“Why do you call it Liquid Shackles?” I asked, pursing my lips. I did not like the sound of that one bit.
“Because it is a clever metaphor,” he replied, holding the glass up to examine it more closely. I waited for him to explain further, but it was clear he had no intention of elaborating.
“And if I refuse?” I asked.
He cocked one eyebrow and gave me a dour look.
“I suppose you’ll just force it down my throat,” I muttered.
“Certainly not,” he said, lowering the glass. “It is always better to delegate nefarious tasks. You know, to keep one’s reputation intact.”
I scowled, but all my dark look garnered was a grin from him. “Keep in mind that I have to drink it too.”
“What does it taste like?” I asked.
“Having never been bonded before, I haven’t the foggiest idea. But I expect quite vile.” He clinked his glass against mine. “Bottoms up!” He drowned the liquid in one mouthful.
Resigned, I sipped mine carefully. It tasted a bit like honey, only sweeter. A slow, but not unpleasant, warmth swept down my throat and into my stomach, spreading out from there. I took another small sip and then another until the glass was drained. “Quite lovely, really,” I murmured. The room seemed brighter, and I swayed slowly from foot to foot as though caught in some unheard rhythm. The pain of all my injuries faded away and I felt languid, blissful. “Are you certain there was no liquor in that?” I asked, my voice dreamy.
“Quite.” Tristan’s eyes had grown so dilated that only a thin rim of silver remained around them. “Though I see it has made you rather punch-drunk.”
“You mean it hasn’t affected you at all?”
“I expect I have a more resilient constitution.”
The side of his throat fluttered with the rapidness of his pulse, belying his words. A strange urge to reach up and touch him filled me, if only to prove that he was in fact alive, not some vision my mind had conjured. I didn’t remember moving, but suddenly my fingers brushed that very spot, his skin hot against mine. He shuddered beneath my touch, eyelids drifting shut. Then his hand shot up, faster than anyone had the right to move, and caught my wrist, gently pulling it away. “I think, Mademoiselle de Troyes,” he said, sucking in a ragged breath, “that you are not yourself.” He let go of me, my skin burning from his touch.
“This all seems like a dream now, but like every dream, eventually you must wake.” He raised a hand to brush back a tendril of hair that had fallen across my face, careful, I thought, not to touch my skin.
“My lord?”
We both jumped, turning to look at the servant standing at the door.
“The moon rises.”
Tristan sighed. “And she waits on no one, not even me.” He offered his arm and I took it, feeling muscles flexed hard with tension beneath his coat. We descended down the marble steps and through the empty courtyard filled with glass trees and carved statues. Beyond the gates, light glowed; and as we passed under the iron portcullis and out into the city, I gasped. Thousands of trolls lined the path leading down to the river, and above each danced a glowing orb of troll-light.
I stepped on the hem of my dress and stumbled, clutching Tristan’s arm for support as my eyes scanned the crowd massed on either side of us. They were young and old, some badly malformed and some nearly as lovely to behold as the one holding my arm. The vast majority of them were wearing shades of grey, and pockets of those dressed in vibrant colors stood out like jewels in a bed of ash. One thing linked them all, though: their expressions of desperate hope. Dozens of them dropped to their knees, fingers brushing the train of my dress as we passed, which should have been unnerving, but wasn’t. Not one of them said a word. There was only the sound of the waterfall: water that thundered as it hit the pool and echoed over and over again in a wild cacophony, piercing through the veil the strange liquid had cast over my mind. I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts, but to no avail. My body shuddered as panic crept in, every instinct telling me to run.
The King and Queen waited with the rest of the troll nobility at the water’s edge. Their eyes were not on us, but rather on a marble platform sitting in the middle of the river. At its center stood a glass altar glittering not with the eerie light of the trolls, but one with which I was much more familiar. “The moon,” I whispered, and raised my eyes to the tiny hole in the rock ceiling far above.
“The moon,” Tristan agreed. “It took fifty years after the fall for my ancestors to make that opening, and for those fifty years, no one could be properly bonded. Lucky bastards.”
“How sad,” I murmured, my panic receding as I watched the beam of light grow in strength. If only I had wings, then I might fly up and through that hole to escape. My heart fluttered in my chest, and everything around me seemed unreal, as though I was walking in a dream. “Can you fly, my lord?” I asked, my voice sounding distant even in my own ears. “Can your magic take you to the sky?”
“No,” he said, and I swore I heard regret. “Our magic can do a great many things, but not that.”
I was distantly aware of passing through the ranks of trolls and of the heat beneath my feet as we stepped up on a bridge of power forming magically ahead of us. It was transparent and faintly glowing. I’d never have dreamed it would hold our weight, but Tristan drew me resolutely across. My heels clicked against the surface as though it were made of glass. My eyes remained locked on the opening above us. Then abruptly, the edge of the moon appeared. My gasp was drowned by the collective murmurs of the thousands of trolls lining the banks of the river.