Fairytales Slashed, Volume 2

by Megan Derr

  Part Five

  "Hello, Narif," Bralin greeted, leaning on the side of the silk merchant's stall. Narif favored him with a suspicious look, as though he expected Bralin to try and grab a bolt of silk and run for it.

  "What do you want?" Narif asked flatly, and Bralin tried for a wide, easy smile but suspected he was failing spectacularly.

  "Heard from Liok lately?" Bralin asked, wincing at the urgency in his voice. He wasn't supposed to seem desperate, even if he was.

  "No," Narif said, fussing about with a bright blue and green swath that was draped over one end of the display table.

  "You're lying," Bralin accused, but Narif just sniffed, shrugging.

  "What do you want, Bralin?" Narif asked again. Bralin sighed, not really in the mood to play Narif's games. He beckoned Narif close, leaning over the table slightly.

  "I need Liok to break a curse his father's mages laid on a young woman as revenge on her brother, because the idiot managed to get himself and Liok's cousin embroiled in the curse as well," Bralin hissed, watching as Narif's eyes widened in surprise. "They have an hour, at best, and then they're all dead."

  "Well, why didn't you say so in the first place?" Narif demanded, giving him a sour look like it was Bralin's fault he'd been difficult to begin with. "Stay here. Don't touch anything."

  With that admonition, Narif turned and disappeared into the recesses of the tent set up behind the market stall, where more of his wares were no doubt stored. Bralin waited impatiently, wondering how long it would take to get the message to Liok.

  Probably too long, but he wasn't going to think about that.

  He'd never met Liok himself, though Liok had gone through curse breaker training only a year ahead of him. Still, somehow Bralin had been assigned to be one of the communication carriers for Liok as he worked to help them bring down his father's slave-trafficking operations from the inside.

  A moment later—too long, in Bralin's opinion—Narif reappeared, his shop assistant at his side. The assistant was the normal messenger he and Liok used to exchange messages, and he flashed Bralin a cheerful smile, his green eyes only made brighter by the swath of green silk he was wrapping around his head.

  "Hello, Bralin," he greeted, tucking away the ends of the silk. "See you in a few hours, Narif."

  "Be careful," Narif said, shooting Bralin a dark look. "Don't you dare blow his cover, Bralin, or I will skin you alive."

  "What?" Bralin said intelligently—why would he blow the messenger's cover?

  "I'm Liok, but you're not supposed to know that." Liok gave him a bright smile, gesturing for him to lead the way. Bralin moved quickly, completely thrown—he had to be the least observant curse breaker in the corps, to not have realized that. And that, after missing Cos's connection to Liok and Mestal. "You're not pulling my leg, are you? I didn't even know I had a cousin."

  "I'm not," Bralin said. He moved swiftly through the market crowds, Liok keeping pace with him effortlessly. "He's new to town, and I only just realized the connection today. Why are you playing shopkeeper's assistant? Doesn't your father want you helping him more?"

  "It is helping him," Liok said, but didn't elaborate on how. He grabbed Bralin's arm, threading his through it. "Where are we going? This path has watchers on it?"

  "Riverside, the manor slums," Bralin said, nearly thrown off balance when Liok yanked him down a packed side road.

  "Okay," Liok said in acknowledgement, flashing him a grin as he simultaneously navigated the crowds and tugged loose the bright head covering he wore. "Narif's going to kill me for this."

  Liok quickly draped the silk over the back of a bulky bundle a woman in front of them had slung over her shoulders, then yanked Bralin around in the opposite direction.

  "A pity we can't do that with your hair," Liok said cheerfully, and Bralin rolled his eyes.

  "I hadn't been planning on stealth, sorry," Bralin said, running a hand over his short-cropped, bright orange hair. There wasn't really much he could do to disguise the color. "Do you think it will fool any watchers?"

  "The stupid ones," Liok said, tugging Bralin down another side street he didn't recognize. "The smart ones won't be fooled, but they are also more loyal to me."

  "All right," Bralin said, trusting that Liok knew what he was doing. Bralin was only a messenger, after all.

  It didn't take them long to get back to Asa's apartment, despite the handful of wrong turns Liok intentionally took them down. Still more time than Bralin would have liked had passed before he and Liok were climbing the stairs to Asa's apartment. And why did he and his sister have to live in the highest rooms at the top of the tallest tower of the building?

