Curse of the Forgotten City

by Alex Aster

  “What they didn’t know, the fools, is that some of those jewels coated in magic were also coated in curses. A third of the families were struck by these curses, strong enough to be passed along through their family line for generations. One had all of their descendants born half fish. One was cursed with insatiable greed. One was cursed with having anyone they fell in love with perish.

  “We are descended from one of those original twelve pirate families. One of the four that received a cursed jewel.”

  Engle swallowed. “What was your family’s curse?”

  Captain Forecastle shrugged. “A frozen lifeline when we reached adulthood. Back when those things mattered out on the sea.”

  Engle frowned. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

  He nodded. “Certainly not the worst. We never thought of it as a curse. Got to be young almost forever.” He pressed his chapped lips together. “But then, we fell in love with a woman destined to die. Her lifeline was nearly gone when we met. The blood queen agreed to transfer our curse to her, thinking it would save her life.”

  Captain Forecastle looked past them, at something far away. “Didn’t know that when the blood queen transferred the curse, she made it worse. It froze our love’s lifeline, but it cursed her entire crew and trapped her in the sea. Forced her to watch her family age and die from afar and did not let her sleep. Without any rest for years, she went mad.” He lifted his palm, and Tor saw what had terrified the gamblers back in the Crusty Barnacle. Captain Forecastle’s lifeline began as a tiny line, then stopped, leaving a large gap across his palm. On the other side, it continued in a mess of mountains.

  “It was Bluebraid,” Melda said quietly. “That’s why she hates you.”

  Captain Forecastle nodded solemnly. “It’s forbidden for curses to be transferred, so that’s how we ended up where ye found us.”

  Melda tilted her head to the side. “What did Bluebraid mean that she had to make a deal with darkness to have her curse removed?”

  Captain Forecastle looked down at the deck. “When something erupted in Emblem Island and charred it, sending power flying into the sea, something was unleashed. Something broke through, that day. She made a deal with whatever that is.”

  Tor swallowed. “What else do you know of this darkness?” he asked carefully.

  Captain Forecastle shook his head. “Not much. And we’d like to keep it that way.”

  He stood, bones cracking loudly as he did. He wiped his hands on his pants. “Well, that’s our tale,” he said. Captain Forecastle smiled, but Tor saw it didn’t reach his eyes. Not at all. He nodded at Engle. “Want to learn how to catch firefly shrimp, boy?”

  Engle nodded enthusiastically. He followed Forecastle to the helm of the ship.

  Melda murmured about taking a warm bath and disappeared below.

  Vesper was biting her bottom lip, lost in thought. Staring at her palms, covered in pale lifelines.

  “Do you…want to talk?” Tor asked. It seemed as if she had what his mother called a worm in her thoughts; a crawling anxiety that invaded one’s mind.

  Vesper looked at him, eyes wide, as if desperate to say something. But then, the light in them dimmed once more, and she looked at the deck. “No,” she said sharply, getting up. “I appreciate your concern. But I don’t need a friend.”

  The Girl with the Frozen Heart

  There once was the daughter of a sailor who could never tell a lie. She was born and raised on the sea and saw truths tucked between the waves.

  The girl could tell a woman she was with child, a thief how he would die, and a newlywed that his happiness was a lie.

  The little sailor’s truthtelling emblem became so famous, Emblemites would crowd ports when her family’s ship docked, begging for a bit of truth for themselves.

  But, as she learned, the truth can cause more chaos than good.

  She witnessed families torn apart, people gone mad, leaders fall, all because of her gift. The girl caused so much devastation that sadness consumed her, an inferno of guilt and worry constantly blazing in her chest.

  To stop the pain, she asked a boy with a snowflake emblem to turn her heart to ice.

  From then on, she spoke truths without feeling any sorrow at the ruin she left in her wake. She felt nothing at all. Then she left, in search of a place as cold as her heart.

  She traveled north until the ice was as blue as a cloudless sky. And there she lives, still offering truths to those that dare the journey to find her—and who have had enough of lies.

  15

  The Truthteller

  The compass never pointed anywhere but north, and they traveled farther than Tor could even picture on a map. Three days passed without encountering land, and the breeze became a chill.

  Melda had finished her book on mermaids, but kept going back to different chapters, a pen in hand, writing in the margins. Tor got the sense that she was distracting herself from her arenahora, which had been reduced to just a few pinches of sand. Vesper looked more tired by the hour, as if the days out of the water weighed heavily on her. Engle slept soundly.

  Tor had a habit of standing at the helm of the ship most of the afternoon, as if doing so would make them sail faster. He tugged on his connection to the boat, willing it to speed through the narrow channel they had just entered, between two expanses of snow that went on for miles.

  “Would you look at that,” Captain Forecastle said, making everyone else stand.

  Up ahead, glaciers floated in the water on both sides, surrounded by long shards of ice. Atop each sat a mermaid. They had ice blue tails and white hair that floated around them, the same way it would if they were underwater. Their fins were silver and solid, like freshly cut diamond. They whispered to each other in a language Tor didn’t understand.

