The Stolen Heir by Holly Black

As I stare, one, impossibly, opens his eyes.

I shrink away, and as I do, his mouth parts and out comes a sound that is half moan and half song. Beside him, the other two awaken and begin to make the same noise, until it rises in a ghostly chorus.

Sounding an alarm.

Oak grabs my shoulder and pushes me out the door. “A trap,” he says. “Go!”

I run down the stairs as fast as I am able, half-slipping, my hand bracing on the wall. The clatter of Oak’s hooves is right behind me.

We make it to the second landing before ten guards appear— ex-falcons, huldufólk, nisser, and trolls. They fan out in a formation around us, weapons drawn. Oak’s back presses against mine, and I hear the rattle of his thin blade pulling free from its sheath.





CHAPTER

15

O

ak kills two trolls and a nisse before another of the trolls gets a knife to my throat.

“Halt,” he calls, pressing the blade down hard enough to sting. “Or the girl dies.”

For a moment, the prince’s eyes are so blank that I don’t know if he can hear the words. But then he falters, letting his blade sag. He looks as though it was a fight to come back to himself.

None of them get too close, even then. Blood still drips from that needle-thin blade of his. They’d have to step over the bodies of their comrades.

“Throw down your sword,” one of the other soldiers calls to him.

“Vow she won’t be harmed,” Oak says, breathing hard. “Also me. I would like not to be harmed as well.”

“If you don’t drop that blade, I’ll cut her throat and then yours,” the troll threatens. “How’s that for a promise?” He’s so close to me that I can smell the leather of his armor, the oil on his knife, and the stink of dried blood. I can feel the heat of his breath. The arm across my neck is as solid as stone.

I try to think past my panic. My own knife is still in my hand, but the troll has gripped the wrist holding it.

I could bite his arm, though. My sharp teeth could rend even a troll’s flesh. The shock of pain would either cause him to cut my throat or loosen his grip. But even if I was lucky, even if I could use that moment to slip out of his hands and run to Oak, what then? We’d never make it out of the Citadel. We would most likely never make it out of this hall.

The prince’s sword dangles from his fingers, but he doesn’t let it drop. “I was invited here and instructed to bring Mellith’s living heart to your lady. I think she would be extremely disappointed to find you’d robbed her of her prize. Dead, I can hardly give it to her.”

A shudder goes through me at the thought of Lady Nore getting what she wants, even though I know this is a game, a con, a hustle. Oak doesn’t really have Mellith’s heart. The danger lies in her seeing through his deception.

And it doesn’t matter if it gets me into the room. All I need is to be able to talk.

Oak goes on. “You’ve almost caught us. You have to make only one small concession, and I will go with you, docile as a lamb.”

“Throw down your blade, prince,” says one of the ex-falcons. “And no harm will come to either of you by our hands while we escort you to the throne room. You can beg for Lady Nore’s mercy and explain why, were you invited to the Citadel, we found you running from her bedchamber.”

Oak lets the sword fall. It clatters to the floor.

One guard wrenches the knife out of my hand, while another takes a skein of rope and winds it between my lips, knotting it at the back of my head. As they push me along, I try to chew it apart, but though my teeth are sharp, I am bound well enough that we reach the throne room with the rope still in my mouth.

They have not bound the prince, but he walks surrounded by drawn blades. I cannot tell if that is meant as a sign of respect for his person or if they don’t want to take their chances by getting too close.

All I know is that I must find a way to speak. Just a few words and I will have her.

The troll pushes me before Lady Nore so that I fall on my hands and knees.

She rises from her seat at a long, food-laden table. We have interrupted her banquet.

Lady Nore’s white hair has been tied up on her head in a complicated arrangement of plaits, although a few have come down. Her gown is an opulent confection of black feathers and silver fabric that deepens to black at the floor. Ex-falcons crowd around her, formerly loyal soldiers to the Grand General of Elfhame, now hers to command.

When I look at her, I am filled with the same hate and fear that paralyzed me throughout my childhood.

And yet, there is fresh madness in her yellow eyes. She is not the same as she was when I saw her last. And disturbingly, I see myself in her. Resentful, and trapped, and full of thwarted desire. The worst parts of me, and all my worst potential.

New also are the two gray hands that she wears as a necklace. Horrifyingly, I see the fingers move as though alive, caressing the hollow of her throat. More horrifyingly, I suspect them to have once belonged to Lord Jarel.

Behind her, on a pillar of ice, is the cracked reliquary that must contain the bones and other remains of Mab. Strangely, tendrils, like roots, grow from the case, one with a bud on it, as though flowering.

On Lady Nore’s left side sits a troll with a crown of beaten gold and a mantle of blue velvet stitched with silver scales. His clothing is leather, richly worked, with a pattern that reminds me of those we saw in the Stone Forest.