by Jordan Rivet
The dog looked up, ears pointed like arrowheads, awaiting his master’s word.
“Ready, Sheriff? Let’s go get her.”
Sheriff howled and set off into the trees. Archer jogged after him, slipping into the woods before anyone could investigate the commotion at the finest ruin in Sparrow Village.
Chapter 2
Briar’s heart drummed a frantic beat as she raced through Mere Woods, avoiding the village proper. The forest seemed bent on delaying her. She snagged her skirt in blackberry patches and tumbled over roots snaking across the path. By the time she reached the Brittlewyn River, sweat dampened her collar, and brambles filled her frizzy hair.
She nearly ran straight into the county sheriff and a pair of Lord Barden’s retainers on the bridge. They had stopped for a smoke and were jawing about some tavern wench or other, blocking the only route across the Brittlewyn. Briar dove behind an abandoned cart before the men looked her way. Hopefully they couldn’t hear her gasps for breath after her mad dash through the woods.
The leisurely murmur of their voices mixed with the babble of the river. Smoke curled above their heads, taunting her with its slow drift. Why weren’t those three at the summer fair? Sheriff Flynn never missed a chance to preen for a crowd, and the local baron’s retainers were almost as bad, strutting about in their ugly mustard-brown surcoats.
“Come on now,” Briar muttered, worrying at her paint-smudged shirt. “Move along.” Sweat crawled down her scalp, and her injured wrist throbbed plaintively. Every minute, she expected an uproar from the mess she’d left behind. She needed to keep moving.
When the trio finally knocked the ashes from their pipes and ambled toward the village, Briar tore across the bridge and up the road on the other side of the river. She didn’t dare look back until she reached the little cottage in the woods she’d been renting for the past few months. She paused at the garden gate to listen for signs of pursuit. The road behind her remained vacant—no angry merchants, no villagers with pitchforks. A breeze shivered through the trees and lifted thin curls of sawdust from the woodpile. She was safe for now.
Briar crossed the garden to the cottage, a snug dwelling of roughhewn logs with a thatched roof. She unlocked the door, and the familiar aromas of oil paint, wood smoke, and dry thatch welcomed her home. The tension in her body eased a little. Briar loved her cottage. It only had one room, which was sparsely furnished and rough by most standards, but it filled her with a sense of warmth and well-being, unlike the finer chambers she’d occupied growing up. The cottage was the first place where she’d felt she had a chance—not just at a good life but at being a good person. She was heartsick that she might have to abandon it.
Alert for the sound of hoofbeats, Briar hid the broken paint jars and ruined satchel under her bed and stripped off her paint-splattered shirt. Wincing at the pain in her wrist, she bundled the old shirt into the rag basket by the cottage’s only chair and pulled on a crisp white blouse, as if to prove she definitely hadn’t been wielding destructive paints that afternoon. She wrapped extra rags around her injured wrist and knotted them with her teeth.
Next, she checked her defenses: small jars of paint and finger-sized brushes carefully concealed around the cottage for emergencies—under her lumpy pillow, inside the fireplace, above the lintel. She tugged a few rungs out of the ladderback chair and hid them too. According to the Law of Wholes, the first of the three laws of curse painting, a curse applied to an object would affect that object in its entirety, regardless of whether the pieces were intact at the time of painting. Just as a curse painted on a few siding boards could destroy a whole house, a curse on a detached piece of a chair could affect the chair from a distance, providing the pieces weren’t apart long enough to be considered separate wholes. Briar switched out the rungs on her chair regularly, just in case she needed to hurl the whole thing at someone.
She peeked through the curtained window next to the door. The road to the cottage was empty, and the setting sun bathed the forest in red and gold and deep blue. Soon the shadows would blend into the full dark of night.
Could she have escaped the blame for what had happened somehow? Luck rarely worked in her favor, but the stranger in indigo hadn’t confronted her, and the authorities wouldn’t necessarily connect her to Master Winton or the collapsed house. As long as the blacksmith didn’t talk, they might not even think of her. She hadn’t destroyed anything bigger than an ale cart within the boundaries of Barden County, and she wasn’t the only curse painter powerful enough to bring down a house. Few mages of any kind could do it so efficiently, though. If it hadn’t been a complete accident, she would be proud of her work.
Briar dropped the curtain and dragged an easel and a half-finished canvas to the center of the room. She occasionally created benign paintings to give away so no one would question why she bought so much pigment and always had colorful splatters on her sleeves. Some people in Sparrow Village knew what she was by now, but she tried to make it easier for them to pretend otherwise. She wanted so badly to stay in her little cottage, to finally stop running.
Curse painting as a profession wasn’t completely illegal, but like all forms of magic, it was carefully regulated. Mages were required to study in expensive schools and register with the Hall of Cloaks in faraway High Lure. If they passed their studies, licensed art mages received tattoos to track every jinx and spell they performed. Curse painters were usually employed for demolition, mining, and warfare. Ambulatory curses and sleep curses could also bring in a respectable income, providing they weren’t used to break other laws—which were numerous. With so many restrictions, most mages—curse painters, voice mages, fortune scribes, even the rare stone crafters—preferred to work directly for the crown and the lords of the peerage.
