It comes to him then that the Stone Forest is south of the Citadel. The trembling is not something moving upon the earth but something disgorged from it. Wren did it. She has released the troll kings from their bondage beneath the ground.
Broken an ancient curse, one so old that for Oak it seems woven into the fabric of the world, as implacable as the sea and sky.
He can almost hear the cracking sound of the rocks that imprisoned them. Fissures spider-webbing out from two directions at once, from both boulders. Waves of magical force flowing from those twinned centers, intense enough that nearby trees would split apart, sending the ice-crusted blue fruit to scatter on the snow.
He can almost see the two ancient troll kings, rising up from the earth, stretching for the first time in centuries. Tall as giants, shaking off all that had grown over them in their slumber. Dirt and grass, small trees, and rocks would all rain down from their shoulders.
Wren had done it.
And since that is supposed to be impossible, the prince has no idea what she might do next.
Since he’s unlikely to be able to sleep again, Oak goes through the exercises the Ghost taught him long ago so that he could still practice while stuck in the mortal world.
Imagine you have a weapon. They had been in Vivi’s second apartment, standing on a small metal balcony. Inside, Taryn and Vivi had been fussing over Leander, who was learning to crawl. The Ghost had asked about Oak’s training and been uninterested in the excuse that he was eleven, had to go to school, and couldn’t be swinging around a longsword in the common space of the lawn without neighbors getting worried.
Oh, come on! Oak laughed, thinking the spy was being silly.
The Ghost conjured the illusion of a blade out of thin air, its hilt decorated with ivy. His glamour was so good that Oak had to look closely to see that it wasn’t real. Your turn, prince.
Oak had actually liked making his own sword. It was huge and black with a bright red hilt covered in demonish faces. It looked like the sword of someone in an anime he’d been watching, and he felt like a badass, holding it in his hands.
The sight of Oak’s blade had made the Ghost smile, but he didn’t laugh. Instead, he started moving through a series of exercises, urging Oak to follow. He told the prince he should call him by his nonspy name, Garrett, since they were friends.
You can do this, the Ghost—Garrett—told him. When you have nothing else.
Nothing else to practice with, he probably meant. Although right now, Oak has nothing else, full stop.
The exercises warm him just enough to be halfway comfortable when he wraps the blanket around his shoulders.
The prince has been imprisoned three weeks, according to the tallies he’s made in the dust beneath the lone bench. Long enough to dwell on every mistake he has made on his ill-fated quest. Long enough to endlessly reconsider what he ought to have done in the swamp after the Thistlewitch turned to him and spoke in her raspy voice: Didn’t you know, prince of foxes, what you already had? What a fine jest, to look for Mellith’s heart when she walks beside you.
At the memory, Oak stands and paces the floor, his hooves clattering restlessly against the black stone. He should have told her the truth. Should have told her and accepted the consequences.
Instead, he convinced himself that keeping the secret of her origin protected her, but was that true? Or was it more true that he’d manipulated her, the way he manipulated everyone in his life? That was what he was good at, after all—tricks, games, insincerity.
His family must be in a panic right now. He trusts that Tiernan got Madoc to Elfhame safely, no matter what the redcap general wanted. But Jude would be furious with Tiernan for leaving Oak behind and even angrier with Madoc, if she guesses just how much of this is his fault.
Possibly Cardan would be relieved to be rid of Oak, but that wouldn’t stop Jude from making a plan to get him back. Jude has been ruthless on Oak’s behalf before, but this is the first time it’s scared him. Wren is dangerous. She is not someone to cross. Neither of them are.
He recalls the press of Wren’s sharp teeth against his shoulder. The nervous fumble of her kiss, the shine of her wet eyes, and how he repaid her reluctant trust with deception. Again and again in his mind, he sees the betrayal on her face when she realized what an enormous secret he’d kept.
It doesn’t matter if you deserve to be in her prisons, he tells himself. You still need to get out.
Sitting in the dark, he listens to the guards play dice games. They have opened a jug of a particularly strong juniper liquor in celebration of Wren’s accomplishment. Straun is the loudest and drunkest of the bunch, and the one losing the most coin.