A Curse For Spring

by Amanda Bouchet

  “What’s good about it?” she grumbled. “I’m cold and stiff and—”

  “As grumpy as ever?” Daric finished for her.

  She sat up and scowled at him. “There’s no reason to be so annoyingly chipper.”

  “I’m with you,” Daric said simply. “Why wouldn’t I be happy?”

  She flushed bright pink, which delighted him more than it should have, considering they were both betrothed to other people.

  Rain rummaged in her pack for a comb while he prepared their meal. She braided her hair and then wound it around her head like a crown, securing it with pins. As a finishing touch, she added the starflower.

  Satisfaction welled inside him along with something frankly proprietary. Rain’s daring request for a kiss—coming right on the heels of learning she was betrothed to Aldo—had unleashed something primitive in him that made him want to howl and curse and never let her out of his sight again.

  It made him want to abandon his duty.

  To resist hauling her into his arms, Daric handed Rain her breakfast. Her smile seemed shyer than usual and struck him in the chest. Was it truly possible to fix their problems without having to lose each other, Leathen, or anything else?

  “When you look at me that way…” Rain’s voice faded to a mere whisper. “I feel much warmer than this frigid morning should permit.”

  Pressure clamped around Daric’s heart. The need to reach for her was a physical ache. In a cavern-deep rasp, he asked, “In what way is that?”

  The flick of her eyes over him was like a warm brush of lips. “Like we shouldn’t be dressing right now, but rather undressing instead.”

  Heat blazed through him, and his groin tightened fast.

  Her suddenly roguish grin almost had him groaning out loud. “I believe I’ve shocked you, Daric. But if now’s not the time for boldness, I’m not sure when is.”

  He swallowed hard. “I adore when you shock me. I’d have you shock me silly for the rest of my life.”

  “Really?” She sounded surprised.

  “How could you doubt?”

  “I know you’d keep your companion if you could.” She shrugged. “I’m sure of that.”

  His brows collided in a frown. “You’re more than my companion, Rain.”

  “Yet you refused to kiss me.”

  The thought of learning her mouth with his tortured him relentlessly. “If I kiss you,” he said, his eyes riveted to her lips, “I’ll never stop.”

  They packed up and rode out with Rain in a restless mood. She’d always had some trouble understanding human emotion. Hers was human enough now as well, but she still felt as though she were learning, just as she’d had to learn to read and write, bow and dance, refrain from snapping others like twigs once she’d discovered she still could, and do all the things people did but that seasons did not.

  Daric often defied her understanding, which made him even more appealing—and exasperating.

  He wanted but wouldn’t take. He longed but wouldn’t act. He looked but wouldn’t touch. It was frustrating, infuriating, body-heating…

  Rain blew out a tense breath, wishing Arjun’s rolling gait would soothe her as it often did. Nothing took the edge off her body or her thoughts. Things had certainly been easier before her betrothal had prompted her to show her true feelings to Daric—and revealed Daric’s in return. Knowing the desire was shared only made the craving worse, but she also wouldn’t trade the heady storm of sensations brewing inside her for anything. Liquid fire described it best.

  Rain knew what would satisfy her—satisfy them both. Unfortunately, her prince was not cooperating.

  She bit down on her lower lip, nibbling it between her teeth until it felt sore and swollen. She supposed she wouldn’t love him half as much if he had no respect or honor.

  “Finally.” Daric heaved a sigh from beside her when they turned a bend in the road and saw the Heights of Alder.

  The cliffs didn’t roar with water as Rain knew they once had at the dawn of the continent, and the riverbed was mostly a dusty basin, but the ancient cascades still existed in the form of a glistening film that filtered down the imposing cliffside, leaving the craggy surface slick and mineral-stained.

  On the positive side, the cave the book had mentioned was clearly visible without any rush of water to cover it. Sadly, it was midway up and completely inaccessible.

  “How in the name of Braylian are we supposed to reach that?” she asked.

  “Climb?” Daric suggested.

  Rain snorted. “And break our necks?”