  "So how did you get involved in all of this? Assigned as curse breaker?" Liok asked, only a little winded as they approached the third story.

  "Cos—your cousin—is all but married to a friend of mine," Bralin said, rolling his eyes when Liok laughed a little.

  "How attached are they? My father's not going to be pleased with anyone he hasn't vetted," Liok said, waiting for Bralin to catch up at the landing.

  "Why do you have to tell him at all?" Bralin asked, frowning as they started up the next stair case.

  "Because it will keep the curse off the rest of them," Liok said, shrugging. He hesitated, then continued. "My father doesn't know magic, and most of his mages aren't very bright. They can cast high-level spells, but they're not very imaginative. If I say your secondary curse has linked them all permanently, he won't try and cast another curse on them."

  "But he'll know about Cos," Bralin said, frowning. "That can't be good."

  "If he's had his name registered anywhere, my father already knows. He's a wizard," Liok said, continuing to climb, though a bit more slowly. "So he's probably just biding his time, trying to find some sort of leverage to keep Cos under his influence. What happened to my uncle?"

  "Dead, about three years," Bralin said, cursing Asa again for living so far away from the ground. He'd have to make Asa move; this wasn't a good area for a little girl to grow up, wizard for an uncle or no.

  "That's a shame," Liok said, though his tone of voice implied the opposite. "I wonder if father has that worked out yet."

  "I'd say no, if he doesn't know where Ulmer was living. Cos purposefully obscured where he came from, so there's no tie back to my report," Bralin said. He scowled at Liok as they reached the base of the last set of stairs up to Asa's apartment—Liok was barely winded, unlike Bralin.

  "Hmm, well, I'll still play it cool on that. It won't hurt to tell him Ulmer's dead, though he will stop squandering resources trying to find him," Liok said, then shrugged, grinning cheerfully at Bralin as he started up the last flight of stairs.

  "Anyone I should pass a message to about this?" Bralin asked, falling behind a few stairs as they neared the top.

  "No, I'll pass it on," Liok said dismissively. "May as well keep you out of it instead of getting you reassigned to some backwater post because you didn't want to lose a friend."

  "Thanks," Bralin said, pausing a second at the landing before heading straight for the door to Asa's apartment. Liok let him lead the way in and followed him across the kitchen-and-sitting area to the tiny bedroom where he'd left everyone.

  Everything was as he'd left it—Asa was still sitting on his sister's bed, though he looked grayer than could be healthy; Roark was still sitting next to Cos, gripping one of Cos's hands tightly.

  Liok hesitated in the door way, pausing to look at or feel out the spell—Bralin didn't know if he could see spell threads, but if he couldn't, the spell would take longer to unravel.

  "This is him?" Roark asked, and he still seemed angry, even if a hell of a lot of that was probably worry for Cos. Liok made a shushing motion at him, and Roark glowered, but fell silent—he was usually pretty good at being quiet when a wizard was working, at least.

  "Did you cast the Sleeping Beauty spell the normal way?" Liok asked absently, his eyes not quiet focusing on Asa.

  "I cas
t it the way it was described in the book," Asa said, his voice audibly strained. Bralin winced, focusing on the spell threads—Asa was still holding, but it was probably only a matter of minutes before the Sleeping Beauty spell collapsed.

  "He used Cos as a power source for his part of it," Bralin said, not sure if that would matter too much, but better safe than sorry.

  "Okay," Liok said, frowning thoughtfully. He focused on Asa, studying him curiously for a moment before saying, "I can't break the Sleeping Beauty spell, but I can get rid of the killing curse. It's a standard spell my father uses to make the death look natural. However, breaking it has a kick-back effect. I can let that hit all three of you, or have one of you take the brunt of it."

  "Give it to me," Asa said firmly, and Bralin swallowed a protest—Asa didn't look like he could handle any kick-back.

  "Brace yourself," Liok advised calmly, then unraveled the spell quickly and efficiently, far faster than most of the spell work Bralin did. Asa shut his eyes, pressing his lips together but not completely muffling a pained noise as the spell energy back-lashed into him. To his credit, he managed to keep hold of the Sleeping Beauty spell even through it, not letting it complete yet.