Unlicensed mages of all types still cropped up, performing illegal magic on the cheap and risking prosecution with every job. Voice mages could avoid notice by peddling healing spells and garden-variety transformations, and no one worried too much about fortune-tellers, but curses were negative by nature. Whether reducing a house to splinters or maiming a romantic rival, it was all too easy for painters to push the boundaries of legality. Even unlicensed curse painters could avoid notice in the outer counties, though, which was why Briar had gone there to start over—and to hide.
She checked outside again. Twilight was falling fast. A large dog loped through the fading light and sniffed around her woodpile. It was as big as a wolf, with meaty shoulders and deep wrinkles enveloping a squashed-looking face. No owner joined the dog, and it soon trotted off into the distance.
Briar dropped the curtain and went to hang the kettle over the low-burning coals in her fireplace. A pot of tea would calm her nerves so she could figure out her next steps. Master Winton would give Sheriff Flynn a list of anyone who might wish him ill. She would have to warn the blacksmith in the morning. She couldn’t risk crossing the village tonight.
As she stoked the fire, she imagined the din that must surround the place by now. She should have made the curse smaller so botching it wouldn’t have done so much damage. She’d felt the magic in her fingertips, the hot urgency of creation, and she’d gotten carried away. Briar had an almost compulsive need to destroy, something that worried her even more than getting caught. She had walked away from her old life, but she carried part of it with her still.
The kettle sang, and she removed it from the flames. Before she could pour her tea, a knock sounded at the door.
Archer tapped his boot on the flagstone step outside the curse painter’s cottage. It didn’t look like the type of place to house an illegal curse business. It was little more than a hovel. The green-curtained windows on either side of the door looked like two wide eyes, and the thatched roof drooped a bit above the door, a lock of hair falling in front of a squat troll’s face.
The well-kept garden beside the neat woodpile suggested the cottage’s occupant looked after the place, but she certainly wasn’t wealthy. She couldn’t refuse Arch
er’s offer. He was about to make this curse painter rich beyond her wildest dreams—if she ever opened the door.
Archer leaned his longbow against the wall and knocked again. Movement fluttered behind the green curtains, a hint of dark hair and white linen.
“Hello in there!” he called. “I know you’re home.”
The sound of careful footsteps filtered through the door. It occurred to him that the curse painter could be preparing a jinx.
“I mean you no harm,” he said quickly. “I’d like a word with you.”
Still no response. Did she really think pretending she wasn’t home was going to work? Archer had important business to discuss. He had no time for games.
“I could come back later,” he called through the door. “Maybe with Sheriff Flynn or some of Lord Barden’s oafs. I’m sure they’d be very interested in what I saw at Willem Winton’s house this afternoon—or what used to be his house.”
A brief silence. Then the door cracked open, and a pair of luminous brown eyes appeared. “What do you want?”
“Good evening.” He gave a bow fit for a duchess. “I am called Archer. I’m an accomplished thief and brigand. I serve the blade, the coin, and the open road. I have come to offer you an opportunity to escape your sordid circumstances and embark on the adventure of a dozen lifetimes.”
The girl stared at him, blinking her large, shimmering eyes. It was unsettling, being stared at like that.
“Do you always tell people you’re a thief?” she asked at last.
“Don’t you tell them you’re an unlicensed curse painter?”
“Please don’t say that so loud.” Urgency tinged the girl’s voice, though no one was around to hear it. The cottage’s location on the quieter side of the Brittlewyn River made sure of that.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” Archer said. “I have been looking to hire someone with your particular set of skills, and I must say, yours are the most particular I’ve ever seen.”
“I don’t work for criminals.” She began to shut the door.
Archer jammed the toe of his boot into the doorway. He’d misjudged her strength and winced as the door nearly chopped his foot in half. “I beg your pardon, miss,” Archer said, eyes watering from the pain. “But are you not a criminal yourself?”
There was another brief pause in the poorly lit hut. Archer felt like he was speaking to a pair of disembodied eyes floating in the shadows.
“I only accept clients under special circumstances.”
“Wouldn’t you like to hear my circumstances, then?”
The girl ground her teeth audibly. “If you’ll stop talking about it out here.” She released her hold on the door and stepped back. “You’d better come inside.”
Archer was surprised. Inviting a stranger into one’s home was risky even in this sleepy country town. But as he ducked beneath the low-hanging lintel, he realized the curse painter was holding an iron kettle, the spout steaming faintly. He was lucky she hadn’t thrown it in his face when he stuck his foot in her door.
The light from the crackling fireplace gave him a better look at the curse painter. Though rather short, she wasn’t quite as young as he had thought, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, only a few years younger than he was. There was a maturity in her bearing that he’d missed when she was clambering around in that maple tree. She wore a white blouse and a green wool skirt, and her dark hair fell around her shoulders in a frizzy cloud.
The cottage consisted of one room, with a quilt-covered bed in the corner, a small table, and a ladderback chair with a few missing rungs. A large easel with a half-finished painting on a stretched canvas occupied the center of the small space. Other paintings leaned against the walls, the images indistinct in the firelight.
