by Melanie Card
“Ward?” Celia asked, her voice hard. “I thought you said it could only possess one person at a time.”
“It can’t—” This was impossible. He wrenched at the pendant with his magic, gathered its essence in his mind, and blasted it at the veil.
“Still don’t believe me,” the woman…the rith…said.
More people strode through the archways, dozens of them: men, women, and children, all with black eyes and phantom hearts. The smoke surged around them, filling the square and blotting out even a hint of the cloudy sky.
“What’s going on?’ Jotham asked.
Nazarius shifted, his weapons held at the ready.
“Ward?” Concern edged the hardness in Celia’s tone.
“They will bleed,” the rith said, speaking through all the people in an eerie, heavy unison. “We will make them bleed, necromancer, and you will enjoy it.”
The original man drew a dagger and raised it above his head. Black smoke billowed around him. With a yell, he leapt at Nazarius. The Tracker parried the attack and slammed the pommel of his sword into the man’s temple, knocking him back.
Ward clenched the bowl of blood, his mind whirling. The rith couldn’t possess more than one person at a time. It was impossible.
The rith howled through everyone in the square with a chilling wail. Ward shuddered, and the rest of the possessed people surged forward with daggers and fists raised. They swarmed Celia, Nazarius, and Jotham.
A heavy-set man reached the executioner’s platform and grabbed for Ward’s ankles. Celia seized the back of the man’s shirt and yanked him away, but another man took his place while even more attacked Celia.
Ward kicked at the next man climbing onto the platform and knocked him back. Smoke undulated around him, and the man laughed. They all laughed, the sound booming through the square.
It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense.
Two women rushed up the side stairs to the platform. The first swung at Ward with clawed hands. Ward staggered to the side, spilling the blood from the bowl, and shoved her off the platform.
Grandfather had never mentioned multiple possessions.
The second woman seized Ward’s arm. “Bleed.”
“Bleed. Bleed,” the other chanted, climbing back onto the platform.
“Do something,” Nazarius yelled.
“Like what?” Ward jerked his arm, trying to get free, but the woman held tight.
“Banish the damned thing.” Nazarius bashed a man in the face and shoved him back into two others.
“I—” Ward’s throat tightened. He didn’t want to admit he couldn’t—that Allette had been right.
“Now would be lovely.” Celia dodged a dagger strike. A boy, about ten, leapt on her back. She stepped to the side and propelled him at a man trying to grab her.
But Ward didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t a rith. It couldn’t be.
The woman holding him snarled and the other leapt at him.
Ward twisted and shoved the woman holding him between him and the other one. The only thing known to necromancers that could possess multiple people was—
Ward’s heart skipped a beat.
“Figured it out,” the women said in unison.
Oh, Goddess. “The curse of Dulthyne.” It had possessed the entire city before Remy LeRoux had destroyed it. “But the Inquest said it was destroyed.”
“Was I?”
Was I? It hadn’t been sentient. It didn’t talk. It wasn’t alive. Its evil grew in a glimmer of malice within any man it touched, starting with those with the most darkness in their souls.
The woman holding his arm seized the front of Ward’s shirt with her free hand and yanked him close with inhuman strength. “You will be mine, necromancer. You will be my new blood magi.”
Ward clawed at her hand. Black smoke shot up the woman’s arm and wrapped around Ward’s wrists. Cold burned his fingers and swept over his skin. He twisted and wrenched. He had to get free. He couldn’t be possessed.
The ice rushed over his chest, stealing his breath. The red blood magic pulsed at the edge of his vision. If he could just reach it. Use it, somehow.
“Yes,” the rith…the curse…hissed through everyone in the square.
The woman holding Ward sneered, and the blackness around her thickened, a chocking miasma blotting everything out. All Ward could see was the pulsing smoke and blood magic.
The ice sunk deeper within him, consuming his being, worming its way to his heart. He struggled to breathe, to move, to do anything.
Someone yelled, high-pitched and feminine. It sounded like Celia, but she was so far away.
