Curse of the Celts

by Clara O'Connor

  I bit my lip. I didn’t know what to say to him. It was my fault he was here. He would never have been in this situation if it were not for me.

  “Thank you,” I offered softly into the half-light of the cell.

  My defiance, my fear, all the myriad jumbled emotions of the evening drifted away as we sat there in the cell, lit by the otherworldly glow hovering in the air.

  A moment later, we heard steps outside.

  “Quench it,” Devyn hissed, and a startled Marcus looked up blankly at the light he had created and shook his head. Devyn had only supplied instructions on how to create it, not turn it off. Devyn lifted his hand and made a snatching grab at the air.

  As the lock started to turn in the door, Marcus took a step and closed his fist around the light, wincing as he did so.

  “No,” Devyn exclaimed, too late. “In your mind. Not with your hand.”

  The room was in utter darkness once more, but I could feel him shaking his head. I shuffled to one side so I would not be discovered in his embrace. Devyn was moving to face the new arrival anyway. I still felt bereft despite the mere inches between us.

  The door opened to a guard arriving with our supper, which he placed on the floor. He backed out, but, realising that to do so would leave us in darkness, he hesitated. Unsure of what to do, he stood in the doorway.

  “Go on then,” he said after a moment. “Eat.”

  The three of us surveyed the tray with its water and gloopy-looking mystery stew. The meal of champions.

  “I ain’t got all day,” he said, torn between wanting to leave and making sure we were fed as had probably been his command.

  “Is there anything in it?” Marcus asked in his most cordial manner, as if he were enquiring about the subtleties of the sauce being served with his meal at one of the city’s most exclusive restaurants.

  The sentinel looked at him in confusion.

  “Why would there be anything in it? I was told to get you all something to eat. I got you something to eat. So bloody eat,” he gestured again at the tray.

  “You purchased this yourself?” Marcus pursued. We already knew Devyn and I had been dosed, but so far Marcus had somehow been spared whatever they used to block powers.

  “Look, mate. Eat, don’t eat. No skin off my nose,” he said brusquely. He obviously wanted to close the cell door and be gone, but it went against the grain to leave two of the city’s most celebrated and loved citizens to eat their cheap meal off the floor in the dark.

  Marcus looked at me and shrugged. “Might as well take the chance. What difference does it make now?”

  He was right. Even if the food was laced with drugs, we were going to be dead before the previous stuff we’d consumed wore off. Even if it had worn off, we would be bound and blind when we were taken into the arena and therefore unable to wield what little magic we had. Marcus only knew how to heal people and create – though not quench – small lights. The only magic I had ever seen Devyn use was defensive and seemed to be integral to his role as Griffin, protector, helping him to pass unnoticed in the background, sense when I was in danger, and that kind of thing.

  He also made me feel safe, though maybe that particular talent wasn’t supernatural. Maybe that was just me. I had discovered that there was not a path he could tread where I would not follow. Those first times when he led me by the hand into his world, had he been using actual magic or had he just led and I simply followed? As for me, I could float away on a breeze, catch glimpses of the past, conjure up winds in a fit of pique, even rain down a storm given the right incentive; the only problem was I had no idea how I had done any of it.

  At Devyn’s insistence, I had stopped taking the little pills which I now knew suppressed the magic which flowed in my veins. But Devyn and I had never got around to talking about it, and he had never instructed me on how to use it the way he had with Marcus earlier. Devyn was usually more concerned with calming me and constraining the manifestations I experienced, which usually popped up at the worst time possible. So no, my magic wasn’t going to help us any.

  But as I picked up my bowl and lifted the spoon, I decided I wasn’t hungry enough to eat whatever this was after all. Marcus likewise failed to eat more than a spoonful. Devyn didn’t even pick it up. I guess he was unwilling to give up hope.

