Entrapped (Cursed Magic Series

by Casey Odell

  The only answer Deliah gave her was a hearty laugh that echoed throughout the hallways before she disappeared.

  “You won,” Claire said, unenthused. “Again.”

  She leaned her cheek against her hand as she looked down at the game board. It was a new game to her, from the west, full of pawns and squares and strategy. It made her head hurt. And her ego. It was the tenth time in a row that she’d been beaten by a boy half her age.

  Lin smiled, wide and carefree, full of the innocence only youth could afford. He was smart for a nine-year-old. Too smart. It put Claire to shame. It was the first time she had been alone with the boy since she had met him. Well, as alone as they were allowed to be. Two servants sat silently at the back of the room, keeping a close eye, and ear, on both of them.

  He was from the continent across the sea, Zaxos, or at least that was what he was told. He had been too young to remember his life before. The Syndicate had lived up to their wicked legend and had stolen him as a baby and had raised him ever since. These four walls were all he knew, but he explored the world the only way he knew how, by immersing himself in books, scrolls, and maps. Obscure knowledge popped out of his mouth randomly, surprising Claire. She didn’t know half of what he knew and she was twice his age. He was well educated in different cultures, manners, and knew hundreds of stories, had even studied the stars and constellations at night.

  But what good would it all do him without his freedom? An overwhelming sadness for the boy filled her. Such wasted potential. Who knew what the boy could achieve out in the world, what good he could do, the far places that he had read about that he could see with his very own eyes? His life had been stolen from him, and he didn’t even know any better.

  “Would you like to play again?” His big brown doe eyes hid a mischievousness behind the innocence. He was enjoying this.

  Claire frowned and let her hand fall to the table. “Is there a game here that you are bad at?”

  “No!” he exclaimed as he started to reset the pawns.

  She had almost resigned herself to her fate when she was saved by a soft voice at the door.

  “Miss Claire,” a young servant girl said, kneeling by the sliding door. “Miss Serna has requested your presence.”

  Claire stared at the girl for a second, wondering just who wanted to see her. She supposed, in the end, it didn’t really matter if it meant avoiding another embarrassing defeat against a child. Claire nodded at the girl and bid Lin goodnight before following her out into the dying light of the day. She walked silently behind the young woman, curious where she was being taken.

  She was led through a labyrinthine series of halls she hadn’t known existed until now, lanterns lighting the way. The girl stopped in front of a door and knelt beside it before sliding it open a crack.

  “Miss Serna, I have brought Miss Claire as you have asked,” the girl said.

  “Very good. Thank you, Merta,” came a clear voice from within.

  The girl nodded to Claire and opened the door wider. Hesitantly, Claire stepped through and stopped cold. The peculiar woman from the day before sat in the middle of the room on a cushion next to one of the strange low tables. The door slid quietly closed behind Claire. She wasn’t sure what to do exactly. So she just stood there like a fool, staring at the woman, wondering why she seemed so familiar when she had never met her before, and why she had summoned her.

  “Please, sit,” the woman said, staring straight ahead. She hadn’t looked at Claire once.

  Claire did as the woman suggested, taking the cushion across from her. A fire blazed in the fireplace behind her, heating her back, casting dancing shadows about the room. The far wall was stone, unlike the rest, with something Claire hadn’t seen in a while: a window. But she didn’t spare the time to be jealous of it. Her focus was solely on the woman, the mysterious Miss Serna. She stared at her with a growing sense of dread.

  She saw it in the way the woman’s hair fell in a single braid over her shoulder, in the same shade as her own, the shape of her face, the arch of her brow, her slight build, the very same that was the cause of much of Claire’s grief. The reason the woman had looked peculiar to Claire was because she looked like her. Everything was familiar except for the nose and the eyes. Especially her eyes. They still stared straight ahead, unnervingly so, the cloudy pupils surrounded by dark brown irises.

  The woman reached out with a hand, “Come closer, my…” she hesitated, “…my Claire.”

