Contents
Title Page
The Curse-Breaker Series:
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Epilogue
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Curse-Maker
The Tale of Gwiddon Crow
Alydia Rackham
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Copyright © 2019 Alydia Rackham
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 9781794112582
The Curse-Breaker Series:
Scales: Retelling Beauty and the Beast (Book 1)
Glass: Retelling the Snow Queen (Book 2)
Tide: Retelling the Little Mermaid (Book 3)
Curse-Maker: The Tale of Gwiddon Crow (Book 4)
Excalibor: Retelling the Legend of King Arthur (Book 5)
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Ever.
And Maegan,
An ever-present encouragement
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Rachel and Tyler
Prologue
There is great freedom in darkness.
I wrap it around me like clothing. I move without sound. And even if my boot treads upon a twig, and it snaps through the silence…
Mortal eyes can only strain to find its source, and then, to no avail. I am already gone.
I walk through Winterly Wood amongst the ghosts of dead trees and the spirits that haunt the hanging branches. Moving as a wraith. My eyes see more keenly than any cat, my ears catch the slightest whisper. My skin tingles with each breath of dank air, my heart beats in time with the deep, ancient mutterings of the wood.
In darkness, I perch amidst the arms of the tangled oak trees, watching like the mire owl, but invisible, though I loom just above the traveler’s head. I creep along the banks of the river, watching the threads of moonshine ripple against its languid surface, spying the drifting fishes amongst the reeds, yet I am never touched by the fingers of silver light that grope weakly down into the black.
I spin webs of spells, like twinkling nets, whose edges set fool-fires and will-o-wisps that lead wayfarers to their deaths. I press my palm to the cold surface of the water, and henceforth anyone who touches the river will fall asleep and drown. I lay illusions upon the trees—illusions of dreadful fiends that horrify villagers into abandoning the path. I breathe out a blanket of fog to stifle the remnants of old elvish spells.
I snatch at the ranger’s legs and send him tumbling into the arms of the bramble thorns. I loose false cries of children to lead the woodsman to the mouth of the bog. I crush blue fairies with stones and put out their light. I ensnare the noisy white deer, send pale phantoms wailing up and down the roads to terrorize encroaching gypsies. I lie down amongst a fellowship of wolves.
I am never seen.
I am not bound by borders or the commands of any king; I am not enslaved any longer to chains and hammers and toil; I bear my own name. I wield my own weapons. I rely upon no one.
I can breathe with all the depth in my lungs, and no one hears anything but the rustle of the leaves. I fly, and they shrink from the shadow of a raven. I run faster than wind, leaves swirling around my feet and the edges of my cape, the night air tearing through my wild hair—and they recoil from a banshee. I scale trees in an instant, then leap down onto horsemen like a nightmare—and throw them from the saddle. I ride frightened beasts down paths unknown by men, with the hands of a herald of Hel. I appear and disappear at will, with the suddenness of death.
I am the darkness.
Chapter One
On the night of a full moon in late autumn, I sat in the arms of a knotted wych elm, my back to the trunk, one leg bent, the other hanging easily off the thick branch. My black cape tumbled all around me, its edges fluttering like feathers touched by a breeze. I crossed my arms, gazing out to my left at the narrow road that passed beneath me and wound away into vanishment like a dead river. I listened.
The young night air hung heavy with frost. Silver foxes slipped through the underbrush, disturbing the leaves of the greying ferns. I could hear their careful, clever feet padding across the fallen leaves. An owl passed like a winged reaper overhead, the cloak of his wings eclipsing the cold gaze of the moon.
As I watched below me, the fog slowly rolled in, hiding the roots of the trees. Dew beaded on my fitted, leather travel clothes and on the long, tangled, mane-like lengths of my white hair. I reached up with both hands and wound a strand around my slender, pale fingers, studying the way the crackled moonlight caught my hair’s coal-black flecks and shining silvers. The way it cast shadows across the scars on my knuckles, the black rune tattoos on my thumbs. How it sparkled in the jet stone in the silver ring on my right hand.
I released the tangled end of my hair and tapped the symbols on my thumbs, absently muttering their meanings under my breath like a chant, first one hand, then the other.
“Cuir, neartu, freimhe,” I hummed. “Nimh, betha, cothaigh. Cuir, neartu, freimhe; Nimh, betha, cothaigh…”
Plant. Strengthen. Root.
Poison. Feed. Keep.
I tilted my face back to the interwoven maze of branches above me, smiling as they swayed in time to the rhythm of the wood—the rhythm I had memorized since childhood, even before I knew the words to the song. I tapped my toe, tilting my head side to side. I drew in a deep breath.
“Man may think that he liveth long,
But oft him belies my tricks.
Fair weather often turns to rain
And wondrously it makes its switch.”
