House of Curses, page 19
Fordham seemed to make his decision. “I am trying to get up the mountain,” he said slowly. “But unfortunately, I let you come to the conclusion that I was mountain folk, Enta.”
Enta didn’t look hurt; she looked murderous. “You lied to us?”
“No. I merely allowed you to make up your own mind. I wear your clothing. I understand your mannerisms. I pull my own load. Those are qualities you admire. It was easier.”
“Easier for you,” Enta growled.
“Yes. For that, I apologize.”
He sounded sincere, but Kerrigan doubted very much that that would matter to any of them.
“Then, who are you?” the female who had tied her up asked very softly.
Fordham bowed to her. “I am the prince of the House of Shadows. I was cursed by the witch of the mountain at my birth. I am here to break that curse. That is why I wish to go up the mountain. That is my aim.”
Silence lingered after his revelation. Kerrigan reached for her rekindling powers so that she would be ready to act if this went south.
“A prince,” Enta said in disbelief.
“He is odd,” the other female said.
Enta glared at her and then back at Fordham. “You have disrespected our tribe.”
“I meant no disrespect, Enta,” Fordham said carefully. “I highly value your people.”
“And this girl?” she snarled. She threw her hand to Kerrigan. “A half-Fae? Is she your servant? That’s what they say about the House of Shadows.”
Fordham’s gaze finally settled fully onto Kerrigan. All the air left her lungs at that one penetrating gaze. Gods, she had missed him. She’d missed him so much. Even with a beard, covered in furs, with braids in his hair, he was still gorgeous. She could see the prince underneath it all. She had no idea how anyone could miss it in his commanding presence.
“She is mine,” Fordham said simply but fiercely. “I have no prejudice against half-Fae, as you should know, Enta.”
Enta narrowed her eyes further. It was then that Kerrigan realized that the massive female was half-Fae. Her ears were slightly pointed. In fact, there were two other half-Fae at the camp. Kerrigan had no recollection if half-Fae were treated horribly here, as they were everywhere else. She had always assumed that everywhere was like that.
“Mendy, if you would, untie her, or she will escape on her own, and you won’t like that at all.”
Well, he knew her.
The female who had tied her up to begin with scurried over to undo the bonds.
“You command no one in this abode,” Enta growled.
The tension bristled through the cave. Kerrigan’s magic was taut as a rope and ready to unleash if need be. She could feel the tides swirling within the room and knew that at any moment, this could go all wrong.
“Oh, shut it, Enta,” one of the males finally muttered. “You’re just mad you can’t marry him now.”
Enta lifted a knife from her belt and angled it toward the male. “Be quiet, or I will make you so.”
The male guffawed. “Try it, Enta. We’ve all seen you mooning over him. It’s good to know something can throw you down a peg.”
“We will leave,” Fordham said quickly to try to forestall the violence.
Mendy had finished with the bonds. Kerrigan rose hastily to her feet and hurried to his side.
“I have done a disservice to your people by impersonating you. For that, I am sorry. We will not delay you any longer.”
“Wait,” the male said, shouldering past Enta. He clapped a hand on Fordham’s shoulder. “Any male who can make us believe he’s Erewan is a male that I wish to know. You are welcome at our fires.”
“Aye,” Mendy agreed.
The rest of the circle cheered their agreement. Only Enta looked furious and red with embarrassment.
“Thank you, Darvin,” Fordham said, putting a hand to his chest and bowing slightly.
“You and your girl can stay the night,” Darvin said. “Isn’t that right, Enta?”
“Fine,” Enta grunted. “You are welcome at our fires.”
“I would like to hear your story. A prince of the Dark Court who has fallen for a half-Fae enemy,” Darvin said. His gaze between Kerrigan and Fordham was keen. “Regale us this night. It is not many who could have a lover follow them up the mountain.”
Fordham nodded to Kerrigan, and then they entered the Erewan circle. A fur coat was draped over Kerrigan’s shoulders to ward off the cold. Food was passed around the circle. Enta still sulked in irritation. All her plans had unfolded in the span of an evening. Kerrigan felt sorry for her, but she wasn’t giving Fordham up for anything.
As they ate, Fordham told them his tale—his exile, the dragon tournament to join the Society, and his curse. It was hard to believe all they had endured together, and how much more there was to go. Even Enta leaned forward as he told the more daring and dangerous parts of their story. By the end, they were enraptured.
Darvin nodded. “This is a worthy cause. A worthy reason to climb the mountain. It is not an easy journey, but in the morning, we’ll take you as far as we can go.”
Fordham bowed his head. “Thank you.”
Kerrigan nodded. “We appreciate it.”
The rest of them dispersed at the end of the story, bedding down into rolls around the fire. Fordham’s gaze slid back to her, and she saw the fury he’d carefully contained as he feared for their lives. He jerked his head to the side, and she followed him away from the mountain folk.
When they were nearly back into the snow, Fordham pulled her to a stop and slammed her back against the rock wall.
“Hey!”
“What the hell are you doing here?” he snarled. “You blew my cover. Do you have any idea how long it took me to get in with these people? Do you know how close they were to killing us?”