Ward forced his head a fraction more in her direction. There, a burning white aura, surrounded by undulating black and red. Celia.
“She will bleed,” the rith said. “And we will enjoy it.”
She dodged and blocked and struck at her assailants, drawing closer to Ward, one painfully small step at a time.
“No.” Ward couldn’t let it happen. Everything within him screamed at the idea of hurting Celia. He couldn’t let the curse of Dulthyne consume him.
He mentally groped for the magic around him, in the blood spilled from the bowl, the octagon painted on the platform, even the people filling the square. It leapt at his command, filling his imagination with a brilliant red energy, burning through the ice. It roared, an inferno through his veins, which threatened to consume him just like the curse’s cold.
He struggled to focus it, give it shape, but it was too much. With a scream, he shot it at the black heart of the woman holding him. Thick smoke exploded around him.
The woman tossed Ward across the platform. He staggered but managed to catch his balance, and the woman threw her head back and wailed. Everyone in the square stopped fighting and joined her. Smoke surged in a vortex above them in an ominous cloud. Ward’s teeth chattered and his whole body trembled. He struggled to focus his imagination and will and gather more magic to strike another blow, but he couldn’t. Only black smoke filled his mind.
Celia inched back from the wailing people. Blood slicked her sword and splattered the bricks around her.
“Ward?” Nazarius asked. That one word was filled with fear and doubt and uncertainty. He stood back to back with Jotham, his weapons raised.
Ward hugged himself, desperate to stop shaking.
“Bleed,” the curse roared. Someone in the group laughed and then another and another. The smoke whooshed around and around.
Footsteps pounded around them, devouring the curse’s laughter. The Duke’s men poured in through the arches, and the square erupted into chaos. The black hearts dissolved, the whirling vortex of smoke scattered. The townspeople, no longer possessed, ran from the soldiers, confused and screaming. Hints of blackness wept from the eyes of both townspeople and soldiers, a hint here, a wisp there, inciting more chaos.
Ward struggled to control his shaking. Red magic flashed around him, black sweeping from behind in a nauseating wave of light and dark. He squeezed his eyes shut. He had to do something, had to stop shaking. But he couldn’t stop anything, not even keep his mind from reeling.
Goddess above, it was the Curse of Dulthyne, the greatest evil ever created by man.
Nineteen
Half an hour later, Ward paced the sitting room where Talbot’s men had put him, his teeth still chattering, his chest still tight with rage. Celia waited in the room across the hall and both doors were guarded. Nazarius and Jotham were with Talbot, likely trying to convince the Duke not to execute Ward for using blood magic.
Except all Ward could think about was what had happened. Please, Goddess, it couldn’t be Diestro’s curse. It just couldn’t be. It had to be something else, like the foreman’s rith had rare powers, something, anything.
But a rith couldn’t possess more than one person at a time. An enraged spirit couldn’t divide itself up to control many spirits. Nothing could. Except the curse. And all those people had been possessed.
The word curse raced through him over and over again. The only way he stood a chance of doing anything against the curse was with true, human blood magic. His hand, now wrapped in a bandage, still wept blood, but just his blood wouldn’t be enough. He needed more, a lot more.
His stomach churned, and the cold within him sank lower into his gut. He couldn’t believe he’d thought that. It was exactly what the curse wanted. It was bad enough he’d used as much blood as he had trying to control the rith. He couldn’t cross the line to a true blood magi.
And yet, he’d never be strong enough any other way. There wasn’t time to wait for the Necromancer Council of Elders to arrive, and even if they did, there was no telling whether they’d be able to destroy the curse, either—especially if the first attempt more than two hundred years ago, with the Union’s most powerful Brother of Light, hadn’t destroyed it.
But Ward’s soul was already on the edge of being damned, if it wasn’t already. What was his soul compared to the lives of thousands?
