by M. R. Forbes
I. Heart
CHAPTER ONE
Wilem
"Bring him out now. I don't need to tell you what will happen to your daughter if you don't."
Wilem swallowed a thick lump of air, and observed the exchange between Clau and the farmer. Sitting astride his Portnis stallion, he wondered for the millionth time how he had wound up in the General's personal entourage, and once more decided it had to do more with his aptitude than his attitude. The whole interaction was making him sick to his stomach.
"Easy, boy." His direct superior, Mediator Talia Oh, put a gentle hand on the side of his leg.
Wilem glanced over at her. He appreciated the kindness of her gesture, but wasn't so enamored of her choice of words. She couldn't have been more than two or three years his elder.
"I told you... I... I don't know where he went. I swear." The farmer was an older man, with a light scatter of white and grey hair, a thin mustache, and yellow teeth. He wore the plain stained burlap shirt and breeches of his rank, and his smell of sweat and fertilizer permeated the air around them.
Clau clenched his jaw and turned to his first officer, Captain Lawson, who was holding the farmer's eldest daughter in a tight grip, a slender knife to her throat. The girl had tears in her eyes, but she stood still and silent.
"I'm not feeling patient today, sir. Your son is a threat to this Empire, and he must be brought under control."
"My son is a farmer," the man said. "Nothing more. Whoever told you he was Cursed was lying." He stared at his child, the fear foremost in his eyes. "It was Hamlin, I bet. He hates me, because my girls are prettier than his. He knows they'll fetch the eyes of the Renson brothers before his ugly hags ever will. Don't you see, this is how he plans to ruin me."
Wilem heard the General's sigh, and he closed his eyes. This was the third village they had visited in the two weeks since they'd left Edgewater. This was the third village where the Cursed had run, and the General had been forced to act.
The rustle of Lawson's cloak was followed by the thud of the body falling to the grass, and the despondent wail of the father, who he knew would rush to her side. It was the third time Wilem had heard it, but he still needed to fight against the thick bile that threatened to rise up and choke him.
"I'm sorry, sir. I will ask you again, and if you don't tell me the truth, I'll begin by burning your farm. When that is done, I will burn your village, and when that is done, I will burn you... alive."
He had left Edgewater with Talia and a small retinue of soldiers. Three days later they had merged with General Clau and his men, a dozen of the Empire's best soldiers, and a single Mediator who Wilem still feared to look in the eye. In the days that had followed, he had seen the General as a kind man, a patient man, and a fair man.
Until there was a Cursed involved.
Until the Cursed ran.
The General was fanatical in his desire to track them down, to reach them and control them. There was no punishment too severe, no amount of death and destruction enough to dissuade him. It was a transformation that made Wilem's skin crawl, especially since not long ago he had been nothing more than the son of a carpenter, who had one day discovered that he had the Curse.
"Please, my Lord. Please."
The farmer was on the ground bawling, his daughter propped in his arms while her blood spilled freely over his shirt. Wilem opened his eyes, but he didn't look for the man, or his daughter. He kept them straight ahead, out over the fields of wheat that would be burning soon enough, should the farmer still refuse to tell.
General Clau pointed to two soldiers, mounted atop their powerful coursers. "Torches."
"Pleeeeaaassseee." His cry echoed in the small valley, a cry of pain that only the coldest heart could ignore. Wilem glanced at Talia again, and saw that even she was getting rattled.
"I told you already, sir, I am not feeling patient today. Whether you tell me where he is and what direction he went or not, we will find him. The only question is how much of this land I have to burn before I am satisfied. Believe me, sir, it can be quite a lot."
The farmer quieted, and looked up at Clau. "West," he said, without a hint of emotion. "He went west, into the Darling Glen."
Clau looked at Wilem then. "Wilem, Talia. Take Avoy and Trent."
"Yes, sir," he said, in unison with his mentor. The two soldiers rode towards them, already pulling bows from shoulders.
"I expect my Mediators to have located your son within an hour. If they aren't back by then, I'll assume you're lying to me."
"He went west," the farmer said again, his forehead crinkled in a mix of anger and agony.
They didn't wait for further instructions. Talia snapped the reins on her stallion, spinning it westward and sending it streaming forward with all the speed the famed breed could manage. Wilem felt his heart pounding as he instructed his own mount to follow, and within moments he was racing along behind her, his eyes first on her billowing black cloak, and then on the small forest ahead of them.
Wilem had never been in the Darling Glen. He had hardly ever been anywhere. He had grown up in Edgewater City, where the Overlord's palace sat. He had been nothing but a commoner, before his soldiers had come for him. Before his father had turned him over.
He hadn't run. He had never considered running. He had been taught that his laws were in place to protect them, and to keep them all safe from dangers that in his wisdom he didn't feel they should have to concern themselves with. The day he had discovered his Curse, he had told his father first thing, and Talia had come for him the following afternoon.
