The Cursed Sea

by Lauren DeStefano

  Her mother wouldn’t return. Not until summer, when the new heir was born. Owen’s child was the only secret that had been kept from Baren. He seemed to know every other secret that existed in Arrod.

  She climbed down the inside of the wall and walked back to the castle. A guard at either door stepped aside to grant her entry.

  The castle’s electricity was still unstable, and the castle was frigid even with fires burning at every hearth. There was a chill that lingered. Almost like a curse.

  She made her way to the throne room, where she knew her brother would be sitting upon the throne he had murdered their father to obtain. Her anger with Baren was rivaled by her pity, and she was at odds with herself.

  Perhaps her father would have chosen neither anger nor pity. Perhaps, in his way, he would have been proud that Baren had inherited his ruthlessness after all.

  She hadn’t spoken to Baren since the night he confessed what he had done. He had screamed for her to leave his sight, and she’d kept away. His temper was a fragile thing, and now that he was king, with a wave of his arm he could order her death and there would be no shortage of guards to carry it out.

  She approached with caution, and to her surprise, the guards held open the doors for her. Had her brother been expecting her?

  He dismissed the guards when he saw her, and once the doors had been closed, they were left alone in the grand space, surrounded by murals of wars their kingdom had won in centuries past.

  “You look well,” Wil said, before the silence could grow unbearable. It was true. He wasn’t sallow as he’d been the other night; his eyes were bright and alert, no longer glazed by fever. There was still a distracted look about him, as though he were still trying to make sense of everything. She couldn’t fault him for that.

  “And you’re still here,” he said.

  “There’s no place else for me to go.”

  “There’s an entire world out there,” Baren said. “Isn’t that what you were always going on about? You wanted to be out there, exploring.”

  “I didn’t think you paid much attention to my wants,” Wil said. She didn’t reach for her dagger, but she braced herself. If Baren tried to kill her, she would be ready.

  “You didn’t think I paid attention?” Baren snapped. “I’ve been looking forward to it from the day you were born. There are several other kingdoms and infinite seas for you to go out and curse. Just this one kingdom is all I want to protect—from war, and from you.”

  “I’ve never wanted to destroy this kingdom,” Wil said through gritted teeth. Then, remembering herself, she worked to control her anger. This dance with Baren was a fragile one. “Northern Arrod is my home, and it will always be my home no matter how many times I leave it, and no matter how far I travel. I want it to thrive too.”

  Baren shook his head. Gold waves moved across his forehead. He looked so regal up on the throne, with their mother’s pretty eyes and their father’s strong chin. To one who didn’t know better, he looked as though he belonged there.

  “What you want doesn’t matter,” he said. “A slug can want to be a butterfly, but it’s still a slug.”

  Wil clenched her fists.

  “I believe you when you say you love Arrod,” he went on. “But you were born to destroy it. It was predetermined, the moment your ugly little heart formed in the womb and threw its first beat. So if you truly love this place, as you say, then you should go and never come back.”

  “And leave it to you?” Wil asked bitterly. “You—” She stopped herself. You killed our father. That’s what she was going to say. Those were the words that burned in her chest. He had killed their father. And maybe killing their father hadn’t broken the kingdom, but it had certainly broken their mother’s heart. It had broken what was left of their family.

  And she had killed Owen. Anything her brother had done, she had done in equal measure. This hadn’t begun with Baren. This began that night by the rapids.

  No. This began long before any of that, when their grandfather plunged a knife into Aleen’s chest.

  “My curse is gone” is what Wil said when she at last decided to speak. “I haven’t turned anything to stone since the night my heart stopped.”

  Baren leaned back on the throne, basking in his position of power. And then he laughed. It was a hollow, haunted sound. “You are not a girl with a curse,” he said. “You are a curse, who just also happens to be a girl.”

  “You’re wrong,” Wil said.

