The strings that help you set the mood
Lethal ones, they’ll be the worst
Hear me now and know you’re cursed!
Such a simple, silly poem. Sung by a mortal, it was powerless. Sung by a powerful mystic, it was as binding as prison cell. I’d only figured out its meaning as I grew up and began to fall in love. Over and over I’d had my heart broken, and at last I began to see the pattern: Every man I desired was of despicable character, and yet, I could think of nothing else but them. Eventually, they all left me utterly devastated. Broken. Alone.
An even worse aspect to the curse was that every man worthy of my heart couldn’t capture it. I felt no attraction at all to brave, beautiful men who would’ve made any other woman the happiest person alive. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t feel anything beyond friendship for them.
And yet, I’d attempted courtship with them all the same, but I always ended up cheating on them with someone despicable.
In other words, in matters of love, I was cursed to always, always fail. And all because of a hateful mage with the power to invoke a binding spell.
For the record, only a fraction of us are talented enough to cast a binding spell. The only cure is death. In other words, when a mystic binds a mortal, making them a mystic too, should the binder die, the binding curse begins to fade away like a foul odor carried off by a breeze. They remain mystic, but are no longer bound by the nuisance tethers of their bindings.
Eventually, I’d be free, but only if I outlived the mage.
“Interesting,” Elric replied to my admission about not knowing my binding mystic’s name. His eyes danced with amusement when he saw me flush, but there was also something else reflected there … something that gave me pause.
As I looked at him, I swear I could see an element of recognition in his expression. I realized in that moment that he knew exactly who’d bound me.
Whether he’d known before assessing the spell or after was unclear, but I had no doubt he knew, or at least strongly suspected who’d bound me to my cursed life.
“You know who bound me,” I said.
He shrugged one shoulder. “I do. And I’m curious what you plan to do once you find her?”
“Convince her to lift the spell,” I said, hoping my answer was vague enough that he’d let it pass.
But Elric was no fool. He laughed lightly and said, “I’d love to watch you try, child. You’d be dead before you finished your plea. But maybe I can help you. Tell me the elements of your curse.”
It was clear in that moment that, even though Elric wasn’t a fool, he mistook me for one.
The elements of a binding curse are the specific words used to cast it. Even though I couldn’t identify my binder, I remembered her spell like it was a song long ago memorized that replayed on a loop in my mind nearly every day. Giving the elements of my binding to a mystic as powerful as Elric Ostergaard was akin to committing myself to be Elric’s personal slave—for life.
“Thank you for the offer,” I said carefully, “but at this time, I’m going to decline and simply request that the name of my binder be provided to me at the end of the contract.”
Elric smiled, however this time his smile wasn’t so amused. As he stared at me, a certain mercilessness crept back into his eyes, and my blood ran cold.
“No deal,” he said. Not even a second later I was pinned to the back of the chair by an unseen force. It was so sudden and so violent that I felt another rib crack, but I was powerless to cry out. I couldn’t breathe, move, twitch, or blink. The force of the pressure being applied to every single inch of me was so intense that it was impossible to think beyond the scream in my mind. I felt the weight of the ocean on top of every millimeter of my skin. I was being crushed, slowly but surely against the back of the chair. Three fingers snapped, and then my toes, and the pain was more excruciating than anything, anything I’d ever even imagined.
I wanted desperately to black out, to vanish into an unconscious abyss as Elric flattened my body like a tin can, but there was no such relief. I suspected that the mystic had a hand in that too.
And in that moment where I knew he intended to break every bone in my body before he’d actually allow me to die, I found a tiny spark of resistance, and with it a small surge of adrenaline coursed through my veins, briefly numbing the pain and allowing me to move my lips enough to gasp out a whispered, “The… egg.”
Elric, who’d been sitting back in his chair with that same smug, reptilian smile as he watched me die from the inside out, cocked his head slightly and squinted at me. The pressure on my skeletal structure never let up. I felt my right wrist snap and I jerked in silent agony, shutting my eyes against the unbearable pain.