  The guard’s footsteps hadn’t even faded when we heard him returning, this time with company: Matthias Dolon. Marcus’s face went blank as he registered his father’s unexpected appearance, his body entirely still. I had seen for myself how Matthias perceived the taint of Briton blood, a legacy of the marriage which sealed the treaty nearly 300 years ago. Now he had seen the evidence of how true that strain ran in his son’s veins. I couldn’t imagine having to face my mother now. I took a step towards Marcus, wanting to help him brace against the impending blow.

  Matthias waited wordlessly until the guard departed and closed the door, having first provided a lantern which he propped up on the stool which also appeared out of nowhere in response to the presence of an exalted council member.

  “You stupid, worthless child.” Senator Dolon spoke directly to Marcus, ignoring our presence and foregoing any preliminary greetings or enquiries into his son’s wellbeing, mental health or anything else regarding our general dire circumstances. “You’ve ruined everything.”

  Marcus drew himself up and stood tall. Taller than his father.

  “I did what I thought was right.”

  “You have everything. I’ve given you everything and this is how you repay me.” As ever the doting father, worried less for his son than for his status in the city. “Why? What on earth possessed you? So much for your devotion to the poor masses.”

  “I was doing it for them. What I was doing wasn’t enough. The Britons have a medicine that works; I wanted to find a way to help more people.”

  “Well, that’s over now. You’ll never set foot in a hospital again.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Governor Actaeon is furious that the mob and the praetor have shown mercy.” Dolon’s lip curled. “He never approved of the programme we set up to gain more magic within the walls and you’ve given him the perfect excuse to crush it… and you in the process.”

  “What programme?” I asked quickly. There was no way I was missing the opportunity to discover more about the mysterious manipulations which had directly led to us being here. Yes, there might be more pressing issues, but I had been obsessing over this for months and here was Matthias fully acknowledging that such a programme existed. An actual thing.

  “Ah, our little cuckoo. What a waste. So many years waiting for you to grow up, all for nothing now.” Matthias lifted the lantern from the stool and seated himself as if drawing up to a fire in a gentlemen’s club to settle in for a leisurely conversation debating the issues of the day. “We had such plans. You see, there is a faction within the council that has argued for years that we should figure out how to harness magic rather than eradicate it. Our advances in technology are rendered useless once we hit the ley line at the border. We’re still limited to the same tech there that has failed to gain supremacy for generations. We are tired of being trapped behind these walls. We want more. Following my wife’s untimely demise, no real Courtenay sat on the council to stand in our way, and we had a child with magic at our disposal. All we needed was another Briton and we could breed a little litter to study, so we could find a way to defeat the Wilders once and for all. It’s over now, of course.”

  I was aghast at his casual confession of what he had done, of how they had planned to use us. I knew it was true, but to hear him talk about it so frankly, so utterly shamelessly… How could he, his own son? Devyn’s eyes met mine, wordlessly agreeing, conveying his contempt and distrust of a man who would do this to his own flesh and blood.

  “You knew? They were planning to use me, to use my children.” Marcus spoke slowly, his tone cold.

  “You wouldn’t have been harmed. Think of it. Rather than throwing your
life away on a science already perfected, you could integrate it with native forms of healing.”

  “As you dictated. Under your control,” I put in quietly.

  I had seen Marcus in action at the hospital. He made no distinction between council member and sewer worker, but his father had never shared this view. Marcus had to know that any benefits of using magic would be made available to the elite first.

  “Such a shame. There were so many advantages in a softer policy. Terrible waste, all that power. Actaeon is a fool. If we were to harness the power inside the city, we could achieve so much.”

  “But the Empire hates magic. They would never have stood for it.” It was a central tenet of the Code.

  “True, there have always been imperial zealots who wished to eradicate magic completely, who swept the city for any child unlucky enough to have a dormant gene show up. They thought they had thinned it down over the generations. Looks like they were wrong.”

  “What do you mean they were wrong? Wrong about what?” I asked.

