“I know I don’t have any right to ask for your forgiveness,” Wil said, finishing her story. The apology stuck in her throat, and she couldn’t bring herself to say that she was sorry. The words were small and empty and unworthy of him.
Gerdie stared at the fire and his mouth twitched as though he couldn’t settle on an expression. At last it was his turn to speak, and he weighed his words carefully.
“I read about drowning,” he said, his voice soft. “About what it does to the brain, to the heart. How long it takes to die. But it never made any sense. I couldn’t accept it, and I didn’t know what was wrong with me.”
Wil hugged her knees, sickened by her guilt.
Gerdie looked at her, and his expression was eerily blank. Whatever he was thinking, whatever else he wanted to say, he was hiding it from her. This was a side of himself reserved for their father, or for Baren. Sometimes even their mother, when he was trying to stop her from worrying. But not Wil. Never Wil.
She had no right to ask, though it chipped a hairline crack through her heart. She did not deserve her brother’s trust until she had earned it again.
“You were there when the darklead attacked Cannolay,” he said. This surprised Wil, until his face betrayed a moment of regret and sorrow, and she realized that of course this had been haunting him. The bomb that hit Cannolay was one of his own design, but he had hoped it would never be used.
“Yes,” Wil said, her voice gentle. “I was there.”
“Was it—” Now he was the one struggling for words.
“It did what it was designed to do,” Wil said, giving him the courtesy of truth. “And Loom is the king his kingdom needs. As soon as he’s on the throne, we could start to repair the relations between our kingdoms.”
“You really believe that?” Gerdie asked.
“Yes,” Wil said. She had spent weeks at Loom’s side, but it hadn’t taken that long for her to see how he loved his kingdom, how much of himself he was willing to sacrifice for it.
“I didn’t want for that to happen, Wil,” he said. “I thought I had hidden my weapons where Baren would never find them. I thought he wouldn’t know what they were even if he did. But one morning I woke in a fog. My body was heavy and I could barely think straight. I stayed in bed and I slept until it was dark outside, and when I went to the basement, everything was . . . ransacked.”
“Baren drugged you?” Wil lowered her knees from her chest and sat up straighter. Anger surged, but she couldn’t give in to it now. There was too much else to untangle first.
Gerdie shook his head, as though to free himself from the memory. “Something has changed in him” was all he said.
“Why didn’t my power affect him?” Wil wondered aloud.
Gerdie reached for the aloe plant that sat atop his mantel. He always had them nearby. Ground with serlot oil and then boiled, the leaves created a salve that eased the persistent aching in his legs on cold days. He presented the potted plant to her now as though offering up an answer.
Wil took it and traced her finger along a fleshy leaf. It was soft and pliable. A dull ache stirred in her chest as something tried to fight its way out of her. Her heart sped in anticipation, but her skin turned clammy. Her temple throbbed with strain, and the more she tried to coax her curse into action, the more persistent the throbbing grew.
She thought back to her return to the castle, and how much effort it had taken to turn the ivy into stone. She’d felt a final push, as though her curse was letting out its last gasp of power.
“It isn’t only Baren,” she said. “This entire kingdom is immune to my curse.” She hoisted the potted plant to her eye level and studied it, Gerdie’s face blurring in the background.
“You said that cursed things cancel each other out,” Gerdie said, and his tone was as blunt and dreary as the rain outside. It worried Wil; without his hyper, eager curiosity, he could almost be a stranger to her. When she last saw her brother, the theory of her power being a curse had irritated him. It was too illogical to consider. But now he seemed to accept it, in some battered-down, resigned sort of way that said he’d witnessed many things once deemed impossible. “Maybe your powers don’t affect things because this whole kingdom is cursed.”
“That can’t be true,” Wil said, looking to the night sky beyond his bedroom window. “Can it?”
He laughed humorlessly. “Did you get a look at Arrod?”
