The Blood Curse (58 page)
“Not sir, either.”
Karel closed his mouth again. Harkeld could see him wrestling with his training.
“Karel? Just spit it out.”
The armsman took a deep breath. “Britta and I are getting married.”
Harkeld looked at the wariness in Karel’s eyes, at the defiant jut to Britta’s chin, and said, “Good.”
Britta blinked, and lowered her chin. “You don’t mind?”
“Why would I?”
“I’m going to live in Esfaban with Karel. I’m not going to be a princess any more.”
“Good,” Harkeld said again.
Britta looked disconcerted, as if she’d expected an argument, and then her expression changed: worry. “We’re not sure what will happen with the boys. We need to discuss that with Magnas, decide what’s best for them.”
“We’ll figure something out,” Harkeld said.
“What about you?” the armsman asked. “Where will you go, high—uh, Harkeld?”
Harkeld glanced at the creek, where Innis stood with Jaumé and the horses. “To the Allied Kingdoms. I’m going to train be a Sentinel mage. And I’m going to marry Innis.” It was a future so different from any he’d ever envisaged for himself that he almost couldn’t believe it.
Me? Be a Sentinel? Marry a mage?
And he wondered if he had the same slightly dazed, incredulous expression on his face that the armsman had.
Probably he did, because the armsman grinned. “Sounds good.”
Harkeld grinned back. He liked this man; Britta had chosen well. And then he looked more closely at Karel’s face. “You shaved,” he said enviously. “Where—and how soon can I get there?”
Karel laughed. “Had a bath, too.”
“Whoreson,” Harkeld said, even more enviously. “Where?”
I
NNIS SPENT SOME
time with the armsman, checking his injuries. The bones were well-mended; Petrus had always been good at bones. She worked on the muscle fibers in Karel’s thigh for half an hour, then turned her attention to his upper arm. As always, her magic brought her an awareness of who her patient was as a person. Karel was interesting. He was a striking man, dark and good-looking, with a hard, dangerous edge, but inside, he was... not what she’d expected. He had all the characteristics of a good soldier—courage, determination, intelligence, loyalty, honor—but he also had a strong core of kindness. An exceptionally strong core of kindness. And underlying all of that, shaping who he was, was an old and pervasive grief. Something had happened to him in his childhood, something that grieved him still. Something to do with his family?
“All done,” Innis said. “Let me just check your forehead.”
Karel buttoned his shirt while she examined the long scar. She wondered what his background was.
A hoot of laughter snagged her attention: Petrus and Jaumé throwing snow at each other. Innis watched for a moment—the snowballs spraying snow that sparkled in the sunshine, the laughter bright on their faces.
How safe we are, now that the curse is broken
.
She turned her attention back to Karel and ran her fingers along the scar, probing lightly with her magic. “I can’t do anything with this, I’m sorry.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Karel said. She saw him glance at something behind her and knew what—who—it was without looking. Her magic felt the surge of his emotions.
Princess Brigitta came to sit beside them. Karel’s love for her, his deep joy, hummed beneath Innis’s fingertips.
“How is he?” the princess asked. Her golden hair was even shorter than it had been two days ago; the armsman must have trimmed it for her. Instead of making Brigitta look boyish, the short hair emphasized the delicate beauty of her face.
Innis lowered her hands. “In perfect health.” She looked at the princess, tilted her head to one side, examined her. “You don’t look how I remember.”
Princess Brigitta’s brow furrowed. “You’ve seen me?”
“Both of you. At the palace. Karel looks the same, apart from that scar, and he’s thinner. But you...” The princess had worn a crown, intricately woven into her long hair, but that wasn’t the difference she’d noticed. Brigitta had an emotional strength, a confidence, that had been lacking in the palace gardens. She’d been a girl, then; now she was a woman.
Brigitta’s frown deepened. “At the palace?”
“In the gardens. I was a black hound.”
“Oh.” Her brow cleared. “I remember.”
Sweet Britta. That’s how Harkeld thought of her in his dreams—sweet Britta—and there
was
a sweetness to Britta’s face, something that had nothing to do with her physical beauty, but rather, seemed to come from inside her.
“Harkeld tells me that I—we—shouldn’t call you witches; it’s insulting. I apologize if we’ve offended—”
“You haven’t.”
Britta hesitated, bit her lip, then leaned forward and said, “And he said... he’s asked you to marry him.”
Innis met Britta’s eyes, sky-blue, and bright with curiosity.
She wants to know who I am, as much as I want to know who she is
.
Karel grinned and stood. “I’ll leave you two to talk.”
P
ETRUS WENT HUNTING
. Jaumé saw him come back, a great silver-pelted wolf with a goat dangling from his jaws. While the goat roasted, Princess Britta and her soldier talked to him. Karel sat on one side of him, and the princess on the other, her arm around Jaumé’s shoulders. “Jaumé,” she said. “We’re all going to Lundegaard now, and then Harkeld and the mages are going to the Allied Kingdoms, and if everything works out, Karel and I will go to a kingdom called Esfaban. Have you heard of it?”
