Cursebreaker

by Carol A Park

  “Vaughn,” she said.

  “Mmm…”

  “If we don’t find what you’re looking for, I’m going to kill you for dragging me into this.”

  He was certain she was kidding, but he couldn’t help but feel alarmed. He pulled back to look at her face. “Uh…”

  “Figuratively speaking, of course.”

  “Well. That’s an improvement over the last time we traveled together, I suppose.”

  She flashed him a more Ivana-like smile—a wry smile that didn’t reach her eyes. And yet, he detected a hint of mischievousness flickering across her face.

  Gods, he wanted her as badly as he ever had.

  He couldn’t help but look at her lips; she couldn’t help but see.

  Yet she didn’t pull away, and he couldn’t help but wonder if she still wanted him as well.

  The insane urge to laugh bubbled up in him, probably much as it had her earlier. They were standing on a cliff, surrounded by the dead bodies of bloodgiants, exhausted and battered, and that was what he thought about?

  If ever there were a bad time, this was it.

  He let go of her, and her legs immediately collapsed. He caught her and helped her to the ground.

  She drew her knees to her chest and put her forehead against them.

  The sun had fully risen by now, and he lowered himself gratefully to the ground next to her. After this, coming on the heels of three days of pushing themselves hard to cross this damned plateau as soon as possible—all he wanted to do was sleep.

  They couldn’t. They would have to force themselves down the mountain and into Ferehar. The town at the bottom had an inn, and as he recalled, it had good food and clean, comfortable accommodations. They could rest then. Maybe he would even allow an additional day, though he was all too conscious of the passage of time. If there was anything to be found, they had to find it and be back at the shrine by the sky-fire.

  But they could take a few minutes before they descended to bandage the worst of their wounds.

  He opened his pack. “I have some bindblood aether. What hurts the worst?”

  Without lifting her head, she held out her hands, palms up. Her fingertips were raw and bloody, her palms scraped and lacerated in multiple places.

  He sat back. And she had held on to the shrub that long? And the rope?

  He shook his head. “Out of shape.” He rinsed her hands with a bit of water from his waterskin to get the worst of the dirt out and then dried them on a towel from his pack. Unfortunately, they didn’t have enough water to spare for him to thoroughly clean the wounds.

  But he did have some salve; they had come prepared for treating minor injuries. So he crushed a bit of the bindblood aether and sprinkled it in, mixing it up and rubbing it on her hands and fingers. He then wrapped both palms with clean bandages several times—though he had to leave her fingers free. She’d have to have use of her hands.

  Hopefully, the aether would work quickly and wouldn’t give her hallucinations instead. Usually, the salve was good enough as a focus to prevent that.

  When he was done, she lifted her head and draped her arms over her knees instead, letting her hands dangle in the air to dry. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Anything else?”

  “I hurt all over. But mostly, I’m exhausted.”

  “I know. But we’re going to have to try to reach the bottom today. Given that we just had to fight off five bloodgiants, I’m not sure it’s wise to stay another night in the shelter.”

  “No. Certainly not.” She nodded toward his pack. “Also, your qixli is glowing again.”

  He sighed and pulled it out.

  “Vaughn, it’s Danton,” a tinny voice said as soon as he had it between his hands. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you.”

  “Sorry. Bad timing.”

  Danton laughed. “Were you busy with a woman?”

  Ivana smirked, and Vaughn rolled his eyes. “No. What do you need?”

  “I’m almost back to Marakyn, but I heard from Yaotel. Don’t know what he’s been up to, but he wants an update. Couldn’t get a hold of you himself.”

  He glanced at Ivana. He had yet to tell her why Yaotel wanted him to go to Ferehar. “About ready to descend into Ferehar from the plateau, so I don’t have an update for him yet.”

  “I figured. While I have you—watch out for bloodbane acting strange. The few I’ve seen have been heading single-mindedly toward Weylyn City—and destroying anything in their path that they think might stop them. And then at Weylyn City itself, there were dozens of them swarming around, but not attacking.”

  Vaughn frowned. “You mean, swarming around, sort of like at Gan Barton’s estate?”

  “Exactly like that.” He paused. “Anyway, I just wanted to warn you not to rely on old assumptions about bloodbane. If they’re being controlled again…”

  “Right,” Vaughn said. Would have been nice to know that yesterday. “Thanks.”

  Vaughn slipped the qixli back into his pack. “You heard all that?”

  She nodded, her lips pressed together…was that a glare?

  He spread his hands. “It’s not my fault! How was I supposed to know bloodbane were acting strange?”

  She jerked her head and grunted, as if not completely convinced but willing to let it go. “I thought the crazy bug lady was dead,” she said.

  “She is. Was? But I thought it was more that corpse-thing that was controlling the bloodbane.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “‘Corpse-thing’?”

  He shrugged. “Just what I always thought of it as in my head.”

  She snorted. “I think you need a better name. But didn’t you say you saw another one?”

  He shuddered, his mind returning to the room under the temple where he had seen the inanimate body of another of those things hooked to the wall like a limp sack. “Yes. Looked like they were trying to make them somehow. But it also sounded like somehow the crazy bug lady—which, by the way, is also a fantastic name”—she eyed him, but the corner of her mouth twitched—“was somehow a part of it.”

