House of Curses, page 23
She slid her legs over his lap, straddling him. He arched an eyebrow, but she silenced him with a kiss, pushing him back onto the bed.
The next day dawned a perfect summer morning. Golden light suffused the cottage bedroom when Kerrigan awoke in Fordham’s arms with the sheets knotted around their legs. Breakfast waited for them on a tray in the corner, and after they groggily woke from their dreamscape, they broke their fast with hidden smiles for the other.
Titania awaited them when they left the room, freshly dressed and ready to go. She was as stunning as ever, her golden hair spilling over one shoulder and her eyes as mercurial as ever.
“It has been a blessing to have the company. I hope you found the accommodations to your liking.” She had a twinkle in her eye that said she knew precisely how they had used her accommodations. “Your clothing and weapons will be restored to you once you exit the enchantment around my home.”
“Thank you, Titania,” Kerrigan said, dipping a low curtsy.
Fordham bowed deep. “Your generosity is greatly appreciated. May the moon light your way.”
“And the stars guide you home,” Titania said with a smile at the remembered old ways.
Fordham took Kerrigan’s hand, and together, they left the mother of the Fae behind. They followed the stone path that led away from her cottage and back through the gardens and to the palace beyond. A gentle fog suffused the grounds as they climbed the stairs that led up to the palace. The morning dew bathed the garden in beads of water. Everything was silent as they traversed the landscape that had enchanted them just the night before.
The door that they had exited last night was now ajar. The Fae dancers were all gone, and they moved through the eerily quiet ballroom on silent feet. They passed where there had once been a feast and down the pink-and-white marble hallway until they reached the front door.
Kerrigan gulped before nodding at Fordham. “Together?”
“Always.”
They put their hands on the doorknob and turned as one, pushing their way out through the barrier that no longer tried to keep them and instead spit them out on the other side.
Right into the snow.
“Gods,” Kerrigan groaned. She was at once frozen by the surroundings on the top of the highest mountain in Erewa.
Fordham laughed, patting down his pockets for all of his weapons. “Well, all seems to be right.”
She touched his face. “She didn’t give you your beard back.”
“Shall I grow it again?”
Kerrigan laughed. “Perhaps.”
“I love to see you laughing. You were so certain I was going to die that you flew all the way here to intercept me.”
“I can admit when I was wrong,” she teased as he had in Titania’s cottage.
“Oh, go ahead,” he said with satisfaction.
“Come on, princeling,” she said, stomping back out of the valley to begin their trek down the mountain. “We don’t have all day.”
“Fine. Fine,” he grumbled.
The cave where the Erewan had camped when they entered Titania’s domain was empty. The fires had long died out. They had no idea how long they had spent in her home. It felt like one night, but with ancient faerie magic, it could have been any span of time. They headed toward the cliffside, and Kerrigan stopped before it, looking dubiously downward.
She turned around to ask Fordham how they expected to get down when a flash of black shadows erupted out of nowhere.
Kerrigan screamed as Wynter, princess of the House of Shadows, appeared out of nowhere and stabbed Fordham through the chest.
33
The Ambush
Kerrigan felt herself moving as if in slow motion.
The hazy dream coming back to her in perfect clarity.
She ran to Fordham, pushing her way through the snowdrifts. She felt sluggish as she raced back up the mountain. Then, she crested the last rise and found him lying there precisely as she had seen him. A dagger thrust through his chest, blood pooling all over the bright white snow, and death on his face.
Kerrigan screamed again as grief threatened to take her under. She would not fall apart here. She would not have this end.
“Wynter!” she yelled.
Wynter’s smile was deadly with triumph.
Kerrigan’s fury was worse. “Fight me if you think you can.”
She rallied all of her magic, prepared for Wynter’s next jump. She had the same dark shadow magic that ran in the Ollivier line, and she had better control of it than Fordham. Unfortunately, she had the added problem of insanity. She had gone mad with her desire to escape her own isolation. Couple that with the death of her lover, Aisling, at the Battle of Lethbridge, which had culminated in her failure, Kerrigan highly doubted she was stable.
“You coward!” Kerrigan shrieked. “You think you can do this and have it unanswered? Stand your ground if you think you deserve your throne.”
Kerrigan bared her teeth as black shadows appeared a few feet away from her, and the beautiful visage of Fordham’s mad sister materialized. Her white hair was undone from its usual braided crown. It matched the white of the snow as it was whipped about her head by the wind. She wore black fighting garb and held dual daggers.
“You think you can take me on again?” Wynter taunted.
“You won against Fordham. You had the element of surprise. You won’t beat me.”
Wynter laughed, high and manic. “I have nothing left to lose.”
“You have your life,” Kerrigan snarled.
“And my brother has that no longer.”
Kerrigan didn’t think. She just charged at Wynter. A dagger slipped into her hand, and they clashed together in the snow. Two princesses determined to win against the other.
Wynter had been trained. Kerrigan would give her that. But she was at a disadvantage since she had only been trained in the House of Shadows. She’d only had the worst sort of people training her. Those who used her for their own aims. She had years on Kerrigan, and still, she was no match for what Kerrigan had gone through to get to where she was.