  “You…” Claire whispered, her heart skipping a beat. She couldn’t be… “Do I know you?”

  The woman smiled, but it was a little sad. “You don’t, but I know you. With all my heart and being. You were taken from me before you could know me the same.”

  Claire covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes wide. “You're…?”

  But deep down she knew the truth. She could feel it in her gut. Her real mother. Never in her life had she thought she would ever meet her, let alone sit across from her deep in the bowels of a Syndicate fortress. But why was she here? Why keep her around? Had they had her all this time? She didn’t know what to ask first, or if she could even speak yet. She was stunned into silence.

  The woman held her hand out again. “Come, Claire, let me look at you.”

  Look? But couldn’t she see her already? And then she realized that she couldn’t. Her eyes still stared into the fire, unmoving, unseeing. A sharp pang of pity stabbed through her. How did she not notice it sooner? Immediately, she slid closer to the woman, the mother she’d never known. She sat in front of her, petrified. Curious. Sad. Angry. Every emotion under the sun seemed to flow through her at once.

  “May I?” the woman asked, holding her hands up in front of her.

  Claire nodded, but then immediately caught her error, blushing. “Yes,” she uttered, not entirely certain what she was agreeing to.

  Slowly, the woman lifted her hands to Claire’s face, her fingers sliding first along her jaw, then up to her temples. Claire sat as still as possible as the tips of the woman’s fingers wandered her face, exploring, tracing over her eyebrows, down the arch of her nose.

  Her mother smiled then. “You have his nose,” she said softly.

  Claire could only assume she meant her father. She wondered briefly if the Syndicate had him hidden away somewhere as well, but that was a matter for a different day. She could only take so many surprises at once.

  “Do you have his eyes as well?”

  Claire wasn’t sure if she did or not, so she answered the best she could. “They’re hazel,” she said. “Green and brown.”

  A short snort of laughter escaped from her mother’s mouth. “I suppose those are a gift from both of us. His were greener than a field on a spring day.”

  The sting of tears touched her eyes, but before she could stop it, a drop slid down her cheek. Her mother’s thumb brushed along the wetness.

  “Oh, no, we mustn’t have that, unless they are tears of joy.” Her own eyes glistened with unshed tears.

  “Why…?” Claire managed to squeeze out of her tight throat. “Why did you give me up?” The tears started to flow freely. All the pent up grief and feelings of abandonment from over the years seemed to spill out all at once, like a sudden downpour. “Why did you give me up? Why did you let them take me away?” Who knew where her life could have led? How different it could have been.

  Her mother’s hands fell away from Claire’s face and searched for her hands, grasping them tightly when they touched.

  “Look at me, Claire. I’ve been blind for a long time. What could I have done for you?” A few tears broke free and streaked down her cheeks. “After your father passed away…” She trailed off, her voice faltering a bit. “A few months later, they came to me. They offered you a better life. A life I couldn’t give you. How could I have said no?”

  Claire swallowed hard, trying to choke back her tears unsuccessfully. So her father wasn’t alive after all…

  A sad smile touched her mother’s lips.
“They didn’t tell me about the mark until afterward. But I wasn’t mad,” she said. “If that was what would get you a better life, then so be it.” She cradled Claire’s hands in hers. “I thought about you every day. I still do. I worried, but I knew you were alright. Knew that you were growing up strong and happy and healthy. That you’d inherited your father’s stubbornness.”

  At least she knew now where she got it from. All this time she had thought it was strictly Marion’s influence. “How?” she asked, curious how she had known.

  “She wrote to me, Marion… your mother.” The last words came out strained and unsure, but it was what Marion was to Claire. She’d been the only mother she had known until now.

  Claire fought off another wave of tears. Marion had a softer side she had never known about, Claire was finding. “She did that?”

  Her mother nodded. She twisted around and lifted a black lacquered box from the shadows. She slid it in front of Claire and opened the lid. Folded letters filled the box to the brim, some so old they were yellow with age. “Every few months, ever since she adopted you.”