  “So if they succeeded…”

  There was silence as they both considered the implications.

  It might mean the Conclave had another of Danathalt’s Banebringers under their control. Possibly more corpse-things. And, consequentially…all those bloodbane?

  The Conclave had threatened to slaughter the Banebringers in their care if the king didn’t essentially cede power to them, so perhaps it shouldn’t have been so unbelievable that they were gathering an army of bloodbane. But what did they intend on doing with it? And how far did their reach stretch if they were drawing bloodbane this far from Weylyn City?

  Yet it aligned with what the Watchman had said about bloodgiants coming down off the plateau. Maybe the bloodgiant, after having seen Vaughn and Ivana, viewed them as a threat to whatever call had been implanted in their brains.

  Ivana pushed herself to her feet, steadier than before, and limped over to the edge of the cliff. She looked out over it into the land beyond.

  Vaughn joined her.

  The northern reaches of Ferehar stretched out far below, clearly visible under a cloudless sky. “Been a long time since I’ve seen that sight,” he murmured, more to himself than Ivana.

  He eyed her. Her face was inscrutable.

  She stirred. “What does Yaotel want you here for?”

  He chose the easiest explanation. “Basic reconnaissance,” he said. “There’ve been rumors that Ferehar has become unstable now that Gildas is gone. Yaotel wants confirmation of that.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “And what does he intend to do with this information?”

  Vaughn ran a hand back and forth through his hair. “I suppose that depends on what I find.” A partial truth.

  He felt her eyes on him. She wasn’t someone you could dissemble with. He’d have to explain it eventually.

  He really didn’t feel like doing that right now.

  Thankfully, she
turned away. “Then let’s go get this over with.”

  Chapter Twelve

  A Moment of Rest

  Vaughn and Ivana picked their way down with no further incidents and arrived at the inn in Calqo mid-morning.

  The innkeeper surveyed them critically as they stumbled in, but he didn’t seem surprised at their rather ragged state. “Had a bit of trouble?”

  “An understatement,” Vaughn said. “Bloodgiants. Barely escaped.”

  The innkeeper rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “You’re lucky. It’s been particularly bad lately.”

  There was that observation again. Vaughn exchanged a glance with Ivana. “By ‘lately’, you mean…”

  “Last month or so. Last group that came through brought some corpses with them.” He glanced once at Ivana and then squinted at Vaughn more closely. “I’ve been telling people headed up from this side not to bother, even the larger caravans.”

  “The southern pass through Donia is a long detour to take.”

  The innkeeper grunted. “That’s why most of ’em don’t listen. What’s so important for you to make the trip this way?”

  Ivana put her hand on the small of Vaughn’s back and pressed against it gently, as though she were rubbing it. He looked at her quizzically. “Visiting family,” she said, offering her feigned shy smile. “They’ve never met him.”

  Oh. Right. The same story they’d given the Watchman in Carradon.

  “Coming in from Cadmyr?”

  “Yes,” Ivana said.

  The innkeeper grunted again. “What can I do for you? Room? Hot meal? Bath? Healer?”

  All of it sounded amazing. “The first three, for sure,” Vaughn said to the man. “I think we’ll be all right on the medical side.” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d let a non-Banebringer healer tend to him. The last thing he wanted was a doctor accidentally poking him or insisting they needed to let blood.

  “You sure?” He eyed Ivana’s bandaged hands. “The town doctor gives folks coming off the plateau who stay in my inn a discount.”

  “We’re sure.”

  The innkeeper rummaged around under the counter and produced a key, which he slid across the counter. “Down the right hall, third door on the left. Room four. Lunch isn’t quite ready yet, so I’ll have one of the maids draw a hot bath and let you know when it’s ready. The bathing room is right next to yours.”

  Vaughn took the key and thanked the innkeeper, and then he and Ivana headed to their room.

  The moment the door was closed, Ivana dropped her pack and turned to Vaughn. “Stay alert,” she said, her eyes darting around the room.

  Vaughn had just kicked his boots off and was in the middle of a stretch. “Huh?”

  “It could be nothing, but the innkeeper seemed awfully interested in our doings.”

  Vaughn shrugged. “Small talk.” Even so, he watched while she examined every corner of the room. It didn’t take long; it was a simple, cheap room, much like many of the others they had stayed at along the way. Two single mattresses on low platforms against opposite walls, a narrow rug between them, a washbasin in one corner, and a small round table in the other—and not much room for anything else.

  “Don’t you think you’re being a bit paranoid?” Vaughn asked.

  She peered out the sole window and then turned around to face him. “I’m alive because I’m a bit paranoid.”

  A knock sounded on the door, and after a cursory glance at Ivana, Vaughn opened it. A maid curtsied to him. “There’s a bath drawn in the bathing room,” she said. “At your convenience.”

  He inclined his head, murmured his gratitude, and shut the door.

  Ivana had pulled a clean set of clothes out of her bag. “I’m going to help myself to the bath first.”

  He shrugged out of his shirt, plopped down on one of the mattresses, and lay back with a groan. His eyes were already closing. “Go for it.”

