The Warrior's Curse

by Jennifer A. Nielsen

  “They’re not headed toward Endrick’s palace,” Gabe said. “They’re going north.”

  And I was certain of why. Endrick had to know where Kestra and Joth were. And I knew who was likely in the company of the Ironhearts.

  “We have to be there,” I said, reaching for my boots.

  Gabe shook his head. “Those aren’t the odds I’m willing to accept. If we go, it’ll be the four of us against a hundred or more.”

  I stopped long enough to look up at him, making sure he understood that I was going whether he came with me or not. “I think Rosaleen will be one of those Ironhearts.”

  “Your sister?” He let out a low whistle. “So whose side will we be on?”

  Kestra had asked whether I’d sacrifice my life for her. My mother had given her life for Kestra. I would not lose my sister too.

  That was the only thing I knew for sure. Gabe and I reached for our weapons to fight an enemy I could no longer define, and for a purpose I could no longer defend.

  After escaping the Corack ambush, Joth and I found shelter in the upper room of an abandoned building in Highwyn. Based on its appearance, no one had entered this place since before the war, and for good reason. The wood beams that still held the structure together were half-rotted, the plaster had fallen off the walls and ceiling in large chunks, with many more threatening to crumble upon us as we slept, and some areas of the floor had already begun to collapse, making every step we took a risk.

  Yet this was still better than spending another minute with the Coracks.

  In the daytime, our little room loomed over one of the busiest roads in Highwyn, including a shop where Joth had somehow managed to get me a clean dress and a garter to hold the Olden Blade against my thigh, when necessary. Now that evening had fallen, the road was quiet, and from a small window in the corner, we could see Endrick’s palace. At another angle, I saw smoke rising from the grand chimney of Woodcourt and suddenly missed the evenings I had spent as a child curled up in front of the fireplace with a book from Sir Henry’s library.

  All those years ago, Simon had tended to those fires. Sometimes, if no one else was around, I would read aloud from the book while he worked, so that he could listen.

  The memory was softening me, I realized, and I shook it off. I would not be able to return to Woodcourt until this was over. And not only after Endrick was dead, but after the Coracks and every other threat to me had been removed.

  Simon.

  What was I supposed to do about Simon?

  I shouldn’t have been thinking about him, remembering.

  Joth had prepared us a small meal from food he had obtained at Woodcourt while I was busy with Basil. He carried a plate over now, and while it smelled delicious, I only set it aside.

  He handed it to me again. “Food was surprisingly difficult to come by in All Spirits Forest. Of course, given that it was a dead forest, maybe it is not such a surprise. I learned to make the best of what I got.”

  “You were never trapped there,” I said. “Loelle left.”

  “I could not abandon my half-lives.” He smiled. “I stayed strong for them, as you must stay strong too. Please eat.”

  “Strength is not my problem,” I said, taking my first bites. “What I need is access to Endrick. I fear he’s left the palace. We’ve seen no sign of him.”

  “He’s in there,” Joth assured me. “He’s recalled his armies away from All Spirits Forest. They’re coming to Highwyn, which can only be for one purpose.”

  I had suspected that would be Endrick’s next move. Once Basil had been freed from captivity, Endrick would know it was only a matter of time before I discovered the location of the Olden Blade. He would guess that I had it by now, and I did.

  Since recovering the blade, I had worn it or held it in my hands, and it felt like the return of an old friend. Today I had been polishing it for so long that I could see myself in the reflection of the metal. I wanted the blade to catch the light just before I stabbed Endrick, giving him a final flash of knowing that he had lost the throne to me.

  “After Endrick is dead,” I said, “I want the Scarlet Throne moved to Woodcourt, and Endrick’s palace burned. There should be nothing of him left in all of Antora.”

  “You intend to rule in his place?” Joth asked.

  “Of course. That throne is mine by inheritance, and if I am the one to kill Endrick, then I have earned my place on that throne more than anyone.” I turned to him. “I will heal your people, Joth. Restore life to all of them.”