  “You think that I don’t know what you are,” Baren said. “You think that because I never ran giggling through the gardens with you and Gerhard, because you never whispered your little secrets to me, that I don’t know what you are. But I do. I saw the midwife tear you from between our mother’s legs and the lake of blood you brought with you. Perhaps the only reason you didn’t kill our mother when you were born was so that she could see what she had created and suffer for it. You haven’t turned anything to stone since your heart stopped? You will again. Knowing you, it will happen just in time to destroy something else.”

  Owen’s child. That was the first thought Wil had. What if Baren was right? What if her curse lay dormant and it would be back the moment Owen’s child was laid in her arms?

  Her blood went cold. She felt sick. Not only for fear of what she might do, but fear that Baren was right. She was the true threat, not him.

  “You should go,” Baren said. “Go. I won’t have you followed or killed if you can give me your word that you won’t be back to darken another doorway of this castle while I’m king.”

  “Why?” Wil’s voice came out breathless. “Why would you allow me to live now after you’ve already tried to kill me?”

  He stared at her. His expression was stony, and he pursed his lips, as though there was something he hesitated to say.

  Wil imagined that he was going to say it was because she was his sister, and that meant something to him.

  “Because I wish to have an alliance with Gerhard,” Baren said. “His genius isn’t lost on me, and the kingdom needs him. There’s no one in this world who has his mind for weapons and for strategy. He’s promised to serve on my council if I spare your life.”

  Gerdie had bargained for her life.

  You were never a curse to me. That was what he said after she told him the story of Aleen, and he had meant it.

  “All right,” Wil said. “I swear that I will never return to Arrod so long as you’re king.”

  It was a promise she would be able to keep.

  After she’d left the throne room, Gerdie found her as she was ascending the stairs for her chamber.

  “You spoke with Baren,” he guessed, falling into pace beside her.

  She turned the crystal knob and pushed open her door. “I did.”

  “When do you leave?” He followed her into the room and closed the door behind them.

  “Tonight. Baren was generous enough to give me my pick of the family ships.” She threw open the doors to her wardrobe and stared at the ghosts of all the girls she’d been before, hanging in a neat row.

  She was silent as she considered them. Blouses that had been tailored to fit her, dresses her father brought back from his diplomatic excursions, tunics she’d worn into the Port Capital. They were all disguises, and now she didn’t know what to take with her. She didn’t know what sort of girl she was supposed to be.

  “Returning to your Southern prince?” Gerdie tried to sound lighthearted, but his tone didn’t lessen the enormity of their unspoken good-bye.

  “No. He doesn’t want me to interfere with his fight for the throne,” she said. “I’ll find him in the summer, when the new heir is born and I have an alliance to offer him. I don’t know where I’ll go for now. East, maybe.”

  Gerdie laid a hand on her shoulder and she shrugged out of his grasp. “Don’t,” she said. “I don’t know when my curse will come back.”

  “It isn’t coming back,” Gerdie said. “Your curse died with you, when your he
art stopped.”

  She tugged at the collar of her tunic and looked at the bandages wrapped around her chest. The mark of her curse stuck out from the edge of the white gauze, faded and shining.

  The curse was in her heart, and even if that heart had briefly stopped, it was still in her chest now. Masalee had been the one to save her life, and she had used marvelry to do it. Maybe some of that marvelry was still inside her now. Maybe it had changed things.

  She wouldn’t let herself hope that her curse was gone. “Baren said that my curse will probably return just in time to kill someone else,” she said. “What if he’s right? I couldn’t bear that.” Not again. She thought she was hiding her heartbreak, but when she looked at Gerdie, she saw it mirrored back in his own eyes. Of course she should have known better; for better or worse, her brother knew her.

  As ever, he didn’t offer meaningless platitudes. He didn’t tell her that Owen’s death was not her fault, or promise that she would never again pose a threat to their family. Instead, he offered her the only thing he had to give. “I’ll help you,” he said. “There’s an explanation for all this, and I’m going to find it.”

