A Curse So Dark and Lonely

by Brigid Kemmerer

  He moves away, toward the stairs.

  I shove myself out of the chair and go after him. “Rhen. Stop. Wait.”

  He stops, but he does not look at me. “Please do not run again, my lady. At the very least, allow me some sleep first.”

  “What just happened?”

  “You wanted answers. You got them.”

  I feel like I know less than I did before. I drop my voice. “Is that true? Does your father really keep his family safe somewhere else, while some kind of wild monster is killing people?”

  “Do not be ridiculous.” He finally meets my eyes. “Of course not.”

  I hold my breath and study him, feeling like there’s more he isn’t saying.

  Rhen puts his hands on my arms and leans in. When he speaks, his voice is very low, very quiet, just for me. “My father is dead, my lady. My whole family is dead.” He pulls back, meeting my gaze, but his voice doesn’t change. “That monster killed them all.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  HARPER

  The tension in the house eventually gives way to exhaustion, leading to a dense silence broken only by the wind outside and the crackling fire in the living room. The back half of the inn is divided into three upstairs bedrooms, with the kitchen, dining area, and the innkeeper’s family quarters on the main level. Freya and her children took two of the upstairs bedrooms.

  Rhen offered me the third, but I have no desire to be locked in again, so I told him he and Grey could have it.

  Coale and Evalyn tried to get me to accept their room for the night, but I’m not going to force them out of their bed—especially if it means they’d have to sleep in the stables, like Coale said when we first got here. Instead, I’m curled up in the cushioned armchair of the main room, with a heavy knit blanket I got from Evalyn.

  When Evalyn and Coale retire to their room behind the kitchen, I catch the words negotiation and royal wedding, which makes me sigh. The day must have caught up with me, because I fall asleep and stay that way until a loud sizzle and pop jerk me awake.

  Grey stands in front of the hearth, feeding wood to the fire.

  My eyes feel like sandpaper. All the candles were extinguished when everyone went to bed, so the only light in the room comes from the fireplace. Grey’s expression is in shadow, but I can tell that he’s fully dressed. Fully armed.

  “What’s wrong?” I whisper.

  His voice is equally low. “The fire had gone to embers, my lady.”

  “No—I mean, why aren’t you sleeping?”

  He glances at me. “Perhaps you are unfamiliar with what a guard does?”

  I’m finding that Grey has a dark sense of humor hidden under the formality. It’s subversive. I like it. “You think Coale and Evalyn are going to murder Rhen in his sleep?”

  He shakes his head. “My worry lies more with the men who burned the farmhouse.” He looks toward the door, where the wind whistles through the lock and around the frame. “The snow should cover our tracks, but we would have been easy to follow.”

  I sit up straighter. I hadn’t even considered that. “And you think they’d attack the inn?”

  “Men died.” His voice is dispassionate, practical. “It is certainly possible.”

  “Okay. I’m done sleeping.”

  “Suit yourself.” He retreats to the corner by the stairwell, his black clothing blending seamlessly into the darkness. If the firelight didn’t glint on the edges of his weapons, I wouldn’t know he was there.

  “Have you been there all night?” I whisper.

  “Yes.”

  I don’t want to be reassured by this, but I am.

  I dig the phone out of my pocket to check the time: 4:02 a.m.

  I’ve been gone for almost twenty-four hours. Somehow it feels like a tremendous amount of time, yet also not like any time at all.

  Jake must be flipping out.

  Without warning, my face begins to crumple. I hope he’s flipping out. I hope he’s not dead, or in a jail cell, or watching a coroner zip a body bag around Mom.

  I sniff hard and push the button to bring up his pictures. I want to see my mother, but the phone is still on the last image I looked at: Jake and Noah.

  They look so happy. It’s odd to think of this guy being somewhere in the world, possibly worrying about my brother every bit as much as I am.

  “What are you doing?” Grey’s voice speaks almost right on top of me.

  I yip and scramble to push the button to turn off the screen. I clutch the phone to my chest. “Nothing.”

  He stands behind the chair, looking down at me. His eyes narrow.

  I tighten my grip on the phone. “You can’t have it.”

  “I did not try to take it.” He pauses and a new note enters his voice. Not quite concern, but more surprise. “You’re crying.”

  Great. I swipe at my cheeks quickly, then bury the phone under my blanket. “Don’t worry about it.” My voice comes out low and husky.

  He moves away from the chair and at first I think he’s going back to his corner. His footsteps are light and he moves like a shadow.

  Instead, he comes around to sit on the hearth. A low table sits between the chairs, and he drags it between us. Then he unbuckles a small pouch on his belt and withdraws something wrapped in a fold of red fabric.

  In spite of myself, I’m curious. “What are you doing?”

  He unwraps the fabric, spreading it across the small table. His eyes flick up to meet mine. “You said you will not sleep. Do you care to play?”

  In his hands sits a deck of cards.

  I wet my lips. “You carry playing cards with you?”

  A ghost of a smile. “A guardsman always has cards.”

  The deck is larger than what I’m used to, and the paper looks thicker. “Can I see?”

  He nods and places them in my hands.