  “We will restore them, when the time is right,” Joth said. “I share in your powers now.”

  “And I in yours.” Looking around me, I said, “I can feel the presence of your people, like never before.”

  “They will listen to your commands, as they would mine.” Joth stood and found a gap in our walls with an easy view of the street. “But for now, they have orders to guard us, and to circulate throughout the city to find out what information they can. When we get word that the time is right, we will attack.”

  “How long, do you think?”

  “Perhaps as soon as tonight. If you’ve eaten enough, then you ought to get some sleep.”

  Joth had prepared a bed for me against one wall while he would sleep nearer the broken window. I was immune to the cold, but he had begun complaining of the heat in this room, and he wanted all the winter air he could get.

  I lay down and closed my eyes but could not sleep. My shoulder ached, despite having been healed. My heart felt worse, the wound widening with every thought of my last fight with Simon. I had come to him in hopes of repairing our friendship. He had come to lure me into a trap.

  As I finally began to close my eyes, I heard marching sounds outside. I looked over at Joth, who was already sitting up and peeking out from the gap in the wooden walls.

  “Ironhearts?” I asked, though I didn’t need his nod to confirm it. The soldiers were making no effort to hide their presence, so they must have wanted the people to know they had returned. Maybe they wanted me to know it too. If so, they would regret it.

  I leapt to my feet, the room around me thick with half-lives eager for their first real battle. I had not yet issued any orders to them, but this was my chance. “Block them from behind,” I said. “This will begin here, and end here.”

  I glanced over at Joth, whose breaths were more shallow than usual. He was nervous, and understandably so. He’d spent nearly his entire life in All Spirits Forest and never tested himself as a warrior. Everything he knew about the coming battle was pure theory.

  He said, “With your powers, I can either draw strength from them or give them strength?”

  “Never give more than half of your strength, not even to me. The body cannot recover if you do.” Then I smiled. “But I’m very interested to see how much we can take.”

  Joth carried a disk bow and shield, and wore a lever blade at his side. I had a knife in my boot and the Olden Blade against my leg. If I happened to test it on some Ironhearts before using it on Lord Endrick, maybe that would help him understand that I was stronger than I had been in our last encounter.

  At Joth’s suggestion, the half-lives went before us in battle, so by the time we emerged from the rotted building, the attack had already begun. The commanders had ordered the Ironhearts to remain in their formations while they retreated to what they believed were safer distances. In my head, I heard Joth’s orders to take care of the commanders first.

  Without intending to, on the night he cursed the people in All Spirits Forest, Lord Endrick had created an army as immortal as himself. All they lacked was the ability to leave, and I had provided that.

  “The Infidante is here!” one soldier called, and instantly, the focus of every soldier rested on me.

  Disks immediately began flying toward us, more than I could count, but not one of them came close. To the eyes of the Ironhearts, they would have simply stopped midair and fallen to the ground. Only we understood that they had indeed hit a ta
rget, too dead to be killed, and just alive enough to provide a barricade for us.

  Joth moved right and I went left, so confident in the protections around me that all I had to focus on was my attack. I swung fierce and hard, and when the blade wasn’t enough, with one touch of my hand, I drew enough strength from the soldier to drop him to the ground.

  Despite the numbers on their side, the fight was hardly fair, not at the rate at which the Ironhearts were dwindling. After only fifteen minutes, an order was called for retreat, but that was immediately followed by a shout that no one could break through our barricade.

  Ahead of me was a statue of Lord Endrick. I climbed it and shouted for the attention of those Ironhearts who were still alive. At least a hundred soldiers still remained on their feet, but the area was littered with their fallen comrades.

  In my most commanding voice, I said, “You will surrender to us! Lord Endrick will not harm you; he needs every soldier he can get. So go to your knees now and you will live. Nothing else will save you.”