And then … abruptly the pressure halted, and all I could hear was the pounding of my own heartbeat in my ears and my ragged struggle for breath.
Panting against the pain, I waited to see if the pressure would return, but after several seconds when it hadn’t, I risked opening my eyes.
Elric seemed to be considering me now with interest. “What egg?” he asked.
With significant effort, I unclenched my jaw and didn’t give in to the muted scream that was currently threatening to burst from my lungs. I’ve experienced—and endured—terrible physical pain in my life, but never anything on a scale of what was currently rippling through my bones. Still, I managed to stammer out the words, “Gri … Gri … Grigori’s egg … I know … where it … is, and I … can get it … for you.”
I hoped that was enough to save my life.
“Where?” Elric asked me simply.
I shuddered with the effort to tamp down a scream while I tried to adjust my position in the chair, and it resulted in two broken ribs grinding against each other. If I told Elric where the egg was, he’d very likely carry on with the crushing spell. But if I didn’t tell him, if I negotiated the job for its location, there was a tiny chance he’d let me live.
There was also a chance (a much bigger chance) that he’d find an even more painful way to dispatch me, but I tried not to think about that.
It took me a moment to answer him, and even then I was taking a huge risk. “J-j-job?”
Elric tapped the arm of his chair with one slender finger. “If you’re lying to me ….”
I managed to bare my teeth in something I hoped was close to a grin. “Who … would … dare lie … to you?”
He made a casual motion with his hand. “Indeed.”
At that moment I heard a small tick. Then another. Then a third and a fourth. It was coming from the direction of the clock on the wall. I held Elric’s gaze and took a short, shallow breath for every tick that came after that, until fourteen total had metered out.
Just when I thought I’d made it, silence once again filled the room.
Across from me, Elric stared into my eyes with a coldness that was terrifying. Without a doubt he could kill me in the only second that remained between death and clemency. It was there in his eyes: his power, his will, his incredible force. I took tiny, shallow breaths and barely managed not to faint. I was completely and totally at his mercy, but I hadn’t yet surrendered. Nor would I. And as I stared back at him, I wanted him only to know that.
The moment dragged on for eternity, or at least that’s how it felt. Finally, though, and with no discernable change in Elric’s expression, there was one final tick from the clock on the wall, and I knew that my life had been spared.
“Fail me and I will kill you, Esmé,” Elric said next. It was both a promise and a reprieve delivered in a smooth silky voice that—were I not in agony—would’ve sent a shiver of pleasure down my spine.
“I know,” I replied. “How long do I have to deliver the egg to you?”
Elric got up, casually buttoning his suit coat before shooting each cuff. He pointedly ignored my question, turning away from me to move to the door. “Sequoya will fill you in on the details,” he said before departing.
I sagged in the chair, w
hich proved to be a mistake when I had to hiss air in and out through gritted teeth so as not to pass out. There wasn’t a part of me that didn’t feel broken, bruised, cut, or beaten on. Everything hurt, and by hurt, I mean a level of pain that few people ever experience without being set on fire or trampled by elephants.
It was so intense, actually, that I think I blacked out for a while. I can’t be sure, but I do know that when I managed to lift my head high enough to eye the clock again, it was nearly 6:25.
Dex was going to be insane with worry.
Blearily I gazed around the room again. My mind felt hazy and unfocused, so I spent some time simply trying to clear the clouds from my mind, and then I spent a little more time trying to wrap my head around everything I’d already been through and everything I still had to do. “Solve the problem in front of you, Esmé,” I muttered.
That’d been a favorite mantra from my mentor, and one that’d always served me well when in a tough spot.
With a sigh, I looked around the room again, wondering if I was supposed to stay in here until Sequoya came to fetch me to go over the details or if I needed to exit and meet her somewhere out in the hallway.