  “Melda?” Tor asked. “Are they in your book?”

  She looked fascinated. “They’re wintresses. Mermaids who thrive in the cold and draw power from its frigidity.”

  “Are they dangerous?”

  She pursed her lips. “Only if you try to take their ice. They have quite sharp teeth and nails.”

  “What do they eat?”

  “Frozen fish.” She gave him a look. “Why, what are you thinking?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know, Melda. Would you say the ice here is as blue as the sky on a cloudless day?”

  Melda let her eyelids droop, instantly recognizing the description. “You can’t be serious. We don’t exactly have time to spare.” She held up her arenahora for good measure.

  “I know. But the truthteller might say something that makes a difference. That changes fate.” Tor swallowed. Most of the time he spent at the helm, he worried about the prophecy. It had predicted his death, which he had somehow survived.

  And it had also predicted that their quest would be fruitless.

  There had to be a loophole for that, too. Some way to get to the pearl before the captain, the spectral, and the traitor.

  Melda didn’t look happy. But she let out a long breath and nodded. “Want me to come with you?”

  “No. I think I have to do this alone.”

  Tor stopped the ship and let Melda explain to the others where he’d gone. He stepped off the stairs and carefully onto a giant sheet of ice that had floated near their ship, mostly intact. It led all the way to the mermaids, sitting casually on their glaciers. He whistled, and Melda dropped the basket of frozen fish he had made appear just seconds earlier. The ice was slippery beneath his boots—one foot slid forward and his other leg buckled, but he steadied himself, worried about cracking his head open on the unforgiving ice.

  The mermaids watched him curiously, hands busy braiding their floating white hair. Their bell-voices hitched as he neared, some barring teeth sharp as daggers.

  Tor approached and placed the basket at his feet. He knelt, not taking his eyes off the me
rmaids in case they leapt to attack, and blindly reached for a fish. He picked one up by its tail.

  The wintresses’ voices changed then, their chimes now rushed with excitement.

  “I’m looking for the truthteller,” Tor said slowly, wondering if there was any way they could understand him.

  One of the wintresses looked up at him, as if trying to understand. With surprising elegance, the others began taking fish from the basket.

  Tor stared at the curious wintress.

  She clearly did not speak his language. He gritted his teeth and began trying to pantomime what a truthteller was, but stopped when he remembered his emblem. He pointed at it, showing her the marking. Surely it would mean something to her.

  Immediately, the wintress nodded with understanding.

  She ducked under the water, and Tor had to run to follow, his feet slipping and sliding as he rushed to catch up. The sheet of ice came to an end, so he jumped on another, nearly falling into the water when it tipped to the side with his weight. Before he could plunge into the glacial waters, he leapt onto another shard of floating ice. The wintress did not look up or over her shoulder; she simply kept swimming, light blue tail moving swiftly behind her, at times splashing out of the water.

  He knelt and used his hands to paddle the piece of ice closer to what looked almost steady as land, wide and solid in front of him. Just as he jumped and made it onto the field of ice, the wintress swam beneath it. Tor saw her through the frozen water. This new sheet of ice was half transparent and half frosted over, surprisingly sturdy, even with cracks running down it like marble. He followed as the wintress swam underfoot until the ship was barely visible behind him, and it began to snow.

  He stopped when she did. The wintress turned to face him, smiling through the ice, then darted away.

  He had arrived at a cave made entirely of ice.

  Icicles sharp as swords guarded its entrance, looking ready to fall and skewer an intruder. He walked to its mouth, then lingered, not daring to step through. From what he could see, the entire inside was a geode of ice crystals, glowing in a supernatural bright blue.

  For a moment, he considered turning around. He remembered the legend from the Book of Seas and its warning. The truth often led to chaos.

  What if the truthteller told him something unforgivable? Something that changed everything?

  Or, worst of all, a truth that Tor wished he wouldn’t have known?

  He took a step back, his boots imprinted on the snow in front of him. He had doubted himself the entire journey. His worthiness of being the Night Witch’s successor. His wariness of everything that came with that.

  But he had made a decision to sail forward, no matter the cost. Which meant he had to make peace with the consequences that could follow.

  “Hello?” he called inside and heard his voice echo once, then twice.

  The voice that answered was cold as frost. “Enter.”

  So he did.

  Beyond the entrance of the cave sat a stately home, crafted completely of sparkling ice. A woman stepped down a flight of frozen stairs. She had long, white hair, and Tor couldn’t decide her age. She wore a crown of icicles and a gauzy, blue-white dress.

  The truthteller did not look surprised to see him. She didn’t look…anything.

  “I suppose you are here because of my abilities?”

  When Tor nodded she unsheathed a long sword from her back, and sliced a piece of her stair’s railing with vicious speed. It fell and slid to Tor, coming to a rest against his boots.

  “Let that melt in your hands, and I’ll study the puddle.”

