Shadow's Curse

by Alexa Egan

  David rose to his feet, a rakish smile tilting one corner of his mouth. “I don’t know about you, but I have the distinct feeling we’ve gone from frying pan to fire.” He held out a hand. “Come, my lady, our chariots await.”

  She gave a jerk of her head, motioned him on. “Go on. I just need . . . need a moment to wash up.”

  His gaze dimmed briefly, then with a last flash of his scoundrel’s grin, he followed Nancy up the path toward the waiting caravans.

  Callista knelt to splash water on her heated cheeks before staring into the river, seeing the reflection of trees and sky and a bird sitting high in a nearby pine. A breeze ruffled her damp skirts, but it was not the icy cold of death. She felt no tug upon her chest as the door cracked open.

  What had David seen when he looked into her eyes?

  “I wish you were here, Mother. I have so many questions. So many things I don’t understand,” she said to the breeze and the sky and the rustle of leaves.

  A crow flew down to settle a few feet away, its beady eyes fixed upon Callista.

  “The bird of death. An appropriate companion for a daughter of Lord Arawn’s line,” she said, rising to her feet with a deep, restorative breath.

  The bird ruffled its shiny black feathers and squawked before shuffling a few steps closer.

  “Can you tell me what I want to know?” she asked.

  With a last squawk, the bird flew off.

  Death. Death. Death, rang in Callista’s head.

  But, as a necromancer, had she expected anything else?

  * * *

  David stood just beyond the flickering glow of the fire studying his new traveling companions.

  Edward Perkins and his wife, Lettice, performed a magic show together, though David felt no trace of Fey-blood powers from either one of them. Clearly, there was little of magic and much of show about their act. Then there was Big Knox, a juggler and acrobat who spouted Shakespeare while he capered and leapt and spun plates on sticks. Pretty, blond Sally Sweet worked as a dancer, though David would wager she made more money on her back than she ever did on her feet. Finally there was Sam Oakham and his sister Nancy. Despite her brother’s loud, bullying leadership, Nancy appeared to be the real glue that held this motley troupe together. Beneath her hard-bitten façade, she seemed to have a way of handling people, including her brother, that relied less on bluster and more on charm. Too bad she was a female. She’d have made a brilliant general.

  Big Knox leaned over and tossed another log onto the blaze. The flames shot high into the air, sparks flying, resin snapping. David stared into the heart of the pyre, watching the twist and curl of the flames as they danced within the circle of stones, feeling the heat against his face even here, where he stood among the trees.

  His grandmother had always warned him that he’d end as the main act in a mummer’s show if he wasn’t careful. If he didn’t follow clan law. If he didn’t hide what he was from a dangerous world. What would she say if she knew he was traveling to the Isle of Skye in company with a Fey-blood as a member of Oakham’s Follies? He chuckled, knowing exactly. She’d call him a hen-witted fool and a brainless bag of hammers. Would she be far wrong?

  He followed the track of the floating sparks up and up into the sky to be lost among the distant stars on their way through the Gateway.

  Gran had passed beyond. He’d been ten when she’d died and his family had returned with her body to the ancestral clan holding in Wales, where her spirit was released with fire and wind. Father and Mother had seemed completely out of place among the Imnada clansmen gathered to assist in the rites and offer their prayers. It was the first time David had realized the difference between his family and the shapechangers who stayed hidden behind the Palings shield wall. The children had called him avaklos, meaning “one who lives beyond the wall,” and mocked his London clothes and his city ways. They had split his lip and shoved him down on the rocks and he’d cried to his mother, who wiped his tears and soothed his fears.

  Better a brave avaklos than a craven andala who cowers within his holding and prays that the Fey-bloods pass him over. The Palings serve a purpose, but we cannot cower behind them for all time. Look at the Duke of Morieux. He understands this. He does not wrap himself in mists and shadow and pretend there is no world beyond. He strides out boldly and unafraid. He knows that sometimes the best hiding place is right under your enemies’ nose. You are the wolf and your bloodline lies deep here in Wales, but the wolf does not burrow into the ground like the badger. And when the battle’s joined, he does not run and he does not hide. Remember that always, David.