Wynter’s smile snapped when she realized that they were evenly matched. She had thought to overpower her. Though Wynter’s use of the dark shadows was superior, Kerrigan had better control of the elements and her spirit at her back for a worst-case scenario.
And worse … Kerrigan did have something to lose. Someone. Dying in the snow.
This fight couldn’t go on forever, or Wynter would win regardless.
“You can’t defeat me,” Wynter said, jumping backward once with her shadows.
“You can’t use those powers forever.”
“No, but long enough for you to lose everything.”
Kerrigan blasted her with air magic, which Wynter deflected, and used that distraction to raise the ground under Wynter’s feet. She rolled forward out of the attack at the same time Kerrigan hit her in the face with fire. There was water everywhere around her, but her control was rudimentary with the element on a good day. She didn’t have enough concentration to shape the snow to her advantage. So, Kerrigan used blunt force, which pushed Wynter farther and farther back but did nothing to end the fight.
Wynter cackled maniacally. “You cannot win this, little half-Fae. But I can.”
Wynter jumped in quick, grasping Kerrigan around the wrist, and then pulled.
Yet Kerrigan did not move.
Wynter’s eyes widened in alarm. The magic hadn’t worked. She hadn’t been able to jump away with Kerrigan and do something heinous, like throw her off the cliff for fun.
The Ring of Endings had stayed her hand. Wynter’s magic couldn’t work against her. Which meant Wynter’s element of surprise had switched hands. Kerrigan used Wynter’s own momentum to pull her forward. Kerrigan punched the princess in the face. Her nose shattered on impact, and blood gushed from the wound.
Wynter cried out and tried to fight her way out of the advantage she had just given away. But Kerrigan had her now.
She dropped a knee into Wynter’s solar plexus, knocking the wind from her, used her wind magic to shove her to the ground in a spiral, and then between one breath and the next, Kerrigan dropped onto the spirit plane.
Wynter was in her grasp, so finding her individual signature was like plucking a daisy already in her hand. Wynter appeared on the spirit plane. Her clothes were plain. Her hair a lank mess past her shoulders. Her eyes red with grief. With all of her rage stripped away, she just looked like a young girl.
“What did you do to me?” Wynter gasped.
She reached for her magic and tried to throw it at Kerrigan to stop her, but there was no magic on the spirit plane. And the person strongest in spirit was who controlled the plane. Wynter had no spirit magic. She belonged to Kerrigan in here.
“You’re on the spirit plane,” Kerrigan said.
She snapped her fingers, and a chair appeared. She pushed Wynter into it.
“Release me,” Wynter snarled.
“I think not. Here, you have no magic. You have no shadows. You can stay here until I’m ready for you,” Kerrigan growled.
Wynter’s eyes finally widened in horror and fear. There was nowhere to go, nothing she could do, and no one to fight.
“Sit here and think about what you’ve done,” Kerrigan told her.
Then, she dropped back into her body.
Wynter lay, sprawled in the snow. She wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
Kerrigan’s fear heightened as she dashed back toward Fordham’s unresponsive body. “Ford?” she gasped as tears hit her eyes.
He gurgled something. His eyes half-lidded as he looked upon her face. His already-pale skin had gone almost blue in the snow.
She hadn’t had a moment to process what was happening while fighting Wynter. But now, there was no one to fight. She couldn’t take the dagger out or else blood would gush from the wound. She needed to leave it there as long as he was still alive.
“I’m going to find help,” she told him through her tears. “Don’t you die on me. Don’t you dare.”
She was no better than Wynter currently sitting in the spirit plane. The love of her life was dying and there was nothing she could do. She had no healing magic of her own.
Kerrigan pulled on the bond with Tieran. It was too high for him to fly, but she had to try something, anything. She dropped back into the spirit plane and explained the situation to her dragon. Told him to find someone, anyone who could heal him. The Erewa tribe had to have healers.
But even as she did it, she knew it was pointless. They couldn’t get someone up here fast enough. He’d already lost so much blood. The snow was red with it in an ever-widening circle.
A thought struck her.
What had Titania said about her ring?
The Ring of Endings was not just destruction. It wasn’t an immunity to magic. It was the intention of the ring by Belenus to force his healing magic into the ring itself. He hadn’t meant for all the other properties to come from it. But life and death were two sides of the same coin. Life and death.
Kerrigan had no idea how it worked. She hadn’t thought to ask Titania how the ring functioned. It had always been passive. Like it had been when it saved her from Wynter’s trick and March’s magic. This was different. This time, she had to use it for healing, and she had no healing magic. Fordham would die if she didn’t figure it out.
She reached inside of her and tried to feel the ring as part of her. She didn’t know how healing magic worked, except that it aligned with water affinity, which she had little of. But there was water everywhere. If it needed to use the water magic through her to fix this, then so be it. She would stretch every bit of water magic she had to make this work.
But she felt nothing.
She pressed the ring to the opening of the wound, but nothing happened.