  They’re heavier than I expected, the paper thick with gilded edges. When I look closely, each card appears to be hand-painted, with no numbers, but obvious quantities of different images. No clubs and spades here, though.

  “What are these suits?” I ask, holding up a card with six black circular shapes.

  He nods at the card. “Stones.” When I hold up the next, he says, “Crowns.”

  I find another. “Don’t tell me. Swords?”

  He nods again, then gestures to the next in the deck. “Hearts, my lady.”

  I spread them out on the table, studying the designs. The number cards are similar to a regular deck from home, though they only go to nine. The face cards are stunningly detailed, from a frowning king with a crown that seems inlaid with real, sparkling jewels to a queen whose dress feels like satin is affixed to the cards. The suits on these are identified by a marking on the king’s breastplate and on the queen’s skirts. No K or Q, but the faces are obvious.

  Then my hand stops on what should be the jack. A blond man holding a shield, with a large red heart in the center.

  “Rhen,” I whisper.

  Grey taps the edge of the card in my hands. “The prince of hearts.” He reaches out to scoop up the other cards, loosely shuffling them between his hands.

  “He’s on his own playing cards,” I mutter. No wonder people recognize him on sight. “Wild.”

  “Your own leaders are on your currency.” Grey gestures for the card I hold, then deftly shuffles it into the deck. “Is this so different?”

  I blink at him. “How do you know that?”

  “I am not completely ignorant of your world. How could I be?”

  “I have no idea. I still don’t understand what you were doing there. Why you were kidnapping that girl. Rhen says he has to complete a task.”

  He begins to deal the cards between us. “There are many things I am forbidden to say.”

  I sigh. “Of course.”

  “Yet many I am not.” He finishes dealing, leaving seven cards in front of me, and seven in front of himself. The rest of the deck he places between us, with one card faceup: the five of swords. �
��Ask your questions.”

  “My first question is, what are we playing?”

  “King’s Ransom. Match the suit or the face. Queens and princes are wild. First person to finish with only kings in their hand is the winner—but if you play a prince card, you can steal one of your opponent’s kings.”

  I repeat that back to myself. Matching suits or numbers. My tired brain can manage that. I have a five of crowns in my hand, so I lay it down. “You know about our money. So that woman wasn’t the first you’ve tried to kidnap.”

  “No.” He places a seven of crowns on the pile.

  I put down a seven of stones. “How many have there been?”

  A three of stones. “Hundreds. I admit, I have lost track.”

  My hand freezes on a three of swords. I have no idea what number I was expecting, but that wasn’t it. “Hundreds? You’ve kidnapped hundreds of women?” I narrow my eyes at him as I work through that in my head. “Exactly how old are you?”

  “Exactly? That, I cannot say. The curse began on the first day of autumn in my twentieth year, and lasts one season. When it is not broken, the season begins anew.”

  “So you’ve been twenty for like … ever?”

  “Longer than most, it would seem.” He gives a brief shake of his head. “When the season begins again, it does not feel as though time has passed. I do not feel as though I have aged. It is more like a dream than a memory.”

  Interesting. “How old is Rhen?”

  “You arrived on the eighteenth anniversary of his birth.”

  “The eighteenth—his birthday? Today was his birthday?” My voice rises as I remember the instruments, the tables loaded with cakes and pastries and delicacies. The party without people. “You kidnap him a girl for his birthday?”

  The look Grey gives me is unyielding. “I choose a girl to break the curse. No more, no less.”

  I study him. “Okay, so what do I need to do?”

  “Once I would have had an answer for you. But I have seen the curse go unbroken for so long that I’m not sure there is anything you can consciously do.”

  “Rhen said he must complete a task.”

  “In a way.” His voice is careful, and I sense we’re treading near questions he cannot answer.

  “So I’m stuck here.”

  He nods.

  “Forever?”

  “If the curse goes unbroken, you will return home when the season ends. Not before.”

  Three months. I slide my cards between my hands and try not to let panic overtake me. Nothing has changed. Nothing is different. I can deal with this. “What happened to all those other women?”

  “That depends on the season and the girl.”

  “Did they die?”

  “Not all. But some did. Yes.” He gestures to the pile between us. “Play your card, if you please.”

  I drop it on the pile. My breathing feels very shallow suddenly.

  He drops a card on top of mine, and we play in silence for the longest time, the fire snapping behind him.

  Eventually, he has to draw. “So few questions, my lady?”

  “Why do you do it?”

  He lays down a queen of stones. “I swore an oath to protect the royal family, for the good of Emberfall. Only I have been granted the ability to cross over to your side.” He pulls at a strip of leather where armor encircles his forearm, and a silver band gleams beneath. “At the start of each season, this band allows me one hour to cross over to your world. If I fail to retrieve a girl, there is no chance to break the curse. We must wait out the season and begin again.”

  I roll that around in my head for a minute. “Does the season restart for everyone?”

  “No. Only on the grounds of Ironrose Castle. Outside of Ironrose, time marches on.”

  So that’s why the seasons changed when we passed through the forest. “What about the monster people keep talking about?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Coale says it lives in the castle.”

  He hesitates. “That is a rumor to protect the people from the curse. Nothing more.”

