Page 9 of Enslaved

Sis wrinkles her nose and fussily smooths her hair down before darting back along the creaking bridge. She leaps to the top of Grush’s high seat and perches there like a monkey, swinging one foot dangerously close to the priestess’s ear.

Grush heaves a heavy sigh and lifts one block-shaped hand from the arm of her throne, beckoning. “Come,” she says, her voice growling in the pit of my stomach, “approach. Long have I waited for our mighty overlord to pay his respects. Let us see how well you make up for your discourtesy.”

The Prince keeps his hand at my waist as we cross the last few unsteady boards of the bridge and step onto solid stone. There I sink into a curtsy. The Prince, however, remains upright. I wish I dared grab his hand and yank him into at least a shallow bow. But then, he is the lord and master of Vespre, regardless of either his or Grush’s feelings on the matter.

“Perhaps we are both rather remiss in our duties,umog,” he declares. “After all, I do not recollect that you paid a call on the palace since my appointment to Vespre.”

Grush’s lip curls. “I am not beholden to elfkin invaders. You can wait another four centuries, and still I will not darken your door.”

“Why not add a couple more centuries and make it a full millennium?”

I jab an elbow into his side. “We’re inherhouse!” I hiss.

“Indeed, little prince,” the low priestess growls, “listen to your human.” She leans forward in her chair like an avalanche waiting to happen. “You are in my house. You and all your kind come sweeping into our world and think you have claim to all you see. You bring your monsters with you, invite doom upon those who asked for neither your friendship nor your animosity. But when the darkness closes in, it is you who quivers with terror. None of you know how to thrive in a troll world.” She taps the end of her staff against the stone, a sharp crack that makes thegubdagogsoverhead shiver. “You call yourself a prince. Prince of what? Soon you will be prince of nothing more than an island of stone. But make no mistake—the stone will last. While you and all your kind play at being immortal, dance beneath the light of the sun, thinking your days endless—the stone will last. And when at last you discover to your horror that your days have run out, when you fade and wither beneath your sun’s harsh glow, ruing the loss of all you once knew and loved—yetthestone will last.It will go on lasting until the cycles of all these worlds have turned, and the gods choose to make them anew. And from what will they forge their new beginning? From the stone. Thus will trollfolk awaken, the sole people of Eledria to endure to the end and beyond.”

The weight of the priestess’s words crushes me. I feel my own smallness, my own inescapable futility. Desperately, I glance up at the Prince. I don’t know what I expect to see in his face. Something onto which I might grasp and pull myself out from under this heaviness, perhaps. But his expression is a study. Impossible to read.

Then to my surprise, he bows. Deeply. My mouth drops open. I’m not the only one; Grush’s great jaw sags, and her small eyes, mostly-hidden beneath the deep ledge of her brow, flash in the crystal light. “What is this?” she demands. “Do you mock me, elfkin?”

“No indeed, greatumog,” he replies, still bowed so low, his long hair sweeps the ground. “You have shamed me with your words. I desire only to prove that I at least of my kind am capable of change before change is forced upon me.” Only then does he lift his head, gazing up at the priestess above him. “You have spoken truly. It is my people who have brought doom to Vespre. While I have fought for many cycles to forestall that doom, I am incapable of thwarting it forever. But perhaps the very people whom my kin have cursed in our arrogance are those to whom we should have turned for aid in our hour of need.”

“And you come now to seek that aid?” Grush snarls.

“Belatedly, yes.”

“What makes you think I would be willing to grant it?”

“Because”—the Prince straightens at last, but keeps one hand pressed against his heart in a sign of reverence—“unless we are to join forces, it is not my kind who will suffer first but yours.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“I am merely stating the sorry fact. Along with my remorse.”

“Your remorse means nothing to me.”

“But it means something to me. And I hope I might put that feeling to good use. To spur myself on to right actions going forward. Starting with . . . the child.”

“Ah yes. The child.” Grush turns her gaze to Sis, now perched on the arm of her chair, fiddling with a piece of string. I don’t know where she came by it—possibly off her own somewhat threadbare garments. The hem of one pantaloon leg does look more ragged than when I first put them on her. “You’ve already taken other troll children,” the priestess muses. “What’s the difference here?”

“The difference is Clara Darlington.”

A spark shoots down my spine. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard the Prince use my name correctly. Each time he does, it’s a shock. I don’t quite know what to make of it.

“Clara Darlington,” he continues, “and her desire to maintain the child’s place inVagungad.To honor her trollness, even as I myself have failed to.” Only now does he turn to me, his eyes bright in the crystal-glow. Bright and strangely soft. A look I don’t recall seeing before on his proud, sarcastic face. “She too has shamed me. And I am grateful for that shame.”

Umog Grush shifts in her seat, her stony buttocks grinding. “This does not sound like the speech of a fae.”

“True enough.” The Prince shifts his gaze back to her. “But then, I am not wholly fae.”

I don’t know what to do. What to think. I hardly know how to breathe. I open my mouth, wishing I might speak, but no words will come.

Grush turns her staff and crystal slowly. “Your words mean nothing if they are not backed by actions. What do you propose todo, princeling?”

“I propose to beg your instruction,” the Prince answers at once.

“My instruction in what?”

“Gubdagogs.”

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