Warrior's Curse

by Alexa Egan

  “Why is Meeryn Munro here? She was your ticket to Deepings, you told us. But you’re not at Deepings anymore.”

  “She’s N’thuil. I need her to summon the power of Jai Idrish.”

  “Is that why? Or did you just need her—period?”

  His heart clenched and he tossed off an ugly laugh. “London’s Lothario is giving me advice on women? That’s rich. Mac, are you listening to this?”

  “Don’t drag me into this. I’m minding my own business. If you two want to beat the stuffing out of each other, go ahead.”

  “Tempting, but I’ll let Dromon’s Ossine have first crack.” Gray slammed the book closed, took up a restless pacing walk wall to wall and back again. “Fine, so I need her. I might even love her. What the hell am I supposed to do about it?”

  “Tell her so?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Gray paused at the hearth, staring into the cavernous mouth. No fire to lose himself in, no warmth to ease the chill along his bones. He plowed both hands through his hair, linked them at the back of his neck. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

  “Why—because it galls you to know I’m right?”

  “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”

  “This clock says it’s time to tell her how you feel . . . before it’s too late.”

  He spun around, gut aching, head pounding. “You make it sound so fucking easy, St. Leger. Find the girl, tumble head over ass, live forever in a little dream cottage for two.”

  “Do I? Then perhaps you’re not as observant as I thought.” He slammed his mutilated hand on the tabletop, a finger missing, compliments of ganglord Victor Corey. St. Leger had fought for his life . . . and then he’d fought for Callista’s. Death didn’t frighten him. He’d been there and done that already.

  Silence descended as each party surrendered to a neutral corner. Gray tried to focus, but his thoughts were scattered and restless. His nerves jumping. David had skated too close to too many truths that Gray wasn’t ready to confront.

  “I can’t tell her anything until this is over. It wouldn’t be fair when I don’t know how this will end. She could be grieving a corpse by the end of the week.”

  “Hell, she could be a corpse by the end of the week.”

  Mac cleared his throat and gave a subtle shake of his head.

  David shrugged and answered with a widening of his eyes. Mac subsided to his role as lookout. “All I’m saying, Gray, is that if you care about Meeryn and she cares about you, there’s no time like the present. Tomorrow might be too late.”

  His parents and Ollie gone without a good-bye. Grandfather dead before Gray had a chance to make his final peace. Would his time with Meeryn end the same way?

  “I’ll take it under advisement.”

  David snorted, subsiding back onto the sofa with a disgusted roll of his eyes. “You once told me you wanted more than a quick swiving. Seems to me you’ve found it. Now the question becomes, what are you going to do about it?”

  What indeed?

  * * *

  The rain had passed and now evening light faded toward dusk. The windows in the houses across the street glowed orange and red, as if fires licked from room to room. Heat shimmered up from the street and the few pedestrians out looked wilted by the oppressive humidity. She scanned the corners, the alleys, the rooftops, her nerves scraped raw with waiting, when a startled cough and a shimmer of color at the corner of her eye caught her attention.

  She spun, finger on the trigger of her pistol, to find not a merciless Ossine enforcer but the wizened figure of Mr. Ringrose blurring into being. He’d changed from his earlier attire of down-at-heels shopkeeper and now wore the crimson and gold robes of a sorcerer born, a long tasseled cap upon the sparse white hair of his head, and his long beard combed to a brilliant snowy white. Over his shoulder, he bore a leather sack, which he patted as he came into being, as if afraid he might have lost it during his magical travels.

  “You nearly had your head taken off,” she snapped, still trying to catch her breath and ease back the cocked trigger without blowing a hole in the ceiling, the floor, or Mr. Ringrose. “What are you doing here?”

  He sniffed and smoothed a hand down his beard. “I might ask you the same question, impertinent snippet of a girl. Where is de Coursy?”

  “Downstairs in what’s left of the library.” She put the pistol down on a table. Turned it so the barrel pointed away from her. Changed her mind, picked it up, and shoved it in a drawer where she didn’t have to look at it.

  “Where am I?” He glanced around with a somewhat owlish expression.

