A Heart So Fierce and Broken (The Cursebreaker Series) (30 page)

He is right. I am not sure I
like
it, but he is right. “As you say. I will draft the terms of an alliance with Karis Luran.” My chest feels tight. “I will make a claim for Rhen’s throne.”

“Besides, I was not referring to magic alone.”

“No? What else do I possess that Rhen does not?”

He smiles that terrifying smile, then tosses the length of silver chain in my lap. “You have me.”

I blink at him in surprise.

“Let’s battle again,” he says, and he flexes his claws. “This time, use more than your bare hands.”

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

LIA MARA

Meals are brought at regular intervals, but it seems my mother was serious. I am not allowed to leave my room. My guards refuse to speak with me. I have my bed and my books and my washroom, but little else. From my window, three stories high, I can see the training yards and the stables, but after catching sight of Grey walking with Nolla Verin, I stay away from the view.

No one visits me.

I long for the companionship of my friends, but of everyone, I miss my sister the most.

I wish I could speak with her. I wish I could explain.

By the third night, I’m lying in bed, staring up at the darkness, wondering if the guards would put a sword through my body if I made an effort to rush past them.

Knowing my mother, they probably would. I should consider myself lucky that she did not do it herself.

A shadow crosses my wall, and I freeze. Movement flickers in the darkened corner, and I inhale sharply.

Before I have time to wonder if the guards would even
respond
to a shout, an icy breeze swirls through the room. “Have no fear, Princess.”

Iisak.
My eyes are wide, seeking any shred of light in the darkened room. As the panic bleeds away, I make out the dimness of his skin, the smoke-colored span of his wings over his shoulders. He still wears a silver collar around his neck, but the chain is gone.

I shove myself up to sitting and glance at the door. “What are you doing here?” I whisper carefully, mindful of my guards.

“Visiting a prisoner, as you once did for me.”

Emotion builds in my throat, and my mouth turns downward. “You should leave before you are caught.” I press my fingertips into my eyes to stop any tears from falling. “I bring nothing but trouble, Iisak.”

“Perhaps, but I bring a missive from our rebellious young prince.”

I thrust my hands down and blink at him. “What?”

He extends a folded piece of paper, and I nearly fall out of bed scrambling to take it. It’s too late to dare light a candle—my guards would notice something was amiss. I move to the window to read in the moonlight.

Grey’s handwriting is long and sloping, the words quickly formed as if he was worried he would be discovered.

Forgive me. Please forgive me. I never meant to put you at risk. If there is a way for me to negotiate for your freedom, please let me know it. Your mother plays dangerous games, and I worry that I will further endanger you or those you care for.

I keep thinking back to those brief moments on the veranda and wondering if I should never have offered you my jacket. My thoughts keep reminding me that you were cold, however, and the idea of leaving you shivering is not a thought I can bear.

Especially when my thoughts also remind me of the brief moments after, when I hope you were not cold at all.

I want to sink back into the pillows of my bed and press this letter to my chest, but I am desperate to see what else he wrote.

I have reached an accord with your mother in an attempt to spare more innocent lives. I tried to require your freedom as part of our agreement, but your mother refused. If I had the skills to magic myself into your room this very moment, I would do it.

At your mother’s insistence, I have spent a great deal of time with your sister.

My hand tightens on the paper, and I must force myself to keep reading.

She is quite worried for you. The bold girl who raced me through the city now speaks of nothing but concern for you. As someone who has spent many days trying to think of what to say to the man who is now my brother, I thought you should know.

Yours,

Grey

Yours
. But he’s not mine.

A tear drips onto the paper, and I hastily swipe it away. I force my shoulders to straighten, and I look across at Iisak, hardly more than another shadow in the room.

“Is he well?” I say.

“He is trapped by circumstance, as we all are.” He pauses. “But yes. He is well.”

As we all are
. I’m not sure if that’s true. My mother does not care for the people of Emberfall. Nor does my sister. I think of that trapper and his daughter, killed without thought.