A lively, wicked wind suddenly cut through the branches, whirling and swirling like a tattered gown, catching up leaves in its skirts. Night birds began to hoot and call in time with me, and deep, guttural, creaking grunts issued from the marrow of the trees.
“Therefore, man, you do bethink,
But all shall fail, your fields of green!
Fair weather often turns to rain,
And wondrously it makes its switch!”
The cold wind cackled now, throwing the leaves toward the skies and ripping delightfully through my cape and hair. I rapped my fingernails against the bark, raising my voice as the tune slithered rapidly every which way through the forest.
“Alas, there's neither king nor queen,
That shall not drink of death's drink!
Man, ere thou fall off thy bench,
Thy sins thou shalt quench!
Man may think that he liveth long,
But
oft him belies my tricks.
Fair weather often turns to rain,
And wondrously it makes its switch!”
As I let the last note ring out, warming and vibrating through my whole body, the autumn wood and its creatures roiled and rattled with the full strength of their merry voices. I grinned, appreciatively slapping the trunk of the tree, feeling it chuckle down within its wood.
Then—
A screech.
Far off, yet not so far that I couldn’t feel the ripple of it strike me in the side of the neck.
I leaped to my feet, standing freely balanced on the branch, holding onto nothing. My cape went still. I faced the east, not breathing, my gaze wide.
A deep, single-noted hum traveled through the earth, as if something in the roots of the mountains had cracked. For a moment, I stood, studying the vibrations that passed up through the roots, the trunk, and into my boots.
Then, I launched myself up the tree. With swift, sure steps and firm handholds, I maneuvered my lean body between the limbs and toward the height of the canopy. At last, my head broke through the leaves, and moonlight spilled over my hair. I grasped the rough branches, and peered toward the east.
Winterly Wood stretched on in every direction, its impenetrable tangle rolling far, far away from me toward Rye Valley, which now lay shrouded in blackness.
But there, at the very edge of my sight, I glimpsed birds that had taken flight. All along the entire forest wall, they flapped frantically upward, toward the mountains, away from the valley.
I frowned hard, my left-hand fingers closing tighter around the branch.
Then, I let go, perched precariously on a limb that could not hold my weight.
“Eitil,” I muttered—and clapped my hands together.
The limb gave way beneath me—but that instant, my cape flung all around me like a python, swallowed my frame, and crushed it.
A moment of blinding pain snapped all my bones—
And then…
I flung out my arms—and they were wings. Great, black wings.
My face had changed to shining black with a long, gleaming beak. My body had covered with sleek ebony feathers, my feet to wiry claws. I sprang straight into the air with a hoarse “caw!”, beating my wings as I climbed heavenward. I reeled in midair, switching direction, and hurtled down over the face of the forest, my feathers spread wide.
Leaves flittered just below my breast as I skimmed over the beeches, oaks and elms. I dodged bare, protruding twigs; I fleetingly scanned ahead of me for owls. Though none would challenge me—I was thrice the size of any other crow in Edel.
Ahead of me, rising suddenly like black knives from the heart of the wood, this portion of the Eisenzahn Mountain Strand stood like the walls of a giant fortress. Black pines covered their faces, cloaking the shimmering white stone of their bones. I glanced down, and glimpsed the Sopor River glittering like a seam of silver weaving through the immovable wood—leading straight for the Flumen Split: the narrow gap in the mountains that provided the only passage between Albain and the vast Thornbind Wood beyond.
Canting my head, I spied a narrow track below me, and a familiar fork in it. With a breath, I folded my wings and dove straight down.
The wind whistled through my feathers, the stars flashed around me—
I plunged into the shadow of the wood.
I pulled up, brought my wings out with a loud flap—
Shook myself, and threw off my cape.
Another howl of pain split my body—and my booted feet struck the dry dirt of the path.
Pulling in a swift, measured breath and gritting my teeth, I lifted my human head and straightened my human shoulders, never breaking stride as my cape turned back into a garment, and roiled behind my steps.
I took another deep breath, smelling the smoke of a familiar hearth. In a few paces, I spied flickering torches standing at odd angles, lining the crooked path. My boots left prints in the frost.
I finally approached the first set of torches: human skulls upon tall pikes, their gaping mouths seething with crackling flames, their eyes enlivened by brilliant sparks. The flame blackened the teeth of their sagging jaws, and glowed through the cracks in their crowns. The light threw stark shadows against the figures of the trees to either side, making them look like they moved. I strode between the leering pairs, tipping my head back and forth as I had since I was a girl, silently reciting the names I’d given them: Arseny and Afanasy, Vadim and Vasily, Bogdam and Boris, Ivan and Ilia, Pavel and Pyotr. I glanced ahead of me at the familiar cottage.
The cottage of bones.