  “My bedchamber . . . such as it is.”

  He took in the disheveled room, face growing pink, lips pursing with disapproval. “How did I end here? I was certain my directions were spot-on”—he touched a finger to his lips—“and then I made a left at”—he motioned as he thought out loud—“and then down at . . .”

  “I hope your knack with medicines is better than your skill at directions.”

  He sniffed, his long nose quivering with distaste. “My knack with medicines has never been questioned before, thank you very much.”

  “Aren’t you the one who gave Gray and the others the secret to the draught in the first place?”

  “I offered them a few hints. Nothing more.”

  “And now they sicken when they take it and sicken when they don’t.”

  “It’s not my fault the blood of the shapechanger pollutes all magic it touches, turning life to death and death to . . .”

  “To a curse they can’t control.”

  He clenched the strap of his satchel. “Does de Coursy want the draught or not? I’ve things to do and places to be. I do not like to leave the shop too long. There are so many specimens to catalog, so many new items to identify.”

  “Of course. I’ll take you to him.”

  Ringrose followed her down the corridor to the main staircase. The banister was lying in pieces on the floor in the main entry hall and three risers had been axed to splintered shreds, but Meeryn circumnavigated the damage, stepping over the broken urns littering the floor and the glass sparkling like diamonds from a fallen shattered chandelier to lift the latch on the library door.

  Mac Flannery stood at the mantel, his soldier’s stance and sharp features revealing his military bearing better than any red coat or gold braid ever could. David St. Leger leaned against a table, one leg dangling, casually spinning a bronze disk like a top with his scarred and disfigured hand until Gray reached over and snatched it away. “Enough larking about, David. We’ve work to do.”

  “Seems to me we’ve been kicking our heels for hours awaiting . . . oh, that’s right . . . our execution.”

  “You can leave anytime.”

  “And miss all the fun? Wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “What have you there?” Ringrose said, his voice scraping across the conversation like a bow across an out-of-tune fiddle.

  Everyone stopped as one and turned to the newcomers.

  “Ringrose. You’ve come,” Gray said, Meeryn noting the relief in his voice even if his expression never changed.

  “What have you there? I asked.” The sorcerer scurried across the floor, robes flapping about his bony ankles, a finger toying with the end of his beard. “What are you playing with as if it were child’s toy? Anata Asantos! Deux breolmi neophirotha.”

  “What did he say?” David nudged Mac, who shrugged.

  “The Gylferion.” Ringrose stopped dead at the edge of the table, staring at the disks as if they were the sun, moon, and stars tied up with a pink bow. “You’ve found them again.”

  “You know what these things are?” David asked.

  Ringrose swung around, eyes crackling with indignation. “Of course. My master and maker himself created the disks of the Gylferion.”

  “Your master?” Gray asked, his face unnervingly blank of expression. “You mean Golethmenes?”

  �
��He was the greatest of the Fey craftsmen. He could forge magic from the very elements around him. Bring death with a thought. Create life with . . .” Ringrose worried his hands over and over, his beard quivering, his eyes darting round him in wild fright. “With . . .” He scrubbed at his face. Paced in a circle. “It’s in the blood. He said it’s in the blood. That’s what he told me. That’s what I know. More than that I cannot say. More than that I dare not say.”

  “You’re saying you knew the chap who made these?” David asked slowly.

  “Knew him, that’s right,” Ringrose answered. “He created the Gylferion at the behest of the Queen of the Fey, she who was wroth at the shapechanger for young Arthur’s death. The boy was her favorite. He was meant to rule. The Kingkiller ended that. He tore all she had worked for asunder. Like a blundering bear through the finest spider’s silk.”

  “How did Golethmenes make them work? How did he use them to imprison Lucan Kingkiller? How did he overcome the Imnada’s resistance to Fey magic in order to get the spell to work?” Gray’s voice remained carefully neutral. Only Meeryn could know what control it took to hold to such a measured tone.

  Ringrose grew more and more agitated, hands opening and closing, shoulders hunched as if he expected a beating should he answer wrong. “Four keys. Four souls. One door. That’s what Golethmenes said. That’s how he did it.”

