The Curse Giver

by Dora Machado

  On the other hand, with as long as they’d been in Riva’s land, Riva was bound to have a general notion of where they camped, which is why Hato had taken precautions to scatter the men and had a complex plan to ensure he couldn’t be found after he left today. But Riva’s admission was a warning and a threat, and Hato didn’t like either one.

  “I’ll tell you the truth,” Riva said, subtly squeezing Hato’s knee until Hato had no choice but to wince. “I’ve been indulgent with you and your men in deference to you, Hato, because you deserve honor and respect that your lord hasn’t given you.”

  Ah, yes, of course, a little flattery to add to the pain. “May I remind you, my lord? Highborn hospitality is the way of the code.”

  “The code your lord broke when he killed one of my baseborn while on my territory.”

  Hato had a hard time keeping from raising his voice. “Who?”

  “Never mind who,” the king said. “Your lord will pay for his crime.”

  “An accusation such as the one you make will need to be proven.”

  “Oh, rest assure, it will be proven,” the king said. “Soon.”

  The king’s certitude gave Hato the chills. What was he talking about and how did he know about something that Hato didn’t?

  “My lord, I’m truly honored by your kind attention,” Hato said. “But I must beg your leave. As you can see, I’m not well and I’ve got a long journey ahead, back to Laonia.”

  “Of course,” the king said, helping Hato up. “By all means, go find your rest. But don’t forget, Hato. I’m a fair ruler and a deliberate man and if I were you, I’d listen carefully to everything I’ve said to you tonight.”

  “I’ve been told that I’m an excellent listener, my lord,” Hato said, struggling to get up. “My ears haven’t failed me yet.”

  The king’s stare hardened. “Your lord is done, Hato,” he said. “The house of Uras is done, whereas I’ve only just begun. I’m also wealthy, willing to invest in promising ventures and able to assist a friendly neighbor. Do you understand?”

  “Completely, my lord.”

  Hato understood that Riva’s sources were as good, if not better than his own. He understood that there were things that Riva knew that he didn’t. Furthermore, he wondered if some of his sources were also feeding Riva information.

  But did Riva know where the Lord of Laonia was?

  Hato didn’t think so, because if Riva was having this conversation with him, trying to woe Hato to his camp, then Bren was still in play. Also, with Bren caught, Orell would be back in court, and Orell was nowhere to be seen. Alternatively, Riva knew exactly where Bren was and whether his lord was alive or dead, but he wanted to test Hato’s loyalties.

  What had the Riva expected from Hato? Pragmatism? Betrayal? Tame acceptance?

  Hato hoped that his schooled face would reveal nothing of the upheaval inside. His conversation with Riva had been disquieting at best. Riva was cunning, and he had made his intentions clear and his positions even more so. He didn’t intend to follow the law if he caught Bren. He would kill Bren—and Hato and the Twenty as well—if he caught them.

  That Riva wanted to rattle him was no big surprise to Hato. That Riva was so daring and confident as to try to sway Hato openly in front of all these people spoke of his boldfaced audacity. That Riva thought he could really shift Hato’s alliance away from Laonia, now that was an offense that Hato would never forget.

  The king embraced Hato and, after planting a kiss on his cheek, held Hato’s face between his hands. “Now you kiss me,” Riva said. “So they all might be witnesses to our mutual affection.”

  “As you wish,” Hato said, brushing his cheek against the king, persuaded by the strength of those crushing hands.

  His stomach lurched. He was getting too old for this shit.

  “Go now.” The king let him go. “Do return when you’re ready.”

  Hato bowed, turned and shuffled away, limping heavily, feeling older than before.

  “And Hato?” the king said.

  Hato stopped in his tracks and turned. “Yes, my lord?”