  Tor knelt down to grab the chunk before the truthteller could send him away. He immediately felt the bite of the ice in the center of his palms. It melted slowly—agonizingly so. He gritted his teeth, trying to get his mind off the shocking pain. “Aren’t you wondering who I am?”

  She glanced at him. “No.”

  Eventually, the ice pooled in his palms, leaving only a small solid piece in its center, like the yolk of a cracked egg. He waited, hands frozen and throbbing, until it was completely thawed. Only then did he drop the water at his feet.

  She walked over, and Tor saw her emblem, a white circle, bright on the top of her hand. She knelt and her dress pooled around her. She dragged a finger through the puddle for just a moment, then stood.

  “No questions. I will tell you three truths. And then you must leave.”

  Tor nodded.

  “First. The prophecy will ring true.”

  Tor knew as much, though its confirmation made his stomach sink. Did that mean they would not find the pearl before the spectral, the Calavera captain, and the Swordscale traitor? That there was no chance at a loophole?

  The truthteller continued, bored. “Second. The prophecy has not been fulfilled. Your fleeting death was not what it referred to.”

  Tor’s breath stuck in his throat, his vision blurred. If the prophecy was true, and it hadn’t been fulfilled…

  He or one of his friends would die soon.

  Tor almost forgot there was one truth left, until her voice echoed through the cave one final time.

  “And third—the Swordscale traitor…” Tor could picture him in his mind’s eye, disappearing with the Calavera captain and the spectral. “He is your waterbreather’s brother.”

  The First Mermaid

  Once upon a different time, a curious girl had a cruel father. He was rich beyond measure and overly protective of his daughter. To keep her safe, he built a palace atop a cliff on an island accessible only by a land bridge that disappeared in high tide.

  When the tide was low, the father locked his daughter in her room, for fear she would use the bridge to leave. She watched the sea from her balcony and marveled at its beauty.

  She whispered so many nice things that the sea fell in love with her. It danced beneath her room, sending swells so high she could almost touch them.

  One day, she managed to break the lock to her room and fled the palace, intending never to come back. She ran down the land bridge barefoot.

  Just as the tide was rushing in.

  It swallowed her up, pulling her to the bottom of the ocean.

  But she did not drown. The sea asked if she would like to stay, and when the girl said yes, she grew a glittering tail.

  And she became the first mermaid.

  16

  Frozen

  Tor walked over ice, feeling a connection to the harsh landscape. He, too, felt frozen solid and fractured through. Weightless, yet dense. And very close to shattering.

  He had trusted her. Even after everything she had done, after all of the signs he had chosen to ignore, he had believed her story.

  Tor climbed up the ship with shaking hands and stormed over to Vesper, who was glancing down at her map, likely searching for any upcoming land.

  “Are you working with them?” he demanded, his own voice surprising him.

  Vesper straightened. “Working with who?”

  Melda and Engle were behind him a moment later. “The people who captured your kind, the ones that put a bounty on our heads.”

  “Of course not,” she scoffed.

  Tor seethed. He couldn’t remember being so angry. “Is he your brother?”

  Melda stilled. She said very quietly, “Is who her brother?”

  “The Swordscale traitor.”

  Vesper had her held head high. Her arms were shaking slightly by her sides.

  She nodded.

  “What?” Melda yelled. “How long have you been playing us? Was this the plan all along? To spy and let us figure out the way to the pearl, so you could report back to your brother?”

  Vesper shook her head. “No. I—”

  “Do you deny trying to contact him, using the conch shell in your room?”

  “I did, but—
”

  “You have been lying to us from the moment you washed onto Estrelle’s shores. You called him the Swordscale traitor, even though he’s your brother, and you have been working with him—”

  Vesper yelled, “I’m not working with him. I’m trying to save him.”

  There was a moment of silence. Melda glared at her. “I don’t believe a word you say.”

  Engle stepped forward, putting a careful hand on Melda’s shoulder. “One chance to explain yourself.” He turned to Tor and Melda. “Right?”

  Melda fell back next to Tor. They both said nothing.

  Vesper nodded. Her fingers shook—was she nervous because she was about to tell another lie? Or upset she’d been found out? “Ever since my parents died, my brother has been…troubled. He knows who killed them and what happened that day. He’s been searching the seas, against all of our city’s rules, for a chance at revenge. The blood queen turned him down, I’m not sure why. When the Calavera curse was broken, he sought them out, and offered the pearl in exchange for their help at vengeance. When they found that the pearl wasn’t where it was supposed to be in Swordscale, that it had been stolen, I suppose he offered to help them find it…

  “I only learned this when it was too late, when they had already invaded. He seemed to believe they wouldn’t harm us, but I told him we couldn’t trust them, so he locked me in my room, the same way my parents had, years before. My grandmother let me out and told me to flee. I tried to warn others, but a Calavera intercepted me on my way out of our palace—and put his sword through my side. I was able to get to the portal to the ship just off Estrelle, and you know the rest.”