If she was going to salvage any part of the nuckalevee, it had to be now, while their backs were turned.
She wiggled on her belly like a snail through the undergrowth until the nuckalevee’s corpse lay between her and the men. She pulled the sgian from the belt at her waist and clamped the antler handle in her teeth. She needed to cut off a part that would be small enough to sneak away with yet was obviously part of the nuckalevee.
A hoof could as easily belong to a large horse, and she’d not be able to saw through the iron-hard flesh and bone with a sgian. Gavran had stabbed it through the mouth, so she might be able to cut out the tongue, but that might not be distinctive enough.
She shut her eyes, and the image of the nuckalevee turning its glowing golden eye on her sent a tremor down her back. The eye. It had to be the eye.
She peeked out of the brush but couldn’t see either man. She crawled forward. Her knees and elbows felt like they were on fire. Crawling forced her to drag her own dead weight. One body length, two, three. She arrived at the nuckalevee and slowly twisted its head back so that its eye faced her.
Even though it was dead, the eye still seemed to look through her, down into the dark parts she didn’t want to think about. Calling to them. She plunged the sgian into the edge of its eye socket.
With a squish, fluid gushed from the socket, and she fought back a shiver-start.
She sawed the sgian around the edges and levered the eye. It popped out and hit the ground, nerves and black goo trailing around it. A whiff of freshly sheared wheat hit her, so different from what she’d expected and from the stench that hung over the nuckalevee in a cloud.
She reached out for the eye but recoiled. It was one thing to pop it out and another thing entirely to have to touch it.
“I have enough.” Tavish’s voice reached her from across the clearing. “But she’ll be too heavy to drag over here. We’d be better to pile the wood around her.”
No more time to be squeamish. She grabbed the eye and shoved it into the purse where she’d carried Gavran’s toe on the way here. The eye felt slimy, like a jellyfish.
She squeezed her eyes shut for a second. No different than a jellyfish. No different than a jellyfish.
She jabbed the sgian back into its sheath and skittered on hands and knees into the underbrush.
She cleared an opening in the dry leaves just big enough to see out of and curled herself into a ball.
Allan and Tavish stacked wood on top of and around the nuckalevee. The fire caught and began to crackle. They hauled Gavran from the clearing, and she was alone with the flames and, soon, with the curses.
She limped out of the bushes and skirted the clearing, wiping sweat from her brow from the flames. She waded through the trees on the far side. Tavish held the reins of Allan’s horse, and Allan walked beside the sling carrying Gavran that dragged behind his mount.
She watched them until they disappeared out of sight. Any minute now the curses would take over again, and she wouldn’t be able to do what she wanted.
She held the sgian away from her at arms’ length. The nuckalevee’s eye seemed to pulse in the pouch at her waist, and the thought flitted through her head that she still had time. She could kill herself before the wishes took over again rather than taking the risk that Gavran wouldn’t come back for her and she’d be trapped. Maybe that risk was too big.
This time, though, it was one she was going to take. She wasn’t going to be like her dadaidh who always talked about change and never acted on it. She’d decided to trust Gavran. She’d decided to let someone else help her rather than trying to control everything herself.
Once he was well, he’d keep his promise and come for her. In the meantime, she had to find a way to return to Salome’s side, send him a message letting him know she still lived, and hold on long enough for him to come for her. He’d asked her to trust him, and she would. This time, he’d remember her when awake. This time, he’d find her on purpose.
It was her only hope. And, for the first time, when hope tried to resurrect, she didn’t bind it like a sheep for slaughter and slit its throat. She let it take hold and grow.
She pulled back her arm and heaved the sgian into the midst of the flames surrounding the nuckalevee.
She’d take one problem at a time until she either reached Salome or Gavran found her. The first was she wouldn’t be able to get to Salome directly. Even if she acted quickly, she’d only be running farther away from Gavran, making the curses take control more swiftly. Yet as long as she sat here and the only thing she wanted was to reach MacDonald castle, she ensured she’d never make it there.
The nuckalevee’s corpse belched plumes of black smoke into the sky, and the air around her cracked with dryness and rained soot and cinders down on her head. She ought to leave the clearing while she still could, in case the flames leapt to the dead trees and bushes and burned the whole clearing to the ground.
