Warrior's Curse

by Alexa Egan

  “Did it?” Sometimes she wondered. In the dead of night, when the soft hissing voices tricked her brain and she dreamt of the black unending shadow rising above her like a rogue wave, she feared what she might have unleashed when she freed Gray and the others from the curse.

  * * *

  He stood at the window, staring out on the snow drifting small and white from a wintry gray sky. His chest ached in the cold, every breath was laced with dull pain, but his shoulder seemed much improved. It didn’t throb as it had in the weeks and months past, when every bump of his injured arm elicited an unconscious scream of pain that brought tears to his eyes and left him gasping and retching.

  He’d not remembered how he’d gained such horrific injuries nor how he’d survived them. The wizened, stooped old woman who tended him spoke little beyond explaining he’d been fished from the river barely alive. How he’d ended in the river in the first place, she could not say . . . or wouldn’t. She brought him three meals a day, cleaned his rooms, pressed his clothing, and tended his hurts. Questions, she did not answer. Frankly, she barely spoke at all.

  It had been six months since he’d arrived here and he knew only that he was not wholly within the world he spied through his window, though what world he inhabited he could not quite say either. It seemed as real as the cityscape beyond the glass; the bed was soft, the food tasty, and the books smelled of old leather and dusty pages. But there was no way to get from this place to that, not one door that he had found in all his meanderings once he’d gained the use of his legs again and walking didn’t involve a crutch and a steadying arm.

  Corridors emptied into more corridors and rooms followed rooms, but of doors, he found not a single one. And the windows, when smashed—as he’d tried three weeks ago in a fit of rage—seemed to tear through the veil of both worlds, leaving only a howling darkness.

  He had not broken one since. Better to stare out upon a world he recognized and pretend he was living among the men and women he spied going about their lives in the streets below than face the reality of his imprisonment.

  But why? What had he done? He rubbed his forehead as if that might bring some recall, but naught but dim shadows met his study; a woman’s eyes dark as treacle, a woman’s body lithe as a willow reed. Whenever he probed this vision deeper, he came up against an unspeakable madness where terrors lurked and voices called. He did not court these memories often. And recently, not at all. He kept to the pleasant thoughts of the mysterious woman and hoped that whoever she was, she did not grieve overmuch for his loss.

  Turning away from the window, he spied the mysterious old maidservant enter his room, a cane in her hand. “This is for you.”

  At this point, he didn’t even question her. Curiosity had succumbed to ennui and he already knew she’d offer him nothing more than the same story of his being dragged from the river and brought here for her to mend as best she could. He knew the tale by heart.

  She left as quickly and quietly as she came, leaving him alone with the dubious gift. What on earth did he need with a cane? He’d long since thrown away the crutch. His wounds had been to his upper body, the scars proved that. Still, it was a diversion in a life of few amusements beyond his books and his window.

  He took up the cane, ran a thumb over the handle shaped in the form of an eagle’s head. Now, why should that evoke a tightening in his chest and a tremble in the hand that held the ebony walking stick? He’d no idea but he gripped the cane like a weapon, the window a target for his sudden and overwhelming rage.

  With two hands, he swung the cane like a bat, the glass shattering, shards flying to mingle with the falling snow. But instead of the emptiness of nothing that he’d come to expect, snow swirled in to settle on his shoulders and hair. It stung his face with its icy touch and melted on his lips.

  The smells of coal fires and dung, Thames mud and roasted apples, filled his nose. He drew in a breath, ignoring the stabbing pain in his chest; stood watching the dim, smutty winter skyline with new delight and new focus. Somewhere out there was the dark-eyed woman. Somewhere out there someone knew who he was and what he was and why he had come to be here, wounded and lost.

  “You need seek no further than me, Your Grace.”

  He spun, cane in hand, to confront this stranger standing before him. A young woman, her curling mop of black curls and snapping black eyes giving her a lively mischievous air. Dressed in the height of current fashion and carrying herself with all the arrogance of the aristocrat, she must be a duchess—his duchess? For she had addressed him as duke. He frowned, no, the dark eyes did not belong to her. The woman he remembered had eyes soft and dark and gleaming with love. This woman’s gaze was keen as a knife blade, though wisdom lurked in those black depths.