Thinking on it, I realized that Elric hadn’t specified. I glanced again at the clock. It was now 7:15 pm.
That jolted me into full alertness.
How the hell is time moving so quickly? It occurred to me that I must still be moving in and out of consciousness, and the longer I stayed in the chair, the more I risked sinking into a deep unconsciousness, which would be bad. Probably lethal given my surroundings and Jacquelyn’s thirst for revenge.
So I inhaled as deeply as I could without overly upsetting my broken bones and focused on gathering the strength to get up from the chair. It would definitely be the most difficult obstacle I’d faced today. Several of my fingers looked and felt broken. My toes and feet were throbbing in a way that signaled significant injury, but I thought that both femurs, kneecaps, tibias, and fibulas were intact. If I could just get to my feet, I might be able to shuffle out the door.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Time to go.” Very carefully I eased little increments of my weight onto my feet, which screamed in protest, until I managed to stand. Sort of. My posture was bent and sagging, but at least I was out of the chair.
Hissing through gritted teeth, again I took a few steps, each like walking on cut glass, while excruciating bolts of lightning shot up both legs all the way to my hips.
With tears leaking down my cheeks, I finally made it to the door. I stood there for an extra moment panting, sweating, and trembling from head to toe while eyeing the handle. I’d have to turn it to get it to open, and neither hand seemed up for such dexterity.
Still, I’d made it this far. Gingerly I tried six times to get the knob to turn, a nearly impossible task given the broken state of my hands and right wrist.
Please, I thought, resting my forehead against the doorframe. Just let me make it through this door. It was the only time all day I’d allowed myself even a little prayer.
With three more shallow breaths for courage, I regrouped, curled two fingers around the handle, rotated my elbow outward and pulled. With a satisfying click, the knob gave way and the door swung inward.
I shuffled forward again, slowly and painfully, until I came to the lobby where I’d been sitting before being shown into Elric’s suite.
I didn’t venture farther into the lobby, however, mostly because I needed a moment to rest against a wall and get my breathing under control.
While I waited to recover, I was surprised to see a bustle of foot traffic passing by. Men and women dressed in business attire walked purposefully across the marble floor, right past me and the bloodstained chair where I’d last seen the female applicant—who’d no doubt lost her life somewhere in the building.
I wondered where her body would be taken. If there even were a body to be taken away. If her luck with Jacquelyn’s dragon hadn’t been as good as mine, there’d be nothing left of her but a bit of ash.
Then I considered that they might’ve fed her remains to the dragon anyway, just to dispose of them. The other bodies too. At least I’d avoided being lizard lunch.
Leaning hard against the wall, I gathered as much resolve as I could and gingerly took a step forward, but my knee buckled, and I grunted in pain as I fought to stay on my feet. Nobody stopped to help me or see if I was okay. Not that I’d expected them to, but it was pretty remarkable that not a soul cast even more than a passing glance my way given that I was clearly beaten, bloody, and in distress.
Welcome to SPL Inc., I thought.
Clenching my jaw, I took a more careful step forward and then another, and another.
“Ms. Bellerose,” I heard a voice say when I was almost to the chair I’d previously sat in.
I recognized the voice, and with effort, I stood up a little taller as Elric’s assistant moved toward me with elegant, nearly liquid strides. “Sequoya,” I said. “Surprised to see me?”
“A bit,” she admitted, stopping in front of me. Then she gestured toward a door on the other side of the hallway. “Let’s go over your paperwork in there.”
I eyed the door. It seemed so very far away, and by now my body was shivering violently from the effort to remain standing. No doubt shock was finally settling in. “After you,” I said to her.
Her brow rose with amusement, or maybe skepticism, before she stepped in front of me without comment.
I allowed myself a two-second pity party in the middle of that busy, bustling hallway, and then followed after her. Sequoya led me into a large conference room with black walls, a massive ebony table, and white leather chairs. Mounted to the walls were the encased spoils of war: weapons of destruction that Elric had claimed when he vanquished various legendary mystics over the years. I recognized the Axe of Ungar, the Saber of Cissé, and the Bow of Anubis.