Kerrigan shoved him backward. “Don’t condescend to me. I was there. I know exactly how close we got. But I wouldn’t have had to do any of that if you had told me where you were. If you had asked for my help.”
“I told you that I didn’t need your help,” he barked back.
“Clearly, that’s not true. Because it was only by me coming here and blowing your cover that you got what you had come for. We’re going up the mountain.”
“No. No, we,” he said. “Just me.”
“Fordham, I am going with you.”
“I didn’t want you here, Kerrigan. I wanted to handle this on my own.”
“Why?” she demanded. “Why must you do it on your own? Haven’t you learned yet that we’re better together?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Why?” she bellowed at him. “Why? Just tell me why.”
“Because I can’t lose you,” he roared. He leaned forward, one hand on the wall at her head. His breathing was ragged as he hung his head. “I can’t lose you.”
“Ford,” she whispered. Her hand came to his face, lifting it up to look at her. “We’re better together.”
“Until this curse is lifted, I can’t guarantee your safety. And the last thing I want is for me to get this close—this close—and to lose you.”
“When I’m not with you, I can’t guarantee your safety.”
His eyes sparked like lightning in a thunderstorm. As if he’d never thought about it from her perspective. Never considered how much she had been worried about him out here, all alone.
“Please,” she whispered. “I can’t leave. I can’t leave you here. I had another vision.”
His eyes rounded for a second before flattening. “You haven’t had one since the tournament.”
“And you might have noticed that I’m working on my powers. That was how I found you in that dream.”
He blinked. “That was real?”
“Yes. There’s so much I need to tell you, Ford. So much. But it was real. I don’t know if I can do it again. There were special circumstances that made it possible. I learned something else after that. I can cast for visions now.”
“What did it show you?”
She swallowed. That, she didn’t want to reveal. She didn’t want to tell him. “It doesn’t matter. I just knew I had to see you.”
“That isn’t how your visions worked in the past. What did you see?”
“You,” she said slowly. “I saw you in the snow.”
He arched an eyebrow, intuitively knowing she was holding something back.
Her breathing hitched. “With a knife in your chest and blood in the snow, dead.”
Fordham went preternaturally still. “I see. Then, the curse has caught up with me.”
“No,” she said fiercely. “You don’t know that. I am here to stop it.”
“We both know that isn’t how it works. Your visions rarely make sense until they happen, but if I’m dead, then I’m dead.”
She shook her head. “We don’t know that.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway. I have to go up the mountain.”
“I’m going with you. You can’t stop me after my vision.”
He looked at her with a resigned look in those eyes. “I suppose that is true.”
Silence lingered between them. Kerrigan reached out and threaded their fingers together. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable. Not when she was finally here with him again.
“So,” she said, smiling deviously, “when were you planning to tell me you were marrying an Erewan female?”
Fordham shot her an imperious look. “I had no such plans.”
Kerrigan could barely hold back a laugh. “She seemed pretty set on it.”
“You’re as insufferable as ever. Your mouth is the end of me.”
“Then, maybe you should make me be quiet,” she whispered.
He smirked and then tilted her chin up, up, up. He was so much taller than her that she could stand on her tiptoes and still not meet his eyes. They hung in that moment, together again after so long. The kiss they’d shared in the Draíocht was a dreamlike haze in memory. It couldn’t compare to here and now with their bodies nearly pressed together and their breath intermingling.
Fordham drew a line down her jawline, down her neck, and across her collarbone. “You are temptation incarnate.”
She leaned forward into those words. Her chest against his. Her lips ready and waiting. “I missed you too,” she teased.
His mouth dropped until he was nearly upon her lips. She whimpered with need at the intimacy of the moment. The heat radiating off of him. She’d wanted this for far too long.
“After the mountain,” he promised.
She dropped backward against the cave wall. “Ford …”
“When we’re safe and the curse is broken, I am yours.”
“I’m holding you to that. You’re not allowed to die before.”
He nodded once. “As my lady wishes.”
29
The Snow
Kerrigan bedded down in a separate bedroll. She’d reached out to Tieran on the spirit plane to explain the situation. He scouted the rest of the way up the mountain but could only go so far before it was too cold, even for him. They’d agree that he should find Netta, who, Fordham had confessed, had been fending for herself during his time in Erewa since they were unwelcoming to dragons, and she would reach out again when they completed their mission.
Between the anxiety, the hard ground under her back, and every little unfamiliar noise jolting her up, she slept horribly. Her magic appreciated even the small amount though. She felt much more herself in the morning. She would need every drop of her magic by the end of this.
She ate leftover boar, packed her bags, and was provided all new clothing for the hike. Enta laughed at her meager cold weather gear. Apparently, what she was used to in the south was nothing compared to this. Her thanks were met with more disdain, and Kerrigan left off.
“Tie this around you,” Mendy said, offering a rope.
“Uh … why?”
“It is to make sure we don’t lose anyone.”
“Comforting,” she grumbled as she knotted the rope around her.