  He looked at her. “What do you suggest?”

  She studied the cliffside. “Climb,” she finally said, although she didn’t like it one bit.

  “I’ll go,” he said. “There’s no reason for you to risk yourself.”

  “I’ll go,” Rain countered. “You’re of more value. Astraea won’t marry me and give water to Leathen if you’re dead.”

  Daric’s head canted to the side as he rather harshly said, “Aldo might provide it instead.”

  “Parr is half as rich as Raana in both wealth and resources. And don’t snarl at me. I didn’t ask to be married off.”

  A dark, foreboding look crossed Daric’s face. Her kind prince was a lovely companion, but this intense man was someone who made her heat and shiver and ache. Although she tried to curb it, she always gravitated toward the heart-pounding and wild. In spirit, she remained untamed.

  “We’ll both go,” Rain said. “I’d rather break my neck with you than live without you. In Parr. With Aldo,” she added for good measure. The mention of her intended had the desired effect: Daric stopped thinking clearly and agreed to her plan with a muttered curse.

  They left their horses and supplies at the base of the cliff, their mounts tied with loose ropes staked to the ground near some dry grass and the trickle of water that was the only evidence of the once mighty Falls of Alder. Not wanting to compromise their balance, they left everything behind except for a dagger each and a pouch to gather the bloodstone they needed.

  The climb was difficult, terrifying, and slick. Rain was sore and trembling by the time they were only halfway to the cavern, and she wondered how she could possibly scale the rest.

  “Go back!” Daric shouted from above. “I’ll finish and bring you the stone.”

  She gritted her teeth and climbed to the next decent handhold. “Back is as daunting as forward.”

  “But it’s half the total distance,” Daric called.

  Rain glanced down and then wished she hadn’t. “Half is still more than enough to shatter our bones.”

  “Would you please stop talking about dying?”

  “How can I? It’s all I can think about!” Rain shouted back.

  “I’ll wait here then.” Daric beckoned her upward with a tilt of his head. “You go before me.”

  He’d thought to show her the best path for climbing, but maybe it was better to know he was behind her. He could never catch her if she fell, but it might still be reassuring.

  Rain nodded, saving her breath for climbing. Once she was past him, Daric began barking out directions, pointing out places for her to grip the cliff, which became more slippery the higher they ascended.

  Rain finally threw a tired and heavy arm over the lip of the cavern. She struggled to pull herself up, her muscles quaking. She suddenly went nearly weightless as Daric gave her a hard shove on her bottom. She was too exhausted to care—or enjoy—that he had just firmly gripped her backside as he tumbled her shoulder-first into the cavern. She pivoted on her stomach, ready to reach out a hand to him.

  Their eyes met as her head popped out of the cavern. Then something crumbled. Daric’s eyes widened, and he started falling.

  Rain’s heart bucked violently. “Daric!”

  His hands scraped over stone, all of him sliding until he flailed and lost his grip entirely. He soared backward, shouting her name.

  Instinct grabbed her. Rain threw out vines from both hands to catch
him. They wrapped around him, stopping his fall. He banged against the cliffside. Rain slid forward, nearly yanked from the cavern. She made the vines sink roots into the rock wall, working them hard and growing a hundred years’ worth of grip in a second.

  Her vision swam. Her whole body went dry, her mouth suddenly parched and dusty.

  “Daric!” The vines had circled him unevenly from shoulders to thighs, and he bumped against the cliffside, one arm free and the other pinned to his side.

  He groaned in response. She thought perhaps he was only half conscious, but then he shouted up, “Have you been keeping secrets from me, Raindrop?”

  She made a strangled sound, neither a sob nor a laugh. If he could jest, he was fine, thank Braylian.

  Rain detached herself from the vines that were now firmly anchored and summoned the reserves beneath her skin to grow a sturdy new shoot for Daric to grip. “Can you cut free from the ones around you and climb this?” she called down.

  “I think I can reach my knife.” He began to wriggle and twist.