He was right. Wil had noted the bleakness of her kingdom, but she had attributed it to being a projection of her own worries.
Gerdie touched her wrist, and she jerked back reflexively. Owen flashed through her mind. His veins hardening, his eyes glazing over with crystal. “What are you doing?” she cried.
Gerdie studied the hand with which he’d touched her, and then he held it out for her inspection.
Her curse had not affected him.
“Baren,” Wil said, the speculation coming even before she’d thought it. Perhaps she had already known.
The conversation dissolved after that, each sibling lost in their own thoughts and unwilling to share them. It was not from a lack of trust, but from the notion that speaking their fears might will them to be true.
Finally Wil asked, “Why did Baren attack the South?”
“I don’t know,” Gerdie said. “He’s never needed provocation to do something needlessly cruel, but this feels different. Everything he does is so calculated and planned. I can’t figure out what he’s driving at.”
It was a painful confession for Gerdie to make. He prided himself on finding solutions. Homing in on whatever thin thread of logic eluded everyone else.
Wil thought of the deftness of Baren’s attack in the hallway. He had indeed changed. It was as though their father’s death had transformed him into the sort of son their father had always wanted him to be—strong and cunning and fearless. But there was something wrong. Something sinister.
“I’ve tried to eavesdrop on his council, but he doesn’t make it easy,” Gerdie went on. “I was able to gather that he hasn’t put out a draft notice for the war. He’s recruiting soldiers.”
“Could he be preparing for an evacuation?” Wil guessed.
“That’s my thought,” Gerdie said. “He’s confident enough that he can evacuate the kingdom if there’s retaliation from the South. Or he’s so confident the South won’t be able to retaliate that he isn’t bothering to prepare.”
It was unwise not to prepare, Wil thought, but Baren might have been right. The Southern Isles were ruled by a reclusive king who collected neutral allies at best, none of whom would follow him into war. He had no resources, no ability to strike back.
“Gerdie.” Her voice was trembling and she tried to still it, and found that her hands and knees were trembling too. “What happened to Papa?”
“It was Baren,” Gerdie said. “He’ll never admit it, but I know it was him. Papa fell ill and he was gone within a day’s time. His symptoms didn’t match anything—anything.” He was beginning to ramble, the way that he did when he was using facts to avoid emotions too big to contend with.
Wil stood. If her brother used scientific reasoning to ward off his feelings, she used perpetual motion to ward off hers.
“Where are you going?” Gerdie asked. He gripped the ledge of the hearth and struggled to his feet, his left leg shaking from the strain.
“To see if there are any wanderer camps moving through the woods,” she said. “They’ll know the gossip if anyone does. It may not be much, but it’s a place to start.”
“You won’t be able to get out,” Gerdie said. “Didn’t you see the guards? No one gets in without Baren’s approval, and no one leaves.”
“I got in without his approval,” Wil said, regretting her note of humor when she saw the exasperation on her brother’s face. She had always been the exception to his logic, had always defied the order he applied to the universe. He could never predict what she was going to do, or the state she’d be in when she came back.
But for once, Gerdie did not argue. Huffing in theatrical resignation, he sat on the edge of his bed and fitted his braces around his legs. He worked hastily but deftly to tug the leather straps and their buckles into place.
The last time his sister had gone off into the night alone, she hadn’t come back. If he couldn’t make her see reason this time, at least he would accompany her on whatever disastrous endeavor she charged into headfirst. He even opened the door for her.
Wil knew all this as she strode ahead, turning her back on her brother so that he wouldn’t see her smile.
Five
WALKING IN SILENCE WAS NOT uncommon for Wil and Gerdie. They had memorized each other’s movements entirely, could anticipate the other’s thoughts. Gerdie walked in the direction of the oval garden because he knew that was the point from which Wil frequently made her escape from the palace, and Wil deftly skirted the muddy patches slick with rain that often hindered Gerdie’s stride.
All this was as it had always been.
