Falls

by Melinda Kucsera

  CURSE BREAKER:

  FALLS

  MELINDA KUCSERA

  Copyright

  CURSE BREAKER: FALLS © 2018 Melinda Kucsera

  Cover design © 2018 Melinda Kucsera featuring photography by Aleksminyaylo1 under license from www.canstockphoto.com.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-949145-02-1

  ISBN 10: 1-949145-02-6

  Table of Contents

  The Curse Breaker Series

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Would You Leave a Review?

  Fall Into Our Story

  Come, Dear Sinner

  It’s Just the Beginning

  Mapping Trouble

  I See You, Boy

  Sister, Priestess

  Angelic Heart-to-Heart

  Honor Him

  This Spirit Isn’t Made for Walking

  You’re Not the Boss of Me

  Map Battles

  Can’t Touch This

  Find Him

  Passing Darkness

  Chasing Sky Beams

  Sinners’ Last Call

  To Your Dark Father Fly

  Caught in a Dark Web

  The Cards Don’t Lie

  Many Crossings

  Dark Voices

  Snakes and Menhirs

  Visiting the Queen Tree

  Ghosts and Golems

  I Wish I Could Involve You

  Ships and Spells

  So Fall We All

  Queen’s Gambit

  I’ll Have to Confiscate That

  Come, Children of Light

  I Know How to Stop It

  Tempting Repentance

  Foiled Plans

  Without the Right Tools

  Characters Speak

  Would You Leave a Review?

  Want Free Adventures?

  In Memoriam

  We’d Love to Hear from You!

  The Curse Breaker Series

  The Curse Breaker Series

  Other books in the Curse Breaker Series:

  (Suggested Reading Order)

  CURSE BREAKER: ENCHANTED

  HIS ANGELIC KEEPER

  CURSE BREAKER: DARKENS

  CURSE BREAKER: FACETED

  CURSE BREAKER: FALLS

  CURSE BREAKER: BOOKS 1-4

  CURSE BREAKER: SUNDERED

  CURSE BREAKER: HIDDEN*

  HIS ANGELIC KEEPER: HIDDEN*

  Divergent Heroes

  RELIC HUNTER

  MAGE HUNTER*

  DEMON HUNTER*

  *Forthcoming

  Dedication

  O, Guardian most dear

  stand with me when darkness falls.

  Deafen me when evil calls.

  Push me forward when I stall.

  Hold my loved ones all night long.

  If I fail, help me stand tall

  O, Guardian most dear.

  -Traditional Shayarin Prayer

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you, J.C. You’re one cool Guy. Thank you for adventuring with us. You’re welcome to hang out with us anytime you wish. Though next time, could you leave the Adversary at home?

  Fighting one villainess + her entourage was hard enough. Fighting two villains and their minions taxed us to our limits.

  Love and hugs,

  —Ran, Son of Sarn, writing on behalf of the cast of the Curse Breaker series and our scribe, Melinda K.

  We’d also like to thank all those who weighed in on our cover dilemma and challenged us to think outside the visual box. You rock!

  Would You Leave a Review?

  Yes, we’re fictional characters, but we need reviews too! We exist when you read us. So, every review helps! We love feedback and reviews help other readers to decide if our adventure is right for them. (It is but they won’t know if you don’t leave a review.) If you’re enjoying this book, please consider leaving a review.

  Thank you for reading Curse Breaker: Falls.

  Fall Into Our Story

  Hi Readers,

  Thank you for joining us. Curse Breaker: Falls is mostly another father-son adventure. I say ‘mostly’ because certain characters muscled in on my page-time (the Adversary, Aralore, Snake Woman, and this nice cross-carrying fellow named J.C. among others). Most of the cast turned up for this one. So, get ready for another wild, fast-paced adventure.

  For those just joining us, welcome!

  The first three books in our series can be read as stand-alone books. Since each book builds on the one that came before it, we urge you to read the series in order for maximum enjoyment.

  Curse Breaker: Falls picks up moments after Curse Breaker: Faceted ended, so it hits the ground running. Curse Breaker: Faceted & Curse Breaker: Falls were written and conceived as one book. But our editor convinced our scribe to split them because the book had two climaxes and two action-packed endings. (She thought you wonderful readers needed a breather before plunging back into our wild adventures. We disagreed, but we’re fictional.)

  So, make sure you read Curse Breaker: Faceted first so you can experience all the epic teddy bear action. Bear to the rescue! (Yes, that’s a spoiler. No, we’re not sorry about it.)

  Now for the moment you’ve been waiting for—we’re unleashing Aralore on the enchanted forest. It'll never be the same again. Neither will Mount Eredren. Watch out for the Adversary! He has plans, and we might be caught up in them.

  —Ran, son of Sarn, “the official greeter”

  writing on behalf of the cast of the Curse Breaker series and our shy scribe

  Come, Dear Sinner

  Come, sinner, dear, play the game of ages. Light and dark, good and evil, all on stage take their turn, and still, we play for the age.

