The Hidden Princess (3 page)

I always felt nearer to Lissy up by the Dancers. I shut my eyes and saw her face, that red hair.
She’s trapped and I let Rafe and Adam do it. We let the Swan King take her down into the Halls of the Hidden. Jesus Christ, Lissy. I’m sorry. We should have found another way, but he’d got us backed into such a bloody corner, hadn’t he? He demanded Lissy’s freedom in exchange for Connie’s life
.

What else could we have done? I’d paid for that choice every second of my life since the morning Lissy stepped into the lake at Hopesay Reach and walked out of the world and into the Halls of the Hidden. I failed every exam I ever took after that day, like my brain was just scrambled. Addled. Every time I closed my eyes I saw her face, and no matter how much I drank or whatever else I could get my hands on she was always, always there. The second I closed my eyes. Out of reach, trapped. It was my fault. I should have stopped them: I should have done something.

Get out of here, Joe
, I told myself, furious.
Walk down to the quad. Get back down to the house. Wherever Lissy is, whatever she’s doing, she’s probably forgotten you even exist. It’s a joke. Your life’s a bloody joke
.

For six years I’d managed to keep away from the Reach, out of temptation’s way. When Dad asked me to babysit Connie for a week, what was I meant to say?
Sorry, I can’t – I’m too scared that she’s going to jump me
. They’d not told her about Lissy, either, afraid that knowing might put her in the way of the Fontevrault. But all lies are like ticking bombs waiting to go off, whatever the reason behind them. It’s a right shame the Fontevrault had to look so bloody normal, because everywhere I went, I could never be sure they weren’t there. Watching me to make sure I stayed well away from the Gateway, from the Hidden.
Following
. It’s not paranoia when they really are out to get you.

What a crap-heap of a mess. Slipping on the wet grass and hemmed with fog, I cursed all the way back down the hillside, desperate to get off the fell as fast as I could. The Reach was calling me already. Lissy was calling me. She must’ve known I’d always come, no matter what.

Halls of the Hidden

I sense the sudden rush of air half a second too late. The dart whistles past my ear, burying itself deep into my forearm. Bright pain explodes and blood wells up around the protruding silver shaft, warm against my skin. Sucking in a breath of air, I screw a lid down on my fury and yank the dart from my flesh, squeezing my eyes shut against bright hot pain. I whirl around to face another dart hurtling towards me but this time I’m quick enough to duck faster than any ordinary human can even think, and the dart clatters to the ground, a shard of silver at my feet.

The White Hall is empty, save me. A vast, glittering chamber gouged out of solid quartz. There is no one here. Nobody to throw the darts.

No one I can see, anyway. He is here, though. I know he is. Heart pounding, I wait.

“Too slow, Lissy.” Impossibly, the Swan King is in the White Hall even though I can’t see him. My father. Impossibly, he is also now behind me.

I whirl around again, and now I’m face to face with him – he’s taller than I am, dark, silvery eyes watching me, the white feathers of his cloak brushing his cheek, so pale against the black hair spilling around his shoulders. Quick as a snake, he reaches out and takes hold of my wrist, pulling me closer. I gasp at the chill of his touch and we both look down at the blood, so bright against my skin. The wound is already healing, broken flesh knitting itself back together, my skin smooth once more, stained with a faint silvery scar and dark blood which is neither truly human nor truly Hidden. Not that this stops it hurting. I heal, but that does not lessen the sting.

He gives me a faint, incredulous smile. “I caught you. Why did you let me?”

I grant him no reply; I fling the dart straight at his face instead. Smiling again, he holds up one hand and it simply drops clean out of the air and clatters, harmless, on the cold white rock at our feet. He reaches out to me and I flinch in anticipation of the blow, but instead my father only touches my face with gentle delicacy, as if brushing his fingers against the cheek of a newborn child.

“You’re a fool,” he whispers. “When it comes to the last battle, win the fight, Lissy. If my hand fails and the Fontevrault catch you, you’ll know imprisonment worse even than this. You’ll never receive the gift of death. If you would have mastery over yourself, use it as you ought to. Try again, Lissy.”