Nonetheless something had changed. Their silence was not easy. Even if Wil could anticipate her brother’s steps, she didn’t know his thoughts. She sensed his eyes on her in the darkness of the rising, rainy dawn, and felt as though the real Wil had truly drowned and she was a clumsily painted replacement sent to deceive them all.
There was a dam about to break between the two of them, she knew that much. She only didn’t know when, or how to stop it.
Even the oval garden had turned strange—what little of it could be seen in the gloom. All around her were petals drooping like eyelids preparing for a long sleep, and bony branches pointing to each other in accusation.
She couldn’t think of what words would set things right again, so she said, “The trees prevented the rain from drenching this part of the wall. It should be dry enough to climb.”
In answer, Gerdie braced his boot into a foothold. Once he was partway up the wall, Wil followed after him.
It was nearly November and the sharp chill promised a characteristically early winter. Soon there would be snow, which would delay the ports. There was not much time.
Wil thought of what it would be like to bring Loom to this place. In her mind, in her cursed heart, he was with her. Loom had become a companion when he was beside her, and an instinct when he was not. He arrived in gusts, like wind in sails, filling her up with anticipation.
Her world had changed, but not all of it was for the worse.
Gerdie perched at the top of the stone wall, and Wil crawled up beside him. They had the morning’s darkness to their advantage; it was easy for them to blend in. Not that there was any reason to hide: the only guards were stationed at the gate several hundred yards to the north.
Wil craned her neck to have a better view. “I thought you said there would be guards.”
“There always are.” Gerdie’s voice was trailing.
Wil swung a leg over the outer side of the wall.
“Wait,” Gerdie said. “Something isn’t right about this. I’ve come here a hundred times and there are always guards.”
Knowing that her brother had tried, unsuccessfully, to escape his own home so many times unnerved her. She forced it away. There was no time to go down the dark path of all her regrets and worries now with so much at stake.
She paused, trying to see through the thick forest that surrounded the castle wall.
Something moved between the trees, and she scaled a few steps to have a better look. By Gerdie’s rigid posture he had seen it too. A flash of blond hair.
“Baren?” Wil whispered. She turned toward Gerdie. “Have you ever seen him wander off like that?”
“No,” Gerdie said, and now he was also bracing himself to descend the outer side of the wall. Curiosity always won the battle against his cautiousness.
They moved quickly, quietly, all while trying to avoid protruding roots and fallen branches. The trees shed during Northern autumns, when the winds were so fierce they bent and severed the branches.
Wil kept her sights on Baren. He was moving faster than she’d ever seen him go, and he was unescorted. He must have dismissed his guards so that he could steal away from the castle, she thought.
He was not moving toward the Port Capital, but into the thick of the woods, through which wanderers commonly traversed. Only, there was no song filling the air. There was no fire, no creak of caravan wheels. Wanderers always came awake at sundown, filling the night air with their lively presence.
It was unusual enough that Baren would wander this far into the forest. He hated going beyond sight of the castle, particularly at night. Wil had never seen him leave the castle after dark; the woods were filled with things that lunged if they smelled fear. But Baren seemed to know exactly where he was going.
Thunder shook the morning sky. It didn’t feel like morning. Nothing was chirping or moving around them. Nothing was breathing or flying. Wil plucked a dying leaf from a branch and felt a dull stabbing in her core. Her curse trying in vain to break free.
Baren came to a stop several yards ahead. Beside her, Wil heard Gerdie’s labored breathing, and she worried what this damp, cold air was doing to his lungs. But she didn’t ask if he was all right; it would only irritate him if she doted on him the way she had when they were children. And the tether between them was already so fragile.
“Do you know where we are?” Gerdie whispered.
“Yes,” Wil said, her eyes fixed on Baren. He was standing before a crumbling stone cavern overrun with moss and vines. It was the tunnel of a railway that used to lead through to Northern Arrod. It had been abandoned more than a century ago when an avalanche destroyed the hillside. Owen had taught her that. He had known every inch of his kingdom, and given deep consideration to even its old and forgotten corners.
