The Morrigan's Curse

by Dianne K. Salerni

  Jax cringed, remembering the papers he’d dropped while fighting Kel.

  “The Emrys girls could escape pretty easily, if they only knew it,” Dorian said. “They can both travel by brownie magic.”

  “I could send the Ganners to try and snatch them,” Sloane volunteered. “My men would stand a better chance than Jax did.” Her vassals, the Ganners, served as a security team for Sloane’s clan, and, like the Dulacs and Ambroses, they’d been granted access to the brownie tunnels by Dr. Morder’s spell.

  But Jax objected. “As far as Evangeline and Addie know, the Ganners are enemies.” In fact, as far as Jax knew, they still might be. Sloane was devious enough to double-cross them. “They’d fight back. Someone could get hurt.”

  “And thanks to Jax spilling the beans about the brownie holes, the Llyrs might have precautions in place,” Tegan added. Jax gave her a look. Yeah, he’d messed up. But did Tegan have to remind them every two seconds?

  “What about Lesley?” Aunt Marian asked plaintively.

  “I don’t know what we can do about her,” Mrs. Crandall said as gently as possible. “The Morrigan goes where she wants.”

  “The Morrigan goes where there’s a battle—which is coming,” Mr. Crandall stressed. “Not to diminish the importance of the girls, but if we’re going to face the Llyrs head-on in warfare, we need to have a plan. Sheila Morgan will be furious when she finds out you’re voting down her military strategy. Let’s have an alternative ready to suggest to her.”

  “Do you have one in mind?” Bedivere asked.

  Mr. Crandall nodded. “The Llyrs want the Treasures. Riley was thinking of using the Sword of Nuadu as bait, but it seems to me the more powerful item is the Stone of Fal. What if we lure them into a battle here, where their own Kin magic will work against them?”

  They bounced the idea around, but Jax kept finding flaws in their plans. Evangeline wouldn’t know what they were up to, and there were very few people she’d completely trust. His talent nagged at him, pestering him with a fragment of an idea, until suddenly it clicked into place. “You’re missing something obvious,” he said, interrupting a suggestion from Mr. Crandall. “Something we need for this to work. A man on the inside.”

  “No!” exclaimed every adult in the room.

  Jax guessed they knew what inside man he had in mind.

  Riley grabbed Jax by the front of his shirt and lifted him out of his chair. “If you’ll excuse me a minute, I need a few words alone with my ward.” He hauled Jax out of Bedivere’s banquet room and shut the door behind them before letting go of his shirt. “You will not do this. You swore an oath to me. No more stupid risks.”

  “I swore I’d get your permission first. I’m doing that now.” Jax clutched the Sword of Nuadu with both hands and stared up at Riley. “This won’t be a stupid risk.” He didn’t want to die the way his father had, doing something reckless and poorly thought out. “This is going to be a very carefully calculated and planned risk, because every smart person in that room is going to help me figure it out. You’d do it if you could.”

  “Yeah, but I’m eighteen. An adult. You’re thirteen.”

  “When you were thirteen, you took charge of a whole clan.”

  “And went into hiding,” Riley reminded him. “I didn’t walk into the Dulac stronghold and dare them to kill me. I hid, Jax.”

  “Hiding was what you needed to do right then,” Jax said. “You kept Evangeline safe all those years—until I showed up. I messed you up again and again.”

  “Jax—”

  “Hiding won’t do us any good now. Look, you know only I can do this.” Jax lifted the Sword. “I’ve got something the Llyrs want, but they can’t take it away from me, and they can’t hurt me while I’ve got it.”

  “Unless you use it.”

  “What?”

  “Unless you actually kill that guy,” Riley said. “Then the Sword dumps you. It’s done with you. No more protection.”

  “I’m not going to kill anyone,” Jax scoffed.

  “You were tricked into drawing it. You might be tricked into using it.” Riley paced the hallway. “I don’t like the way you’ve been pulled into this. I didn’t believe in the Morrigan, but you’ve seen her again and again, which means—”

  “She chose me to play this part,” Jax said solemnly.

  “She’s a force of chaos and destruction. What kind of part do you think it’ll be?”