  Ivana took a bath and ate lunch—and Vaughn was still sleeping when she returned.

  She sat down on the empty bed and stared at Vaughn’s sleeping form. She hurt all over and she was exhausted; she wanted more than anything to sleep as well. She ought to sleep, in fact. If all went smoothly, they still had a five- or six-day journey ahead of them before they reached Eleuria, the town where she had left her father’s chest.

  But she found that, while her body cried out for rest, her mind was whirling, scattered, going in a dozen different directions.

  Five or six days until she was within a few miles of home.

  She didn’t trust the innkeeper.

  What if that nightmare came back when she slept?

  Five or six days until home.

  She shifted, trying to banish the tightness in her chest, and instead found herself rising to rummage through Vaughn’s bag, looking for the journal.

  She found it and propped herself up against her pillow to start from the beginning.

  “Monster…monster…”

  “No!”

  Ivana bolted upright in bed with a gasp. She drew in several deep breaths, momentarily disoriented. The room was darker than it had been earlier, and someone had lit the two oil lamps on the brackets on the wall, though she could still see fading daylight on the horizon through the window.

  She glanced around the small room. Her mother’s journal was no longer in her hands; instead, Vaughn, who was sitting cross-legged on his mattress, had it open on his lap. And he was staring at her.

  She clenched her teeth. It was bad enough having nightmares about this; worse that Vaughn was here to witness it all.

  He hesitated, and then he set the book aside. “Everything…okay?”

  She glared at him and crawled off her mattress. It had to be close to dinner; or maybe she had missed it altogether.

  Every muscle in her body shrieked as she stood, and she couldn’t halt the groan that came through her clenched teeth.

  Vaughn jerked his head toward the table in the corner. A covered platter rested on it. “You slept through dinner, but I took the liberty of bringing something back for you.” He glanced out the window. “There’re probably still some hot leftovers, if you’d prefer that, though.”

  She shook her head and hobbled over to the platter. “This is fine.” She removed the lid. A cut of pork, onions, and a thick slice of dark honey bread. Since there was no chair in the room, she took the platter back over to her mattress, set it next to her, and started eating.

  “You seem, um…”

  “I hurt. Everywhere. I’m probably covered in bruises. I told you I was out of shape.”

  “You wrestled a bloodgiant and fell off a cliff.”

  She grunted. “You don’t seem any worse for wear.”

  “I didn’t wrestle a bloodgiant and fall off a cliff. Anyway, be thankful I don’t have any open wounds that might suddenly start bleeding.” He nodded toward her hands. She had had to remove the bandages to bathe, of course. They were better than they had been—significantly better, given that not even a full day had passed since Vaughn had bandaged them. The open lacerations and scrapes had mostly closed and scabbed over, leaving her hands looking whole, at least—though not healthy.

  If she were being honest with herself, she knew the battering her body had taken the night before had been more than enough to cripple even the most fit person temporarily. A good night’s sleep and some exercise would do wonders.

  She still hated the feeling. If only she had some starleaf tincture with her. The plant wasn’t native to the part of Fuilyn she had lived in, so it wasn’t something she had had readily available.

  Vaughn lapsed into silence and turned back to the journal while she finished eating.

  But the moment she set down her fork, wiped her mouth on the napkin that had been with the platter, and set it aside, he rose from his mattress to sit next to her.

  He put his hands on her shoulders and started massaging them.

  She stiffened and started to pull away.

  “Relax,” he
said. “I flatter myself that I’m rather good at this.”

  She wanted to protest, but even his brief ministrations supported his words, and not even half a minute had passed before she turned her back more fully to him.

  He worked his way across each shoulder, then her shoulder blades, upper back, and lower back with great deftness, finding and eliminating the knots in her muscles one by one.

  “You are exceptionally good at this,” she said. She was starting to feel sleepy again. “I’m assuming you’ve had lots of practice.”

  “I confess, I have found that a massage can be a good way to relax a woman’s nerves.”

  She snorted. “Indeed. Or a man’s.” She had given her own share of massages in her life. Except hers had usually ended with the recipient dead.

  He didn’t reply. Instead, he continued to work in silence for a few more minutes until finally, he spread his hands on her shoulders and let them rest there. “Better?”

  “Much.”

  “You know, a salve of bindblood aether rubbed directly into the skin would do more than loosen your muscles. If you’d like, I could—”

  “I think not.”

  “Come now. I can be professional.” He reached around and pulled her hair over her back again, letting his fingers trail across her throat and the side of her neck as he did so.

  She caught herself craning her neck to one side in an invitation for him to do it again, and she snapped her head back.

  She doubted his words, but she also doubted herself. His suggestion was far more appealing than she wanted to admit, and not because the bindblood aether would heal her, rather than bring temporary relief.

  “No,” she said firmly.

  He stood up and sat back down on his own bed. He looked into the lamplight for a moment, and then back at her. “The offer stands,” he said softly, and then he gave her a cockeyed grin, snuffed out the lamp closest to him, and lay back down on his bed, his eyes closed.

  She frowned. She wasn’t certain which offer he was referring to, and she was positive he meant it that way.