At least since she wanted to go to Duntulm Castle, she should be able to reach the town of Duntulm for the night.
Chapter 30
Ceana left the clearing, and wind bashed into her. She bowed her head and drove forward. No wonder the nuckalevee fire accelerated into an inferno. The small breezes making their way through the trees from the more intense wind outside the clearing would have stoked it like a bellows.
“You there,” a man’s voice yelled. “Stop.”
Ceana spun around. Two men slid their horses to a stop an arm’s length from her. Dirt kicked up into the air. She lifted an arm and shielded her face against the swirling debris.
The taller of the men sat his horse warrior-straight, his face as unreadable as blank parchment. The squatter man bared his yellowed teeth at her. The right front tooth was missing, making him look simultaneously fierce and funny.
The taller man pointed towards the blazing clearing. “What kind of an eejit leaves their cook fire burning when the trees around are like tinder?”
Egged on by the wind, the nuckalevee’s fire had indeed spread to the nearest trees. Perhaps it was a blessing the men were here. With the parched grass all around, a fire could rage out of control. At least it would have devoured the nuckalevee before anyone else saw it. She didn’t relish being accused of meddling in dark magic again. Especially not without Gavran around to buffer the curses.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” the tall man asked.
They thought she’d lit the fire? “Nae. It wasn’t a cook fire, and I—”
“You set it on purpose then?”
She shook her head, but he leaped from his horse and grabbed her by the arm. She was an eejit. She’d forgotten how adaptive the curses could be. The instant she’d set her goal on reaching Duntulm, she’d guaranteed she’d never cross the boundary past the first home.
The tall man hauled her closer to Gap-Tooth. “She fits the description the priest gave of the two who was robbing the grave the other night.”
“Aye.” Gap-Tooth’s words whistled on the way out. “And now she’s here causing more trouble.”
She squirmed in the tall man’s grip even though it wouldn’t do any good. Because she wanted to escape, she couldn’t. Gavran might come back for her, but who knew if she’d be alive when he did. “I didn’t set the fire.”
The tall man squeezed so hard she had to bite back a whimper.
“Then who did? You’re the only one I see around here, and we saw you coming out of the clearing, plain as anything. And you weren’t running for help to put it out, neither.”
She clamped her lips shut. There was no point in arguing. It wouldn’t do her any good. Sometimes, if she acted swift enough, she could get out in front of the curses by a second or two, but there was no doing that here. No getting away. No convincing them she wasn’t trying to burn down the whole countryside.
Gap-Tooth shifted in his saddle as if he wasn’t sure whether to stay mounted or join in interrogating her from the ground. “Nothing to say for yourself now?”
&
nbsp; “Toss me a rope,” the tall man said. “I’ll take her to answer for her crimes. You head back for help to put that blaze out.”
Gap-Tooth tossed down a rope, and the tall man caught it in the air with one hand, never letting her go. He whirled her around and lashed her arms behind her back. She didn’t bother to struggle.
“You ought to cover her eyes, too,” Gap-Tooth said from behind them. “No telling why she was robbing those graves. Might be for some devil-worshipping ritual, and you don’t want to take the risk she can curse you with a glance once you’re alone with ’er.”
The tall man grunted assent, pulled a dirty rag from his pocket, and tied it around her eyes. It reeked of sweat and rancid duck fat.
Something shoved her forward, and she stumbled. The heat of the fire snapped at her face. Her arms were tugged up, and her shoulders felt like they’d burst from their sockets.
“You’re fortunate I’m a God-fearing man, or I’d toss you into the flames. Whatsoever a man reaps, that also shall he sow.”
She bit her lip to keep from crying out. She’d allowed herself to forget too much. What made her think she could reach any place she wanted to go once Gavran was out of range? And now, because she didn’t want to be tried for a crime she didn’t commit, she’d have no way to escape it.
The man lifted her off her feet and dropped her over a sharp, furry mound that smelled like horse and leather. It had to be his horse’s withers.
Blood rushed to her head. The animal shifted beneath her, and a bulk settled in behind her. Rough hands jostled her into a sitting position.
She focused on clearing her mind, but thoughts of coming before someone who’d decide she should be lashed—or worse—for the fire tore at her mind like a starving beast. She didn’t want it, and yet she knew it had to be coming.
