by Eva Brandt
That sounded ideal. I could trust Mathias to handle the problem of his aunt. He loved Dahud as much as I did. We didn’t have the same relationship, of course, but we’d grown very close throughout the past couple of weeks. He wouldn’t fail us and I wouldn’t fail him.
I didn’t hesitate any further. With a smile of my own, I reached out to my mates, ready to leave with them.
By the time I realized they were standing on thin air, it was too late. I was already falling. Panic exploded through me and a final surge of magic forced me through a second shift. Above me, Thrand and Dahud disappeared, once again claimed by the witch.
I hit the ground and knew no more.
* * *
Mathias
I sensed the moment Halvar died. I couldn’t have said how it was possible, but I did, just like I’d sensed it when Dahud had killed Thrand to end his suffering. This time, it was far more shocking, as I’d never expected this to happen. I’d seen Thrand’s death coming, but Halvar was a complete surprise.
I’d known he was ill. It was a sickness of the mind, and I’d seen it advance more and more every day, as insidious as the plague that had taken Thrand from us so quickly.
I’d deemed him dangerous for others, but not for himself. The wolf inside him should’ve protected him from that. He’d borrowed a lot of characteristics from his lupine self and his self-preservation instincts were included. Apparently, I’d been wrong to underestimate the curse just because it had affected the mind, not the body.
I dropped to my knees, spots dancing in front of my eyes, my lungs refusing to take in air, my heart racing and threatening to burst out of my chest. I was paralyzed, my muscles seizing and going stiff just like they had when I’d been encased in a cage of bone.
It was some kind of magical backlash and I could do nothing but sit there and ride it out. I threw up in a bush, shaking and breathing hard, tears running down my cheeks.
No one came after me. They must’ve lost track of me in the forest and with my aunt wounded, they had no way of finding me, not so quickly.
If Dahud had been here, she’d have found us by now. Dahud. Gods help me, Dahud. How was I going to explain this to her? She had been crushed when Thrand had died. Losing Halvar after only a few weeks would destroy her.
But I owed it to her to be honest and to go after Halvar. That thought gave me strength and I got up, following the lingering traces of magic that guided me toward Halvar.
I found his broken body at the bottom of a tall cliff. He’d fallen from up above, and I knew that couldn’t have been an accident. He was in human form now, but he must’ve shifted back and forth several times because some of his fingernails remained claw-like and he still had a tail. I bent over him and, just in case, checked him over for any sign that he was still alive. It was futile and I knew that before I even tried. Shape-shifter or not, everybody died when crushed against rocks and impaled through the heart by a sharp log.
Halvar was no different and for a few seconds, I just sat there, clutching his body, staring at nothing. Instinctively, I started to murmur a tune. It was the lullaby Dahud sang to us. It had always soothed Halvar’s wolf, chasing away some of his insanity. It had allowed Thrand and me to sleep better. Ever since this whole nightmare had started, I’d been afraid that I’d close my eyes and wake up to my whole body being encased in bone. Dahud’s song made me forget about those fears.
But I wasn’t Dahud and Halvar was no longer within our reach. “Rest well, warrior,” I whispered as I closed his eyes. “You’ve fought hard enough. You will be avenged, I promise you that.”
Before he’d fled, Halvar had attacked my aunt. I didn’t know what magic he’d used to break her shields, but he’d done it. She’d fallen and he’d come incredibly close to killing her.
I could’ve pulled him away at any time, but I hadn’t. In my heart, I knew this was all her fault. I’d told myself it wasn’t really true, that she’d only cast the curse because Dahud’s parents had forced her. She hadn’t known this would happen and if she hadn’t acted this way, Dahud would have died. But even so, she’d been the one who’d sealed our fate. She might have had good reasons for her actions, but I didn’t have to care about them anymore.