  “We’ve got the four keys, but what does he mean by . . .”

  A new voice answered. “He means just what he says.”

  For a big man, Lucan Kingkiller was incredibly quiet. Meeryn nearly jumped out of her skin at the low rumble of his strangely accented voice just behind her ear. His mouth quirked and he offered her a small contrite nod of his head. “I’m sorry, my lady. I did not mean to startle you.”

  “You didn’t. I just . . . I’m not used to people sneaking up on me.”

  “I would think few things sneak up on you.” His gaze passed beyond her to settle on Gray with a dip of his shoulder, his voice pitched so that only she might hear.

  She acknowledged his remark with her own half smile. “I’d been waiting a lifetime for that one and it still caught me by surprise.”

  “Let us hope your wait is soon over.”

  He strode into the room, his head seeming to scrape the ceiling, his presence charging an already explosive atmosphere. He faced down Mac, David, and Gray, who waited on him, their eyes hard as stones, their faces set. “Four keys”—Lucan recited as he took the gold disk from Gray’s hand—“Golethmenes created the four disks using all he knew of the alien powers of the Imnada shapechangers.” He picked up the bronze disk. “Four souls. He sacrificed four of the Fey to infuse the keys with the strongest of their magics. Stripped of their inner spirit, there was no way back through the walls to Ynys Avalenn.” He picked up the copper disk. “One door.”

  “A thin place,” Gray answered, snatching up the silver disk from the table. “Golethmenes used a thin place to concentrate the energy into one huge cataclysmic force.”

  “He used Badb, didn’t he?” Meeryn stepped forward, a horrible ache low in her stomach.

  Lucan turned to her. “Aye, my lady. Badb was lost to the Summer Kingdom. But her imprisonment was my freedom. For she stole the Gylferion in retaliation against those who cast her out. Hounded for her treachery, she spent years and centuries hiding and running, and the disks were scattered and lost. It would be many centuries more before they were unearthed and brought together once more.”

  “But why are Badb and Ringrose companions if Golethmenes was his master and Badb betrayed the Fey and stole the keys from him? Shouldn’t they be enemies?”

  “Ringrose is a Realing; a creature spun from magic. He was created by the Fey smith to serve his daughter. Where she went, Ringrose followed. He was protector, adviser, servant, and friend. His service did not end with her exile. He did as he was trained to do.”

  “You mean to say Badb is Golethemenes’s daughter? How could he sacrifice his own flesh and blood?” Meeryn couldn’t keep the pain from her voice.

  This time Lucan’s gaze rested on Gray, with the weight of a thousand and more years behind it. She watched as his face reddened then paled, the bones standing stark against the hollowed skin, his hands curling around the silver disk like talons despite the pain, the blue of his eyes like the heart of an angry sea.

  “I suppose he thought he was doing it for the good of his people.”

  * * *

  Gray stood at the door, watching Meeryn as she packed her belongings, with a sense of déjà vu as if he were reliving another scene from a previous life. But this time there was but one thing she carried; a crystal sphere which she stitched into an inside seam of her gown with big clumsy stitches. “I’ve never enjoyed mending, but now I wish I’d spent more time at the pursuit.”

  “Your hands are shaking.”

  She bit off the final thread and poked her needle back on its cushion with a killer stab. “I’d hoped you wouldn’t notice.”

  “Your pulse is racing. Pupils are dilated.”

  Her brows furrowed with irritation. “I know I’m scared, Gray. I don’t need a physician’s diagnosis.”

  “I’ve never thought of you as being scared of anything. That was always my purview. The cautious one, the timid one, the one who spent his days with his head in a book. You were the bold one who enjoyed skating the edge between naughty and downright wicked. I guess it still holds true.”

  “Are you afraid of what’s coming?”

  “No, I’m afraid of what’s already here in front of me. I’m terrified. I feel eight again and afraid to sleep without a lamp to chase away the dreams. Or twelve and too frightened to tell my grandfather how the coachman’s son thrashed me for a penny. Or twenty-one again and too afraid to . . . to show you how I feel.”