Obviously, Elric took pleasure in reminding anyone entering the conference room of how very powerful he must be to have acquired such an intimidating collection of trophies.
Sequoya led the way to the head of the table, where a thick binder had already been placed. With a wave of her hand she indicated the chair next to her, taking her seat in front of the binder.
I moved forward to the chair but didn’t sit down. “Maybe it’s better if I stand,” I said.
“As you wish,” she replied. Flipping open the cover of the binder, she began to go over the contents with me. Belatedly I realized that the paperwork was my new contract of employment.
Sequoya covered all the many, many, many ways Elric could and would kill me if I ever betrayed him. “For the next one hundred hours, your employment will be conditional upon providing SPL Inc. the trinket known as Grigori’s egg. At midnight on the sixteenth, if you do not provide SPL Inc. with that trinket, this contract shall be revoked.”
Sequoya paused here to look meaningfully at me. “And so will you, Esmé Bellerose.”
“Got it,” I said crisply. That’d give me four days and four hours. Plenty of time. “What else?”
She smirked and looked back to the paperwork. “Elric has reviewed your trinket buy-in, and he’s found it …” her voice trailed off.
I rolled my eyes. “Yes?” I asked.
I’d given up a treasured level-six trinket to gain entrance into today’s proceedings. The rules had stated that only a level-four was required for buy-in, but higher-level offerings were encouraged, and besides, everybody knew that you didn’t give Elric Ostergaard a fucking level-four trinket. You either ponied up something good, or you’d be summoned here to get your ass literally chewed off by one of Jacquelyn’s dragons in the first round—not the third.
I suspected that most of my peers had offered up a level-five, which are hard for junior thieves to come by. Maybe one or two had offered him a level-six, like me, but I doubted anybody had been able to pony up anything above a level-seven.
I had several level-seven trinkets at home, but I certainly wasn’t
going to go advertising my skills to Elric before I’d secured gainful employment. Being too eager to show off could’ve ended my interviewing process as surely as insulting him with a level-four buy-in.
And, in my defense, my level-six offering had been a long-held prize of mine, and giving it up had been hard, so I was put off that Sequoya was hinting that I’d somehow missed the mark.
“He’d like to encourage you to offer up something a little more … memorable,” Sequoya said, with a slight shrug.
“I see,” I said tersely.
It was well-known that Elric collected trinkets in order to grant favors and gain loyalty from other powerful mystics. It was a way of keeping the more powerful mystics who gathered here in his territory in check. I was fairly certain that Elric had a whole cache of magical trinkets somewhere in the building to draw upon should the need arise.
“Would Grigori’s egg do for more memorable?” I asked, trying to sidestep the obligation.
“He’d like that plus another offering, Esmé,” she said—like I was stupid.
A long stretch of silence spread out between us. Essentially Elric was asking me to either cough up a more valued or powerful trinket of my own or steal him something in the seven to eight range, along with the egg, both of which would be required to be handed over without any compensation on my part. Well, save for my life. It was an end run around the verbal terms we’d agreed to in his office, and I resented it.
And while it was true, I’d been willing to die here to get the job, Elric knew damned well that most of the trinkets that thieves like me didn’t unload on the mystic black market were the very things that made it easier to thieve. By asking me to give up yet another trinket, he’d be making my job of collecting the egg all that much harder.
But what choice did I really have? I wasn’t exactly in a position to bargain.
“Fine,” I said at last, reaching into my pocket to withdraw a silver, diamond-studded ballpoint pen. Handing it to Sequoya, I asked, “Will this work?”
Sequoya took the pen and studied it for a moment before clicking the trigger. Instantly she disappeared from view, and the only way I knew she was still in the room was because of the light chuckle coming from her chair. “Clever,” she said. “How long does it last?”
SPELL TO UNBIND, A Page 2