  Rain directed the new vine down to him, making it thick and branchy, and all the while anchoring it with thousands of small roots that cracked the stone. Her thirst turned desperate, her tongue sticking to her mouth. She’d never been able to produce water, and now the vines were taking all the moisture she had left.

  Daric gave a triumphant shout when he managed to free his dagger. He wrapped the new vine around his arm for safety and began sawing his way out. Rain shook free of the greenery she’d made and stumbled to the side of the cavern to drink from the water sliding down the wall, lapping it up like an animal until her throat no longer burned.

  As soon as she felt steady again, she watched Daric climb, nerves sinking little arrows into her abdomen. Her anxiety wasn’t only for him as he worked to extricate himself from such a perilous situation. Sorcery frightened people, and anyone using magic regularly was known to go mad before they’d lived even half a normal lifespan. But she didn’t utter chants or brew potions, and she didn’t even know the language of sorcerers. Rain’s magic was different, part of her very nature rather than fabricated by using outside forces. But would it still scare Daric?

  She didn’t know if she should reach for him or not as he climbed into the cavern, scraped and bloody in places, but whole. Alive. Her Daric. As he stood, relief overwhelmed her fears, and she strode forward.

  Daric met her halfway and crushed her against him. “I thought I’d lost you,” he said into her hair, his grip like a vice around her.

  “Me?” She held him back with greedy arms. “I thought I’d lost you!”

  His grip only tightened. “I would have haunted you.”

  Tears shuddered in Rain’s throat. He haunted her already.

  Daric loosened his embrace enough to look at her. “Why have you hidden this?”

  She glanced at the vines around them. “Are you angry?”

  “What’s to be angry about?” He seemed genuinely perplexed she would think that.

  “I-I never told you I regained some of my powers.”

  Daric looked at her oddly, as though his surprise were minimal. “Can you make it rain?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve tried so hard. It never works. I’m sorry.”

  Rain had tried especially hard since negotiations had begun to marry her prince off to Astraea, but the results had been no better than in the past—or ever.

  Daric lifted both hands and cupped her cheeks, his fingers raw and unsteady. “My life didn’t flash before my eyes as I fell.” His gaze roamed her face with an intensity that ravaged her heart and took her breath away. “I had only one thought. One regret.”

  “What?” Rain’s pulse pounded like a tempest. Human bodies were so fragile. She remembered not having one, and now the one she did have felt as though it might shatter from heat and pressure.

  “That I didn’t kiss you when I still could.”

  Chapter Seven

  Rain swayed toward Daric as he dipped his head. She’d been waiting for this moment forever.

  Their lips hadn’t quite touched when an accusing voice sent them rearing back from one another. “Not only do I find invaders at my back entrance, but now they start kissing?”

  A crone dressed in ragged robes brandished a staff at them. “I’ll teach you to come into my home uninvited!” She started chanting a spell that made the sphere at the top of her staff glow.

  Just as Daric started to step in front of her, Rain blew the witch back with a stiff wind, pinning her to the wall of the cavern. The crone’s weapon clattered to the ground, and the greenery that Rain had already created grew again, crisscrossing the woman and stopping all movement. The witch gaped at them, falling silent.

  Daric turned his head and arched a brow in Rain’s direction. “I’d like to come to your rescue occasionally. It would comfort me in my masculinity.”

  Rain’s lips twitched. “Your masculinity is not in question, Daric.”

  “But I do so enjoy a damsel in distress.” He was clearly teasing now.

  “I’ll swoon for you in a moment,” Rain replied. “Let’s just see if this is the Barrow Witch.”

  “Barrow Witch?” the crone spat. “Does this look like a barrow to you?”

  “Then I suppose that makes you the Cave Witch?” Daric asked.

  In answer, the crone tried another incantation, hissing unfamiliar words that seemed somehow to Rain to relate to bowels melting. No wonder everyone hated sorcerers—and she should not have understood a word of that.