  “Who are you? And how do you read my thoughts?”

  She smiled but it was not a pleasing smile. It held too much malice behind it. “So many questions you have, but which is the most important? For I don’t know if I should answer them all.”

  “Fine. Who am I? That will do for starters. From there, perhaps I’ll piece together the rest.”

  “You might, though it’s a tattered life and you may decide to surrender it for a shiny new one more to your liking.”

  He cast a swift glance to the city, which bustled and moved just feet from where he stood. Turned back to find her staring with that same quirk of an ugly smile.

  “You are the Duke of Morieux, though the claimants for that title are clawing each other’s throats out since the news of your untimely demise.”

  He passed a hand over his forehead, but her answers jarred nothing loose.

  “Duke is my title. What’s my name?”

  “Gray Cosantine Trevivian de Coursy.”

  He frowned with the first stirrings of images, faded and half lost to time, but shimmering into focus with each word she spoke. “What happened to me?” He pressed a hand to his chest and the roughened edges of scars atop scars. “Why am I here?”

  “You died . . . almost. Fate lent a gentle shove when it toppled you into that river, my friend. For the headwaters of the Condatus originate within the summer kingdom of Ynys Avalenn. The river flows from that world to this and back again, the currents bearing the power of the Fey.”

  “It wasn’t the Thames?”

  “Hardly. The Condatus saved your life. A dunking in the Thames would have likely killed you six ways to Sunday. Well, it’s proper to say the river did most of the saving. Your own otherworldly strengths assisted. The Imnada are known for their toughness and their ability to heal from hurts no normal human could withstand. It takes much to kill one of the clans.”

  Clans . . . Imnada . . . Ynys Avalenn . . . piece by piece, his life fitted itself into place within his head.

  “Where am I?”

  “A place of rest. A place where none of Sir Dromon’s more rabid followers can find you should they decide to finish what the Arch Ossine almost succeeded in doing—ending your life. Deepings is in turmoil. It was not safe to take you there.”

  “This is a prison.”

  “A sanctuary.”

  Deepings . . . the Duke of Morieux . . . Sir Dromon Pryor . . . faster they came, jolting into his skull with the force of his cane through the window until the room spun and tilted and he wanted to be sick. Mac Flannery . . . David St. Leger . . . Adam Kinloch . . . the curse that bound them together even as it tore them apart.

  He swallowed back the rage tearing at his throat. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction . . . Badb . . . He recognized her now, though she was not as he recalled. The cloak of crow feathers had become a demure gown of deep green velvet seeded with pearls. No skin shone free but the long column of her white throat and her oval face, hard as marble.

  “Where is she?” Dark brown eyes . . . lips full and sensuous and curved in an arch smile . . . pride and courage and determination and love . . . he remembered all of it. “Where’s Meeryn?”

  Badb’s smile widened, and this time the pleasure at
his discomfort was obvious. “Being courted by every aspiring pretender to your throne. She is truly N’thuil in name and force, and in times such as these, her voice can be a valuable asset to anyone seeking to further his position.”

  “In other words, the clans claw at one another like rabid dogs.”

  “The Other will not need to lift a finger to see the eradication of your kind. They do such a convenient job of the task all by themselves.”

  “What of Lucan? Surely he didn’t countenance holding me witless in a cage while the Imnada destroyed each other.”

  “Lucan is no more.” Her voice held grief and rage in equal measure. Badb might have begun her journey to free Lucan out of vengeance, but she had ended it in love with the ancient warlord, no matter how she might deny it.

  “Is that why you’ve kept me here? Trapped me here? Out of anger?”