  “I’ll do it my own way,” Jax said. “And surprise her.” He held up the Sword again. “I have this. And I have a liege to serve. You dragged me into this hallway so you can tell me how much you wish you could take my place. But I’m the only one who can do this.”

  “I’d do anything to keep you safe,” Riley said. “You and Evangeline.”

  Jax realized, to his shock, that his guardian was pretty choked up—which immediately put Jax in the same state. But he blinked away the tears and said, “You have to let me do this. It’s the only chance we have of getting Evangeline and Addie back alive and maybe Lesley, too. This is my talent, Riley. I know it.”

  Riley nodded reluctantly. “I know it too,” he whispered.

  26

  “AGAIN,” BRAN DEMANDED.

  Addie called up wind for the third time, sending Condor Aeron stumbling, but Bran wasn’t satisfied. “You use the same spell over and over. It’s predictable. Your execution is weak, and you’re not aggressive enough.” He thumped the Spear on the warehouse floor, which lurched beneath her. Addie lost her balance and her rear end hit the concrete. Laughter came from above, where Griffyn and Ysabel were leaning against a railing on the second floor, watching the action.

  He does earthquakes now, too? Then Addie saw Condor coming for her. He was a grown man fighting a thirteen-year-old girl, but he had no qualms about hitting her. She’d already learned that. Scrambling to her feet, Addie reached out mentally to the white, intense magic of the Spear in Bran’s hand, then waved her arms at the stacked boxes around them. Here’s some aggression for you.

  The boxes exploded. Hunks of plastic and metal pierced the air like shrapnel. Something winged Addie’s face. Whoops. Next time I should duck. Condor had already dropped and covered his head. He had plenty of practice dodging things that exploded, imploded, and collapsed. It was his talent Addie was copying.

  The Aeron magic had been hard for Addie to get a handle on, like a greasy, black oil slick. But Addie was finally getting a feel for it. Mayhem of any kind. Whatever will make the greatest mischief.

  Bran had forced her to continue training last night even after torturing her on the plane. He’d woken her early to start again today. Addie understood that he held no ill feelings for her defiance in Vermont or her defense of the Transitioner boy, and he expected the same lack of resentment from her. You were punished for your errors. Learn from it. That was Bran’s motto.

  Addie was willing to play along. If this bizarre training unlocked the key to casting the spell she needed to release the prisoners of the eighth day, Addie intended to invoke her own motto: Remember every insult and injury.

  She was preparing to utilize the Aeron talent again to burst water pipes above her head while simultaneously throwing up a shield spell she’d learned from an orphan at the Carroway house when Kel and his father, Madoc, burst out of one of the offices on the second floor. “What are you doing?” Madoc yelled, pushing Griffyn out of his way and running down the metal staircase to the warehouse floor. “There are computers in those boxes worth thousands of dollars!”

  “I thought this wasn’t your warehouse,” Addie said.

  “Money is money,” Madoc exclaimed. “You can’t wantonly destroy everything you see!”

  Madoc had been distressed to discover that the papers carried by the Transitioner boy had the name of his company written on them. If Transitioners knew about Madoc’s company, none of his holdings were safe. The Aerons making use of his properties had been forced to vacate. Madoc had hidden the plane, and they’d all taken refug
e here—in a place owned by Normals who were used to secrecy, fond of money, and close to the point of origin marked on the Transitioner boy’s map. It also brought them nearer to the Bedivere property, where they believed one of the missing Treasures might be found.

  Just then, the huge loading-dock door at the front of the warehouse began to roll up. One of Condor’s clansmen waved a Jeep into the warehouse.

  On the plane yesterday, Addie had not known for sure if it was her sister viewing her through the scrying spell. It would’ve served Bran right if it’d been the Dulacs after all—if they’d been the ones to receive Bran’s message and if they’d planned an ambush for today. But the Aeron men emerging from the Jeep looked triumphant. And they were followed by a girl.

  Five years had passed since Addie had seen her sister, but there was no mistaking this for anyone but Evangeline. She’d grown quite pretty—of course she had—although she wasn’t very tall. Addie, at thirteen, was about the same height. I’ll end up taller, even if I’m never as pretty. Then she was ashamed that her first thought, after all this time, was to compare them.