  He and his father had returned to the holding in Wales only two years later, and this time there was no mother to soothe his hurts when the taunts began, but he’d grown larger and prouder, and this time he did not need assistance. He stopped them on his own and called himself avaklos.

  Funny, he’d not thought of those visits to Wales in years. Nor spent more than a passing thought now and again for his gran or his mother. But the spirits seemed to hover closer these days and memories he’d fought to lock away pushed to the surface of his mind. Was it Callista and the power she possessed who caused this dwelling on people long dead and events best forgotten? No, as he’d told her once before, she was the excuse, but not the cause.

  He’d been feeling this way since Adam’s murder last year. The first of the brotherhood to fall, though not the last. Each of them faced a painful death, and all knew there would be no funeral pyre lit in their honor, no gathering of clan and kin to speak the words and send them back to the stars. They would be bound to the earth to rot, their souls trapped and unable to rejoin their families beyond the Gateway. Exiles even in death.

  But how long until there were no Imnada left? A generation? Five? Already, the magic of the Palings waned, the holdings became vulnerable, and elders of the five clans far outnumbered the younglings born of the blood. Under siege from Fey-blood and human alike, what chance did the clans have? None. Not with the Ossine’s clamp on power holding them captive to the outdated ways of andala isolation and men like Beskin hunting down the few who spoke out against it.

  He rubbed his face. Shook off the oppression with a shrug of his shoulders and a crack of his neck. What he needed was a damn drink. A nice big whisky or a pint or two . . . or ten. Surely one of these men possessed enough alcohol to wash away a lifetime of sorrows, though he doubted any would offer him as much as a sip and risk Oakham’s anger.

  It would be water or cider, if he was lucky.

  “Are you waiting for your valet to bring you dinner, St. Leger? Better eat. Breakfast will be bread and cheese. We won’t have time to stir up the fire so that you can dine on sausages and tea.”

  Nancy Oakham had joined him under the trees, her chin thrust in a challenge, her expression a mixture of bravado and suspicion. She held out a plate of stew, the smell enticing. He accepted it with a nod, but she didn’t withdraw. Instead, she followed the track of his gaze, her lips pressed tight.

  “I still can’t believe Cally’s here. She’s the last person I ever thought to see again. And in company with a fancy man like yourself.” She gave a bark of laughter.

  “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

  “She must be extremely desperate to turn up asking Sam for help after the way things were left between them.”

  “You’ve met Branston Hawthorne. What do you think?”

  “The man was a slug and a bully.” She cast him a dubious glance. “But can you tell me you’re any better?”

  “No, but I can say I’m definitely no worse.”

  “Hawthorne should have accepted Sam’s suit. He’d have made a good husband for Cally,” she said pointedly.

  “Perhaps he wanted more for his sister than a traveling player, no matter how good a man he was.”

  She gave a lift of her brows and a quick sniff in response. “Then why are you running?”

  “Anyone ever tell you it’s not polite to pry into ot
her people’s business?”

  “As long as you’re traveling with us, you and Cally are my business.”

  “Let’s just say that if Branston Hawthorne wants his sister back, he’ll have to go through me.” A corner of his mouth twisted in a humorless smile, almost wishing Hawthorne would appear to give him an outlet for the frustration boiling just under his skin.

  “Tough words for a London gent”—Nancy folded her arms over her chest—“if that’s what you really are.”

  Every muscle wound to spring, fire chewing up through his belly. “What else would I be?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” she answered coolly.

  He forced himself to relax, even give a nonchalant shrug and a quick practiced grin. “No mystery. I’m just a pretty boy fancy man, Miss Oakham.”

  “You’re more than that. Nobody bests Sam who isn’t a notch above.” As if hearing his name, her brother eyed them grimly from his seat by the fire.

  “I told you,” he said. “I was a soldier.”