  She swung away, head bowed, hands covering her face. But it was a moment’s weakness and then she turned back, her face wiped clean of any revealing emotion. “Lucan believed in your cause. He believed in you. I brought you here because he would have wanted me to do so. I kept you here because to set you free any sooner would have meant your death. You carry the magic of the Fey within you now, it moves within your blood and binds your spirit to its human shell and so you live, but such gifts are not without cost. You lost yourself when your spirit floated free. You spilled your memories when you spilled your blood, and you became a ghost in name as well as reputation when the river took you in its arms.”

  “So I lifted the curse. My death lifted the spell holding me captive.”

  “You are free of it. It was all as you predicted, shapechanger—almost. Jai Idrish was indeed the spark needed to light the powers locked within the Gylferion, but you overlooked one important aspect of Golethmenes’s original spell.”

  “Which was?”

  “Blood. The most powerful spells call for the most painful sacrifice; so it has always been. The Chevalier d’Espe knew this when he set the curse upon you. It was his blood; fresh, hot and spilled in violence that shaped the dark magic binding you. So it must be your blood spilled in the same way that loosed those chains.”

  “And Jai Idrish?”

  “The N’thuil joined with the crystal, her body made stone, its essence made flesh. All was as you theorized, the power unleashed equal to that drawn from the Fey whose spirits were used in the disks’ forging. But what you have woken may not be so easily laid back to rest. There is no knowing what will come of its being used in such a manner and for such a purpose. You have set the first stitch. It remains to be seen what pattern emerges. What decisions your N’thuil makes when the hard choices come.”

  “Let me go, Badb. Let me step out into my world and leave this refuge behind. Let me find my way back to Meeryn and to the clans. Let me offer my right to rule as the last son of Idrin and hope they accept it.”

  “But you are not the last son of Idrin, shapechanger,” she sniffed, her form already fading within a rainbow of color, the room he stood within paling with every breath he took until barely the outlines of his elegant apartments remained.

  “Ollie’s son! You know where he is?”

  “No, but your own grows quickly within his mother’s womb . . . if you dare to claim him,” came the scoffing taunt as the last of the magic winked out and he was left in a bare room in an empty house with naught on his back but a ragged shirt, a pair of worn breeches, and dry, cracked leather boots.

  He fingered the gold-knobbed cane, the eagle’s beak curved like a scimitar under his palm. Lifted his head with a purpose he’d not felt for months. And stepped through the door.

  * * *

  She placed her hands upon the crystal, her mind winging free of her body to dance out along the ribbon of thought where the crystal bade her to come. The earth fell away until there was naught but a marbled ball set amid a string of jeweled planets. She sought farther, deeper into the expanse, following the sphere’s whispers, begging it to wake, calling it from the slumber of centuries.

  Now the whispers became hisses, sibilant and persuasive. Dark words and sinister deeds. Seeking her aid. Seeking her strength. The welcoming darkness split by distant golden-white stars and spinning iridescent clouds of light deepened to an empty black vastness where no spark shone, a fearsome rolling wave moving with a typhoon’s force toward her. If she remained locked within the crystal’s heart, she would be consumed by it. If she broke the connection she had formed, she would have failed Gray.

  She sought to outrun the horrible creeping shadow, and when that didn’t work, she armored herself behind mental walls she erected with every shuddering breath she took. But it poured past her, finding every chink she failed to stanch, every gap her faltering strength opened up.

  With a scream, she ripped her hands free of the crystal and the world righted itself to the cavern, the men, the spraying torrential rush of the river. But the sphere burned on. The light filled the room. It burned her eyes until she had to squint and avert her gaze, and her indrawn gasp of breath hissed through her clenched teeth.

  “Gray!” She flung herself up, nearly striking her head against the headboard, gasping her terror and the shock of his loss. Blinked and wiped her face with the back of her nightgown’s sleeve. Tears . . . again. She grew tired of rising in the morning with red eyes and damp cheeks.

  N’thuil was no longer the useless empty title of the past. Jai Idrish had come alive and was once more a force to be reckoned, its Voice and Vessel, to be treated with deference. Petitioners filled the benches in the Crystal Tower once again. And sleepless nights made for uncomfortably long days.