  Wil smiled. It was a weary, sad smile, and she felt like her mother when she gave it.

  “I’ll be all right,” she said. “You have to stay here—wasn’t that the deal you made with Baren? And with Mother gone until the summer, somebody needs to make sure he doesn’t go mad with power.”

  “That doesn’t mean I can’t help,” he said. “I have several of the things you crystallized. I’m not done analyzing them.”

  Wil didn’t doubt her brother’s genius. If there were a solution to this curse at all, he would find it. But perhaps there was no solution. Perhaps it would return, exactly as it had been, or in some new way, and she would have to adapt. But she would. She would not allow this curse to harm her family further.

  “Make sure the baby takes Addney’s surname,” Wil said. “She can’t give birth to a Heidle.”

  Gerdie blinked. “Why?”

  “Because the curse will live on so long as a Heidle is on the throne,” she said. “It’s time for the Heidle reign to end, and a new one to begin. This curse will die with me.”

  Forty

  LOOM’S SHIP ARRIVED AT THE Southern Isles under the cover of darkness the following night, without pretense. It was a bold gesture: a Northern ship entering its enemy waters, bearing the banished prince and princess.

  Masalee would be unable to summon the marvelry to hide the ship this time; all of her energy would be going into the palace fire. But the blaze would be so great that no one would notice their arrival.

  Zay was the one to anchor them along the mountainside, in the shadows where the moonlight didn’t touch the water. Fastened to her hip, Ada was staring excitedly at the palace. “Think he remembers it?” Loom asked.

  “He was only an infant,” Zay said. “He probably just thinks the lights are pretty.”

  “They’re about to get a lot prettier,” Masalee said, and a moment later, the palace was surrounded by a ring of flame.

  Zay brought herself close to Loom, so that only he would hear her whisper. “I’ll leave Ada with Rala where he’ll be safe. I’ll meet you in the mountains.”

  “It’ll be the trail where we used to hide from our tutors,” he said. “Stay safe.” Ada had begun poking at his chin, and Loom smirked at him. “You be safe too.”

  “Don’t get yourself killed,” Zay said, by way of good-bye.

  The illusion of fire had consumed the palace by the time Espel and Loom scaled the ship’s ladder. Loom stumbled as he jumped to the rocks, and Espel grabbed his arm to steady him.

  Even here, the sickening heaviness of his curse reached him.

  “Are you hurt?” Espel asked.

  “No.” He made himself charge forward. The ship behind them was dark and they didn’t bring any lanterns, but Loom knew all of Cannolay’s mountains with his eyes closed.

  The air was breezy but hot, the sky cloudless and pregnant with stars. How he had missed his home, especially after all those weeks of chilled air and frozen fingers and chapped cheeks. He didn’t know how Wil could bear it. But she had been especially lovely against the snowy trees. Her cheeks were bright pink, as though the frost pinched extra life into her face, her dark eyes filled up with every shade of brown.

  He thought of her, and of winter snow in winter trees, the entire trek up the mountain path. Thinking of her could cure anything that poisoned him, even the hateful energy of Pahn’s curse.

  Espel kept pace beside him, and he got the sense that he was moving too slowly and that she stayed beside him in the interest of fairness.

  “I won’t kill you,” she said. “Not unless you try to kill me.”

  “Glad to know we share that sentiment,” he panted. And then he repeated the terms of their new plan, “We’re on our own when we see Father. No helping or turning our blades on each other. Whoever kills him takes the throne.”

  “I remember,” she said. “Agreed.”

  They were walking parallel now to the top floor of the palace, and the smoke from the flames billowed out to greet them. It was only an illusion, but that didn’t lessen the potency of the smoke and the heat. But while the fire wilted Loom, Espel thrived. Her posture was rigid, her eyes bright as they filled with the reflection of flames. And though she was more than a head shorter than he was, she had a way of making herself very big, as powerful and immovable as the mountains of their home.

  “There,” she whispered, clutching at his wrist. A figure moved through the firelight and smoke, stumbling and coughing.

