The Stolen Heir by Holly Black

I must try something new.

As we trek across the snow, I am careful to walk lightly so that I can stay on top of the icy crust. But it still spider-webs with every step. My dress billows around me, caught by the cold wind. I realize that I am still barefoot.

Another girl might have frozen, but I am cold all the way through.





CHAPTER

17

A

head of us, Lady Nore rides a shaggy reindeer. She is in a dress of scarlet with a cloak of deeper red over it, long enough to cover the back of the deer. The reliquary sits in her lap.

The troll king is mounted on an elk, its horns rising in an enormous branching crown of spikes over its head. Its bridle is all green and gold. He himself has coppery armor, beaten into that same strange pattern again, as though each piece contains a maze.

I think of how Tiernan must have passed these last two days. At first, hoping we would return, and then panicking as the night wore on. By the time day dawned, he would have known he had to come with the heart and play out Oak’s scheme. He might have embroidered the plans as he sat in the cold, angry with the prince and terrified for him. He had no way to tell us.

And we had no way to tell him that Madoc had recruited so many of the former falcons to his side.

Lady Nore swings down from her reindeer, her long scarlet cloak dragging through the snow like a shifting tide of blood.

“Take the storm hag,” she orders, just as we planned. Just as she was commanded.

Stick soldiers grab for Bogdana. The ancient faerie sinks her nails into one of them. Lightning strikes in the distance, but she has no time to summon it closer. Her hands are caught by more stick creatures. The storm hag rips apart a stick man, but there are too many and all are armed with iron. Soon she is pressed down in the snow, iron manacles burning on her wrists.

“What is the reason for this betrayal?” Bogdana shouts at Lady Nore.

Lady Nore glances at me but does not answer.

The storm hag croaks. “Have I not done what you asked of me? Have I not conjured you a daughter from nothing? Have I not helped you make yourself great?”

“And what a daughter you have conjured,” Lady Nore says, scorn in her voice.

Bogdana’s eyes go to me, a new gleam in them. She sees something, I think, but is not yet sure what exactly she’s seeing.

“And now, prince,” Lady Nore says, returning to the plan. “Where is Mellith’s heart?”

Oak is not armed, although the former falcon at his side carries the prince’s sword where he can easily get it. And though his wrists appear to be tied, the cords are so loose that he can free himself whenever he wishes. The prince looks up at the moon. “My companion is supposed to be here presently.”

I glance around at the assembled Folk. Part of me wants to give the signal now, to take command of Lady Nore’s stick creatures and force the trolls into a surrender. But better for Tiernan to be in sight, to be sure he won’t arrive at the wrong moment and jump into the fray, not knowing friend from foe.

I shift nervously, watching Lady Nore. Noting the hands of Lord Jarel around her neck, a reminder that if she could find comfort in something like that, her other actions may be impossible for me to anticipate. My gaze goes to King Hurclaw, tall and fierce-looking. For all the rumors of his madness, I understand his motives far better than hers. Still, the thirty trolls behind him are formidable.

“Perhaps you are used to your subjects biding at your pleasure, heir to Elfhame,” Hurclaw says, “but we grow impatient.”

“I am waiting just as you are,” Oak reminds him.

Twenty minutes pass before Tiernan appears, walking over the snow, Titch on his shoulder. It feels far longer than that with Lady Nore glaring at me and Hurclaw grumbling. Madoc leans heavily on his stick and does not complain, although I worry he might collapse. At perhaps half a league off, Titch springs into the air, flapping wide wings.

The owl-faced hob circles once, then lands on Oak’s arm and whispers in his ear.

“Well?” demands Hurclaw.

Oak turns to Lady Nore, as though she really is the one in charge. “Tiernan says that Madoc should begin walking toward him with a soldier, as a show of good faith. Tiernan will meet them.”

“And the heart?” she inquires, and I bristle. My commands had to be more open-ended for her to perform in front of Hurclaw, but she’s clever and will be looking for a loophole. I told her to behave like herself, but not to say or do anything that would give away that I had control over her. In this game of riddles and countermoves, I fear I have not been careful enough.

“He carries it in a case,” Oak says. “He’ll pass it to your soldier. Then Suren and I are to go to him.”

Lady Nore nods. “Then make haste. Let the exchange begin.”

Before, she said she wanted to keep Oak. Now she seems as if she’s planning to release him. Will that seem strange to Hurclaw? Will he even notice? I slant a look at him, but there’s no way to know his thoughts.

The hob takes to wing again, speeding over the snow toward Tiernan. “I have informed him you agreed to this plan,” Oak says.

I doubt very much that’s what he told Titch.

“With this heart, you can make the troll kings live again?” Hurclaw asks, narrowing his eyes at Tiernan and the case in his hands. “You can end the curse on my people?”

“So Bogdana told me, once, long ago,” Lady Nore says with a glance toward the storm hag, whom the stick soldiers have hauled to her feet. “Though I sometimes wonder if she wanted it for her own reasons. But I remembered her story of the bones and the heart, remembered that they would be entombed beneath the Castle of Elfhame. And when the heart wasn’t there, I knew that only a member of the royal family would be allowed to search through the tunnels extensively enough to find it—or to know if it had been deliberately moved. So I took Madoc and gave them a reason to look.”