  “Why, the Maledictio, my dear.” He used the name unknown to the public for the illness that wasn’t nearly as new to the Empire as the council let on. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? Who it is this illness attacks? ”

  Devyn believed there was a correlation between the illness and latent magic in the blood. Marina had been sick, and it seemed she was more than just a latent. But why let Senator Dolon know what we knew when it was so much more informative when he was doing all the talking? “I don’t understand. The illness attacks at random.”

  Matthias looked at me like I was an idiot.

  “Does it?” he huffed heavily. “Marcus, do I need to spell this out to you too?”

  “No, Father. There was some basic genetic work done on Briton blood, but we don’t have much of it.” Marcus met my eyes; he had already informed me of the genetic testing back in the summer, encouraged me to get tested given my adopted status, but he betrayed no hint of that now. “In the tests on our own citizens, especially Shadowers and those who live near the walls, it seems there is an anomalous gene that lies dormant. It is often present in the ill; those with stronger bloodlines don’t die as quickly. It can take years, like my mother.”

  “Bravo,” Matthias applauded sardonically. “Sooner or later it comes for anyone with magic in their blood.”

  “Not in the rest of Briton. There is a medicine, something that treats the illness. People aren’t dying of it in the Wilds,” Marcus interjected. “If the governor would just talk to them… We have been at peace for centuries.”

  “Actaeon sees the illness as a solution, not a problem; a useful aid in cleaning house.” Matthias paused before turning to Devyn for the first time since he entered the cell. “He’ll only be happy when you’re all eradicated.”

  Devyn smiled thinly at Matthias. I felt a pulse in the connection; Devyn wasn’t visibly reacting but he had caught Matthias’s slip as well: he knew Devyn was not a citizen. He knew he was a Briton.

  “Why tell us now? You still have Marcus. Find him a new bride. It would be easily done. Back on course in no time,” Devyn spat.

  “Have you not been listening? They won’t be able to do anything now that his magic has become such public knowledge. But it’s never going to come to that. Marcus won’t live long enough to have children.”

  “What do you mean? Why not?”

  Matthias looked at his son as if he were mentally deficient before continuing in his familiar glacially scathing manner. “Actaeon is the head of the faction that has exterminated all latents identified within the walls for generations in order to ensure the end of magic. You think the verdict of the public vote is anything more than a stay of execution? He will come for you. Calchas may have used the mob to his advantage today, but Actaeon means to end you. Now, in a week, in a month. It is inevitable.”

  Marcus’s shoulders slumped.

  “But you are still my son. I will do what I can to keep you alive.” He cast a lidded sneer at Devyn and me and was gone, the metal door clanging in his wake.

  We were once more in the dark until Marcus repeated his feat of earlier in the evening, after he had grudgingly asked for instruction on how to quench it without burning himself.

  Despite all the new information Matthias had divulged, nobody broke the silence. What use was it to us now? Devyn was condemned, Marcus’s relatively lenient sentence unlikely to stick. And it sounded as if the outcome of my own trial was a foregone conclusion.

  “Shhh. Relax now.” I sat back against Devyn, cocooned in the security of his arms. His hands were in my hair, soothing me, calming the turmoil surging through me. “Hush. The breeze lifts you, the current carries you, the earth holds you, and fire lights the way. Relax, be at one.”

  His odd chant soothed me, and, finally, I slept.

  Chapter Three

  I came awake slowly, stiff from lying on the cold stone floor. The awareness of the new day – and my new reality – slowly seeped in. It was a cold, unwelcome reality. Devyn had been sentenced to death. Today we would face the mob once more. My muscles tensed as if bracing against the day, protesting, sore from the waves of adrenaline that had surged and ebbed in response to the previous day’s events. Devyn’s arms were wrapped around me and squeezed a little tighter in response to my awakening.