  Loom drew his sword.

  In a beat, Espel was no longer beside him. He thought he heard her moving through the brush. The smoke was too thick now, but he refused to panic.

  With a roar, the flames shifted, forming a broad ring around the clearing of rocks and large-leafed shrubs that were undeterred by the heat—they were made to thrive on it. Now, at last, Loom saw Espel on the other side of the clearing, their father at the center. They were dripping with sweat, all three of them. And when the king saw his children, he realized what this was. His back straightened. He saw Loom first and laughed, but then he turned and saw the murder in Espel’s eyes. It wasn’t her rage that undid him. He had been fanning the flames of Espel’s rage for the better part of fifteen years. He had always taken credit for what she had become, prided himself for having created such a marvelous and unbreakable child.

  But she had never fixed that rage on him. And he saw it now. He saw what he had feared from the moment he’d first looked at her. On her first day, Espel had taken away the woman he’d loved. He had feared that she would grow up to take his life as well. The thing he had created was no longer under his command, and Loom saw the moment the king realized it.

  King Zinil drew his sword. He charged at Espel, but she jumped back into the flames, disappearing in their light.

  Loom seized the opportunity and lunged, and his father regained his senses just in time to turn for him. Their swords clattered. Espel swooped down from overhead—she must have scaled a tree, Loom thought—and her dagger tore open the king’s bicep.

  The king spared Loom no mercy, attempting several lethal blows and howling in frustration when Loom evaded them. But for Espel, the king’s moves were purely evasive. This went on for as long as the king could manage, and then he knew that Espel’s stamina would far outlast his own. If he didn’t kill her, she would kill him.

  When the king raised his sword, there was a wicked flash of light in his daughter’s eyes. She didn’t sneer, as she so often did in battles. She waited for the blow, bracing her dagger. She knew everything about swords, and still she preferred her daggers.

  She stood still, her shadow jumping erratically around her. Her grip tightened just slightly, and Loom began to understand what she was doing. She had worn this sort of expression when she was a child and her instructor had just slapped her, and she had realized all at once that
nobody was going to come and hold and coddle and love her. Just that one time, she had been helpless. She was far from helpless now, but as her eyes stayed fixed on her father coming at her with his weapon drawn, Loom saw the falter in the king’s step. The king surely saw it too. The child he’d starved of any sort of warmth or love.

  That small falter in his step was what Espel had anticipated, and it was all she needed. With one quick motion and with her first cry of the entire battle, she slashed the king’s throat.

  The king was on his feet for a moment longer, staring at her. His lips moved and he might have damned her, or said that he was sorry. Whatever he would have said, they would never know. Blood burst from his mouth and he collapsed.

  As he lay on his back, the flames died away. Masalee, hiding wherever she was, must have seen. The smoke dissolved for the illusion it was, and as the king lay staring at the stars, his children came to stand at either side of him.

  Espel was breathing hard, Loom realized now that he was close enough to hear her. Her jaw was clenched and her eyes were glassy with tears.

  She twirled her dagger so that the hilt faced Loom. “Take the final blow if you want it,” she said, surprising him. “He stole your kingdom. You should have it.”

  Loom had been prepared for every outcome of this battle. He had been prepared for his father to kill him, or, more likely, for Espel to. But he had not expected her to offer him the kingdom that she wanted every bit as much as he did.

  He reached out his hand, but stopped. As a child he had failed his sister many times. They had failed each other, growing up as enemies in the same palace, the same blood in their veins.

  What Espel said was true: this kingdom did belong to him. He had been born to it. But what had Espel been born to?

  He saw Espel as a child, her eyes filling with tears after their father cut the flower from her hair. The way she crumpled, years later, when the blade sliced through Masalee’s chest. From the time Espel was small, there had been no laughter in her eyes, no humanity on display at all, because she learned that any piece of herself she showed would be cut away. All those years gone. Her entire childhood lost.