He didn't understand why they ran. He didn't know why there was so much fear. When Talia had come, she had been kind and generous, and held him in high esteem. She had showed him her own Curse, so he would know that she was like him, and that this was how he cared for them. She and his brothers and sisters had taken him in, accepted him as their own, and brought him into a family much larger than the one he had needed to leave behind.
It was the Liar he knew, him and his Cursed Whore, who together had murdered the Overlord of Elling in cold blood and claimed the city as their own base of debauchery. With his serpent's tongue, he had convinced much of the citizenry there to turn away from his laws and to openly revolt. He had started a civil war, and then when the might of the Empire arrived to crush it, he had slithered away in the dead of night, leaving those he had deceived to be slaughtered under their false beliefs.
Yet he had survived, and he continued to instill fear in the outlying villages, convincing them that they were being lied to and used, that he was deceiving them in order to keep them in line. That the Curse was no curse at all, but a disease for which he hoarded the cure.
That was why this farm boy had run, and why his father had tried to protect him. The words of the Liar had reached his ears, and he had fallen for them as surely as all of the others. Wilem didn't blame him, because he knew that the man didn't know any better. He felt sadness though, and pity. Once the boy had run, his true heart had been revealed. His loyalty and strength was called into question, and he could never be part of the family. Never.
They reached the Darling Glen, the stallions charging into the brush without hesitation, hooves pounding the soft grass beneath them. Strider was stronger and younger than the stallion Talia rode, and so Wilem found himself closing in, while Avoy and Trent had been left far behind.
Talia slowed her horse to a trot a few moments later, examining the brush around them as Wilem pulled Strider up alongside. He could hear the soft gurgling of a stream nearby, and the rustling of leaves on the wind.
"You shouldn't have run," Talia said, not to him, but to the air. He could feel the energy of her Curse around her, taking the w
ords and carrying them to the mind of the boy, wherever he was hiding. She would do this to try to draw him out into the open, to break his spirit and his will to resist.
Talia turned to him, pointed to the northwest, and then spun herself to the south. They would split up to search for the boy, but they had to be careful. While General Clau knew what they were and what they could do, it was against the law to use the Curse in witness of the uninformed.
"You shouldn't have run."
Even as Wilem moved further away from his superior, he could still hear her voice in his mind, carried by her power to anyone else who shared the Curse. He scanned the brush, looking for any signs of recently crushed leaves or broken branches, or any other sign of a young boy crossing on foot.
"You shouldn't have run. We would have taken care of you."
Wilem moved Strider ahead at a slow walk, through the wood and brush until he reached a small clearing. It was here that he found the boy, standing in the center of the grass with his hands clenched in fists and his eyes wet with tears.
"I saw you," the boy said. He was small for his age, with a mop of long, tawny hair that fell to the top of his bare chest. "I saw you kill my sis."
Wilem slid off the stallion, careful to keep his eyes on the boy. Too many of them had been lost in the months since the Liar had appeared. He had convinced them to fight instead of submitting, and some had been successful in taking the Mediator sent to manage them by surprise. That the boy had been standing in the open, waiting, made him uneasy.
"You shouldn't have run," Wilem said. He reached up and drew his ircidium wand from the saddle. It was a simple thing, a three foot cylinder of the special alloy, with a green stone attached to the end. The metal would allow him to conduct his energy through to the stone and amplify the power that he provided it without risk of harming himself.
"What gives you the right?" the boy asked. "Why do you get to decide who lives and dies?"
"I don't get to decide. He does." Wilem started walking slowly towards the boy, gathering his energy around him in preparation for its use.
"Who does? Do you know who he is? Does anybody? Silas says we deserve to be free. That he has no right to decide our fate. That he is cruel to the ones he can't control. I won't be controlled."
Wilem didn't know who he was. He had heard that the General did, but he wouldn't speak of it. Still, there was no reason to question. He saw the proof every day in the eyes of the General, and the soldiers, and in Talia. They all believed, just as his father had believed.
"Silas is the Liar," Wilem said. "He fills you with falsehoods to make you serve his needs."
The boy surprised him by laughing. "You're the ones went and killed my sis. You're the ones burning villages and farms. Why do you need to do that, if you're so sure you're right? Why does he need to rule by fear?"
Wilem thought to speak, but he stopped himself. He had never seen the General's actions as ruling with fear. They had simply been doing what they must to ensure the Cursed were contained. It wasn't safe for them out there alone, he knew. If they couldn't be part of the family, they were better off dead.
"That's why you shouldn't have run. Your mind is poisoned. I'm sorry." He raised the wand and relaxed, feeling the energy pooling in him. He pushed it up the alloy towards the stone. "Chakoth."
The stone began to glow, and the ground around the boy began to shake. His eyes widened in fear, and he turned to run again. Before he could take his first step, a thick green vine shot out of the ground from below his feet, twisting and wrapping around his ankle. A second followed it, and then a third. Within moments, only his head was visible.
Wilem felt his heart pounding. He had never actually killed someone before. It wasn't that he was afraid to do it, or had any moral question about it. He knew the boy's fate would be worse than what he was about to do, if he was allowed to roam the empire with his Curse unchecked. He just... didn't want to kill him. Just as he hadn't wanted Captain Lawson to kill the farmer's daughter.