  Isme dolunde vaten crew punched into her with new vigor. The sorcerer’s words in Upper Ash had meant little to her at the time, leaving only the impression of hardship and the near certainty that she could decipher their meaning with time and effort. That impression deepened upon hearing the witch’s chant. The language of sorcery became clearer, and Rain suddenly knew down to her very essence that there was a terrible choice to come.

  Daric advanced and stuffed a wad of the woman’s own tattered shawl into her mouth. The witch glared at them. Rain did her best to shake off the feeling of dread now weighing her down.

  “Let’s get a bloodstone and leave this place,” Daric said.

  The witch grunted muffled protests.

  Rain hesitated. “She might know where the Barrow Witch is.”

  “The only barrows in Leathen are in the Wood of Layton,” Daric said. “Near Braylian’s Cauldron.”

  “She might not be home,” Rain pointed out. “I think we should ask.”

  Ceding to her wishes, Daric turned back to the witch. “We may have started off on the wrong foot. Please forgive us for bursting into your home uninvited. We didn’t realize it was occupied, and we all startled each other.”

  The crone narrowed her eyes, but she was listening.

  Rain nodded for him to continue. Daric was nothing if not diplomatic.

  “We need to find the Barrow Witch. Would you happen to know her?”

  The old woman just watched him as he slowly reached out and removed the gag from her mouth.

  “Do I look like I frequent barrows, you idiot? I’m a Cave Witch and therefore frequent caverns.”

  “I see,” Daric said, all dignity, as usual.

  Rain almost laughed at his unwaveringly cordial expression. She wasn’t duped. To her, his face looked crisp, like a sour apple.

  “We were led to believe this cavern contains a rare gem called bloodstone,” Rain said. “We need some.”

  “Oh, do you now?” The witch cackled. “Well, I need a cook and a maid. Which one of you likes to stir the pot and who prefers to clean?”

  “I think we’ll just take a bloodstone,” Rain said, losing some of her humor and patience.

  The witch bubbled with unhinged laughter. “You’ll never get one without me. Even with your magic that needs no words.” She glared at Rain, as though trying to dissect her strange abilities.

  The Cave Witch attempted her spell again, and Daric stuffed the gag back into her
mouth. “None of that,” he said sharply. He turned to Rain. “Shall we?” He offered her his arm.

  Rain took it, and side by side, they moved deeper into the cavern.

  Daric was still reeling, although he tried not to show it. The slight weight of Rain’s hand on his arm was the only thing keeping him steady. He’d suspected that Rain still had some of her magic, but he’d never imagined she was this powerful. A true force of nature.

  And he’d almost kissed her.

  He desired her, admired her, loved her as intensely as always. Nothing had changed, except he was now more certain than ever that he didn’t deserve her. No one did. He was a mere man, and he wasn’t even sure Rain was mortal.

  “Did you notice the witch said we’d come in through her back door?” Rain asked.

  Daric cleared his throat. It seemed so tight all of a sudden. “I did. I’m hoping there’s an easier way out.”

  Rain murmured her agreement as they were confronted with a fork in the tunnel, both options fading into complete darkness.

  “There are two paths,” she said, eyeing the set of torches on the wall. They were lit and ready for the taking, surely the Cave Witch’s method of seeing her way around. “Should we separate?”

  Daric hesitated and then shook his head. “I’d rather stay together.” His lips quirked, and he added, “I may need you to rescue me.”

  Rain huffed. She gripped his arm more tightly. “I’m nervous in the dark.”

  Daric knew that. It was unsurprising. The first time she’d ever truly been in the dark, not seeing the world around her, big hands had grabbed her and dragged her from the existence she’d known forever.

  As always, the memory chilled him. At the same time, having Rain by his side was a source of endless heat and energy. It was in part this contradiction that had kept him from revealing his true feelings. Could she really love him as he loved her, with the kind of passion and devotion that burned a hole in one’s chest and filled it with longing, when he’d been responsible for ending her life as she knew it?

  She’d wanted a kiss, but that would never be enough for him. Rain needed to want more, everything, just as he did.