He rubbed his face with his freezing hands. Goddess, this was such a mess. If he could just focus maybe he’d be able to figure out what had to be done. He shoved his hands in his pockets to warm them. His fingers hit the locket, and he pulled it out. When he’d used the locket to uncover a secret grave, the gold oval had pulsed with light. Its magic had thrummed like a heartbeat, sure and strong.
Now…nothing. It was a plain old locket. He slid his thumb over the small, dark stone inset in its top. Celia might like it. It was simple—probably too simple for what she was accustomed to, since she was the daughter of a nobleman—but he could use it to show her how he felt.
Which was ridiculous. She probably didn’t want any gifts from him. And really, he was only avoiding the only possible solution to the imminent problem at hand. He knew what had to be done to even just hold the curse at bay. He just didn’t want to accept it.
The door opened with a creak. Ingrith stood in the entrance holding a tray with a pitcher, a washbowl, and a towel. The soldier guarding the door stood beside her, his hand on the hilt of his sword. The man on Celia’s door also stood on guard as if they saw Ward in a dangerous new light.
Ingrith mumbled a quick thank you and stepped into the room. The man closed the door, but Ingrith didn’t move. She stared at Ward, her eyes wide, her face pale. Her knuckles turned white, her grip so tight on the tray, as if she could will herself from trembling.
Then, with subtle adjustments, her expression did change. Her eyes returned to a normal size and her mouth pinched tight. Her face remained pale, the freckles dusting her nose and cheeks dark, but whatever fear she’d had upon entering the room was shoved aside.
“I heard what happened.” Her gaze jumped to the blood splattered on his hands and clothes then back to his face. “I thought you might like to clean up.”
Ward blew out a sigh. There wasn’t time for this. He needed to figure out what in the Goddess’s name he was going to do…or accept the terrible truth. “Why are you here?”
“To help you clean up.” She set the tray on the table in the center of the room, sat on the edge of the divan before it, and poured water from the pitcher into the bowl, her hands shaking. “Did whatever you were attempting work?”
“No.” Her fear churned his stomach. The cold within him swelled.
“I’ve never seen the Seer so angry before.” She patted the couch beside her.
He didn’t want to sit, couldn’t. The urge to move, take action, ate through him almost as soul deep as the curse’s chill. “I can wash my own hands.”
She dipped a washcloth in the water and wrung out the excess. “But you shouldn’t have to.”
No, he shouldn’t. If he had the courage to take what he needed, he could do anything. Like destroy Diestro’s curse.
He wrenched away, turning his back on her. The painting of an angry man glared down at him, knowing, demanding.
The man in the painting was stout like Talbot but with Ingrith’s bright orange hair. Treasures, armor, and weapons surrounded him. This had to be the first Duke of Dulthyne. He had been graced by the Goddess with a Duchy and discovered Diestro’s wealth still hidden within the mountain. What had the Goddess ever given Ward? What did he have? Nothing.
He’d only ever had what he had the strength to take.
Ice shivered through him.
Goddess. He needed to get a hold of himself. Focus.
“My lord Inquisitor,” Ingrith said, her voice quiet. She brushed a hand along his sleeve, the warmth from her fingers searing into his flesh. Heat radiated from her, burning across his senses. So warm, so much life…and power. “Or do you prefer my lord necromancer?”
“Neither.” He forced the words out against the burn and chill and the knot twisting within him. Pull it together.
“Let’s clean that from your hands.” She leaned even closer, reaching for him.
He eased back and grasped the damp cloth in her fingers. “I can do it.”
She slid her index finger along his and gasped. “You’re freezing.”
He yanked his hand away, but she seized it, capturing it between her tiny palms, the washcloth tangled around her fingers.
“Let me help you.” She stepped closer, and he inched back. The windowsill dug into his spine.
Yes. He wanted her help, wanted the magic within her—
No. He didn’t want…
Goddess, she was so close. His skin burned from her heat. His pulse raced.
She pressed a burning palm against his chest where the dagger had cut him yesterday afternoon. “I want to help. I can talk to my father, make him understand.”