Jaumé shook his head.
“It’s islands,” Karel said. “A string of islands up near the equator. It’s a lot warmer than this. Never snows.”
Jaumé nodded, and wondered why they were telling him this.
“There are lots of refugees from Vaere in Lundegaard,” Princess Britta said. “If you want, I’m sure we can find someone to take you back to Vaere. But I don’t think there’ll be anyone left alive from your village.”
“You can stay in Lundegaard, if you want,” Karel said. “King Magnas will make sure you have a good home. Or you can go with Harkeld and Innis and Petrus to the Allied Kingdoms. They’ll find you a home, too.”
“Or you can come with us,” the princess said. “To Esfaban, if it’s freed, or the Allied Kingdoms, if it’s not. Wherever we go, we’d like you to come with us. If you want to.”
“We wouldn’t be your Mam and Da,” Karel said. “But we’d be your family.”
Tears rushed to Jaumé’s eyes. He wiped them away with his knuckles.
“You don’t have to decide now,” Princess Britta said. “But think about it.”
She stood, and brushed his hair back from his face, and dropped a kiss on his brow, and Karel stood, too, and looked down at Jaumé.
“Is there fishing in Esfaban?” Jaumé asked.
“Lots of fishing,” Karel said, and then he smiled and held out his hand, and Jaumé took it.
J
AUMÉ ATE ROASTED
goat until he felt like he was going to burst, and then sat half-asleep, listening to the talk around the fire.
“Can’t wait to see you wrestle with Karel,” the prince told Petrus. “He’ll flatten you.”
Petrus grinned, the firelight playing over his face. “You reckon?”
“He’s better than me. Better than you. I’ve never seen anyone beat him.”
“I get beaten,” Karel said mildly.
Petrus chewed for a moment, and then said, “You know, I’ve never seen anyone beat Serril.”
“Karel’ll beat him,” the prince said.
“You reckon?” Petrus eyed the soldier, and said, “Looks a bit scrawny, to me. Serril’ll snap him in two.”
Karel grinned, unoffended.
“You
are
thin,” Harkeld said, frowning at Karel. “We need to fatten you up.”
“
You
’re thin, too,” Britta pointed out.
Innis nodded. “Skinny.”
“You look like a scarecrow,” Petrus said, licking his fingers. “All dirt and rags.”
“And that’s a dreadful beard,” Karel said, his face very serious.
Harkeld self-consciously touched his chin. “Rut you.”
Everyone laughed, and Jaumé laughed, too, and hugged his knees, and looked forward to tomorrow.
THE END
In a distant corner of the Seven Kingdoms, an ancient curse festers and grows, consuming everything in its path. Only one man can break it: Harkeld of Osgaard, a prince with mage’s blood in his veins. But Prince Harkeld has a bounty on his head - and assassins at his heels.
Innis is a gifted shapeshifter. Now she must do the forbidden: become a man. She must stand at Prince Harkeld’s side as his armsman, protecting and deceiving him. But the deserts of Masse are more dangerous than the assassins hunting the prince. The curse has woken deadly creatures, and the magic Prince Harkeld loathes may be the only thing standing between him and death.
“Dark and compelling... Emily Gee is a storyteller to watch!”
NYT
bestseller Nalini Singh
“Her haunting prose reads like Hans Christian Andersen for twenty-first century adults.”
Mindy Klasky, author of the
Glasswright
series
The Seven Kingdoms are in the grip of an ancient and terrible blood curse. Thousands have died; thousands more yet will. Only one man can end the curse: the fugitive Osgaardan prince and reluctant mage, Harkeld.
The road to salvation is long and arduous. Harkeld has outrun his father’s soldiers, but he can’t hope to outrun the assassins – the notorious, deadly Fithians – clamouring for the bounty on his head. Even the Sentinel mages who guide and guard him are no match for Fithian steel. Faced with the ever-present threat of death, Harkeld must learn to use his fire magic, or die.
Meanwhile, in Osgaard’s gold-tiled palace, Harkeld’s sister Princess Brigitta is living on borrowed time, hostage to their brother’s ambition. And far to the east, young orphan Jaumé journeys with a band of mysterious, dangerous fighters, heading north for a purpose he does not yet understand.
“A good read. Death and magic, zombies and assassins, fighting and fleeing. What more could you ask for?”
Fantasy Book Review
on
The Sentinel Mage
“Ms. Gee has set up characters and conflicts that have extraordinary potential, and created the opportunity to explore identity issues in a way that conventional literature never could. I am eager to see if this comes to fruition.”
Pornokitsch
on
The Sentinel Mage