Mendy grinned. “The mountain we climb today is so old that its name has been lost to time. We simply call it the witch’s mountain or the mountain. No one climbs it lightly, and few have made it past the barrier. Fewer have lived to tell the tale. If you wish to reach the top with Ford, then you will follow our every word and try not to upset Enta.” Mendy looked back to her fellow and shrugged.
“I’ll try,” Kerrigan said nervously.
She had never made a climb like this. She had no experience. She could keep her tongue under control long enough to let their guides get them to where they were going.
“And put on these.” Mendy gave her a pair of almost flippers that were flat and attached to the bottom of her boots. “You’re lucky we had an extra pair after Hornace didn’t make it back from his last leg up the mountain.”
Kerrigan gulped. But she added the odd snowshoes to her feet and then got into line behind Fordham. They were tied together. He shot her a grim look, but it was laced with excitement. All of his time here in the mountains had been leading up to this moment. Now, they were finally going to get there.
Kerrigan was freezing before the sun fully rose through the fog of snow. The furs and new boots helped. Not to mention, the snowshoes that kept her from sinking down into the snow and rather kept her on top of it. But still, she was cold.
It certainly didn’t help that while all the others had been born in this climate or spent months adjusting, she had come from Kinkadia a few days prior, where summer was in full swing. Her body was used to heat and humidity, not snow. Not by a long shot.
But she couldn’t complain. She had no doubt that the Erewan would leave her behind rather than turn around now.
She used spurts of magic to conjure a flame in her hand to warm up her extremities, but even that she couldn’t sustain. She had no idea what she was going to go up against once they made it up the mountain. She would need every ounce of her magic.
When they stopped for a short lunch, Kerrigan collapsed with her bag against a tree. The snow had ceased an hour earlier, leaving a dry chill, which was somehow worse than a wet chill. Every blast of wind bit into her skin. She pulled her mask up higher against the cold, but it did little to keep back the wind.
“Don’t rest too long,” Darvin warned. “Your body can get too cold.”
“Or do,” Enta grumbled, staying on her feet and stalking away.
Fordham offered a hand and hauled her back up. “How are you doing?”
“Freezing.” She took a sip of her water, which she’d had to heat to keep from freezing. Then a bite of her bread and meat. The cheese was hard as a rock, and she’d given up on it.
“And your magic?”
“Fine,” she grumbled.
“You had a vision. I know what that does to you.”
She met his gaze. “I’m not backing out. I’ll make it to the top.”
He stared her down, surely hoping she would change her mind. But he should have known better than that. She would never back down from a challenge.
Finally, he nodded. “Keep your reserves up as much as you can but stay warm. You can lose fingers and toes to the cold out here if you’re not careful.”
She wiggled her cold fingers in her gloves. “So far, so good.”
Hours later, she was cursing herself for agreeing to do this. The wind had picked up, so the rope was half there to keep her from blowing away. She was roughly half the size of the Erewan people and clearly not meant for these extra conditions. Fordham picked her up out of the snow twice. Finally, she found a large stick and hacked it off of a tree to use to help her keep her footing in the snow. It did just enough to manage her center of gravity that she didn’t need anyone else’s help until they reached a sheer cliff.
“What the gods?” Kerrigan groaned. She tilted her head to look straight up. “Can we go around?”
“Up,” Enta grunted.
“And then we’re there,” Darvin added. “A hundred feet straight up, and then you go from there.”
“What do you mean? That’s not the top?”
“The top is inaccessible,” Mendy said. “We can’t go farther.”
“Then …”
“Only those seeking the witch can step through,” Fordham said. “It’s like a story. Those old faerie tales that were passed down.”
Kerrigan stretched her memory for one that he meant but came up blank. “There’s a faerie tale about the witch of the mountain?”
Mendy nodded brightly. “It’s our most told story. The witch of the mountain lives in a cottage alone in the woods. She grants wishes but only to those who can pass her tests. The first female who tried was turned aside, for her wish was something the witch could not grant—bringing back a dead lover. The second male had a vengeful heart and hoped to slay his enemies. He crossed the barrier but failed the witch’s tests. The third was a female, pure of heart. She wanted to unite her people with the dragons. She passed the tests, and the witch granted her wish—to become the first dragon rider of her people.”
Kerrigan blinked. “Wait, you’re telling me that Irena went to the witch to bind Ferrinix? I’ve never heard that before.”
“The tale varies by tribe,” Fordham said softly. As if admitting that was tantamount to disproving what they’d just said.
“This is the oldest story to date,” Darvin said defensively.
Kerrigan couldn’t fathom it. Every time she thought she knew the full tale of the Irena Bargain, new pieces were unfurled about her. She wondered how much of it was even true.
“So, you will go with a pure heart,” Mendy said. “And if you are worthy, you will pass the tests and make your request of the witch.”
“But first, the cliffside,” Enta growled.
Kerrigan gulped. Right. The cliff.
The mountain folk went first, displaying an incredible aptitude for mountain climbing. Once the first few were at the top, they dropped the rope to secure around the next who would make the climb.
Kerrigan glanced at Fordham as they each tied a rope around their waist. “Glad we had that rigorous training for a year right about now.”