The horse lurched forward, and she clenched her legs around it. Even though the man’s arms boxed her in on either side, he wasn’t likely to care if she fell.
The horse broke into a trot, and she bounced around, her teeth jamming together, unable to get her balance with her hands behind her back. Would she fall off because she didn’t want to, or would that smaller failure be trumped by the larger one of losing her freedom?
The soft plopping footfalls of hooves on grass turned into the heavier clop of hard-packed earth. They must have reached the town. Nae, they couldn’t be in Duntulm. That’s where she’d been headed. But if they weren’t in Duntulm, where had he taken her?
She wiggled her forehead and opened and closed her jaw, but the blindfold stayed in place over her eyes.
The horse stopped, and the man drew away his arms. Without the bracing, she slid to the side. She smashed into the ground, and her head bounced off the hard earth. Buzzing filled her ears, and heat rushed through her body.
Fight it. Fight. It. She had to stay conscious.
She blinked against the rough blindfold. It’d slipped down enough in the fall that she could catch motion around her. Voices droned like a swarm of angry hornets, but she couldn’t focus enough to make out the words. She sucked in air through her nose and pushed it out her mouth.
It was no use. Blackness deeper than any blindfold could provide overwhelmed her.
Something cool and damp blotted at her face. She licked her lips. Her dry mouth tasted like she’d eaten coal, and her eyelids were unusually heavy. She squirmed and forced her eyes to open to slits.
A shadowy form hovered over her. “Easy. You’re safe.”
A woman’s voice. Familiar. But it couldn’t be.
She opened her eyes fully. Salome perched on the bed next to her.
She was safe. “How?”
A single word at a time seemed to be all her brain could manage around the throbbing in her head.
“A man from Duntulm brought you here to have you thrown in the dungeon on the charge of setting fire to the countryside. My lord husband recognized you and called for me.” She stroked back Ceana’s hair. “Did you kill it?”
Ceana slid her hand underneath the covers to her purse. The bulge of the nuckalevee’s eye was still there, though it felt flatter, like she might have crushed it in her fall. “Aye.”
“And Gavran? Why wasn’t he with you?”
“Gone.”
Ceana’s eyes felt too heavy again to keep open anymore. She could explain it all to Salome on the morrow. They’d send a message to Gavran, and then she’d wait while he healed.
She brushed her fingertips against her lips. Last time they’d parted, she’d given him the dream to remember her.
This time, just in case hope tried to fail her, she’d given herself the kiss.
Letter from the Author
Authors sometimes talk about books they had to write because they fell in love with the story and the characters. This is one of those books for me. I originally came up with the seed idea for Cursed Wishes back in 2013, and I’ve been waiting ever since for a chance to write it.
One of my favorite things about the story was the idea of wishes where two people had to receive opposite results. I wanted to play with the idea of what that would mean and what the relationship between the two people would be like.
Broken Wishes (Book 2) releases later this year, as does Lady MacDonald’s origin story Stolen Wishes. If you’d like to know when they’re available, the best way is to sign up for my newsletter at www.subscribepage.com/threewishesstory.
My newsletter subscribers receive Three Wishes, the prequel short story, as a welcome gift. Three Wishes shows exactly what happened the night Ceana and Gavran received the wishes.
If you liked Cursed Wishes, I’d also really appreciate it if you took a minute to leave a rating. Ratings and reviews help me sell more books (which allows me to keep writing them), and they help fellow readers know if this is a book they might enjoy.
Until next time!
Marcy
About the Author
Marcy Kennedy is a science fiction and fantasy author who believes there’s always hope. Sometimes you just have to dig a little harder to find it.
In a world that can be dark and brutal and unfair, hope is one of our most powerful weapons. Hope is the certain expectation that something better is coming if we don’t give up.
She writes novels that encourage people to keep fighting. She wants them to know that no one is beyond redemption and that, in the end, good always wins.
She also writes award-winning mysteries under a pen name, but that’s a secret. Shhhh…
Marcy lives in Ontario, Canada, with her former Marine husband, human-sized Great Dane, six cats, and budgie. In her free time, she loves playing board games and going for bike rides.
She loves hearing from readers.
www.marcykennedy.com
[email protected]
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