  “You’ll need a life after the end of the house of Uras.” The king took a sip of his wine, and paused before he fixed his predatory state on Hato again. “And Laonia may need me yet.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  MOVING A MAN AS SERIOUSLY WOUNDED as Bren was a risky choice at best. He had been senseless most of the time, had eaten nothing and drank only what Lusielle and Vestor had managed to pour down his throat. But days later, as they arrived to the outskirts of a small farmstead, the Lord of Laonia was still alive and Vestor’s leg had responded well to the host of remedies Lusielle had managed to mix along the way.

  She left her unlikely companions hidden in the wood and made her way to the farm house, where the stout matron agreed to part with a pint of vinegar, a quart of oil and a loaf of crusty bread in exchange for three pints of freshly brewed, cough-busting tea, and the recipe for the inhaling potion she made for the woman’s child, who was afflicted by a persistent case of the rattling cough.

  “You’re not your average mountebank,” the matron said as she added a chunk of cheese to Lusielle’s treasures. “My child is already feeling better.”

  Nothing like a mother’s gratitude to hearten the weary heart.

  As Lusielle packaged her earnings, a wagon full of travelers pulled into the farmstead, offering a small fee to spend the night in the woman’s pasture.

  The matron took the money. “You may camp on my land tonight, but I also want your beast’s manure, and news.”

  “News, yes,” the woman driving the wagon said. “Trouble in the thirteenth temple. Murder. We heard about it on the road.”

  Lusielle was already on her way, but she slowed down.

  “It seems that this highborn lord took a fancy to a woman outside the temple and killed her, badly. The Laonian beast, who was already outlawed in the kingdom, ripped the woman apart, the king’s men said. They’re looking for him on the roads. I hope they find the bastard.”

  Lusielle’s belly twisted with dread. She walked on, taking the road until the farmstead was out of sight then backtracking through the forest. Vestor was redressing Bren’s ugly wound when she arrived. He was still senseless.

  “Old Nelia is dead,” she said.

  “She was alive when we left,” Vestor said.

  “She was killed after that. News is that the Lord of Laonia did it.”

  “Orell.”

  “Aye.”

  “Highborn or not, they’ll execute your lord on the spot if they find him.”

  “I know.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Not we, you,” Lusielle said. “You’re going to go to Teos and fix the mess.”

  “Me?”

  “It’s got to be you. You’re pledged. You’re Ascended. You come from highborn stock. They’ll believe you. You’ve got to tell them the whole story. Your leg is better. You can go. You have to go.”

  “But I don’t want to go,” Vestor said. “You need me. The wound is inflamed and I smell signs of seepage. He needs me.”

  “You’ve done all you can,” Lusielle said. “You can help us more if you do as I ask. Unless you can convince the Chosen of Bren’s innocence, all of our efforts will be in vain.”

  “It’ll be safer if you go to Teos.”

  “I’m baseborn, and I’m wanted in the kingdom too.”

  “You?” Vestor stared. “Wanted?”

  Lusielle ignored Vestor’s question. “They won’t believe me. You, they’ll believe.”

  “You don’t owe him anything,” Vestor said. “He’s been nothing but trouble to you.”

  “Do this, I beg you.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Do it because in serving the truth, you’re serving the gods you’ve worshipped faithfully and the temples that raised you.”

  “I’m not sure that’s enough for me anymore.”

  “Please—”


  “You and I, we could set up a healing shop in one of the Free Territories,” he said, taking her hand and staring into her eyes. “With a Greada-sworn healer by your side, you could mix your remedies to your heart’s content and nobody would bother you. I know you’ve only just met me, but trust me: We’d be good together. In every way. We’d be excellent.”

  “What are you talking about?” she said, completely taken aback, staring alternatively from Vestor’s face to his hand, which was firmly wrapped around her fingers.

  “I can take care of you,” he said, squeezing her hand. “I can make your life easier—”

  Lusielle open her mouth and closed it. “Have you taken leave of your senses?”

  “We won’t be rich, I know,” he said, “but I can secure a good house to my name and a shop for us. In time, you might learn to appreciate me in the same way I appreciate you—”

  “You don’t really know me—”

  “But I know, in my heart, I know this would be good for both of us—”

  “Vestor….” Lusielle withdrew her hand from his.