  Claire carefully slid a letter out and unfolded it. It crinkled, stiff and brittle. A lock of brown hair fell onto her lap and she recognized it as her own. She looked at the date at the top in Marion’s neat handwriting. It was old, from when she was just a child, perhaps five or six. She scanned it in awe as it detailed her life in a loving way. She looked past it to the box— her life story, the only connection a mother had to her daughter.

  “I knew something was wrong when I suddenly stopped getting them several months ago.” She reached up and brushed her hand across Claire’s cheek. “I’m so glad you’re safe, Claire.”

  Claire placed a hand over the top of her mother’s, pressing it against her cheek. Tears fell freely from her eyes, staining the letter and lock of hair laying in her lap. She was speechless. All this time she’d had a connection with her real mother and she never even knew it. She wasn’t forgotten, or unwanted. Her mother only did what was best for her at the time. But even if she hadn’t, she knew that the Syndicate wouldn’t have let a petite blind woman stand in their way. A weight deep down inside of her lifted, one she had been carrying around her whole life. One of anger and resentment for the mother that had so willingly given her up. Of a father she never knew, and never would. Not because they didn’t want her, but because life had a way of ripping people away from each other. Of keeping people who cared about each other apart.

  “Tell me, Claire,” her mother said, so quiet it was almost a whisper, as if she were afraid of the answer. “Did you have a good life? Was Marion a good mother?”

  Without thinking, Claire nodded. Her mother felt the movement in her hand and smiled.

  “Good.” Her mother relaxed a little. She let her hand fall back to her lap. “When I first met Marion, I was a little worried. Especially after I found out what she had done for a living.”

  A smile finally cracked her lips between her tears. Claire could only imagine. Even blind, her mother was cautious of Marion.

  “But, meeting you now, I know she did a wonderful job raising you. And I know she loved— still loves— you deeply.” She pulled Claire closer and wrapped her arms tight around her shoulders. “I know you don’t love me. You hardly know me. But I have loved you ever since the day you were born, and even though my arms ached to hold you every day since I let you go, I wouldn’t go back and do things differently. I gave up my time with you so that you would never know hunger, so that you could live a normal life, not having to suffer for taking care of me. Marion was able to give you what I couldn’t, and I am eternally grateful to her. Even if they say she betrayed the Syndicate, I know she did it for you, and I know I would have done the same. I love you with all my heart, Claire, and I hope that someday you might be able to feel the same way about me.”

  Claire buried her face into her mother’s shoulder, crying the tears she had held back over the years. Once she had thought she didn’t have a mother. Now she had two.

  She sensed his presence more than heard him. Claire cracked her eyes open, sluggish and slow. The shadows were darker than usual, deep and all consuming, overcoming the dying fire in the hearth. She knew not to be scared. She’d been waiting for him, after all. Yearning for him.

  He was one with the darkness and it seemed to cling to him as he stepped out and knelt beside her. The shadow obscuring him dissipated, revealing a shock of white hair.

  Farron grinned. “Did they really think a fortress could stop me?”

  Claire remained motionless. She wanted to reach out to him, but she couldn’t move. Her body was heavy, impossibly so. He reached down to touch her and just when his hand was about to brush her cheek, the shadow took hold again, dissolving him into wispy black smoke.

  A shout bubbled up from her throat but a hand clamped down hard on her mouth, silencing her before she could make a sound. Her eyes snapped open, only this time it wasn’t a dream— though as soon as she saw who knelt over her, she wished it was.

  Bertrand glared down at her, dark circles under his hostile eyes.

  It was still night, the fire burned, but the shadows weren’t as heavy as in her dream. So Farron hadn’t come. Was that what she had been hoping? That he would come rescue her in the night? It wouldn’t be far-fetched by any means. She just hadn’t given it too much thought with all the recent revelations. If anything, it was better than the exhaustive nightmares from before.

  “Get dressed,” Bertrand growled. He stood and threw a bundle of clothes at her.

  A servant knelt by the door, quiet, her head down fearfully.