  I lay there, listening to the sound of my breath and his heartbeat, not wanting to open my eyes to acknowledge the day. I didn’t know how to face a day like today. I was still reeling from the events of yesterday. Devyn had been condemned to death in the arena; that had really happened. Today we would be brought back out to face the city again.

  When I did finally open my eyes, it was to find Marcus’s glacially green ones staring over at us. My stomach whooshed downwards like a lead box falling from a high tower. I did this. I brought him to this.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered when he didn’t break his gaze. I should have got out with Devyn months ago. The night we helped Marina leave the city, we had both been beyond the walls. There had been Britons there to help her; we could have gone with them; it would have been so easy. I was being foolish. I wasn’t ready then, would never have gone, too attached to the comfort and security of my cage.

  Marcus blinked, leaning his head back against the golden stone wall. Our windowless room was still lit by the ball of light he had created the night before.

  “For what?” he asked resignedly.

  For not being his match, for not even being a particularly good friend. All I had done for months and months was lie to him. Like me, Marcus felt alone his whole life; his mother had died when he was very young and his father didn’t really care for him. Being matched with me should have meant that Marcus finally had a person who loved him for himself. Instead, he got a girl ready to throw away all that the city offered at the crook of the little finger of the man in whose arms she now lay… in a cell, where we awaited the completion of the Mete that would send us to our ends.

  I shrugged at my inability to adequately apologise to Marcus.

  “I guess, I’m sorry for everything,” I offered. “Without me, none of this would be happening to you.”

  Devyn stiffened and straightened up, slightly dislodging me.

  “Without you, Cass, he would be dead,” he defended.

  Marcus’s eyes snapped up.

  “Looks like I’ll be dead anyway,” he snarled.

  “And that’s my fault? I’m not swinging the blade here. You are being executed by your friends because they don’t like the blood running in your veins and because you are not one of them. Not really, even though all you’ve ever tried to do is be a good citizen. Help other citizens. They don’t care because ultimately you are not one of them,” Devyn threw back at him. “You never will be.”

  “That’s not true. I used magic, the ultimate crime against the Code.” Marcus sounded tired, resigned, as if overnight he had reconciled himself to his fate and his own part in earning it. “Magic is illegal for a reason.”


  “Is it? What reason is that?” the Briton at my back challenged. “Because they feel threatened by it? Because they can’t control it? Enlighten me.”

  “Is magic the solution to everything in your world?” Marcus returned. “I don’t think so, because magic doesn’t run in everyone’s veins, does it? Magic is held by the few to rule over the many. Control of magic is firmly in the hands of those at the top of your feudal society. The Empire is far more meritocratic. Your life isn’t dictated by the colour of your blood or your skin; the intelligent, the strong, the driven can make something of themselves. Technology is available to all. Magic is not.”

  Devyn’s head went back and he threw his arms wide.

  “This society is a meritocracy? Do you truly believe that, Marcus Plantagenet Courtenay?” He emphasised Marcus’s full name. “You are the single most entitled man on this island. A prince of the city, a prince amongst my people. What do you know of merit?”

  Marcus stood abruptly, furious.

  “My birth is not my fault.” His voice was loud in the small space. “I have done everything in my power to do what I can to help others. And you’re right. What has it got me? My Plantagenet blood is the reason I was matched to a Wilder foundling in order to give them control… over magic. My Courtenay heritage drove me to help my fellow citizens who will spill my blood on the sand for that very help.”

  There was no answer to that. He was right. Devyn didn’t want to like Marcus, but that didn’t mean he had done anything to deserve it. Silence descended on the cell, and Marcus swung away when Devyn had no response for him.

  Eventually, footsteps heralded the arrival of our morning meal and Marcus quenched the light – mentally, this time. When the guard arrived and opened the cell door, he saw our food remained untouched from the night before. Throwing us a sour look, he put some unappetizing porridge on the floor and left immediately, unlike the evening before. He must have clarified his instructions on how to proceed; no dilemma today about whether or not he should leave us in the dark.