  “What kind of monster is it?”

  His hands go still on his cards. “It is always different. But always horrible.”

  “Different how?”

  “Sometimes the creature is a giant beast with horns and fangs. Sometimes it is reptilian, with claws like knives. Sometimes—the worst times—the monster is winged, and can take to the air.”

  I frown. “But it’s all one creature? How do you know it’s not a bunch of them?”

  His eyes glance up to find mine, but he says nothing.

  I chew at my lip and lay down another card. Everyone is asleep, but I lower my voice anyway. “Rhen said his family was killed by the monster. The king and queen?”

  A slow nod. “And his sisters, my lady.”

  This knowledge shouldn’t tug at something inside of me, but it does. I don’t want to feel sympathy for Rhen—but thoughts of Jake and my mother are so consuming that I can’t help it. “Coale and Evalyn think the king and queen have locked themselves away. They don’t know they’re dead?”

  Grey hesitates. “If the people were to discover their rulers are dead, the problems could be far-reaching. Revolt. Civil war. The kingdom could be attacked, and we have no army with which to fight.”

  I study him. “So the king closed the borders. Sealed up the castle. That’s why Evalyn said there’s no trade. That’s why they’re worried about invaders.”

  “Prince Rhen closed the borders. Using his father’s seal. He started the rumors of possible invasions, inspiring the people to turn away others. He denied trade attempts and claimed it was his father’s order. At first it was wise, a protective maneuver. But as time has gone on, you can see that the people have suffered.”

  Yes. I can see. I saw it in Freya and her children. And now, though less so, I see it in Coale and Evalyn.

  We play for a while in silence, until my cards run down to three, and I have to start drawing. I end up with a prince of swords.

  I smile and turn it around. “Ha! Didn’t you say I could kidnap your kings with this?”

  “Just one.” He tosses it down.

  I slip the king between my other cards. “Now it’s just a matter of time until I win.”

  “We shall see.”

  “Did you play cards with the other hundreds of girls?”

  “No.”

  That surprises me. “Why not?”

  He rubs at his jaw. “That is a complicated question, my lady. Likely for the same reason I never found need to face them with a weapon.”

  I study him. “Are you insulting me?”

  “No.” He sets down a four of hearts. “Quite the opposite, in fact.”

  I’m not sure what to do with that. Words spoken in the dark in the middle of the night always feel so much heavier than they would at any other time. “Do you play cards with Rhen?”

  He nods. “Often.”

  “Can I ask you another question about the curse?”

  “You may certainly try.”

  I put down a two of hearts, leaving only two cards in my hand. The king I kidnapped, and the nine of swords. Grey has four cards left in his hands. “Who was cursed? Is it just him? Or you too?”

  He takes a long breath, and I don’t think he’s going to answer. But then he says, “My answer to that question has changed over time, my lady. Once I would have told you that His Highness alone suffered.” He places a nine of hearts on the pile.

  A nine! I begin to slide my last card free.

  But then Grey turns around his other three cards. All kings.

  I’m stunned. I’ve been watching him pick up and lay down cards since we started and I never would have guessed he had any, much less three. “You win.”

  He doesn’t revel in the victory, but instead begins gathering the cards. “Another game?”

  “Sure.” Now I want to watch him do it again.

  While he deals, I say, “You neve
r finished saying who’s cursed. If it’s not Rhen, is it you?”

  “No. Nothing so simple.” He picks up his cards and meets my eyes. “Have you not figured it out yet? The curse torments us all.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  RHEN

  Like so many other things, sleep eludes me.

  I listen to the wind as it whistles through the shutters. The fire has fallen to almost nothing, but I don’t care to feed it. The cold suits my mood.

  Morning can’t be far off, but no light slips through the edges of the shutters, so it must still be early.

  I’ve hardly slept. I would like to blame the lumps in this mattress, or the rough woolen weave of the blankets, but in truth, it’s Coale’s parting words that keep ringing through my thoughts.

  For five years, we have begged for help, but our cries go unanswered, our people starve, and our kinsmen die.

  I wish I could claim ignorance, but I can’t. Regardless of how I chose to keep myself sequestered in the castle, I knew it was happening.

  My fault. All of it.

  I keep thinking about those men who burned the house. This man wears a crest, Grey said. But he did not recognize it. Decent weaponry. Better than common thieves.

  Five men. Organized. Burning a house. I can’t think of why they would do such a thing, unless Freya is lying. But—

  I stop these thoughts in their tracks. This line of thinking is useless. Any soldiers under my command were sent to the border years ago, and I have no one to enforce laws that have clearly long since been forgotten or ignored. Five years, the innkeeper said. It is truly a miracle that my subjects will still kneel to me—especially since I have nothing to offer them.

  A gust of wind knocks the shutters against the window, and I jump.

  I will never find sleep this way. I need a distraction.

  I pull on my boots and fasten my doublet, leaving my sword and belt on the chair. I don’t want to wake our hosts and risk eavesdroppers, so I quietly ease across the floor to open the door to call for Grey.

  But Grey is not there.

  Surprised, I swing the door fully open. My guard commander sits on the hearth, playing cards with Harper.