  Claire struggled to sit up, her body and mind still stiff and foggy from sleep. “What—?”

  “Now,” Bertrand interrupted her. “Or I’ll take you with what you are wearing.”

  He turned to give her some modicum of privacy. Claire didn’t think he had it in him to have any sort of consideration. She didn’t know what was going on, but unless she wanted to face it in nothing but a nightgown, she’d follow his orders. As quick as she could, she dressed, pulling on her mended slacks and boots and a loose brown tunic meant for someone almost twice her size. The cold of the night already sent a chill along her skin.

  Commotion outside her door provoked another shiver. Voices shouted orders she couldn’t quite make out. Something was happening, and the fact that Bertrand himself had come on a late night visit meant that it wasn’t good. Claire wished dearly for her dagger, or at least for the pendant that swung around Bertrand’s neck. She felt even more helpless than before.

  Bertrand turned as soon as she was done, and she wondered just how closely he’d been paying attention, sending yet another shudder through her. The way he looked at her at times scared her. And although it was mostly anger, she didn’t want to give him any excuse to start looking at her the way men tended to do with young women. That would be a nightmare indeed.

  “Come, girl.” He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her out the door behind him, the coldness in his voice dashing her last thought.

  It was the stillness beyond the immediate commotion that startled her. Nothing was attacking the fortress. It was too quiet for that. But fear hung heavy in the air. Something was happening that had everyone on edge. The realization struck her hard then, an icy spike to the stomach. The town.

  Dread surged through her, chasing away the lingering drowsiness. She wrenched her wrist out of Bertrand’s grip, knowing she would be punished for it later, and ran for the steps that led up to the top of the wall, dodging the Syndicate members as they went to their stations. She froze when she reached the top, hopelessness rendering her motionless. Deliah had been right.

  Flames engulfed the town below. Screams drifted on the wind, faint but no less chilling. Dark behemoths darted in between buildings outside the walls, chasing smaller shadows, impaling them, slaying them one by one. Claire could feel her own fear start to swallow her up again. She’d been there, lived that nightmare, only narrow
ly escaping with her own life. The memories of the night Stockton was attacked threatened to swallow her up completely.

  “Come, girl!” Bertrand bore down on her again, his voice full of rage. He jerked her out of her nightmare with a firm hand on her arm. “We don’t have time for this!” He dragged her down the steps and into the courtyard.

  Claire was too lost to her grief and fear to protest. It was happening all over again, the attack that had changed her life forever. Her nightmare come to life. How did she ever think that she could stop those beasts? That anyone could control them?

  “Pay attention, girl, or you will get yourself killed,” Bertrand’s voice brought her back to the present.

  He was right. She needed to forget about what had happened and what was out of her control and focus on what she could do instead. “Where are—?”

  But her question was answered when they stepped into the carriage house nestled into the outer wall. A dark carriage waited already. The horses stamped their feet, restless. They could sense the fear as well. They knew the danger that was so close.

  The small door to the carriage swung open. “Hurry, you fool!” Deliah reached out for Claire and Bertrand shoved her toward the other woman.

  “Open the doors!” he shouted and turned to a group of men that saddled additional horses in a hurry.

  Deliah pulled Claire into the shadows of the carriage and slammed the door closed behind her. “Go!” she shouted and pounded the front wall with a fist.

  The carriage jerked forward and Claire steadied herself on the seat, still kneeling on the floor. It was then that she saw Lin curled into the corner, a blanket clasped around him. He shook and his eyes were full of fear and helplessness. Claire looked down at him, stunned. Was that how she had looked when her town had been attacked? Was that how she looked now? She had to hold it together, to appear to be strong— if not for herself, then for the little boy who’d already lived an unfortunate life.

  Back and forth, the carriage jostled them, the road not meant for such a fast pace. Claire whirled and pushed the thin curtain away from the window to look at the devastated town below. She kept hoping that it was all just another of her nightmares, that she would wake up any minute. But this was real and no amount of wishing would change that.