I feel the chill of hard metal against my neck. My eyes shift to the left, and he’s holding the bronze knife from the scabbard at his waist right against my bare skin – he can move so very, very fast. With every last shred of willpower, I glance up at the dizzying white reaches of the cavern far above us; I focus my mind, forcing myself to forget the possibility of being held prisoner by the Fontevrault if I ever free myself from here, the threat of escaping one form of imprisonment only to find myself trapped again.

Fly
.

An electric tingling spreads across my skin as I take on my hawk-form – and I am no longer standing, no longer even touching the ground at all but beating my hawk-wings, soaring hard away till at last I’m looking down on the Swan King, a black-haired figure far below, his cloak of white feathers trailing on the ground at his feet, face upturned as he watches my flight. He holds out one arm – the command for me to come – and for just a few seconds I allow myself the dangerous liberty of disobeying him, circling and soaring around the cavern under the illusion of freedom.

I’m no fool. I descend at my father’s unspoken command, landing on his outstretched wrist, my hawk-talons scoring lines of silvery-blue Hidden blood against his pale skin that fade to nothing in the time it takes for me to shape-change again and step to the ground, a girl once more.

He smiles again. “Better. I have lost count of the times I’ve wished that flight was not only the royal gift of the Hidden, that all our tribe could fly free from mortal danger. Lissy, if the Fontevrault ever catch you, you’ll be their prisoner till the world crumbles into dust and you are the only one left alive. If the mortal race find out what you are, Lissy, that you are even possible, they will drain every drop of your Hidden blood for a taste of immortality. The Fontevrault will use you as a breeding machine, as an experiment. So don’t fail me again, daughter. I have lost so many already. All those I loved so very much. Don’t be amongst them.”

Fury flashes through me. “You’re no one to talk about using girls. What about Tippy?” Grief punches through me as I recall the day I first found her, just a little mortal girl-child kept prisoner by the Hidden, running around the endless tunnels in the ragged old nightie she’d been wearing when Rose stole her three hundred years before, how pathetically
grateful
Tippy had been as I brushed the tangles from her hair, neglected for so long. She’d given up her life to grant me the chance of freedom. All for nothing. I can’t drain the anger from my voice, even though I know speaking to my father in such a way is unwise to say the least: “Tippy was desperate. Desperate to see her family again. You kept her for three centuries hoping eventually that she’d grow up and you’d be able to use her like some kind of breeding cow.” I don’t dare mention Iris and the other victims of my father’s desire for revenge on the mortals. “You didn’t
lose
Larkspur, either – you exiled him. It was your choice.”

He’s been watching me with an infuriating amused smile, but the second Larkspur’s name tumbles from my lips all control leaves him, replaced with sudden naked fury. He reaches out to strike me and I duck; he grabs my wrist, his touch spreading a deep cold that freezes me where I stand. We remain face to face. My heart throbs, pounding and pounding; I look up at him, expecting to be hurled halfway across the White Hall. He’s done it before. He could break every bone in my body without lifting a finger, without so much as touching me. He does not. We stare at each other, the world continuing to move around us as all the while we are still. I’ve never once seen the Swan King shed a tear, but the dark emptiness in his eyes is worse. God knows, I swear I can almost feel his despair – so deep and relentless, such endless longing. First he lost Larkspur’s mother, and then finally Larkspur himself. Now I see the truth: it’s almost too much for the Swan King to bear.

“Don’t make me hurt you. I don’t want to.” He drops my wrist, eyes locked on mine. “Don’t speak of Larkspur again, Lissy. Please.”

Don’t make me hurt you?
As if it’s my fault.

“It doesn’t have to be like this.” I’m breathless and terrified, but the words spill out before I can stop them. Nothing can bring back Larkspur’s mother, but is there not still hope for my brother? “Larkspur would come if you called him. He’d be here before dawn. He’d go down on his knees for you. All you have to do is ask.”

The Swan King smiles, bittersweet. “But you, my half-breed daughter, are the only one with the power to let him in. And yet you refuse to open the Gateway. Time and time again you have refused.”

“Then don’t release the plague. Promise you won’t.”

He laughs, gently releasing my wrist. “How could you trust me, Lissy? How could you be sure I wouldn’t do it? You made one bargain with me, daughter, and that should have taught you never to attempt another.”