  Win the game, determine its heart—an age of good, or bad, its winners write the page.

  They create the cage inside which we rage.

  —fragment attributed to the Book of Ages

  It’s Just the Beginning

  [Excerpted from Curse Breaker: Faceted]

  Sarn couldn't shake the feeling he was forgetting something important. So much had happened this afternoon, and he still had to go to work tonight. Fate only knew what he'd find tonight.

  “What happened?”

  The Queen of All Trees held her peace. Her presence was comforting but not her silence.

  “Why won’t you talk to me? Every bloody thing I encounter talks in my head, so why not you?”

  “I don’t talk in your head.” Ran’s frowning face popped up in Sarn’s field of view.

  “I know, and I’m glad you don’t.” Sarn tweaked his son’s button nose. “But I wish she would because I want to know what’s happening and she knows.”

  But Shayari’s sylvan Queen remained silent. Her branches arched over his head defining the limits of this oasis, this place outside of time.

  Why would she hide them? And who from—the mist, the Ægeldar, black lumir or all three? Sarn rose, eyes widening at the realization. He had been here before. A snatch of a dream from two weeks ago floated back to him, but it faded before he caught more than a glimpse.

  Time flowed past them in twinkling ribbons of the night sky. Each one was edged in violet light barely perceptible against the white glow of the Queen of All Trees. Constellations diverged behind her and merged again once they’d woven around the shield she held. Sarn stared at the radiant edge of her sphere of influence until it resolved into symbols. She lowered a branch
and inclined her crown in an invitation.

  “Go have a look. Maybe you’ll learn something.”

  Sarn glanced over his shoulder. A ghostly Bear glowered at Sarn with fathomless eyes. In their depths, hands spun around a numbered countenance as time unspooled. What did a day mean to a spirit who’d lived forever?

  Where had such insight come from? Sarn stepped back. He’d gone too far into the weird today. “Another time perhaps.”

  But Ghost Bear was nodding his white limned head. “Well, you’re sharper than you look.”

  Shadows lanced the Queen of All Trees shaking her trunk. Her oasis flickered. A white chess piece dropped through her branches. Sarn fingered the carved edges of a pawn.

  “What does this mean?” He held the chess piece up. A branch relieved him of it, but its owner declined to answer. “Why won’t you speak to me? Have I offended you in some way? I’m sorry if I have.” Sarn toed the silver leaves under his boots. A lump formed in his throat. “I make a mess of everything I touch.”

  “No, you don’t.” Ran leaned into his leg, his little face upturned. In those trusting green eyes, he could do no wrong. Sarn rested his hand on his son’s head, thanking the boy without words for that trust.

  The Queen of All Trees stabbed at something and her oasis shattered into a cascade of twinkling shards.

  “What’s happening?”

  Sarn staggered toward her—the symbol of all his hopes and dreams. His Queen was under attack, but by who—the Ægeldar, black lumir or something else?

  He had to help her. Before he could, everything disappeared into a white flare.

  Eam’eritol neem’eye —screamed Sarn’s magic as it pounded against his skull seeking a way out.

  It was back—the green magic that always came when he called it. And he'd forgotten how loud it could yell when something upset it. His map flickered in and out of view, demanding an update. The Queen of All Trees must have restored his earth magic.

  Dropping to his knees, Sarn wiped the blood dripping down his lips onto his sleeve while his magic repeated its warning, eam’eritol neem’eye—black lumir. His magic screamed at Sarn to get up and eradicate the problem.

  Where is it?

  His magic shut up, but it kept trying to escape his rested body.

  Sarn punched the silver leaves in frustration. If his magic was right, another black lumir crystal was—what? Exposed? On the loose? What exactly happened earlier?

  “Why won't you tell me what’s going on? I’m not a witless child.”

  But everyone believed he was including his own magic. Sarn dropped his aching head into his hands.

  “Papa?” Ran crashed into Sarn’s chest seeking reassurance, but he had none to offer anyone, not even his beloved son.

  Sarn held his son as he regarded his Queen. “It’s not over, is it? There's more going on.”

  As Sarn asked the question, her radiance faded, and she vanished with it. His cave reappeared, messy as always. Under his knees, one hundred forty-four interlocking circles burned brighter than the sun for a heartbeat then died away into shadow.

  But he had his answer. Sarn hugged his son as his world crashed down around him again. How could it not be over? Didn't the Queen of All Trees defeat the Ægeldar and seal up the black lumir?

  She must have because there were no tentacles barging into his cave, and the mist wasn't seeping under his door. So, what was irking his magic?

  “How could it not be over?”

  Sarn stared at the wall across from him. Nothing made sense anymore. Had something else happened while he was fighting the Ægeldar—something to do with black lumir?

  Ran squirmed until he let go. “How could what not be over? What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sarn shook his head. He scanned his cave seeking answers amid the piles of clothes and books scattered about. The ratty mattress taking up the back half of the hemispherical cave called to him. But Sarn blinked away the need to sleep. If something had happened, he needed to know about it preferably before it endangered him and his son.