  She continued to eye him suspiciously. “Mm-hm. That’s what you said. But I’ve known soldiers before and I think there’s more to you than mere training at drills and guns. I saw it in your eyes when you were fighting. And the way you moved. It was different somehow. Better.”

  “I was a very good soldier.”

  “Just remember, St. Leger. I’ve got my eye on you. Cally’s had her share of trouble. I don’t want to see her hurt. And I’m not nearly as easy to best in a fight as Sam. You’ll never know what hit you. You got that?”

  “A threat, Miss Oakham?”

  “Plain speaking. I protect my own and while Cally travels with me, she’s family.”

  “I’m traveling with you.”

  Her lip twitched with reluctant amusement. “You look plenty able to protect yourself.”

  “I’m feeling hungrier already.” He scooped up a forkful of stew, but Nancy refused to take the hint and leave. Instead, she seemed determined to remain, her stance unyielding, expression dogged.

  So be it. Two could play at question and answer. He’d see how she liked being interrogated. “Who was your fancy man, Nancy? Was he a soldier too?”

  She stiffened, but he noticed her hand drop to the apron spread across her growing stomach. “I don’t need your pity, St. Leger. I’m not a softheaded maiden and I knew even as he was whispering sweetness in my ear that he’d leave sooner or later.”

  “Why is that?”

  She glanced to the fire, where Callista sat chatting with Sally Sweet, and back to David, suspicion once more shrouding her face. “Because no gentleman is going to marry a peddler’s daughter, no matter how much he says—or doesn’t say—he loves her. Is he?”

  8

  Victor Corey pulled on his gloves and accepted a walking stick from his valet; selected more for the heavy knob of its handle than for the elegance of its design. One good swing could crush a man’s skull like a ripe melon.

  His coach stood waiting. A footman to open the door; another to carry his bags. A third waiting to place a hamper of food upon the seat beside him for the long trip. Hell, if he snapped his fingers, he could have a damned footman wipe his arse . . . or kiss it. All it took was coin, and he’d plenty of that. Enough to make this journey north both pleasant and fast.

  He sat back against the cushions, tapping his fingers against the knob of his cane, impatient at the congested streets that held his progress to a minimum. Once clear of the city, they could fly, but now there was little he could do but dwell on the failures that had led to this unwanted journey. It should have been easy. St. Leger’s height and looks should have drawn every eye. The man had a rugged soldier’s build, and a face women wept over. He was everything Corey had ever dreamed of being—handsome, charming, sophisticated.

  And it was all a lie.

  Beneath that polished façade lay a savage beast. A predator that would rip your throat out or leave you bleeding entrails like snakes.

  Corey knew all about monsters that dressed in silks and sported with princes.

  He was one.

  Perhaps he and the shifter were more alike than he thought.

  He’d fix that easily enough.

  He’d show the world what monsters were made of. A knife blade to the eye would destroy that golden beauty easily enough. A few broken teeth. Smashed fingers. A shattered knee. As long as he didn’t kill the shapechanger, the blood would flow as readily from a grotesque as it would from a prince.

  He could almost thank the shifter for making it so easy. For, once the Imnada was his, Callista Hawthorne would see what happened to those who disobeyed him. She would watch him cut her lover down to size and she would not attempt to flee again. Not if she didn’t want those same knives to carve his initials into her even as he placed his ring on her finger.

  She would take him as her husband.

  She would open death for him.

  She would summon him an army from the grave.

  Or she would watch St. Leger hacked apart bit by bit, his screams the last to die.

  The traffic moved more quickly, houses and shops giving way to trees and fields. His coachman set the horses to and the world was a rattling blur of green and brown.

  He had salted the roads with men and news of the shifter’s supposed crimes. But, to be certain of his success, he’d decided to travel north himself.

  He would be there ahead of them. His quarry would see the walls of Dunsgathaic rising up before them. They would believe they were safe.

  And that’s when he would spring his trap.

  He rubbed a finger over the knob of his cane. One good swing to crush a man’s skull—or a wolf’s.