Instead of beams and bars and thatch, the mistress of this house had built with the bones of kings who defied her, women who went back on their promises to her, children who had been traded for spells. But the front door and the lintel above had been constructed of very special skeletons indeed: the bones of all the Caldic Curse-Breakers—except one.
I finally arrived at the front door of the cottage. For a moment I stopped, glancing toward the window to my left.
Flickering orange light peered through a ragged cloth that hung over most of the opening. Quiet music wafted out: music from a stringed instrument, plucked by careful fingers. It was a swaying, tilting sort of tune—like treading gleefully toward some sort of mischief. I snickered.
I reached out and put my hand on the forehead of Aleric Blackthorn’s well-polished skull, and shoved.
The ancient door creaked crankily as I stepped up into the cottage. I immediately dodged a mobile of fingerbones and a set of dangling glass balls. My footsteps went silent as they met the worn-out bearskins on the floor.
The scent of burning tallow candles filled my lungs—a mountain of them, all dripping onto each other, stood upon the mantel in the far corner, lighting up all the herbs, spices, bones, and trinkets hanging from that section of the ceiling.
I maneuvered around the towers of dusty books and locked trunks, aiming for the beaten armchair that sat near the fire—its legs so stacked with tattered papers and odds and ends that it looked as if it had grown out of the floor.
Enfolded in the arms of the chair sat a very old woman, wearing rags. Only if I peered closely—which I often had—could I detect the threads of gold and silver woven into her garments, and the faded silk patterns of flowers: patterns sewn by the finest weavers and tailors in Izborsk.
Hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
A scarf that had once been maroon bound around the top of her head, and her feathery white hair stuck out from beneath it. She had a face of leather, riddled with wrinkles; the end of her long, hooked nose nearly touching her protruding chin. In her lap she held the stringed instrument, a triangle-shaped balalaika, and her bony hands plucked the strings of the melancholy, mischievous melody that filled the house. The firelight bathed her gently-swaying form in rich light, and for a moment—as I always did when I first came inside—I felt like I was gazing back into the shadows of a lost world.
I paused, but she’d caught my movement. Her glinting silvery eyes found me, and narrowed as a low, sly smile carved her wrinkles even deeper.
“Crow,” she creaked, still playing at the strings with her skillful fingertips.
“Babushka,” I nodded to her.
“You have something to tell me,” Gwiddon Baba Yaga—called “Babushka” only by me—noted, turning back toward the fire, and I watched as the flames danced across her iridescent eyes. Eyes that had seen so much—so much more than I could ever imagine…
“Yes,” I said. “I saw something.”
“Sit down, eat,” she nodded to a space in front of her.
I frowned, and leaned around a particularly tall pile of books…
To see that a small table set with a bowl of food, in front of my chair, steamed readily, as if it had just been laid out. I eyed her, and lifted an eyebrow.
“You were expecting me to come back early.”
“Da,” she hummed.
I sighed, stepped around
the pile of books, peeled off my cape and flung it across the back of my chair, then sat heavily down. I tugged the table closer so it stood between my knees, and I scanned the food. It was a bowl of shchi, filled with cabbage, chicken, mushrooms, carrots, onions, garlic, celery, pepper, apples and smetana. Three pieces of hot, buttered bread sat to the side, along with a wooden goblet of rich, heady red wine. I picked up the goblet and took a long swig of the wine, hoping it would dull the ache in my bones left over from my transforming.
“So,” I said, setting the goblet down and tearing into the bread with both hands. “What was it that I saw?”
The witch across from me diddled on the strings with her long nails, and pursed her lips.
“I suppose you saw a bit of a disturbance on the eastern border of Winterly,” she replied, with a thoughtful lilt to her tone. “And perhaps felt a touch of startlement from deep within the earth?”
I frowned hard at her, stopping my chewing.
Her eyes flicked to mine for a moment, and then she returned to her music. I finished chewing, watching her, then sat back in my chair.
“So what was it?”
“Mm,” she grunted. “I do not know.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“What do you think it was?”
“Eat your shchi,” she said, jerking her chin toward it. “And put some slype on your hands.”
“Why?” I demanded.
“I see a spot.” She pointed with a gnarled finger at my left hand. I lifted it toward the light, and spied a dark blotch on the back of it.
“I haven’t noticed that before,” I murmured.
“Mm,” she grunted again. “What have you been doing?”
“Nothing,” I shook my head. “Just a strengthening spell on the fog.”
“Ah, but you haven’t put slype on yourself for weeks,” she noted, arching an eyebrow.
“It stinks,” I shot back. She snorted.
“Put it on,” she ordered. “Unless you’d like to look like me far earlier than you ought.” And she bared her pointed teeth in what was meant to be a ghastly grin. I rolled my eyes and reached up to snatch a little black bottle off the mantle.
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