"I'm sorry," he said again. It wasn't his fault. The Liar was causing all of these people to turn against him and reject his laws, laws that had stood for over four hundred years.
The vines tightened and grew, covering the boy's face and smothering him.
A dark red tear rolled from Wilem's left eye.
CHAPTER TWO
Silas
"Again."
Silas Morningstar stood in the large, open field of grass, his hands on his hips and a smile on his face. Eryn was standing six feet in front of him, her knees bent, her shoulders back, a shining ircidium blade held above her head.
At her grandfather's command, she stepped forward, sweeping her arms to the side and around, then up and over and back again, transitioning from one form to the next in a dance that none would ever want to partner for. As she neared the end of the final position, Silas clucked.
"You were so close that time, my dear. So very close."
Eryn glared at him from the corner of her eye, and jabbed the blade into the ground. "Are you crazy, old man? My form was perfect."
Silas slid his own blade from his scabbard and shifted into the final move, his legs wide apart but balanced, his hands up in front of his head. He went through the position in slow motion, pausing at each of the main shifts in balance, drawing his hands to the side, sliding his feet, and even faking the throw of his long white hair.
"Here," he said, taking his sword and tapping himself on the left instep. "You balanced on the heel. You should have been on the toe. Enough force would knock you right over."
"I did not."
"You did."
"I'll do it again. You'll see."
"As you wish."
Silas watched her get back into the starting position, a large dose of pride swelling in his heart. It had been almost a year since the day the two of them had discovered his son Aren's writings. Almost a year since they had both learned they were related by blood. Eryn had gone from a strong and wiry child of fourteen, to a strong and lithe young woman of fifteen. Her body had turned more lean and shapely, and her hair had grown into a fine head of golden brown waves. Most importantly, she had gained the outward visage of the confidence and resolution that had brought them together in the first place. That she questioned his opinion of her form didn't bother him in the least. In fact, it was one of the traits that he admired most.
"Are you ready, Silas?" she asked, putting her hands up.
"Show me," he said.
Of course, the discovery of their relation had hardly been without conflict or pain. After all, he was directly responsible for the death of her father, his own son, which continued to be a deep well of pain and regret that had at times put a wide river of hurt between them. It wasn't even that Eryn was angry at him for it, for Aren had never truly been a father to her. It was his own guilt that had dug the channel, his own opinion that he had done such damage to her life. In the beginning, it had led him to be distant, to keep her at arm's length and not speak to her of their ties. It was the stubbornness again that had forced him to deal with that part of their past, and to realize that what was done was done. He had made a promise to her, and to all of the Cursed, to see that his tyranny over them was ended. In fighting for the lives of all of them, he would atone for the lives he had taken, and make peace with the ghosts of his past.
"I wish you were here," he whispered, thinking of his wife. The year had seen more and more of his memories returning, and those of his lost love were the most vivid of all. With each new moment he found to relive with her, his heart burned more and more.
Eryn started her dance again, moving gracefully through the forms he had taught her. They were a duplicate of his own style, a style that even after a year he had no memory of learning. He knew it step by step, and his muscles could repeat it and improvise on it without hesitation, yet it still seemed to him as though he had been born with the knowledge.
As she neared the end of the dance, Silas bent down and picked up a
small stone from the grass. He held it lightly in his hand, and watched her footwork with intense concentration. Each motion lasted a fraction of a second at most, but he was sure she was balancing on her heel instead of her toe. At just the right moment, he threw the stone at her, missing his target but still hitting her in the leg. It was enough to distract, and since her weight was off the surprise exacerbated the mistake, and she stumbled forward.
"You cheated," she said, catching herself and whipping her head over to look at him.
"I proved my point," he replied.
She responded by laughing. "You win. Let's eat."
They retreated from the clearing, to their small camp beside a large stone that rested below an overhang of dirt and roots. A Giant's Ball, as the woodsman of Watertown, Master Llewyn, had called it; it certainly did look as though it had once been a plaything for a creature larger than the tallest Redwood.
"It is a difficult form, but you have nearly mastered it. I wish I could tell you how long it took me to reach your level of skill, but I'm afraid I still can't remember." Silas dug into a saddlebag and produced a long stick of salted oats and grains that had been bound together in sap and honey. It was a staple food to the common people of Varrow, the southern province they had entered only two days earlier. He broke it and handed half to Eryn.
"I'm thankful for everything you've taught me. I'd never have survived this long without you."
"That, I doubt." Silas bit into the stick, savoring its salty and sweet taste. They had been on the road for so long that anything with any kind of different flavor was a welcome change to the berries and game they would pick and hunt.
"Do you think we've lost them?" Eryn asked, taking a bite of her own.
Silas responded with an instinctive glance back over his shoulder. They had nearly ridden straight into a squad of his soldiers right before crossing into Varrow, and it had taken two days of circling well around the Empire Road to begin to feel somewhat safe.
"I think so."