Archer strode to the easel. The painting depicted a pastoral scene, a little farmhouse at the edge of a field of wheat. Tame work, considering what he’d seen the girl accomplish earlier that day.
“What does this painting do?” he asked, examining the swaths of green and gold.
“It doesn’t do anything. It’s just a picture.”
“Interesting hobby.” He glanced around the room, noting a large locked chest by the wall opposite the door and a basket full of rags by the chair. He could usually find the valuables after a few seconds in a room, but precious little there was worth stealing. “I thought you didn’t go around telling people what you are.”
“It’s an excuse to make the paints. Look, Mister Archer, I don’t want to be rude, but would you just tell me what you want?”
“In good time. You are unlicensed, correct? That wasn’t a crown-blessed hit on that house?”
“It was a private commission.” The girl moved over to the table, keeping as much distance between them as possible. She set down the steaming kettle, and he noticed her left hand was wrapped in rags. An injury from falling out of the tree, perhaps? He hoped it wouldn’t impede her work.
“That’s just what I wanted to hear. And you aren’t bound to any of the landed gentry in these parts, are you? No fine sir has your loyalty?”
“I am no lord’s lackey.”
Archer grinned at the ferocity in her tone. “I think you’ll do nicely.”
“I won’t do anything until you tell me what this is about, Mister Archer.”
“It’s just Archer. And what are you called, Miss Painter?”
She paused for a beat. “Briar.”
“No family name?”
“No family.”
Silence thrummed between them as she lifted her eyes to meet his.
“As I said, I think you’ll do very nicely indeed.” He gave her a bright smile and spread his hands with a flourish. “Shall we talk business?”
Briar sighed. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
A few minutes later, Archer was settled in the single chair, resting his shiny black boot on his knee. The girl sat cross-legged on the narrow bed, her skirt tucked tightly around her legs. They sipped mint tea from clay cups while Archer explained the mission.
“Lord Barden, the lord and protector of this fair county, has a daughter, the lovely Lady Mae. Several weeks ago, Lady Mae was kidnapped while out riding her favorite pony. Lord Barden has, quite naturally, been frantic to discover his daughter’s whereabouts.”
“I heard something about that.” Briar shifted back to sit against the wall, resting her injured hand at her side. “She’s young, isn’t she?”
“Young and beautiful. It has caused quite a scandal.”
“Someone at the market said she was taken by bandits,” Briar said. “Brigands, like you.”
“There is no one like me,” Archer said with a wink.
Briar didn’t react. She seemed exceptionally guarded, on the verge of fight or flight. He couldn’t tell which.
“Market rumors may hint at the truth,” he said, “but they rarely paint a complete picture. I have it on good authority that the lady fair was taken by none other than Lord Jasper Larke of the neighboring county.”
“Larke and Barden have been squabbling for years.”
“So they have,” Archer said. “It got so bad a few years ago, the king decreed they must settle their differences or forfeit their lands and titles. No threat is worse to a lord than the loss of his title.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Briar said.
“Of course not.” Archer glanced around the hovel. The girl had to want to improve her circumstances. She couldn’t help but agree to do the job. Hope flared in his chest for the first time since his return to Barden County.
“The two lords have continued to fight since the king’s decree, but they’ve kept it quiet. Their animosity festers in secret. Lord Larke dealt an unforgivable blow to Lord Barden when he captured Barden’s daughter. Barden can’t go to the king because he’d risk losing his lands—which would apparently be worse than losing his daughter, but I’m not here to judge—and so he has turned to other means to retrieve Lady Mae.”
Briar’s forehead wrinkled in
a frown. “He hired you to steal her back?”
“Close. He is discreetly offering a reward for her safe return, with a bonus if it can be done without attracting the ire of the king. I intend to collect both the reward and the bonus.”
“What makes you think you can do it?”
Archer coughed, trying not to be offended. He had worked up something of a reputation over the past few years, but she didn’t seem remotely impressed by him.
“Lady Mae is imprisoned in a tower in Larke Castle up by Shortfall Lake.” He waved vaguely toward the north. “I happen to employ someone who used to work in that castle. We have a better chance of retrieving her than most.”
“And where do I come in?” Briar asked. “You want me to knock down this tower?”
“That wouldn’t do our captive lady much good, would it? We have to bring her back alive to collect the reward.”
“And the bonus.”
“Exactly.” Archer tapped his fingers on his knee. “The tower presents … challenges. The spells of a powerful mage guard its walls, and I believe only someone with exceptional strength can break through its protections.”
Briar pursed her lips. “So, you want me to travel to the other side of Larke County and help you destroy these spells to rescue a damsel from a tower without hurting the tower too badly? Unravelling someone else’s magic is not a simple task.”
“You would be well paid.” Archer straightened, pausing for effect. “I can offer you one hundred crowns.”
She didn’t even blink at the extravagant amount, one that should have made a girl in her circumstances stand up and sing. “I’ll have to decline,” she said briskly. “I’m sure you can find a more suitable curse painter for the job.”
“I doubt that. I need someone with both finesse and power. I’d heard a curse painter in these parts had the former, and I’ve seen the latter with my own eyes.”