I shrug, choosing my words with utmost care. “It’s true you’ve outmanoeuvred me before. But what if you proved I could trust you?”

He smiles again. I’ve amused him once more – his entertaining little toy. “And how, my own darling, my Hidden Princess, how would I earn your trust?”

“My blood,” I reply, before I have the sense to shut up. “You took it. You used it to make the plague. Destroy the silver vial – destroy the plague – and I’ll open the Gateway. It’s all you have to do. I’ll release you and Larkspur will come. You know he will.”

We’re standing so close I can see the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, the white feathers of his cloak shivering and shifting with each soft movement. When he speaks, his voice is so sweet that I want to cry. “But who would stop me cutting your throat, darling one, the moment you opened the Gateway? Even if I destroyed the vial before your eyes, Lissy, your blood is not so very difficult to come by.”

“Why don’t you just let it all go?” I say, quietly, not even caring what he does to me now. How long must we go on like this, deadlocked? “Why make the mortals suffer so much for a crime not one of them committed? Even the Fontevrault who killed Larkspur’s mother have been dead for centuries. The plague won’t punish them, only the innocent.”

“I betrayed her once,” he says, never taking his eyes from mine. “I should have been at her side; I should have saved her life. What can I do but honour her memory, Lissy?”

“You don’t need to honour her memory with blood,” I whisper. We’re standing so close I feel the sweet warmth of his breath on my face. “Honour it with love.”

And for just the briefest moment, the hardness in his eyes softens, and I see my father as I’ve never seen him before – a wild and beautiful creature, full of compassion, and a tiny flame of hope stirs inside me. Have I found my way out of this prison, at last? But my father says nothing; he just turns and walks away, the cloak of white feathers trailing along the ground behind him, silent as a fall of snow.

He leaves with no promises, and I’m afraid. One day, sooner or later, the Swan King will find a way to end his imprisonment in the White Hall of the Hidden, whether that’s by forcing me to open the Gateway, or some other more complicated trick, less easy to combat. And when that day comes, he will spread a plague from one end of the earth to the other that will destroy every last man, woman and child – unless I can find a way of stopping him.

Sahara Desert, Morocco

Stars prickle the desert night. It’s getting cold even though the heat was searing just a few hours ago, and I wrap the cloak closer about my shoulders. In my mind I’m centuries away from this sea of sand, this quiet darkness, back to the morning I stood with my father at the foot of a tower with the sun hammering against my head, looking down at a boy lying face-down in the dust. The back of his white chemise was thick with dried blood – I remember wondering at the thick dark richness of his blood.

“So cruel, Larkspur,” my father said to me. “The mortals beat their young; they break their skin.” And he crouched down at the boy’s side, the white feathers of his cloak puddling in the dirt. “Get up,” he said in our own Hidden tongue, a language no ordinary mortal could possibly understand. The second test – Nicolas had already survived a fall that would have killed a mortal. “Get up now, Nicolas de Mercadier.”

The boy turned his head to the side and his eyes snapped open. More dark blood leaked from his ear, a glossy trickle across dusty earth and grit.
Nicolas
.

“Am I in Hell?” He thought he was dead, yet there was no trace of fear on his face, and I remember wondering if his life was so miserable he would really rather be dead. With a small moan like a hound with a thorn in its pad, he turned to lie on his side, still looking up at us. His gaze travelled from my father to me and back again, still without a trace of fear.

“I said, get up.” My father reached out with one hand and hauled Nicolas to his feet; his bloodied face screwed itself into knots of agony, but my father paid no attention to that.

“Who are you?” Nicolas coughed, spitting blood into the dust at his feet. Despite the fearless look in his eyes, he was trembling all over now; he kept clenching his hands into fists but every time his fingers unfurled they were still shaking.

My father smiled. “Listen to me, Nicolas. Anjou married your mother knowing she had a bastard child hidden at Fontevrault Abbey, but had he known what manner of bastard you are, all the gold in Christendom would not have been enough to tempt him. Thanks to my sister Rose and her loose tongue, Anjou now knows exactly what you are – what your mother has smuggled into his family.”