A Curse of Blood and Stone Read online

  I note it’s not a promise.

  The hollow thud of boat hulls as they buoy over waves tells me we’re nearing the dock. I allow myself the tiniest glimmer of relief that we’ve almost made it to safety.

  Zander stops so abruptly that I plow into his rigid body, my hands flying up to his back to brace myself. He may as well be a brick wall, immovable. “Why are there humans at the skiff?”

  “They are probably the couple helping us,” Gesine answers. “A woman named Cecily and her husband, Arthur. They are kind.”

  “They are fools. They should have made themselves scarce.” His boots land with a dull clunk on a wooden surface. “Watch your step. There’s a drop.”

  A vivid image of stumbling into the sea has me faltering. “I can’t see anything,” I remind him in a hiss. Only silhouettes and shadows.

  “Experience tells me you’ll refuse my hand, should I offer it.”

  My anger flares. “Yeah, well, experience tells me you’ll ditch me the first chance you—”

  Strong hands seize my waist, cutting off the acerbic retort. My body tenses, my palms bracing on Zander’s biceps for support as he lifts me off my feet and onto the dock.

  “Shouldn’t I be the distrustful one?” His grip lingers for a moment before he steps back.

  Another wave of hurt washes over me.

  Everything between us has changed tonight.

  “Perhaps we could afford a little light?” he murmurs.

  Gesine’s globe appears again, a dull sphere floating low to the ground, just bright enough to illuminate the gaps in wood planks.

  We rush wordlessly, Zander’s pace brisk enough that I’m nearly running. At the end, next to a boat maybe ten feet long, two people with mops of greasy gray hair bow.

  “You should not be here. It’s too dangerous,” Zander says by way of greeting, surveying the nearby boats.

  Echoes of “Your Highness” from them prick familiarity. I’ve heard those voices before. My suspicion is confirmed moments later when the couple stands. It’s the woman with the liver-spotted hands and her husband, a man once hobbled by infection. But the cane is gone and when he rushes to unfasten the skiff’s last rope from the dock, it’s with effortless steps.

  Gesine holds out a plump velvet purse for Cecily to collect. “Return to your home and say nothing of this to anyone. Your skiff was stolen while you slept.”

  “We seen nothin’, my lady.” Cecily secures the purse inside her tattered cloak before her eyes land on me. She hesitates. “We went to the sanctum like ya told us, Your Highness. Priestess fixed my Arthur up good as new. Well, he’s still an old goat, but there be no magic for fixin’ that.”

  “I’m glad to see it.” Anguish twinges inside me at the mention of Wendeline. What will she face for her treason to the crown? Does she deserve it? If only I could see her again and demand she explain why.

  “To the docks!” a soldier bellows, and my fear spikes. The army is closing in.

  “We cannot delay another second, for all our sakes,” Gesine warns, urging, “Go now!” to the couple.

  Cecily grabs hold of my hand, squeezing it tightly. “May we see you again, in your rightful place on the throne.” Collecting a small lantern, the couple huddles together and rushes toward land.

  “May I see you again too,” I whisper after them. Somewhere beyond the shanties, metal pounds against cobblestone. The soldiers are running.

  Elisaf and Zander have already climbed into the skiff and grabbed the oars. I clamber in behind them, my entrance inelegant and noisy. Gesine uses her leg to push us off before she settles near the bow.

  My pulse thrums in my throat as Zander and Elisaf propel us into the night with powerful strokes, my attention locked on the dark shoreline, the lanterns offering little light. Beyond, farther up, the castle glows orange, its imposing outline a murky shape against the sky.

  “Do you think Abarrane got out?” We left the commander of the Legion and her elite warriors behind to face an entire army.

  “She will meet us in Eldred Wood as agreed, or she will die trying,” comes Zander’s cold response.

  “What about Annika?” Tonight’s disaster unraveled in a blurred fury, with little time to think of anyone but myself. Elisaf handed me a dagger and told me to run, so I ran, not realizing that Zander’s sister was not following.

  “Annika will say and do what she needs to survive. Besides, Atticus knows her well enough to know she was blind to this.”