I think of the destruction we saw on our trip into Emberfall, so many days ago.

I think of Prince Rhen, and what he was willing to do to stop an heir from taking his throne.

I think of Parrish, likely standing outside my door this very moment, punished for obeying my order.

I look at Iisak, then at the window. “Can you help me get out of here?” I whisper as softly as possible, as if even giving voice to the thought will carry the words to my mother’s ears.

He follows my glance, then moves to the window. “I cannot bear the weight of a human for long.”

“You pulled soldiers off their horses in Blind Hollow.”

“That was a matter of inches, not a three-story fall, and I was not worried about preserving their lives.”

I frown, then sigh. “I can do nothing from this room, Iisak.”

“If you leap from this window, the best I can offer is a slower descent toward death.”

That makes me scowl. “So this is it? I’m supposed to sit here and read while Grey goes off to battle against his brother, with my
sister
at his side?”

“Would you rather be at his side?”

Warmth blooms in my cheeks before I’m ready for it. “I would rather we not war with Emberfall at all. We have already caused much damage.”

“You have not caused
all
the damage to Emberfall, Princess.” He pauses. “Some things even you cannot stop.”

Does that mean there are things I
can
stop? Everything I’ve tried has ended in failure. It’s likely a miracle that I was able to deliver Grey to the castle unharmed. Perhaps I should stay locked in my room while everyone else solves the world’s problems.

No
. The idea is abhorrent to me.

We have already caused so much harm. We cannot continue taking from Emberfall, regardless of who is in power.

Mother will not allow me to leave. Parrish will not help me. Grey’s position is too precarious.

I move to my desk and remove a few sheets of paper, along with an inkwell and a quill.

“Will you deliver a message?” I say to Iisak.

“To the prince? For certain.”

“No.” My thoughts are swirling, thinking of what to say to Grey. But ink drips on the paper as I hastily write my message.

Two sisters, one heart. Please come to me. I need my other half.

I blow on the ink to dry it, then hold it out. “I need you to take this to my sister.”

I imagined Nolla Verin reading my message and immediately coming to my door.

She does not.

I lie awake most of the night, watching as the first rays of sunlight gild my ceiling at dawn. Outside my room I hear the clatter and bustle of servants in the hall, but Nolla Verin still does not come.

By midmorning, I sit by the window hoping to catch a glimpse of my sister.

Eventually she appears, Grey at her side. My chest gives a tug at the sight of them, but today, I do not shy away from the window. Mother follows, not far behind. They meet with a cadre of soldiers on the training field, all of whom break apart into sparring groups. Grey and my sister watch over the fighters, my mother nearby. Always watching, always judging. My fingers dig into the window ledge.

Ah, Sister
, I think.
Look up. Look up and see how much I need you.

Maybe we do share a heart, because she turns from the swordplay, and her gaze lifts to find mine. I gasp as our eyes meet.

“Please,” I whisper.

Even from here, I can see the sorrow in her expression, proving the weight in Grey’s note.

Her lips move, forming the words very carefully:
I’m sorry.

I fall back from the window, but not before seeing her turn back to our mother, listening to whatever she’s saying, ever the dutiful heir.

That night, when the sky is inky black and the moon hangs high and full outside my window, Iisak returns with another note from Grey.

Your mother is eager to move quickly. She reveals little to me, but guards and soldiers talk, and it seems my past allows me to play both sides. I have learned much during our sparring. Your Royal Houses are similar to Rhen’s Grand Marshals, and it seems she has gained their support—and funding. They are eager to access Rhen’s waterways and seaports, and timing is essential now, because his kingdom is fractured and weak. We will ride into Emberfall in a few days.

I do not know how soon I will return.

I do not know if I will return.

I once spent an eternity dreading every passing minute, and now I wish for more time.

More than anything, however, I wish I could free you. I long for your strength and compassion to be at my side. All your mother and sister seem to offer is vicious brutality.