  By contrast, Evangeline’s face lit up when she saw Addie, proving that she was the better person, just like Addie remembered. She started toward her little sister, but one of the Aerons caught her by the arm.

  Griffyn hurried down the stairs from the second floor to get a closer look at the new captive, while Ysabel followed more slowly. Two of the Aerons escorted Evangeline to Bran under guard, although their lax demeanor suggested they didn’t consider her much of a threat. They should. Now Addie was noticing what she should have seen first—how her sister glowed with an ominous, simmering light. No one but Addie would be able to see it, but everyone else ought to have paid attention to how her sister was walking with bouncy, jittery steps and how her hands shook.

  Evangeline had come here holding uncast spells inside her—big ones, by the look of it. Unlike Addie, who’d been able to cast spells without symbols or rituals since her first visitation from the Morrigan, Evangeline would’ve had to set this up in advance. Her skin must feel like it’s trying to crawl off her body. Grudgingly, Addie had to admire her sister’s ability to hold all that unreleased power, probably for hours. Evangeline glanced over her shoulder at Addie and mouthed, Be ready. Addie chewed on a fingernail, wondering what message to send back. No, don’t! or Yes, please!

  “Did she turn herself over willingly?” Bran asked the Aeron men when they brought Evangeline to a halt a few feet in front of him.

  “Yes. She was wearing this, and I thought you’d want to see it.” One of them handed Bran an engraved dagger—an honor blade, the Transitioners called them. Bran examined it. From across the room, Addie saw that the dagger had its own curious glow, which, like the illumination around Evangeline herself, was invisible to everyone but her.

  “You’ve been hurting my sister,” Evangeline accused Bran. “Against your word.”

  “I’m not hurt,” Addie called, knowing her face was bruised from Condor’s blows and scratched from the explosion she’d caused. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “This bears the mark of the Pendragons,” Bran said of the dagger. “Why do you carry it?”

  “It was a gift.” Evangeline raised her chin.

  Bran looked at Madoc. “It’s not a very old blade. Perhaps the Pendragons are not all dead. That would explain the words in the prophecy.” Evangeline’s eyes widened, realizing she’d given away something they didn’t know, and Bran smiled at her reaction, which confirmed his theory. “Does an Emrys perform powerful magic on a Pendragon blade?”

  Evangeline’s eyes flickered from Bran to Griffyn, who was approaching from the staircase, then to Addie and back to Bran, as if noting everyone’s position and distance from her. “I killed Wylit with it,” she said proudly. The Aeron man restraining her had released his grip, and Evangeline used this new freedom to step closer to Bran and extend her index finger toward the dagger.

  Addie realized what spell her sister was holding and stepped back.

  Somehow, Bran also guessed—or saw something in Evangeline’s eyes that warned him—because he flung the Pendragon blade away just as her finger brushed against it. If he hadn’t, he would probably have lost his hand. As it was, a percussive blast threw him off his feet and sent Griffyn ducking for cover. Evangeline and her guards were also flung backward, but Evangeline’s additional stored spells must have been protective in nature because she alone managed to keep her feet. She whirled, her long hair swinging in an arc, and started running toward the warehouse’s open bay door. “Addie!” she yelled.

  For a second, Addie froze in indecision. Evangeline was going the wrong way. She would never outrun the Aerons, with or without their vehicles. “No!” Addie shouted. “This way!” Condor grabbed for her, but Addie thrust him aside with a gust of wind and bolted for the back of the warehouse. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her sister’s flight path falter and zigzag. To Evangeline it must have seemed like Addie was running toward a dead end. But Addie had been eyeing an opalescent glimmer beside a Dumpster all day, waiting for a chance to examine it unobserved. The opportunity had never come, and now she’d have to rely on the word of a Transitioner boy and a half-breed traitor that she could actually enter a brownie hole.

  But her sister wasn’t going to make it. As soon as Evangeline changed course and ran toward Addie, Ysabel Arawen launched herself down the stairs, sprinting like a deer. With her long-legged stride, she intercepted Evangeline, grabbed her around the waist with a brawny arm, and hauled the slighter girl completely off her feet.