  But whose side will she be on now? I arrived in this world a sworn enemy to her and lingered in that role for weeks, even after saving her life—twice in one night. But she seemed to be warming to me, finally. Granted, our relationship is still tenuous, but I’d come to see the sharp-tongued princess as something closer to friend than foe.

  “Fretting about others will not help our current situation. We will have plenty of time to dwell later,” Zander adds, his tone softening.

  We’ve gained maybe fifty feet in the water when metallic forms pour through the cracks and crevices between the buildings, armor glinting against new torchlight.

  There’s no sign of Cecily or Arthur. I pray they made it to safety.

  “Over there! That must be them on the water!” someone shouts.

  Zander curses.

  My own thoughts repeat it. Damn these Islorians and their superior vision.

  “Archers! Ready!” a familiar voice hollers.

  “That’s Boaz.” The captain of the king’s guard has yelled at me enough times that I recognize his booming voice. “He’s commanding the soldiers to fire on you?” On Islor’s rightful king?

  “More likely on you. I’m just collateral damage.” The skiff jerks forward, Zander and Elisaf’s strokes increasing in both speed and strength.

  But it’s not enough.

  A dozen flaming arrows launch into the night sky with the first volley, sailing toward us like shooting stars.

  “Get down!” Zander hisses, abandoning his oars and diving forward to shield me with his body.

  I cower, my stomach clenching as balls of fire illuminate the water’s surface, revealing our exact location before plunging into the sea.

  Zander wastes no time peeling away from me. “Is everyone okay?” The chorus of ayes pulls a sigh of relief from him.

  “You don’t have armor.”

  He still wears the ink-blue jacket he wore to the tournament, the velvet fabric useless against flying metal. “A choice I am regretting.” He moves into position to row once again. “We are lambs in a meadow of wolves, and some of those arrows will be forged in merth.”

  Far more deadly if they land true. And he was willing to take one for me.

  “Thank God they missed,” I mutter, more to myself.

  “I will thank the fates for nothing but the suffering of my people,” he growls, the oar blades churning through the water with angry strokes.

  Elisaf matches his pace. “I’m afraid Boaz will not miss again.” I’m not used to hearing anxiety in my night guard’s voice.

  “Then we must do what we can to stop them.” Gesine stands facing the shoreline.

  “Are you mad, woman?” Zander scolds. “Sit down before you are dead and useless to us.”

  “We will all be dead and useless shortly.” Gesine’s cloaked arms reach out on either side. “Are you ready, Romeria?”

  My eyes bulge with surprise. Me? For what? I shoot her a questioning look, but she’s not paying attention to us, her head bent forward as if in prayer.

  Whatever this powerful elemental is about to do, it involves her abilities—the three shimmering emblems marked on her forearm, hidden beneath the heavy wool, that depict her affinities to water, air, and earth.

  A breeze stirs from the dead calm, like a teasing summer wind, fluttering strands of my hair, caressing my cheek.

  “Ready!” Boaz roars from the shore as the soldiers prepare another barrage. His voice sends fresh fear coursing through me.

  “Not yet …,”
Gesine whispers, her eyes still closed. “Romeria, you have Aoife’s ring on your finger and Princess Romeria’s affinity flowing through your limbs. Use them.”

  “I don’t know how.” I falter over my objection. I didn’t know how the day of the nethertaur attack either, but somehow, I sent a water beast colliding with it.

  Zander rows hard as he watches the shoreline. “We need to stop those arrows. Use the sea.”

  “How?” I plead for an answer because I’m drawing a blank. How do you use water to stop a flying steel blade?

  “Fates,” Elisaf hisses as more arrows shoot into the sky in unison, gliding steadily toward us. They will rain down on this wooden skiff in seconds, and Elisaf is right—Boaz won’t miss twice.

  My pulse drums in my head like the second hand on a clock.

  Zander drops his oars and dives forward, sheltering me. Willing to take the onslaught of deadly arrows for me again. His arms tighten. “If only we’d met in your world instead,” he whispers, his lips grazing my ear.