  "Let it go, Asa," Bralin said, wishing he could be less affected by Asa's obvious pain and the distress the Sleeping Beauty spell had caused him. But Asa hadn't asked for his help; he'd endangered Cos's life instead.

  Asa nodded, biting his lip. He let go of the spell, sagging where he sat as the spell threads dissolved, snaking along the bonds between Asa, Cos, and Sariah.

  Sariah woke with a gasp, sitting upright and clutching at her chest. Across the room, Cos stirred, and Bralin let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, relaxing fully for the first time since he'd seen the curse Asa had cast.

  "Oh, thank god," Asa breathed, sagging where he sat. Bralin ignored him, focusing on Cos as he woke up slowly, looking groggy right up to the point where he saw Roark, whereupon he smiled brightly.

  "If you ever do something that stupid again," Roark threatened, but he didn't lay out any consequences, just glowered at Cos.

  "It's okay, I'm fine," Cos said. He sat up slowly, not protesting when Roark dragged him close for a thorough kiss, apparently unconcerned with the fact that they had an audience. Roark reluctantly let him go after a moment, and Cos blinked a few times, looking rather dazed. He flushed bright red when he caught sight of Bralin and Liok standing near the doorway, but only asked, "How long was I out?"

  "About two weeks," Asa said tiredly, irritably shoving his curls out of his face. He was lucky, Bralin thought, really, incredibly lucky that nothing had gone wrong and that he was the worst-off from the spell breaking. Sariah didn't look sick at all—a little thin, but that was nothing a few hearty meals couldn't fix—and Cos was perfectly fine, if just depleted on energy.

  "Idiot!" Sariah snapped, smacking her brother's arm lightly. Asa winced, but didn't reply. "You could've killed someone. You should've just let nature take its course!"

  "There was nothing natural about it," Asa said bleakly, looking utterly defeated, which was stupid because everyone was fine, despite the stupid choices he'd made. "It was a curse. You were cursed because of me."

  "Oh." Sariah looked like she was going to say something more, but she just frowned at them all, looking somewhat annoyed. "Who are all you then?"

  "Cos was the one who saved you," Asa said, his voice dull and emotionless. "Roark is sitting next to him; Bralin is the curse breaker who noticed the curse—" Bralin waved a little, feeling self-conscious for no reason when Sariah met his eyes. "—and Liok is the one who broke the curse."

  "Thank you all," Sariah said, though she was obviously still displeased by something, even though she wasn't saying what. "Where's Eli?"

  "Downstairs," Asa said, standing up. For a moment, Bralin thought he was going to pass out where he stood, but he only swayed a little before steadying himself. "I'll just—I'll go get her."

  "Asa," Sariah began, her lingering annoyance fading into concern. Asa ignored her, crossing the room, and Bralin didn't try to stop him as Asa slipped out of the room.

  "Are you all right?" Sariah demanded, turning to Cos, who just smiled shyly and nodded.

  "You look better," Cos offered. He glanced at Roark hesitantly before adding, "I’m glad I could help."

  "You're not allowed to do it again," Roark grumbled, jostling Cos a little. "You're not supposed to die on me."

  "I didn't," Cos said quietly, giving Roark a soft smile.

  "You could if you ever try that spell again," Bralin spoke up in warning, and Cos had been just as stupid as Asa had been about this whole thing. "Being a latent doesn't save you from the effects of the spell."

  "You can still help people, if you want," Liok spoke up, giving Cos a cheerful smile. "There are plenty of other healing spells you can do that don't have the side effects that the Sleeping Beauty spell has."

  "So why didn't they use them?" Roark asked, glowering.

  "They wouldn't work," Sariah said, restlessly twisting her hair into a knot. Asa had obviously taken good care of her while she'd been sleeping; her hair was only a little mussed and not at all sleep tangled. "They weren't powerful enough, though I guess nothing would have been."

  "Mommy!" Eli exclaimed as she burst into the room, heedless of the other people in the room. She nearly knocked Bralin over as she pushed past him, dashing across the room and clambering up onto the bed, where she immediately burrowed into her mother's arms. Sariah smiled softly, the expression making her face soften prettily.

