the beam of sunlight crossing his path.

“No!” I gasped, throwing my weight into Tristan, knocking him down sideways into a narrow alleyway.

He stared up at me in astonishment. “Have you lost your mind or is this some sort of retaliation?”

I eyed the beam of sunlight that was still too close for comfort. “The sun.”

“What about it?”

“Everyone knows that trolls turn to stone in the sunlight,” I said, although from the look on Tristan’s face I was starting to doubt the “everyone knows” part.

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