  Then maybe we would have had a chance, I finish in my thoughts. I can’t resist the urge to reach for his chest, to press my palm against the warmth and feel the steady, strong beat of a heart that is likely moments away from stopping forever.

  This can’t be it, a voice inside my head screams. After all we’ve been through, this can’t be how our story ends, like lame, cowering ducks before a firing squad.

  The need to protect Zander, to shield him as he shields me, surges through my body. I struggle against his grip. “Let me go.”

  Zander’s arms only tighten their hold.

  Dread, panic, and anger flare inside me as we brace for impact.

  But the seconds stretch and the arrows never reach us, splashing into the water, faint sizzles as flames die. And then an eerie silence takes over.

  Zander shifts away from me, and we peer toward Cirilea.

  I squint into the dark, my view of the city blurred. “Is that—”

  The wall of water crashes like a dropped curtain, scattering waves that rock our boat, pushing us farther out.

  “That is how you use the sea.” Satisfaction laces Zander’s voice.

  “The arrows bounced off it like useless toothpicks.” Elisaf sounds equally amazed.

  It dawns on me. “I did that.” I needed to protect Zander—all of us, but he is who I was focused on—and that need channeled through this ring to create a shield. The gold band is still warm against my skin.

  “It certainly was not me.”

  Gesine remains standing. Her eyes are open, glowing a vivid green that reminds me of the daaknar, not in color but in intensity, as if they could bore holes through any surface. She’s focused on something unseen behind our skiff, her palms raised, hands trembling. The emblem of the silver butterfly on her forearm glows brighter than the other two. “Either I eliminate those soldiers trying to kill us or I take us out of range of their arrows. It is one or the other, and my hold on this element is not infinite. Your Highness.”

  She’s asking for an order from the king.

  Zander hesitates, weighing his thoughts on the shoreline where Boaz is likely scrambling to prepare another fiery assault.

  “There are innocent people in the Rookery,” I remind him. People who helped us escape tonight. People who don’t deserve to suffer more than they already have. What exactly does eliminating those soldiers mean, besides the obvious? “They can’t become collateral damage.”

  “And killing the soldiers will not end the opposition,” he says, as if thinking aloud.

  Boaz’s commanding shouts ring out, and tension cords my neck. “What if I can’t block those arrows again?” I don’t understand how I did it in the first place.

  “Choose now!” Gesine demands in a voice foreign to her normally calm deference.

  “Get us out of here.” There’s resignation in Zander’s tone, as if he’d prefer to select the first option.

  “I suggest you hold on.”

  My hand has barely closed over the skiff’s rail when a gust sweeps in from behind us, strengthening by the second until my elaborate braids lash about and a relentless, high-pitched whistle drowns out all other sound.

  I sense us sailing across the water. Shielding a hand against my eyes, I search the darkness, a mixture of numb terror and unbridled awe warring within. Sprays of seawater batter me from all sides, stifling my breath and soaking my clothes.

  And in the midst of it, Gesine stands at the bow as if made of stone and anchored to the sea floor, her gleaming irises like demonic beacons in a turbulent storm.

  A loud crack sounds, and something flies past, grazing my cheek.

  “It will not hold much longer!” Elisaf’s bellow reaches my ears over the deafening roar.

  The skiff groans in answer. It’s meant for catching meals for two peasants, notwithstanding a typhoon.

  “Enough!” Zander yells.

  As suddenly and ferociously as the torrent arrived, it abates, leaving us in a quiet, breezeless night, the wind’s terrible howl only a memory lingering in my ear.

  Blinking away the sting of the salt water, I search for Cirilea, but I can’t find it. I can’t find anything. Darkness envelops us. “How far are we from land?”

  “Too far.” Zander tosses a chunk of wood into the sea. His edge has always been his cool, calm demeanor, the way he can deliver punishing words with icy efficiency. Now, fury radiates from him. “You nearly tore us apart!”

  “I am not as experienced at harnessing wind as those in the sailors’ employ. It can be difficult to control. But we needed to leave quickly to avoid further attack.” Unlike Zander, Gesine remains poised.