That has its place, of course, but perhaps not as much as I once thought.

Yours,

Grey

I take a long breath and blow it out. My chest aches.

I look up at Iisak. “He’s going to attack Rhen.”

“Yes.”

I swallow and set down the letter. I knew that’s what lay at the end of this road … but I do not like it.

I see no way out of it. All my studies, all my reading and thinking, all my cleverness and compassion, and the result is the same.

“He’s wrong,” I say.

“Wrong, Princess?”

“He’s going to war.” My voice is hollow. “He needs all the vicious brutality he can get.”

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

GREY

My hours have never been so full, my sleep never so sound. My mornings are full of lessons: in Syssalah, in court politics, in the customs and traditions of Syhl Shallow. Nolla Verin is often at my side, but she never feels like a companion, and instead feels like a spy waiting to report on my progress to her mother. I keep my guard up—and she does as well.

I share the midday meal each day with Karis Luran. Jake never leaves my side. When we dine, I am coolly distant, resentful of the way she’d so swiftly manipulated me: into proving my magic, into working against Rhen. Resentful of the way she’s hidden her daughter away after such a brutal display of vengeance against that guard.

“Every time she asks for wine,” Jake murmurs to me at one of our luncheons, “I expect her to cut some poor guy’s wrist open over a glass.”

Indeed. I do not like her. I do not trust her.

This is no secret. “You do not like me, Young Prince,” she says to me on the third day.

“Do I need to?”

“No.” She smiles. “To desire adoration is to make yourself vulnerable.”

I definitely do not adore her. Her subjects seem to, however. Her cruelty is seen as decisive and just.

And despite my resentment, she seems to be a fair ruler. She cares for her subjects. The people of Syhl Shallow are well fed and educated. Two years of military service are required of each family—leading to a sense of unity that takes me by surprise each time I join Talfor and Cortney in the city.

Her castle coffers may be running dry without the tithe once paid by Rhen’s father, but Karis Luran does what she can to support her people, and despite her brutality, they seem to love her for it. It makes me wonder how Rhen’s treatment of me was received. It makes me wonder how his subjects will respond when he sends soldiers to claim back Silvermoon Harbor.

As always, I wish my thoughts carried no concern for Rhen.

My afternoons are full of drills with the guards and soldiers as we prepare to leave—and they’re the only time I can relax, because I have a sword in my hand. They fight differently here, and I enjoy the challenge of learning their methods and weaponry. I don’t enjoy the challenge of the dinner hour, because every evening meal includes people of importance: generals and military leaders, as well as leaders of the Royal Houses. I am not Rhen, able to influence people with hardly more than the right glance, but it seems my steady refusal to be manipulated has worked in greater favor. No one challenges me to demonstrate magic. No one challenges me at all.

No one except Iisak, who all but drags me out of my chambers after dark, insisting that we must strengthen my magic. My skills seem so small and minor compared to what I know Lilith could do.
She cursed me and Rhen, trapping us in an endless cycle of her magic. I can barely affect more than one person at a time.

On the night before we are to leave, we are on the deserted training fields in the moonlight. Iisak insists I can feed my magic into my swordplay for accuracy and damage—and once I learn
that
, I can potentially do the same for my soldiers.

It’s not going well. Jake and Tycho have volunteered to help, but I need no magic to guide my sword to best them. When we break apart for the tenth time, they’re exhausted. Sweat glints in the moonlight. I glance up at the palace. Sometimes I can catch a glimpse of Lia Mara, but tonight her room is dark, and no shadow fills her window.

Noah has been watching from the sidelines. “Maybe you should tie an arm behind your back,” he says.

I push damp hair out of my eyes and sigh. Our time to prepare grows short. I am hurtling toward an uncertain end, but I have no idea how to stop it.

“Perhaps you need a new opponent,” calls Nolla Verin.