  He clung to her fingers for a moment, then let go when her gaze met his.

  “I don’t want to be beholden to anyone,” she said. “I’m not good at that sort of thing. I just have to fix him—this—then I’m done and on my way.”

  “But why?”

  “If Bren doesn’t get to Teos, Laonia will fall. If Laonia falls, who’ll oppose Riva?”

  “I don’t care about any of that,” Vestor said. “Why should you?”

  “Because I do,” Lusielle said, at a loss to explain what she couldn’t fully understand. “Please, Vestor, I need you to go to Teos. You’re the only hope.”

  “All I ask is that you consider my proposal,” he said stubbornly.

  “And if I do, will you leave now?”

  He nodded.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll consider your proposal.”

  “Where will you go?” Vestor asked.

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “You don’t want anyone to know,” Vestor said. “I understand. I’ll find you.”

  Lusielle was thinking ahead. “I have an odd feeling that I may find you first.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  SEVERO STIRRED IN HIS PALLET, AWAKENED by the rustle of a rat, sniffing the saddlebags he was using as a pillow. “Scram,” he said, sitting up and batting the filthy creature away. “Go!”

  “Shut up,” the man next to him muttered, turning away and reassuming his rancorous snoring.

  Severo lay back on his pallet, nothing more than a pile of moldy straw on the bare floor. He had found accommodations at an old inn and was sharing the crammed attic with some twenty other travelers, all of them as filthy and foul-smelling from the road as he was. At least he had a roof over his head tonight, which was an improvement because it was cold and humid outside and he’d been sleeping in the forest for three nights straight.

  Hiding in plain view, he had taken the gamble of sleeping at the inn only because it was located right next to the town’s guardhouse. It was really the safest place in town, since the guards drank there and assumed that no fugitives would dare get so close to them. They had believed his story about being a Tolonian tradesman on his way back from making deliveries, especially as he told it over a round of drinks paid with his coin downstairs at the tavern.

  Severo cushioned his head on his hands and closed his eyes. Tomorrow, he should be able to catch up with Lord Hato and the Twenty. He had some encouraging news to share, news he had heard from his new guardsmen friends. And now, if only he could get some good sleep.

  The inn was cheap and filthy, not worthy to lodge dirty mongrels let alone a highborn like himself. But life on the lam had taught him that luxury was a relative term, and even in an inn full of rats—both real and figurative—this attic room was better than the kingdom’s cold, damp earth.

  When he opened his eyes again, a woman was sitting next to him on his pallet. He couldn’t really focus on her face, but he knew she was beautiful. As his eyes slid down her body’s curves, he found that perhaps her bosom could have used a bit more flesh for his taste. Amazingly, right before his very eyes, her bosom grew and expanded until it was just the right size, and so did the rest of her body, conforming to the plumper lines he liked in a woman.

  “Severo,” she whispered, although her lips never moved. “Do you like me?”

  “Of course, I like you,” he said, rising on an elbow. “How could any man not like you?”

  “Then why don’t you stay with me?”

  “I’ve got a lord I serve,” he said, caressing the softest cheek his fingertips had ever touched. “I’ll need to be going soon.”

  “Don’t go,” she said, kissing his fingers. “Stay with me. Think of the pleasures that I could give you, of the comforts you could find with me. Your lord is going to die. Save yourself. Leave him now.”

  Severo felt a twinge of alarm at the woman’s words, but her hands were silk rubbing against his body and her presence was soothing and enthralling.

  “I can’t leave my lord,” Severo said. “The oath I pledged links me to his fate. I’d rather stay with him and fight for my future than desert him and die like a fleeing coward.”

  “My poor, poor Severo,” the woman said. “I have the power to free you, to break your fate off from the rest of the Twenty. But you must renounce your lord. You must desert him. Now is the time to free yourself from all the tragedy that approaches. Walk away.”

  Severo shook his head. “I don’t want to betray my lord.”

  “For me you could,” she said, pouting prettily. “For me, you would.”