  “Why’d the Queen Tree go away?”

  Ran set his stuffed bear down so he could touch the intersecting circles on the floor. They no longer glowed. And that worried Sarn.

  “I don’t know.”

  When Sarn touched them, the power sleeping in their curves made his fingers tingle. Her mark still protected them. A weight slid off his shoulders as his worries lessened. Ran would still be safe here when this was all over—if it ever was. Thank the Queen of All Trees for that.

  Sarn shifted so he sat outside her mark then scanned his cave. His magic reported back seconds later that everything was as he’d left it—no foul mist, no wraiths. That just didn’t seem possible after the afternoon he’d had, and it wasn’t even over yet.

  Light speared through the ceiling and swirled around his son’s toy, lifting it. Bear winked a twinkling button eye as the light funneled into its fuzzy body then the stuffed bear floated back into Ran’s outstretched arms.

  Ran poked its belly. “Are you back, Bear?”

  Bear’s stitched lips twitched then returned to their customary smile and Ran echoed it as he hugged his now animated toy.

  Great, so Ghost Bear had decided to stick around. He should be glad Bear would be protecting his son, but Sarn distrusted the ghost’s motives.

  “Do you know what’s going on or why she fled?” he asked, but Bear just gave him an enigmatic look. Wonderful, now Bear was playing mute. Why was everything magical so cryptic? “Fine, don’t tell me. I’ll figure it out on my own.”

  Never doubted it, Bear finally deigned to reply.

  “I liked you better when you were helpful.” Ran scowled at his toy until Bear hugged him. The boy unbent enough to smile and tender his own opinion on things. “Maybe the Queen Tree is spying on bad people.”

  “Maybe,” Sarn replied, liking the idea more and more as he considered it.

  In fact, that sounded more plausible than what he was thinking. And spying just happened to be something he was good at. Sarn regarded the bare stone floor. A gray patch between discarded clothes called to him.

  Just a touch, just a taste, and your magic will race…

  [End of Excerpt.]

  Come, Dear Sinner

  Come, sinner, dear, play the game of ages.

  Light and dark, good and evil, all on stage take their turn, and still, we play for the age.

  Win the game, determine its heart—an age of good, or bad, its winners write the page.

  They create the cage inside which we rage.

  —fragment attributed to the Book of Ages

  Mapping Trouble

  Mount Eredren groaned, and the ground under Sarn’s knees trembled. Ran rushed to his side, frightened of the shaking.

  “What’s happening?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.” And if I can, I’ll put a stop to it.

  After all, something had attacked the Queen of All Trees' magical glade before she'd sent them away, and that something might still be trying to break through. Was her sylvan refuge truly a place outside of time as it had seemed or was it somewhere near enough he could go to her and—what? Offer a mythological magical entity his aid?

  What can you do? You can't even get your magic to behave most of the time. A sarcastic voice reminded Sarn, sounding too much like Bear's for comfort. But it wasn’t. That entity had gone mute since the Queen of All Trees had returned them to his cave.

  “How’ll you find out?” Ran regarded Sarn, scared of the answer.

  Sarn shrugged. “The only way I know how—by magic.”

  “Is the Queen Tree okay?”

  “I don't know, son. That's what I want to find out.”

  “And the cause of the shaking?”

  “That too.”

  But first, Sarn touched the cold stone of his home and scanned its nooks and crannies one more time. While he mucked about with magic, his son would be
vulnerable. Whatever had attacked the Queen of All Trees might already be here.

  Ran looked up at him with scared green eyes that thankfully didn’t glow—yet.

  Sarn bit his lip and pushed that thought away. Now wasn’t the time to freak out about his four-year-old son eventually inheriting his power. With luck, that day would take forever to come.

  Ran’s gaze darted around the cave as the ground shook again. He clamped his stuffed bear against his skinny chest and chewed on its ear. If that sarcastic spirit Bear was still inhabiting the ratty thing, it gave no sign. Bear's button eyes stayed dark and as impenetrable as the black magic-stealing mist they’d fled from earlier.

  But that mist was gone. The Queen of All Trees did something to get rid of it. I need to find out what. If Ghost Bear knew, it wasn’t saying. Sarn glared at the now inanimate toy in his son’s arms.

  The ground heaved hard enough to send Ran crashing into him. Sarn caught his wide-eyed son in a one-armed embrace, and the dust dotting his son’s tunic reflected the green glow of his eyes. Those pinpricks were a remnant of the Dryskellions’ grace.

  Do what I can't, son of Adam, the last Dryskellion had said mind-to-mind before she'd disintegrated into a silver mist with the others.

  ‘Do what I can’t.’ Her final words rang in Sarn’s head bringing her sacrifice to mind, but he suppressed the memory before it could replay. Her final words galvanized Sarn. He let go and his magic flowed.