I turn and see her striding out of the darkness, guards at her back. Instead of the robes that typically adorn her small frame, tonight she wears black leather armor trimmed with silver, her dark hair braided back with green ribbon. A sword and a dagger are already in her hands.

I raise my eyebrows. “Are you offering?”

“Yes.” She lifts her blade and attacks.

I’m not completely unprepared, but I’m barely able to block before she spins and parries. I try to hook her dagger to pull it from her hand, but she ducks and whirls to regroup. I watch her movement, looking for weakness.

She gives me no time. Her next attack is brutal and swift.

My response is, too.

She breaks away again, her breathing a little quick. She smiles, and it’s fierce. “If you draw blood, my mother will be displeased.”

“Then you should better guard your left side.” This time I attack first, putting my full strength behind it. Her sword is lighter, and she yields almost at once, but she moves quicker than thought. Her attacks seem to come from everywhere at once, and she’s relentless. I remember Lia Mara praising her sister’s skills—and she wasn’t wrong.

In another place and time, I’d be openly admiring, but I’m tired, and this feels like more posturing. Much like the morning we raced through the city, I see no path to victory here. She’s right—Karis Luran would likely have my head if I harmed her heir, alliance or not.

Her sword almost gets past my guard, and she nearly cuts a stripe across my arm.

“What was that you said about left sides?” she says.

She’s right, so I smile. “Noted.”

“I thought you were to be using magic to assist your swordplay. I hoped I would get a demonstration.”

“So far I haven’t needed assistance.”

“Try to kill him,” Jake calls. “That’s usually what works.”

Nolla Verin’s eyes narrow, and she leaps forward. She’s somehow even quicker. Our blades have become a blur in the moonlight. Every time she strikes, there’s more strength behind it, and when she slices open my shoulder in an attempt to disarm me, I realize she really
might
be trying to kill me.

I try to hook her sword, but she’s a fraction of a second too quick,
and it leaves my side open. She dives in, aiming for my ribs. Those stars wait in my blood, fueled by the fight and the damage, waiting for my command. I try to send them into my weapons, hoping they’ll quicken my defense and stop her.

Nolla Verin goes flying back, landing so hard in the dust of the training grounds that she skids the final distance.

Her guards are immediately in front of her, swords drawn and leveled at me.

“No!” Nolla Verin coughs. “I told him to do it.”

“Told you,” Jake says.

The guards slowly lower their weapons. I feel as surprised as she looks, but I sheathe my sword and walk to Nolla Verin, extending a hand. She glances at it, then springs to her feet on her own. She regards me with obvious new interest—but greater regard. “As I said. A new opponent.”

“As you said.”

Her breathing is faintly quick now, her cheeks pink in the moonlight. “Again?”

I hesitate.

“Yes,” calls Tycho.

She draws and swings. I barely draw my sword in enough time to stop hers. Our blades clash and fly in the night air until I feel the stars waiting.

Gently
, Lia Mara said in the woods.

I give those stars a subtler push.

Nolla Verin misses her next block by several inches, and she throws herself back. I take advantage and hook her sword to disarm her, but it knocks her off balance, and she goes down hard.

Her guards are there again, but Nolla Verin is grinning up at me. “That is a handy trick.”

I can’t help smiling back. “Magic takes too much thought. I prefer the swords alone.”

“It won’t take much thought with more practice,” says Iisak.

This time, when I offer my hand, Nolla Verin takes it. Once she’s on her feet, she looks up at me, her eyes coolly calculating. Her hand doesn’t leave mine.

“Walk with me,” she says.

I lose the smile, and I glance up at the dark wall of the palace. “I should retire.”

“Please?”

I inhale to decline, but emotion flickers in her eyes for a brief moment. For all of Lia Mara’s comments about somehow being lesser than her sister, she never once spoke ill of Nolla Verin. The girl in front of me presents a fierce demeanor to the world, but I wonder how much of that has been developed to please her mother—and what hides beneath it.

I nod and offer my arm.