I didn’t go after her immediately. Instead, I briefly left Halvar’s body on the ground, covering it with my cloak to protect him. After that, I scaled the cliff, checking for any signs of foul play as I went along. I found nothing on the way there or at the very top. As I’d thought, Halvar must’ve thrown himself off willingly.
With my heart heavy, I went back down and took Halvar’s body in my arms. By now, Dahud’s servants had finally decided it was time to show some intelligence. I ran into them when I was halfway back to the manor. I kept Halvar’s body still covered with my cloak, not wanting anyone to see how he actually looked like.
“There’s been an accident in the forest. Hartmut is dead.”
They stared at me like I’d just sprouted a second head. I wasn’t surprised. I’d already heard whispers among the servants. They spoke of the gods punishing Dahud for her greedy, lascivious ways. It was a stupid notion and I hadn’t deemed the people of Kerys so narrow-minded, but stranger things had happened.
“We’ll be going back to Ys to give him the appropriate farewell,” I said, not bothering to wait for a reaction. “Make sure everything is ready.”
The order snapped the servants out of their trance. Having something to do always helped them. “Yes, Your Highness. Of course.”
As we returned to the manor, I went in search of my aunt. The moment I stepped into the courtyard, I felt a tug on my pendant. I knew she was no longer inside the house.
A pale servant stopped me as I was heading toward my quarters. “Your Highness, your aunt… She was wounded earlier, but she insisted that she had to go. We couldn’t stop it.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I told the man. “It was unavoidable.”
My aunt was resourceful and she must’ve realized that she couldn’t stay here any longer, not if she wanted to live. There was only so much I was willing to accept and we’d crossed that line with Halvar’s death.
Feeling like I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, I washed up, changed my clothes, and did the same for Halvar.
It seemed like a trivial task to worry about, but maybe it would help Dahud deal with it better. She’d have to see him dead, but he would be more or less in one piece, his injuries covered up and the worst of it hidden from her eyes. She’d be able to remember him the way he had been, full of life, brave, and passionate.
After that, I wrapped his body in a warm blanket and carried him to the carriage. No one said a word about it. If they deemed it unusual, they knew better than to mention it.
We reached Ys a few hours later. It was already evening, and the sky was darkening, although not just because of the fading daylight. Dark rain clouds were gathering above us. The distant sound of rumbling thunder signaled the fact that Dahud must’ve known something was wrong.
She was waiting for me in the stables. When she saw the motionless bundle in my arms, her face went so pale it was almost translucent. She staggered back, leaning against the wooden wall in a desperate attempt to not fall over. “Is that… him?”
Apparently, she couldn’t use Halvar’s fake name, not at such a time, after we’d just lost him.
I nodded, but had trouble saying anything else. As expected, Dahud didn’t abandon the topic so easily.
“What happened, Mathias?” she asked softly.
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “His mental state was going from bad to worse. I didn’t think he was in any lethal danger, but all of a sudden, today, he just went crazy. I didn’t see it happen, but I think he must’ve thrown himself off a cliff.”
Dahud clenched her jaw so tightly I was surprised her teeth didn’t crack. “This is my fault. All my fault. If I hadn’t appeared in your lives, none of this would’ve happened.”
She was right, in a
way, but at the same time, I didn’t want her to blame herself. “They made their own choices, love. They never blamed you for the curse. I certainly never did. If someone is at fault here, it must be my aunt and your parents.”
Dahud’s expression flickered, the fire of rage chasing away the desperate grief. “Yes. I’ve been thinking of an appropriate punishment since Thrand died. I haven’t been able to do anything, because my powers are still all over the place. But once the baby is born, I plan to eliminate everyone who’s caused us pain.”
That was good enough for me. I might not have Thrand and Halvar any longer, but I had Dahud, and together, there was nothing we could not accomplish. This world would kneel in front of my queen. It would pay in blood for every tear she had shed. And it would be rebuilt anew, so that the child she carried would never suffer the way we had.