  Nothing and no one would stand in the way of his destiny.

  * * *

  Callista sat beneath the shade of a spreading ash tree, finishing her lunch of cheese and bread and a few shriveled apples washed down with a bitter frothy beer passed freely among the company.

  “Where’s St. Leger?” Sam barked, wiping his hands on a cloth as he came from the wagons. “He’s needed to help Big Knox mend that back wheel on the Perkinses’ wagon. I’ll not carry deadweight. He does his share or he leaves.”

  Sam hadn’t stopped goading David since their arrival, offering him naught but barbed words and grueling work. David merely smiled and did as he was told, but Callista sensed the rein he barely maintained on his temper. Should he lose it, there would be more than a few blows exchanged. It would take only a trigger to unleash the shapechanger’s lethal ferocity. Sam would be dead before he hit the ground.

  “Maybe Pretty Boy got lost on his way to take a piss.” Perkins guffawed at his own joke.

  “Sam wishes,” Big Knox cracked with a gap-toothed grin. “At least we know one place he ain’t. Cally’s right here with us. Otherwise, I’d say he was taking a few minutes to dip the wick.”

  “I don’t think our little runaway would know what to do with a wick if it jumped up and bit her,” Sally said with a wicked smile, fanning herself from a blanket under a nearby tree. “Look at her, just talking about it has her pale as a wheel of cheese.”

  “Maybe they had a lovers’ quarrel,” Lettice sighed, a hand over her heart as she turned doe eyes up at her husband. “And Mr. St. Leger’s gone off to drown his sorrows.”

  “Wherever he is, it’s none of our business,” Nancy said, abruptly ending the conversation, though she directed a long, thoughtful stare in Callista’s direction. “St. Leger works hard and doesn’t complain . . . unlike some I could name.” Thankfully, her gaze widened to scour the men and Callista no longer felt like a bug under glass. “He’ll turn up.”

  “Like a bad penny,” Perkins added.

  Sam growled and stalked off toward the wagons, though not before raking Callista with a greedy stare that made her shiver. It was not the first time he’d looked on her like a starving man eyeing a three-course meal. Obviously five years had done little to ease Sam’s desire for a wife. She pinched the bridge of her
nose against a sudden headache.

  “Did St. Leger tell you where he was going, Cally?” Nancy asked, maneuvering her bulk as she sought to stand.

  “No,” Callista answered with a sigh.

  She’d seen him disappear, but one look at the expression on his face and she hadn’t dared ask where he was going.

  Nancy mumbled something under her breath and gave an exasperated shake of her head before heaving herself to her feet.

  “I’ll find him.” Sally Sweet stretched and rose from her blanket like Venus rising from the sea. “He might be . . . hungry.” Her eyes rested for a brief, challenging moment on Callista. “As far as I can tell, he hasn’t been eating very well lately.”

  Callista smoothed a hand over her skirt to keep it from slapping the tart’s face.

  David might not be hers in truth, but she wasn’t about to let a hussy like Sally get her claws into him. Not without a fight.

  It wasn’t that she was jealous. That was absurd. Jealousy implied a relationship, and there was nothing between David and her but friendship and a deal brokered out of desperation. Once she reached Skye, their arrangement would be completed. David would depart. She would move on. No more rambling conversations or teasing laughter. Never again would she look across a fire and meet his eyes in a look of shared amusement or feel his steady presence beside her across the endless miles.

  “Enough, Sally,” Nan snapped. “Take the bucket there and fetch some water for the washing-up.” To Callista she said, “If you’re finished eating, go find your fancy man and tell him we can’t leave till he sees to that wheel.”

  Glad for an excuse to escape, Callista got to her feet and followed the path into the trees that David had taken an hour earlier.

  The track wound up from the road, a difficult rocky climb, and by the time she reached the summit, she had to stop to catch her breath. She stared out over the landscape of hills, stretching unbroken to the north and west. A flock of crows rose into the air from a thick stand of trees, and Callista shivered, her thoughts darkening.

  Death, the crow had warned.