  It seems to only infuriate Zander more. “And yet you brought us here. Which is where, exactly? Because surely, it is nowhere near Widow’s Bend.”

  “I fear the area you speak of will be too congested with soldiers hunting us.”

  “And yet, that is where we need to go to meet the Legion.”

  A lyrical tune carries in the stillness then, so faint I wonder if I imagined it.

  But Zander’s and Elisaf’s heads snap in the direction it came from, and I know it was real.

  Another call sounds, like a song muffled beneath the water, impossible to decipher but pleasant. Lulling, almost. I feel an innate pull, an urge to reach for the oars and paddle out in search of the source of such enticing music. “What is that?”

  Zander curses. “She’s delivered us to the sirens.”

  Alarm bells ring in my head as I search the night for any hint of the monsters Wendeline claims have plagued the water since the tear in the Nulling that unleashed hellish beasts. They’ve made passage by ship impossible for any immortal, sniffing them out like bloodhounds on a scent.

  “We are not in siren territory,” Gesine counters evenly.

  As if to challenge her claim, another soothing song carries, and that same pull tugs at my consciousness. If the siren fables I’ve read are true, that’s how those creatures lure their victims.

  “They will not travel this far south,” Gesine amends.

  “With an Islorian of royal blood and an immortal who is also a key caster, are you so sure?”

  Her answering silence betrays her confidence.

  “Wherever we are going, I suggest we go soon.” Elisaf dumps a bucket of water over the edge and then bails more from the hull.

  I gasp as I swish my feet, gauging the growing pool of water. “Oh my God, we’re sinking.”

  “The boat’s frame may have held, but not completely.” He smooths a finger over a crack.

  Gesine tips her head back and regards the smattering of stars that peek out between the broken cloud cover. “There is a small port called Northmost—”

  “No,” Zander cuts her off. “I know which port you speak of, and it will be crawling with locals who would happily send word of our whereabouts to Cirilea, including that one of our companions is a woman with a gold collar around her neck. Not that my brother won’t already be aw
are, given the display back there.”

  Gesine touches the shackle absently, a simple, one-inch band encircling her delicate neck that marks her as one of Queen Neilina’s powerful elemental casters.

  “We need to go back to Widow’s Bend.”

  “But we have made it this far. We must get to the mountains, for Romeria’s sake. Besides, the likelihood of your soldiers surviving this night—”

  Her words cut off at the metallic ring of a dagger sliding from its sheath.

  “You will take us back to the first inlet past Widow’s Bend so I may reunite with my legion,” Zander says crisply, an edge creeping into his voice.

  Zander and Gesine lock hard gazes, and there can be no mistaking this stare down for anything other than what it is: an assessment of an opponent. The glow in Gesine’s eyes has dulled, but it lingers. She still has a hold of her caster affinities. Is she considering harnessing the wind again to toss him into the sea before he can use his dagger on her?

  Zander's elven affinity to Malachi's fire is useless out here, surrounded by nothing but water and no flame to draw from. Gesine knows this.

  The air crackles with tension.

  “Need I remind you, High Priestess, that fire is not my most formidable weapon? Neither is this blade in my hand.” He smiles.

  Gesine’s eyes flare with understanding as she takes in the two needlelike fangs that somehow gleam in the darkness.

  My heart skips a few beats. I’ve only ever seen them on display once, the night I discovered what Zander is. He was making a point then, just as he’s making one now—or rather, a threat.

  Would Gesine have a chance to defend herself before he sank those teeth into her neck? She would be a fool to test him. But is this the moment, out here in the vast ocean, that we see the true nature of the sorceress hidden behind the serene facade?

  She dips her head. “As you wish, Your Highness. Though I may need your guidance, as you are far more familiar with your lands.”

  “You seem to have navigated your way well enough so far.” His fangs have already retracted. “Now do it before we sink.”

  I hold my breath in fearful anticipation, but rather than the previous gale force winds launching us forward, a small wave rolls beneath and carries us on its crest at a gentle clip, high enough to keep more water from leaking in. At this rate, it will take hours to make it back to shore, but at least we will make it.