“Why?” she shouted at the damn thing. “You are supposed to know what to do. You are supposed to fix this!”
The ring remained dormant.
It was a magical artifact. It wasn’t conscious of what it was doing. It stopped magic without actively doing anything. She had never felt it working. It just did. Maybe the healing was the same. She couldn’t make it heal. It could only do what it had been made to do.
Kerrigan slipped the ring off and shoved it onto Fordham’s finger without a second thought. Then, she sent a prayer out to all the gods who would listen and yanked the dagger from his chest.
“Work, damn it,” she said through tears.
Blood gushed from the wound. She pushed her hands against it to try to staunch the blood flow, watching them stained red with his blood. If she was wrong, then she had just sentenced Fordham to death. There was no other way to help him anyway. No one could get here in time. She had to believe that this would work.
She cried over his wound with blood up to her elbows. “Please,” she begged.
Nothing happened.
She looked up into Fordham’s handsome face. His eyes had fluttered closed when she removed the dagger. No last words from him. Nothing at all.
Then, with a gasp, she looked down and found the wound knitting itself back together.
Kerrigan leaped backward in alarm. She’d hoped for a miracle, but not expected one. Nothing like this.
Within the span of a breath, Fordham’s chest was whole. He rolled over and retched. Kerrigan cried even harder, putting her head into her bloody hands.
“Kerrigan,” he groaned.
“Gods,” she said, throwing herself into his arms.
He grunted and fell backward. “Ow.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You were dead. You were dead.”
“I feel dead,” he croaked. “What happened?”
“Wynter stabbed you. I fought her and stopped her, but you were too far gone.”
“How did I survive?”
“I remembered Titania saying the magic in my ring was healing. I didn’t have another choice. I had to try it,” she said, the tears trailing off. She brought her hand to his face. “You’re alive.”
He caught her hand with a rueful smile. “Because of you.”
“Thank the gods.”
“Thank Titania.” He kissed her once on the mouth. “I will never doubt your visions again.”
“You’d be dead without me.”
“I will never doubt you again either.”
Kerrigan leaned over and sobbed as the anxiety of the last few minutes took her over. Fordham held her. She could tell he was still recovering. The magic wasn’t done with him. He’d lost too much blood. Far too much blood. But at least he was alive.
A half hour later, Tieran and Netta landed in the clearing. An Erewa healer that Kerrigan recognized as Mendy rushed over.
“How can I help?”
“We had a miracle,” Kerrigan explained.
Then, she took Mendy away from the huge pool of blood to avoid having to answer too many questions. No one should be sitting up, let alone standing and walking gratefully to their dragon, after losing that much blood.
Mendy invited them to spend time with their tribe, which they did gratefully as Fordham recovered. Mendy marveled many times over the fact that he didn’t have a scratch on him, but he seemed unwell. She couldn’t think how it made any sense. Kerrigan wasn’t about to explain it.
The following day, after rest, food, and a much-needed bath, Fordham pushed the ring back onto Kerrigan’s finger.
“Don’t go giving that to all the males.”
Kerrigan rolled her eyes. “Let’s hope I’m not saving anyone else’s life.”
“You’re still returning to Kinkadia,” he said with a frown.
“Council,” she reminded him.
“I want to reclaim my throne with you at my side.”
“I suspect it will be easier without a half-Fae with you.”
“That is going to change,” he said in earnest. “Not just for my curse, but because it’s time to put the past behind us.”
“I’m glad, and I will be waiting for you in Kinkadia. Because you will have to return to the Society now, you know?”
He shot her a grim look. “Hopefully, they accept me.”
“They will. You’ll be the only House of Shadows representative.”
She explained how she had had to give up the tribe to join the Society, but they’d created a loophole for him. He would be insane not to exploit it.
“And Wynter?” he asked.
The Erewa had restrained her and given her a magical-dampening potion. Kerrigan had been okay with just knocking her out.
“Bringing her back to House of Shadows would disrupt your throne as much as my return.”
Fordham frowned. “But where else can she go?”
Kerrigan smiled grimly. “I have an idea.”
“Oh no. Why do I have a feeling I’m not going to like it?”
“Oh, you’ll hate it.”
Then, she kissed him, watched him climb onto Netta’s back and head off to reclaim his throne. She would miss him, but they both had too much to accomplish before they next met. At least this time, she knew he would return, and he would be hers when he got there.
She thanked the Erewa for their hospitality, strapped Wynter onto Tieran’s back, and left the mountains behind. The city awaited.
34
The Madness
WYNTER
Wynter awoke in a blank room.
There was a bed, a small table with a goblet full of water, and a bucket to piss in. A chain attached her leg to the wall. The chain was solid iron and made her skin crawl. Iron wasn’t exactly deadly to Fae, but it wasn’t comfortable. Like an itch that she couldn’t scratch. A sickness she couldn’t stomach.
She was familiar with sickness. Her mind had been clouded with it all these years. The madness that possessed her to find an escape from the eternal House of Shadows isolation. She had done it. And then she had lost … everything.