  The Ironhearts closest to me were the first to toss their weapons and fall to their knees. In turn, so did the soldiers behind them, followed by yet another row. When the last row knelt, I looked past them and was surprised to see Simon and Gabe standing in the distance, just beyond where the barricade of half-lives would be. They could not get in any more than the Ironhearts could get out.

  Simon was staring directly at me, his expression one of deep concern, which confused me because I had just caused the surrender of an entire company of enemy soldiers. He should have been happy, not looking at me as if I were an even greater enemy.

  Joth ran up beside me. “I have an idea,” he said. “Take my hand.”

  Grateful for the distraction, I did as he asked, and he shut his eyes. In my head, I heard his command, but before I could stop it, I felt the half-lives swoop in from around us. Somehow Joth was sharing my powers with them, the power to take strength. And they took with a vengeance, killing every Ironheart in their path. They moved so fast, the Ironhearts toppled over in a single wave. Within seconds, Joth and I were all that was left of the battle. Everyone else was dead.

  I yanked my hand free of Joth’s. “I told them to surrender and they would live!”

  “You shouldn’t have made such a promise. And you don’t know for sure that Endrick would have let them live.” Joth grabbed my shoulders. “At least this way, we benefit from what happened. Can you feel their strength flowing into you, Kestra? So much power!”

  The icy core within me was pulsing with life. Their lives. It hungered for more, and the more I fed it, the more it wanted.

  Yes, I felt it.

  “What have you done?” With the half-life barricade dissolved, Simon had run up to the base of the statue. His sword was in his hand, which it shouldn’t have been. Not unless he expected to need it against Joth or me.

  Almost in a wild desperation, Simon began checking the Ironheart bodies, occasionally using the sword to roll someone over. He was searching for a specific person.

  His sister was an Ironheart.

  Joth jumped down and offered me a hand for support. “Come with me, Kestra. Our business is finished here.”

  I ignored his offer, instead looking around the area for anyone who might have been Simon’s sister, desperately hoping with every good part of myself that I would not see Rosaleen here. Meanwhile, Simon’s words echoed in my ears.

  What have you done?

  “Why did you do that?” Gabe called, running to Simon’s side. “They were on their knees. They had surrendered!”

  Joth pointed toward those who had fallen. “They attacked us! Had the battle gone differently, they would not have accepted our surrender! The Dominion would have done the same to us!”

  “But you’re not like the Dominion,” Gabe countered. “Or are you now?”

  “We are the only ones fighting the Dominion,” Joth said. “You Coracks dance around them, poking at their feet with pinpricks and moaning about why the problem continues. It’s about time someone hit them hard enough that Endrick would feel it.”

  “If they had been attacking you, I’d agree. But these soldiers threw down their weapons. At that point, they were no longer your enemies.” Gabe turned his focus on me, and I felt its bite. “This was murder, Kestra.”

  His words stung, and deep inside, I knew he was right. Joth held up a hand for me again, and this time, I took it as he lowered me to the ground. But as soon as I was there, I started toward Simon.

  “I didn’t see her.” Simon didn’t acknowledge me at first, so I said it again, adding, “I don’t think Rosaleen was here.”

  He barely glanced up at me, and even when he did, his expression was so harsh it frightened me, a fear immediately swallowed up by the core of ice within me. It whispered, His sister would have killed you too.

  I put my hand over my mouth, fighting against those horrible words, against the decay inside that was beginning to suffocate me.

  “It isn’t safe to remain here.” Joth put his arm around my shoulder and turned me away from them. I let him walk me out of the square, my thoughts consumed with what Gabe had said, my heart frozen with the pain and anger in Simon’s expression. I hated to imagine what he was thinking.

  “We did the right thing,” Joth said as we walked.

  “No, that wasn’t right. They were surrendering, and you just killed them all!”