The Accursed Heir
Dahud
I gave Halvar the same send-off I’d granted Thrand, although this time, it was at the beach where we’d met. He didn’t have a stationary pyre, but a boat. I still insisted on us doing the whole thing alone so that I could light the fire myself. It seemed appropriate that my magic would consume what was left of Halvar, when it had been my fault that he’d died.
After that, the days passed almost too quickly. Mathias told me his aunt had disappeared. I didn’t know what to make of that. I wondered if maybe I should’ve killed her when I’d had the chance. Would Thrand and Halvar still be alive if I’d done so? I’d been sure that she was telling the truth. But why had I ever believed that in the first place? What had made me place such confidence in this strange woman?
On the three-month anniversary of my wedding, I woke up in my bedroom, clutching my chest and having trouble breathing. I tore off my clothing, only to find a brand on my skin, right over my heart. It was shaped like a burning pentagram, and when I brushed my fingers over it, I could feel Anna’s magic inside.
Gods help me.
I told no one except Mathias about the brand. “I think it’s a remnant of the original curse. It might be why I was inclined to agree with her, even when I knew she’d done so many awful things.”
“Do you think she’s the one who killed Thrand and Halvar then?”
“Anything’s possible, Mathias,” I replied. “And it still doesn’t explain your pendant. For good or ill, it is helping you.”
That was the one consolation I had, the fact that Mathias, at least, hadn’t gotten sick again. But I feared this respite wouldn’t last that long. With every passing day, his pendant glowed more brightly, as if its fight against Mathias’s affliction was growing fiercer. It always pushed me away. We didn’t dare to take it off to see what would happen, not after Thrand had sacrificed himself to give Mathias the damn thing.
And then the unavoidable came, and I began to grow weaker. As my belly grew, my pregnancy started to take a toll on me. My magic didn’t vanish, but maybe it would have been better if it had. I had real trouble controlling my powers, more than ever before. Clouds covered the skies of Kerys and no matter how much my mother tried, she could not chase them off.
“You need to do better, Dahud!” she told me one day, while we were in her interior garden during yet another practice lesson. “You can’t let your emotions overpower you like this.”
The ground started to shake beneath my feet. “If you hadn’t taken those emotions from me when I was still in the cradle, I might not have this problem. But you did, and now, here we are.”
“If we hadn’t done that, you wouldn’t be here today to spout your vitriolic recriminations at me,” my mother snapped. “I know you’re upset about what happened with Theuderic and Hartmut, but in the end, they never deserved you and—”
An explosion of pure magic rushed out of me, sending her flying to the ground and cutting her off mid-sentence. “In case you’ve forgotten, my husbands died only a few months ago. They might not have meant anything to you, but they did to me. I’d advise you to be very careful with the way you talk about them in the future.”
I was shaking with fury and anguish. Even now, months after their deaths, I could still remember the scent of their burning flesh, the taste of Thrand’s last kiss, the way Halvar had looked when we’d placed him on the pyre. Some days, I looked at my hands and I thought they were still stained with Thrand’s blood. I couldn’t sleep. I could barely eat. If not for Mathias and the baby, I wouldn’t be able to function at all. And she thought I should just let it all go and forget?
“I’m done with this,” I said. “I’m not interested in any more magic lessons. I’m going to my room and I’m staying there. And I don’t want to see you.”
With that, I rushed toward my quarters. Proving that she had some self-preservation, my mother didn’t follow me. It was just as well, because I never got to my destination.
Mathias found me curled into a ball, in an empty corridor, with magic crackling wildly around me. “Dahud?” he asked as he knelt next to me. “What’s wrong, love? Is it the baby?”
I shook my head, nodded, and then shook my head again. I couldn’t understand anything anymore. I felt horrible, wretched, and cruel for falling apart like this, for not supporting him when I should have. But he was the only person I could trust, the last of my protectors. “I don’t know if I can do this, Mathias. I promised Thrand I’d be a good mother to our son, but I think I lied.”