  She touched his cheek, the scar at the edge of his mouth. “I’m not sure if I enjoy being compared with the bogeyman or a bully, but that last bit . . . I might enjoy that.”

  He cupped her face, kissing her slowly and deeply, hoping she felt the depth of his need for her in every pass of his lips and teasing flick of his tongue. He took her hand, fingers resting at the underside of her wrist, feeling her pulse skitter ever more rapidly. “I’m told the odds are stacked against me”—he sensed her stiffen in his arms—“but I don’t gamble unless I’m certain I’ll win.”

  She lifted her head, eyes black with desire now rather than fear. “Together, we can do this. Jai Idrish will answer to my call. I know it will. And with the Gylferion . . . we’re close, Gray. So close I can taste it.”

  “I wasn’t speaking of the curse this time.”

  Her face softened into a smile so welcoming it made his heart turn over and he knew what David accused him of was true. He didn’t just need her . . . he loved her.

  He leaned her back upon the bed, his hands threaded in the curling tangle of her warm honey-blonde hair, his thigh resting across her legs. She ran a hand over his face, eyes wide and shining with unshed tears as if she memorized him. “You won’t die. I won’t allow it.”

  He chuckled. “The Voice and Vessel has spoken?”

  “No, Meeryn Munro has spoken.” She lifted her head to take his bottom lip between her teeth. Her tongue plunged within, her body pliant and alive beneath him. “You might have been meek, you were never subservient. When you make up your mind to do something, there’s little that stands in your way.”

  “A few hours or a few days will tell if I can reclaim my place untainted and unchallenged.”

  She grinned, her hand sliding beneath his shirt to skim the rippled contours of his chest. “I wasn’t talking about the curse this time.”

  He smelled her arousal on her skin, the scent of her desire inflaming him until he ached. But he took his time, skimming her free of her clothing, taking care to offer her every pleasure, every caressing evidence of his own desire. Finally, she lay naked before him, hair loose about her shoulders and down over her breasts to tickle the flat pla
nes of her stomach. But as he bent to taste, she suddenly rocked up on her knees, a devil’s grin on her kiss-swollen mouth. “You don’t think I’m going to let you stay dressed, do you? It’s my turn.”

  She loosened his neckloth, tossing it away. Kissed the hollow at the base of his throat. Unbuttoned his waistcoat, sliding it from his shoulders as she pressed her body against him, the heat of her like a blast furnace. He reached for her but she took his wrist and held him away.

  “If you’ve waited this long, you can wait a little longer.”

  She released him to pull his shirt over his head. The breeze danced over his skin, and he closed his eyes to the coolness of it across his hot flesh. Her hands played over his body with a feather’s touch, her lips following. She took his nipple in her mouth, teasing it hard. Every drop of blood fled to his cock which was close to exploding. He hissed as she tongued him to the breaking point before moving to the other nipple. Her teeth grazed and nipped, her tongue swirled the sensitive skin until he growled with need. She met his stare, her own black as sin, her lips wet and full.

  “Your breeches next, Your Grace.”

  He kicked off his boots as she shucked him out of his smallclothes. His cock springing free, the tip dewed with his seed. She pushed him down upon the bed, his arms over his head as her eyes traveled with languorous ease over his nudity. She touched each scar, followed by a kiss. Caressed the marred and ugly flesh at his shoulder. Traced each rippled muscle of his abdomen before taking his cock in her hand. He groaned and nearly leapt off the bed.

  “I’d prolong the agony, but I don’t think you could take much more.”

  He shook his head as she slid her tongue up the length of his shaft, once twice, her lips circling the head, her breath hot and soft and oh-my-god . . .

  He groaned her name, tangled his hands in her hair and dragged her up to kiss her mouth, tasting his seed on her tongue, his other hand feeling the slick heat of her sex. She lifted her hips and sheathed herself onto him, deeper until he felt he must rip her in half. Rocked forward and took more of him. He squeezed his eyes shut, praying he didn’t humiliate himself by coming too fast, too soon. She rose and plunged again, hips tilted, face flushed. He rose to meet her, hands holding her waist, making her feel him, slowly, easily. She wanted faster. He’d not give it to her. He would take his time. If he could.