Nolla Verin laughs and starts walking. “Do ladies in Emberfall truly need assistance to
walk
?”

“No. Keep your distance if you’d rather.”

She huffs in surprise, and I discover I was right. So much of her aggression is a front to hide insecurity. In truth, she reminds me of Rhen a bit. They likely would have made powerful allies.

Then again, one of them probably wouldn’t have survived the first week.

We walk in silence across the training fields, the shadows growing longer as we move away from the torches near the back wall of the palace. Her guards have followed at a distance, as has Jake, which surprises me.

Nolla Verin glances over her shoulder at where Tycho and Iisak
remain. “Mother does not like that you’ve freed that creature from his tether.”

“He is not my slave.”

She glances up at me. “What did you threaten him with, then, to keep his obedience?”

“Nothing.” I want to ask if ladies in Syhl Shallow need threats or a tether to ensure a promise is kept, but I do not wish to fight with her.

We fall into silence again. It’s prickly and uncomfortable. I much preferred swinging swords. It felt like the first time she’d been open and honest with me.

Maybe because she was trying to kill me.

I consider everything I heard from Lia Mara, and everything I’ve gleaned on my own. Nolla Verin is quick to echo her mother’s desires, and I wonder how deeply that runs. I glance at her. “Do you want this alliance?”

“Yes. It will be a boon for our people to have access to the waterways at Silvermoon Harbor, and it will benefit Emberfall to have funds to assist with rebuilding after all that was lost.”

“All that was lost during the invasion by Syhl Shallow, you mean.”

“All that was lost while your royal family was ‘in hiding.’ ” She looks up at me. “Do not pin all your troubles on us.”

“I am not.” Though I am. A little. It’s impossible not to. “That was not my question, though, Princess.”

“What is your question?”

“Do
you
want this alliance?” I stop and turn to face her. “With me.”

“Of course.” That emotion flickers in her eyes again, but the
longer I stand here speaking with her, the more I see it as uncertainty. Vulnerability. Lia Mara sang her sister’s praises during our journey here, and certainly everyone I’ve met is quick to speak of Nolla Verin’s talents on a horse, or with a bow, or with a blade. Well-earned, for certain, but maybe all her skills hide the fact that she seems so perfect for the throne because she has no backbone to defy her mother. Maybe all her skills and her parroting hide the fact that she is young, and untested, and uncertain.

After spending so much time with Lia Mara in the woods, I began to wonder why Karis Luran would choose her younger daughter to be her heir—to negotiate an alliance first with Rhen, and now with me. Lia Mara believes it is because she herself is quiet and longs for peace—that she lacks her sister’s ruthlessness.

I now wonder if it is because Lia Mara would stand against her mother.

And Nolla Verin will not.

I glance back at the palace, and I can see a flutter of color at Lia Mara’s window. “How long will your mother keep your sister imprisoned?”

She follows my gaze. “Lia Mara is in a royal suite in the Crystal Palace. She is hardly imprisoned.”

I can hear the uncertainty in her voice. It’s well hidden, but it’s there. “You worry for her.”

“Yes. I do.”

But she will not visit her. I know as much from Iisak and the notes he brings to me. Nolla Verin will not contradict her mother’s will.

Silence drops between us again, full of so many unspoken things.

Nolla Verin knows I gave Lia Mara my jacket on the terrace—but she has never mentioned it. I wonder what she suspects. What she thinks. What she worries about.

I am hardly one to complain—she likely wonders the same about me. I learned long ago how to hide every thought behind the stoic countenance of a guardsman. She likely learned the same as a princess.

Maybe I was wrong. Nolla Verin isn’t like Rhen at all.

She’s like me.

I think of Iisak, the night we fought.
I needed a battle, too
, he said.

I glance at her. “Are you rested, Princess?”

“Somehow I have managed it, without the assistance of your arm.”

I smile. “Good.”

Without warning I draw my sword, and she grins.