  “We share magic now.” Joth stopped and took my hands in his. “Whatever happened back there, we did it together.” I started to pull away, but I realized tendrils of his magic had begun to weave themselves around my pain, insulating it, dissolving it until nothing was left but the magic itself. He gave to me until I could breathe again, until the worst of my guilt and horror had subsided, leaving behind the strength that had come from the fallen Ironhearts.

  “Do you feel better?”

  The truth was that I didn’t feel anything, or if I did, I couldn’t define it, or connect it to anything happening around me. Searching within myself, I discovered one emotion only.

  I turned to Joth. “I feel … powerful.”

  “Then we should strike soon,” Joth said. “But this time, against Lord Endrick. And when he goes to his knees, begging for mercy—”

  “I will kill him,” I said.

  Joth took my hand and kissed it. I knew he was warm but was surprised at the heat of his touch. Before we walked away, I turned to see Simon and Gabe still searching among the bodies. I desperately hoped Rosaleen wasn’t there.

  Or maybe they hadn’t found her yet. I couldn’t bear it if they did.

  Slowly, I began to absorb the feelings, and as they became ice, once again the corruption was fed.

  “You’ve become so strong,” Joth said.

  His words rang hollow, because they were not true. The corruption was strong—I wasn’t—and too often it was in control. I was merely its host, a girl who could never admit aloud that she was terrified of what it meant for her.

  After a careful search of all the bodies, I finally took my first complete breath. Rosaleen was not here.

  “But she might have been, and wherever she is, she might be next.” Gabe waited until he had my attention to be sure I heard him. “Surely you see it now, what Kestra’s become.”

  “Yes, I see it.” My teeth gritted together.

  “Which means you know what we have to do. Now will you—”

  “Enough!” Hardly an hour had passed in days when someone wasn’t reminding me how dangerous Kestra had become, or when Kestra herself wasn’t proving them right. I understood the problem. I just couldn’t make myself agree to the solution.

  We returned to Woodcourt, where Trina was waiting for us and Basil was resting in a chair with a blanket wrapped tight around him. I passed them by, letting Gabe do the explanations, which he obliged with every possible detail. I had hoped to get some sleep, but my eyes never stayed closed more than ten minutes at a time before I awoke with thoughts of Kestra and th
e battles that were looming before her. Certainly, the time was coming near when she would have to face Lord Endrick again, though I expected the other battle, the one within, would be far more difficult. It would delve into the very core of who she was now. I truly didn’t know if she would fight that battle, or if she could.

  When I came downstairs the next morning, a hot meal of eggs and fry cakes was waiting for me in the dining room. Trina and Basil were already eating, with Gabe placing another plate of eggs on the table.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  I wasn’t at all hungry, but I dished up some food anyway and sat across from Trina and Basil. Gabe sat beside me.

  “How are you?” I asked Basil. “You look better every time I see you.”

  “I owe that to the care I’m getting,” he replied with a sideways glance at Trina.

  I poked at my food, trying to be interested. “Tenger is still talking with the Brill?”

  Basil nodded, then added, “He’s also keeping watch for any of my people, if they come in time. Gabe believes Kestra will attack the palace sooner rather than later.”

  “Agreed. And the Halderians … my people will come as well.” I still stumbled over identifying them as mine, but I had to speak of them that way, or else how would I ever think of them that way?

  “These fry cakes are the best I’ve ever had, honestly. But of course, I made them, so what else should I have expected?” Gabe took another bite while Basil and Trina chuckled at his joke; then more seriously, he said, “How long do you think it’ll be before Harlyn returns?”

  “You think about her more than I do,” I replied. “If you’re interested—”

  “Trust me, Hatch. If I thought I could get her attention, I would gladly save her from a life with you.”

  I stared at him until we all broke into laughter. I didn’t know why. He was perfectly correct that Harlyn would be better off away from me. Yet it felt good to smile. It had been so long since I’d had any reason for it.

  My mind shifted back to months ago, before Loelle took Kestra away from Nessel. Kestra and I had met in a small alcove, just the two of us. I had smiled then, and meant it.