“Understand what?” He had to get away from her, but he couldn’t make his legs work. The cold within him wanted to stay, wanted the power lying dormant within her blood.
Ingrith’s fingers trailed to the buttons on his shirt. “I can make my father understand what’s between us.”
“There’s nothing between us.”
She flicked open the top button. “But there is, don’t you feel it?”
“No, there isn’t.” His mind screamed to move, put distance between them.
“Women don’t show their interests in you because of your gifts. They’re afraid of you. But I’m not.”
He grabbed her hand before she could open another button. Goddess, all she wanted was to undress him? “Ingrith, please.”
“I can prove it.” She yanked her hand free, grabbed the back of his head, and slammed her lips against his.
He jerked back and bashed his head against the windowsill. The world twisted and darkened. Ingrith slid her other hand to his face, her fingers burning across his cheek, and she strengthen the kiss. Now everything within him screamed to be free. This was wrong. It was supposed to be Celia.
He clenched her shoulders to shove her back. The door creaked open, and Ward glanced up. Celia stood in the doorway.
Twenty
Everything within Celia froze and the ache in her chest—the one that twisted when she thought of Ward—wrenched. Every detail was burned into her mind. He was lip to lip with Ingrith. Her hands were wrapped behind his head and her body pressed against his. Ward’s gaze, filled with guilt, locked on Celia, but he didn’t move.
But then, nothing moved. Not Ward, or her heart, or anything, as if she were trapped in a terrible frieze, forced to watch Ward kiss Ingrith forever.
In that moment Celia knew the truth. Regardless of everything, it was supposed to be her. He was supposed to realize his laws were ridiculous and pick her. In that moment, that flash of a heartbeat, she knew she didn’t care if her feelings were because of Ward’s spell or not. He made her a better person.
And yet, if she truly cared for Ward, she wouldn’t ask him to compromise his beliefs like that. She had to let him go and Ingrith, while a little young, was a good choice. She was nobility, probably had a nice dowry, and clearly wasn’t afraid of his necromantic abilities.
Nazarius cleared his throat. Ward pushed Ingri
th back and red swept over the girl’s face.
“My lord Inquisitor,” she said, her voice breathy, and she rushed from the room.
The door clicked shut, the soft, bright sound shattering something within Celia. Her arms trembled and she crossed them. Let him go. That was the right thing to do. “My lord Inquisitor, indeed,” she said with a laugh.
“Not sure if now is an appropriate time for a dalliance with the duke’s daughter,” Nazarius said.
“I’m not— I didn’t—” Ward yanked his shirt straight. “There isn’t—” His inability to complete a sentence only made him look guiltier.
“No, it’s not the best time.” Celia dropped onto the divan, her back to Ward, her chest aching, her throat tight. “But the girl is sweet and pretty. You could do much worse.” Like her.
“Celia, I—”
“When this is done we’ll come up with a solid plan to court her.” That was the best thing she could do for him.
“Her father thinks I’m an Inquisitor!” Ward said, his voice cracking.
“Minor detail. I can make it work.”
Nazarius snorted. “Definitely not the time. What in the Goddess’s name happened? You said the rith could only possess one person at a time. You were supposed to banish it.”
“Well it got complicated.” Ward slid into the chair beside her.
“You always say it’s complicated.” Why did it hurt so much to do the right thing for Ward? She’d liked herself better when her assassin’s heart was still frozen.
“For now, we’re allowed to continue with our assignment, only because Allette murdered that maid and, more importantly, Talbot fears the wrath of the Council. But we’re a hairbreadth from being locked in the dungeon until it’s time for you to use your Inquisitor ability to read and then execute whoever Talbot arrests for the uprising,” Nazarius said.
Ward groaned. “Wonderful. Is there any good news?”
“Well, after that showing in the Executioner’s Square, the duke has locked the city down. No one in or out until the cult leaders are brought to justice.” Nazarius knelt by the washbowl and dunked his hands in the water.