“You didn’t lie, love. You’ll be a wonderful mother. You have so much heart and so much kindness. And you’ll raise our son in their memory, to honor the people we lost. We’ll do it together.”
“Can we, though?” I asked him. “With the curse hanging over us like this? Why am I so helpless? I should be able to do something more instead of just waiting for the solution to fall into my lap.”
“Nothing we’ve tried has worked so far,” Mathias replied with a sigh. “I don’t know what to tell you, Dahud. Maybe there is an answer and I just can’t see it. But with your mother being unhelpful and Thrand’s family ignoring us, we’re stuck with no other option but to move forward like this.”
There was one other thing we could try. I didn’t mention it to Mathias, not immediately. I didn’t think he would agree until it was properly researched. But once the thought occurred to me, it wouldn’t leave my mind.
We could try killing me.
Anna herself had suggested it the day of her arrival, but the pregnancy had taken the possibility off the table. After I gave birth and the baby was safe, all bets were off.
I was a resilient woman and I healed quickly. In theory, it should be possible for someone to stop my heart, undo the spell, and then bring me back again. If the magic registered my temporary death, it might snap. Sure, there was a chance that it would return later, but it was just as likely that it would work, if we pushed the spell hard enough.
I finally revealed my idea to Mathias when I was in the seventh month of my pregnancy. Things had settled down a little. The clouds were less ominous and the sky lighter. It wasn’t exactly perfect weather, but it was better than what we’d had before.
I didn’t go out much these days, far preferring the safety and privacy of my quarters. But for this, I made an exception. I met with Mathias on the beach, close to the area where we’d burned Halvar’s body. We came here from time to time to burn flowers and offerings. I wasn’t sure the gesture made any difference, but it made me feel closer to Thrand and Halvar.
In hindsight, it might not have been the best place for the conversation I needed to have with Mathias. “You want to die?” he asked me in disbelief. “Are you serious?”
“Temporarily die,” I corrected him. “Just long enough to end the spell.”
Mathias still stared at me, rendered mute by my words. He hadn’t said no yet, so I seized my advantage and continued, “Believe me, I know how important it is for me to live. I made a promise and I’m responsible for this life I carry inside me.” I placed a hand on my swollen belly and felt an answering kick from my son. “But I think tha
t if we succeed, we could live without fearing the shadow of the curse lurking over us. It’s what Halvar and Thrand would want too.”
Mathias nodded thoughtfully, his eyes once again seeing far more than they were supposed to. “It makes sense. But do you think that would work?”
“I’m not sure, but it’s not out of the question. Think about it, Mathias. My heart stopped that time, on the beach, when you saved me. It must have had some kind of effect, something that influenced the curse.”
“It didn’t help us in the end,” Mathias protested. “If your temporary death fought off the curse in some way, it stopped working after you came back.”
“I know,” I replied. “It’s all very dangerous and we don’t have any guarantees. It depends on the root of the enchantment. If it’s too deep inside me, this idea might not make a difference. But it’s a chance, and I think we should take it.”
“I’m not sure, Dahud,” Mathias said. “It still seems like tempting fate. After everything that’s gone wrong, do you really want to give the gods another chance to make us lose one another?”
“I think the gods are powerful enough to do that without us giving them any chances. Besides, what other options do we have left?”
At that, he finally fell silent. He gripped the pendant dangling from his neck and rubbed it with his thumb. It no longer looked as white as before. Flickers of multicolored magic danced inside it, from green, to purple or crimson.
“None,” he answered. “We can’t hide behind my aunt’s power, not when we’re not sure what her intentions are. Dahud, this pendant could stop working any moment now. I’m aware of that and I wouldn’t mind dying if it were for you. But there’s our son to think about too. And I don’t think he’ll come out unharmed out of this.”
The certainty in his voice shook me to the core. “Are you sure?”
“I’m never sure of anything. You know that. It’s just a feeling I have. It might be completely wrong, a fear that’s making me see things that aren’t there.”