  She couldn’t explain the sphere’s reawakening after such a long silence, any more than she could explain the reasons it had chosen her to receive its wisdom and speak its secrets, but she had her suspicions, even if she continued to shrink from them.

  Her dreams had grown increasingly dark, every night revealing a new tear in the fabric of the universe, bringing the shadows closer, the threat more real. What these images signified she had yet to unravel, but her certainty grew with each dawning of clear skies and jewel-strewn seas, that what the clans had taken for war was, in fact, the calm before the real storm.

  She rose, grabbing up her robe, crossing to the window and throwing the casement wide. Her bedchamber was bathed in the glow of Silmith’s full moon. The Mother in her full glory cast great purple shadows across the courtyard and lawns while a balmy southern wind blew soft and warm, bringing with it the deep growl of the ocean as it beat against the cliffs below the house.

  A temptation she couldn’t ignore. A call she welcomed.

  With Sir Dromon’s death, the number of guards had dwindled, and it was a moment’s effort to slip out of her bedchamber and through the quiet house.

  The path to the beach was steep and rocky, but the moonlight made going easy and soon she stood at the edge of the sea, toes dug into the sand and pebbles, the nip of chilly surf against her ankles welcome. Skimming off her nightclothes, she stared out toward the horizon where black sky met black water. Drew a calming breath, letting the wind caress her body like a lover, letting the growl of the ocean soothe her aching heart and her troubled thoughts.

  Findlaech Orlspath—a name she knew from meetings and clan gatherings. A face she barely remembered but for the keenness in a pair of soulful brown eyes. Could she marry him? Did she have a choice? The Skaarsgard was right in thinking she needed allies. And the Orkneys were isolated, easy to defend should she have need of a refuge. The child could grow up relatively safe, out of the way of clan intrigues and potential threats.

  It was a smart choice. A safe choice.

  She had tried passion and found heartbreak. She’d experienced love and found loss.

  Just as she’d always known; safe worked.

  Safe didn’t hurt.

  Running into the ocean, she called forth the shift, losing herself to the power locked inside her. Letting it take her over as she donned the
skin of the seal. Diving under the surface, she pushed with flipper and fin, seeking release from the ache gnawing at her heart, hoping to fill the emptiness consuming her with the ocean’s buoying serenity.

  By the time she returned to the shore, it was with a calmer mind and her decision made. She shifted, the heat flushing her skin pink as she stepped free of the magic’s cocoon. A shadow glided over her like a spear. She looked up, but saw nothing beyond silver-lined clouds moving lazily east.

  I hoped I might find you here.

  The words glided over her mind like a lover’s touch. A lover all had seen disappear over a waterfall with his chest ripped open. Her heart stuttered, her body crackling with mingled hope and horror. She stood very still, unable to turn around lest she be dreaming, lest this was all some terrible hallucination.

  How did you know where to find me? she pathed, unable to use her lungs to speak aloud.

  “You always swam when you were angry or upset. I assumed you’d be both tonight—mainly at me. Am I right?” That familiar crisp aristocratic tenor, polished to perfection but with just enough of a rasp to send tingles up her spine.

  She swallowed, trying to control the dizziness. She was N’thuil. Swooning was out of the question. “I ought to be.”

  There. She spoke. A little wobbly but hardly as bad as her trembling limbs might indicate.

  “Angry enough to refuse to look at me?”

  “I’m afraid if I turn around, you’ll be gone. A ghost sent to test my determination. Orlspath will make a good husband. A strong reliable mate.”

  “I would make a better one.”

  She turned then. Her feet moved. Her body followed. Her eyes swept up to meet the icy blue stare of the man she’d thought dead six months past. The man who’d not just taken her heart but torn it still beating from her chest.

  “Are you real?”

  The arched brows, the raking dagger cheekbones, the full sensual lips; he was as every dream had conjured him. He stepped from the shelter of the cliff into the light, the moon revealing every line of his lean sculpted naked body and every fresh hideous scar spiderwebbing across the broad planes of his chest.