  “Yes,” he said, lusting after the woman with an intensity that shocked him. And then, realizing what he had just said, he shouted, “No!”

  “Don’t be a fool,” she said. “This is your only chance to survive.”

  “I will never betray my lord,” Severo said. “Never!”

  The woman kissed him. The feel of her lips on his mouth was divine, enticing his body to the kind of passion he had been craving. How many weeks had he gone without a woman this time around? How many years had it been since he had enjoyed a proper bedding, not just a quick encounter in an alleyway or behind a tavern’s door, but a full night’s revelry, followed by the slower, more languorous but equally enjoyable morning undertakings?

  Far too long for a hot-blooded Laonian who had a fine appreciation for the comforts of female companionship and lust to spare.

  He delved into the woman’s lips like a famished wretch, thirsting for her body, aching for a future in which she or someone just like her would be a steady staple on his bed, along with plump pillows and heaps of warm blankets. But when he swallowed, his mouth tasted bitter, like betrayal.

  The woman’s skin turned cold and clammy beneath his fingertips. Her mouth hardened like stone, chafing against his lips. When he looked up, her blurred features coalesced into a clear face, one he had seen before, the face of that Lusielle wench, the witch who had led his lord astray.

  Severo scrambled out of his pallet. “Get away from me!”

  “Doomed and damned are the souls of the wicked,” the woman said. “Useless are their struggles. Last chance, Severo.”

  “I said go away,” Severo shouted. “Go!”

  “As you wish,” she said, sporting a malicious gleam in her witch’s eyes and a vicious smile. “Welcome to the world of the dead.”

  “Wake up, man.” Someone was shaking him. “Shut up before you wake up everyone else.”

  Severo’s eyes burst open to find his pallet neighbor leaning over him.

  “What’s the matter with you?” the man said. “You were howling like a wolf to the moon. Were you having a nightmare?”

  “Aye,” Severo mumbled, wiping the sweat off his face, trying to still his trembling hands. “A nightmare. That’s what it was. Just a bad dream.”

  “Why thanks to you, I’m wide awake now,” the man said. “Want
to tell me about it?”

  “No,” Severo said, gathering his blankets, grabbing his saddlebags and fleeing the crowded attic. He would never tell anyone about this nightmare. Never. Because the mere suggestion of betraying his lord frightened him too much, and because when you were one of the Twenty, treason was something you didn’t dare contemplate, not even in the privacy of your worst nightmare.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  BREN’S EYES REFUSED TO OPEN ON command. His body ached as if his bones had been pummeled to dust. His side flared like a fired brand. His entire body burned with the worst kind of heat. His throbbing head was swimming in a pool of darkness. Had his time run out at last?

  The nightmare snared all his senses. The face of the first woman came into focus. She had been a fair-haired beauty, the daughter of a highborn lord who had elicited the attention of suitors from all over the land, a lively young woman with an effortless laugh and an elegant, easy-to-snap neck.

  Bren had worked his way stealthily through the throng of suitors, competing fairly for her attentions. He had indulged her in all her whims and enjoyed doing so with a young man’s misguided sense of faith. No one but Hato had learned of his success. He had seduced her before he killed her. It had been an easy thing, really.

  “Why?” she whispered when she haunted him in his dreams. She hadn’t had the time to wonder about it while she died in his arms.

  The face of the second woman he had killed replaced the first woman’s face. She had been a wealthy widow, a worthy successor to her banker husband, a worldly, sometimes harsh dealer of fortunes and men. Shrewd as she was, she had taught him the meaning of fervent, absolute hope. She had lasted almost two weeks. He knew because he had stayed with her.

  “I should’ve known you were too good to behold,” Godivina said right before she died.

  He had given in to the darkness after that. He had sequestered himself in the ruins of his father’s house and swore he would never do it again.

  Hato’s face intruded in his feverish nightmares, only he wore Liliaveth’s rotten lips. “Kill her.” The grotesque lips quivered with maggots. “It’s your damn duty.”