  And Addie, watching this over her shoulder as she ran, never saw the broken metal computer panel Condor Aeron hurled at her like a discus until it slammed into her side. She hit the concrete hard—knees, chest, and then her head. For a second, Addie knew what it meant to see stars. By the time she’d shaken off the pain, Condor had her by the shirt collar, and Ysabel was pushing Evangeline in front of Bran Llyr, who was now on his feet again, his tunic scorched but his face impassive.

  “Two halves of a detonation, contained within an object and your person,” Bran remarked without emotion, as if evaluating Evangeline’s work. “Clever in conception. But you wasted the strength you could have put into it by providing protection for yourself and preserving the object.” He glanced at the dagger, still intact on the floor where he’d thrown it. “And your timing was off.” Then he backhanded Evangeline across the face contemptuously, as if punishing her for failing her assassination attempt. Bran turned to his son. “Well, Griffyn? Can you handle her?”

  “What do you mean, handle her?” Ysabel repeated, scowling.

  “Scrawny girl like this?” Griffyn scoffed. “Of course.”

  Bran returned his attention to Evangeline. “You’re as spirited as your sister, I’ll give you that. But you’re a traitor, as your ancestor Merlin was. You ally yourself with the Pendragons and boast of killing Wylit, then attempt to kill me—”

  “Wylit was insane,” Evangeline said, staring up at him unafraid even while the mark of his hand on her face reddened. “No doubt you are, too.”

  Bran continued to list what he saw as her inadequacies without reacting to the insult. “Your spells were wrongly proportioned and as ill planned as your vassal’s attempt to abduct Adelina.”

  At that, Evangeline blinked rapidly, then looked at Addie, obviously alarmed. She doesn’t know what happened to him, Addie realized. He didn’t make it back. Addie was surprised by how hard that hit her.

  “The only hope for the Emrys line is to bind it to my own and breed something worthwhile into it,” Bran went on. “Therefore, you will speak the Handmaiden Oath to my son and marry him when you come of age.”

  “I will not!” Evangeline exclaimed in horror, while Ysabel protested, “But I am promised to Griffyn!”

  “Condor,” Bran said. “Break Adelina’s wrist—to start with.”

  Addie yanked her shirt out of Condor’s grasp and invoked the spell she�
��d been thinking about during their sparring match minutes ago. A translucent barrier sprang up between them.

  While she was focused on Condor, Madoc seized her from behind, pushed her to the floor, and put a knee on her back. Addie hadn’t been expecting an attack from Kel’s father, and by the time she realized she needed to fight back with another spell, he had her arm pinned on the concrete, preparing to snap her hand the wrong way.

  “Dad, wait!” Kel yelled.

  The pressure on her arm eased. Addie heard Evangeline screaming, “I’ll do it! Let her go!”

  “No, Evangeline!” Addie shouted back. “You don’t have to! They can’t—” Madoc clamped a hand over her mouth. She bit him, but he hung on.

  Evangeline got down on her knees. “Don’t hurt her!”

  Griffyn kicked the Pendragon blade across the floor toward Evangeline. The spell bound to it had been released, but Griffyn was obviously wary of touching it. “Rid yourself of this, first!”

  Picking up the dagger, Evangeline braced its tip against the concrete, then jammed the hilt down with both hands. The blade snapped in two, and Evangeline sagged with a sob. Then Bran took a handful of her hair and wrenched her head back, forcing her to stare up at Griffyn while still on her knees.

  “I was promised to Griffyn,” Ysabel repeated. “From birth.”

  Addie made a muffled protest. She tried to think of a spell that would dislodge Madoc from her back, but Evangeline was already speaking. “I, Evangeline Emrys . . .”

  “Pledge yourself as handmaiden to Griffyn Llyr,” Bran prompted her.

  “Pledge myself as handmaiden to Griffyn Llyr.”

  “His word is your sole command, to be obeyed without question,” Bran continued. “His will and his safety are your only object, until death part the two of you.”

  Evangeline faltered here, but Bran yanked her head around to face Addie, and Condor grabbed Addie’s arm, ready to help Madoc break it. Hurriedly, Evangeline repeated the rest of the oath, and when Bran let go of her, she bowed her head in defeat. Ysabel’s hands moved toward her knives, as if she wanted to implement the death option immediately. When Bran gave her a baleful glare, Ysabel turned and stalked away.