  "I'm all right, Eli," Sariah said, hugging her daughter close. "Were you good for your uncle?"

  Bralin glanced behind him, but there was no sign of Asa following Eli, so he stepped out into the main room, unsurprised when Asa wasn't there either. The door to the other room—probably Asa's bedroom—was open, however, and Bralin walked that way, frowning as he approached.

  The room was neat and tidy, about half the size of the other bedroom, and sparsely decorated. Asa was there, sitting on the edge of a neatly made bed, the blankets worn and faded. He looked worn, but Bralin wondered meanly how much of that was just for show and how much really was caused by the aftereffects of the curse.

  Asa looked up when he appeared in the doorway, but almost immediately dropped his gaze guiltily to the floor.

  "What the hell were you thinking?" Bralin asked, a little surprised at how sharp his tone was. Asa flinched, a flash of hurt crossing his face before he schooled his expression back into the blank look he'd been wearing for most of the afternoon. "You could've killed him!"

  "I know," Asa said wearily, his pretty blue eyes dull as he stared blankly at Bralin.

  "You know," Bralin repeated, a little dumbfounded at how accepting of it Asa was. "You know, yet you cast the curse anyway, and you don't even care that it could've killed Cos."

  "It's not technically a curse," Asa said quietly. Bralin shot him an incredulous look, because what the hell sort of response was that? Did Asa really have no remorse for casting the spell and nearly killing Cos?

  "It might as well be!" Bralin snapped angrily, tempted to physically shake some sense into Asa. "I trusted you to look after him! I thought you were—I thought I could trust you!"

  "I wasn't—" Asa began, but Bralin viciously cut him off. He was being irrational and cruel, but he couldn't help it—Asa could have killed Cos and he'd never even thought to confide in Bralin that anything was wrong, not until after the curse was cast—and even then he'd only said his sister was sick and conveniently left out anything regarding Cos.

  "Don't try to deny it," Bralin snapped, his voice cutting. "I can't believe—you didn't even ask for help! You just saw this opportunity and you selfishly took it, regardless of the possible consequences for other people!" Bralin bit back the rest of the words on the tip of his tongue, ruthlessly ignoring the completely miserable expression on Asa's face. Asa didn't deserve his sympathy, and he did not feel guilty about yelling
at Asa, not one bit.

  Bralin scowled, waiting impatiently for Asa's reply, but Asa didn't even try to defend himself. He just sat there, staring at the floor. Bralin scoffed, turning on his heel and storming from the room. He paused outside Asa's doorway, but in the end decided against returning to the other bedroom and instead left the apartment. Liok could most certainly find his way home without Bralin, Cos and Roark didn't need a third wheel, and he had nothing more to say to Asa.

  *~*~*

  Bralin scowled irritably at the burnt-out walls of the kitchen, wishing for the thousandth time that he could just focus on the task of fixing the fire's damage instead of on Asa and the guilt that had cropped up after he'd arrived home and had a chance to think about how incredibly mean he'd been.

  Two weeks had passed, two long, miserable weeks, and Bralin had had nothing but renovations to the kitchen to keep him occupied. Unfortunately, while the repairs kept his hands busy, his mind was free to wander. And also unfortunately, his mind kept focusing on Asa and how awful and miserable he'd looked when Bralin had stormed out. Was he doing better now that his sister was no longer ill? Had he recovered from the backlash of breaking the curse?

  Did he completely hate Bralin now?

  Bralin scrubbed a little harder, scowling at the tiles he was trying to scour. It didn't matter if Asa hated him now. Bralin wasn't going to have anything to do with him; Asa didn't really care for him or else he would've said something to Bralin sooner about Sariah's illness. Then Bralin could've… done something. Maybe.

  Even if the original curse had been well hidden—well enough that Asa hadn't seen it, and he had mage sight. Maybe Bralin might have seen something Asa couldn't, or maybe he could've helped Asa find a better spell. He could've helped, but Asa hadn't said a thing to him despite that he liked Bralin well enough to accept a dinner invitation.

  Scrubbing viciously at a particularly singed bit of tile, Bralin tried again to banish thoughts of Asa from his head. In two days, he'd be back to work, off this insufferable leave and hopefully able to completely distract himself with breaking real curses.