“Thank you.”
Sienna smiled. “Of course.”
“Where’s the spell?”
“I have it,” Vi said, pulling it out from the belt of her guard’s uniform.
I nodded. “Good. Keep it safe.”
I took Lyra from Sienna, not willing to let anyone else carry her, and we followed the Breaker.
No one else had yet come from the coliseum.
Trin saw me check. “Don’t worry. They’re still fighting.”
“You can tell?”
She nodded.
“Gods…”
“Not today.” She smiled. It wasn’t exactly a happy smile, she was not pleased that we were following the Breaker, but she was going along.
I myself couldn’t believe I was doing this, but what other choice did I have?
Even Orathar was having trouble with that other Breaker, and this one seemed at least as strong—and I was no Orathar.
“What’s your name?” I asked her.
She glanced back at me. She seemed unconcerned that we were behind her. It was this more than anything else that unnerved me right now. Her certainty that we posed absolutely no danger to her. “What is yours?”
“I asked first.”
She rolled her eyes and looked forward again. “This way.” She ducked down a side street.
“You didn’t answer his question,” Vi growled.
The Breaker looked at her with a faint smile. “How cute. She protects you.”
Vi snarled at her.
“Vi,” I said quietly, and she lowered her hackles, though kept a look of disgust on her face.
“My name is Keletha. Now stop talking until we get to my carriage.”
And so we did.
We encountered no one on the way. Had everyone in the city been in that coliseum? I guessed so. Still, I wondered where the ones who’d fled were.
Keletha led us out of the city to a waiting carriage with two horses.
To me she said, “You can ride up front. The rest of you, stay in the back. We’re not out of danger yet.”
I nodded at the others. “Go on.” I handed Lyra to Sienna. “Watch over her. See what you can do.”
“I’ll try.”
The Breaker handed the bag with Alva to Vi with a knowing smile. “Have fun taking the gag out.”
At my urging, Vi took the bag reluctantly, and everyone climbed into the carriage except for myself and the Breaker.
The two of us climbed onto the perch and we rode away from this unknown hidden city. I remained turned in my seat, watching the city dwindle, seeing if we were followed.
Then when all I could see of it was that giant statue, I watched the Breaker instead.
She neither looked at me nor spoke.
Finally, I asked, “Why are you helping us?”
She didn’t reply immediately. Then, “It’s not you I seek to help. It’s the world.”
I shook my head. “That makes no sense. You’re the one who delivered the spell.”
“Yes, and that is my mistake to live with. I didn’t know what it was.” She looked at me finally, and it felt as though her bright eyes pierced right into my core. “I’m not like you. I can’t see magic.”
“But you can feel it.”
“Yes, I can.”
“And you didn’t feel that?”
“I did.”
“Then why did you deliver it if you knew?”
“I knew it was powerful, but I’ve delivered countless powerful items for many groups. But how could I have known? Even you, who can see magic. Did you know? Know what it was for?”
“I didn’t,” I said softly. I hadn’t known at all. Only that it contained abundant magic.
“Then don’t chastise me for missing it.”
“You don’t want the gods brought back?”
“No,” she said, and there was venom in her voice. “How could anyone? They lie to themselves and tell tales of greatness, of wonder. But they forget to include or simply ignore the parts where as much as the gods once gave, they took away even more from those they deemed unworthy. Easy now for people to believe that only those who deserved it were punished. They don’t realize, that’s exactly what those punished once believed, until they found themselves on the wrong side of some god’s wrath.”
“And with a god,” I said, “there is no contesting their decision. No fighting back. Not anymore.”
She nodded. “So that is why I helped you. Not to help you at all, but to help everyone. We stand no chance against the gods, but we might just have one against the men who want to bring them back.”
Epilogue
The giant statue receded behind us. Shrinking, diminishing, growing unimportant.
Lyra still slumbered. Sienna hadn’t been able to wake her, said whatever afflicted her was beyond her ability to cure.
But she was alive. We were back together.
When the statue had faded completely from sight, long after the sun had set and dark had fallen, we stopped briefly to start a fire to destroy the spell in, so that even should Orathar find us, he would not get the spell.
Sienna drew heat from the earth, caused trees to sacrifice bits of themselves for the cause. The branches withered up and died, then broke off, creating a blaze.
“Are you sure about this?” Trin asked as I held the spell over the fire. “We don’t know whether we could use it against him somehow.”
“No, we don’t. But we do know he was using it to bring Erisi back. Maybe without it, he can’t. That alone makes it worth it.” I tossed the ancient scroll into the blaze, and watched flames lick at its edges.
But the spell wouldn’t burn.
Sienna turned her hand to roots and poked at it, pushing it deeper into the fire.
It did not ignite.
“No,” Keletha said sadly, “of course it couldn’t be so easy.” She shook her head. “It’s not going to burn.”
And nor would it tear, or be cut, or succumb to any other manner of stresses we put it through.
I thought back to it sitting in a pool of blood on the dais in the coliseum, how it hadn’t absorbed any of it. As though it was in this world, but not of it.
“I can bury it,” Sienna suggested. “Pull it down into the depths of the earth.”
“He’ll find it,” Keletha said.
“How? If it’s buried, no one would know where to look for it.”
“Because it wants to be found. It will find its way to the surface, and back to someone who will again try to use it.”
And so we were forced to do the only thing we could to be certain Orathar didn’t get his hands on it again. We were forced to keep the spell with us.
Forced to look over our shoulders as we continued on, hoping no one followed the trail it left.
We rode toward somewhere Keletha said would be safe for a time, where we could gather ourselves; rest and heal.
Where we could plan what came next.
And in the endless dark between kingdoms, I swore to myself another promise. Lyra needed no avenging, but perhaps the world did.
I’d made many mistakes, trusting Orathar primary among them. But I had a second chance now—I had Lyra, I had my friends, and I wouldn’t waste this opportunity, for rare is the one so lucky as to get a third.
I’d set out to avenge my wife and regain my kingdom, and ended up in a quest for so much more than that. Orathar still lived, and my kingdom was still his.
But my queen wasn’t dead.
They hadn’t killed her, but tricked me into believing it to be so.
Erisi forbade the killing of your own king so long ago, and in so doing saved my life, and set me on a quest that would prevent hers from ever being restored.
I now know why I was betrayed, and the reason is more frightening than anything I could have imagined.
For even in this time without gods, their memory apparently prevails, and that is enough to bring them back.
I will still kill Orathar and take bac
k my kingdom, but if I am to be victorious, I need to practice. I need to grow much stronger. I need to use my forbidden magic for all it is worth, and create an army. Then it will not be he who chases us, but I who pursue him. I will do so to the ends of the world, I will give him no rest. I will find him, and I will end him.
I am a Dark, son of the god-king, but not of a god. A mortal man, for the gods are still gone from this world, and I will do whatever it takes to keep it that way.
End Book 1
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Curse of Magic Page 24