She felt another stab in her chest, and not from her suppressed curse, but from a loss so intertwined with guilt that she could not distinguish the two. Because of her, Owen was gone. Because of her, the entire kingdom was in the hands of the brother who was dragging it to ruin.
“You’ve been here?” Gerdie asked, pulling her out of her thoughts.
Wil shook her head. “I just know that it’s an old train tunnel.” She crept closer, keeping behind trees for cover.
Baren disappeared into the black mouth of the abandoned tunnel, and Wil moved to follow. She was just about to set foot inside when it flared to life with an eerie amber light. She ducked back behind a tree.
A sick feeling moved through her, pooling in her stomach and then radiating outward. The air hummed with a strange, unsettling energy, and it dizzied her for a few seconds as her body adjusted to the change.
It was starting to rain again, the sporadic drizzling turning heavy and unforgiving. Wil felt Gerdie sidle up beside her, their shoulders not quite touching. His nearness worried her, though she knew her curse had no effect on the living now. The tree she clung to would have been a mesh of gemstones if it did.
Baren was silhouetted against the glow, which had faded into a pale pink with roiling plumes of gold.
“You promised me that the dead could not return,” he shouted. His anger did not mask his fear.
Another figure emerged, as though from the stones themselves. Wil could barely make out the shape—taller than her brother, and lean and cloaked. The figure’s face was covered, and it spoke words that Wil could not hear over the driving rain.
The unease in her stomach churned.
The plumes of colored mist thickened until she could no longer make out either silhouette. Just a flash of Baren’s golden hair—then nothing.
Beside her, Gerdie stifled a cough against his sleeve. The rain had drenched them both, and Wil became aware that she was shivering.
Still, she strained to hear what Baren was saying. It was no use; the wind was too loud and merciless; gusts of it tossed the rain like ships in a tumultuous sea. She moved for the cavern, and Gerdie snared her arm. The small gesture ignited a flurry of sharp pains where he touched her. She
would have to find an outlet for her curse soon.
“What are you doing?” he rasped. “Baren will kill you.”
“He won’t know I’m here,” she assured him, twisting out of his grasp. When she pressed forward this time, Gerdie didn’t follow her. He was stealthy and strong, but she had a lighter stride and had perfected the art of going unnoticed.
Using the storm’s cacophony to her advantage, she slipped into the tunnel, her back pressed against the wall.
“If she’s returned from the dead, that is a very dark power,” the figure was saying. The voice was soft, eerie, and it belonged to an elderly woman. Through the haze, Wil could just make out her pale blue eyes, a wisp of golden hair, and wrinkled skin. “That is a marvelry I do not touch, and I would advise you not to intervene.”
“Not to intervene?” Baren cried. Wil scarcely recognized him. “You told me the dead couldn’t come back. You told me my life would not be at risk so long as I was king.”
“Has she tried to kill you?” The old woman’s voice was calm.
“She will,” Baren said. He was pacing now, agitated. “I need a way to kill her before she has a chance. My mother won’t listen—she never listens. Neither will my brother. This undead thing has them all hypnotized. She was able to do that even when she was alive.”
Wil had learned long ago to disregard her brother’s disdain. She had learned that, for the most part, he was just words and murderous glances. But this rage shot through her skin and her bones and her cursed heart, because it was not a new side of him. No. It was who he had always been. It was the culmination of a lifetime of hatred he’d felt for her since the day she came into the world.
Perhaps Baren had always sensed that she was a monster. That she would be the undoing of their entire family, their entire kingdom.
All her life she had believed her second-eldest brother to be the villain in her life. But maybe, all along, it had been her.
“I’m sorry,” the old woman said. “But I will not help you combat something undead.”
“Then tell me what I need to do,” Baren insisted.
The Cursed Sea Page 3