Mage’s Legacy: Cursed Seas

by hamilton, rebecca

He tried to flex them. They felt stiff, as if the balm coating his hands was hardening into a protective layer.

  “They…” The word trailed into silence. The combined weight of anger and fear pressing against his chest made it too difficult to speak.

  “I’m sorry,” Kerina whispered. “Going forward was the only choice I thought I had, for me, for you. I tried to tell you, so many times, but it just didn’t...work.”

  “How hard is it to say ‘I am not a mage?’ Five words, Kerina. Just five words could have changed everything!”

  She recoiled. He could not see it, but he could feel her shrinking away from him. Something seemed to stab straight into his heart. It took him a moment before he recognized it as guilt.

  Great. He grimaced. Just what I needed.

  “I had to leave, and you had to save the ocean—”

  He shook his head sharply. “Don’t use me as an excuse. If you had to leave your home, you only had to say so. I would have helped you find a different place to live, a safe place. You didn’t have to come with me. Do you know how many times you almost died?” His voice rose, and he heard in it the raw edge of panic, of terror.

  His stiff hands curled into fists to try to contain the emotions. His fingernails dug into the palms of his hands, reminding him that they still hurt. Kerina’s dabbling with herbs couldn’t solve everything.

  Only magic could.

  A sigh tore out of him, and he turned away. A slight breeze passed in front of his face, as if Kerina were waving her hand in front of his nose, and then her voice rose with alarm. “You can’t see…”

  “I was too close to the explosion,” Gabriel said quietly.

  At least his head no longer pulsed with pain. The blurry edges of shadows had sharpened, and he could see the outline of Kerina’s face and body. His vision would probably return in time, but in that moment, he could not see the details of her facial expressions, and he was almost grateful.

  He had to stay focused on the facts. She had lied to him. He needed a mage, but she wasn’t a mage.

  He couldn’t allow himself to be distracted by the things that didn’t matter. Like his desire for her. Like the fact that her courage was even more extraordinary now that he knew she possessed no magic.

  She had lied. And now they were here, trapped deep in Tua’s dark cavern. He could not see, and he could not use his hands. She had no magic, and he could not protect her.

  He had to get her back out. Back to her people. But without his sight, his hands—

  Gabriel’s thoughts whirred in a useless, endless cycle. No way forward, and no way back. Most of Tua’s monstrous children were still out there, still alive. Gabriel and Kerina had merely eluded them, not killed them, but how was he supposed to get Kerina out unscathed—

  A cool, wet cloth wrapped around his eyes. He stiffened against the feeling of her fingers brushing against his hair as she knotted the cloth behind his head.

  “Just relax,” Kerina said. “You’ll have a violent headache before it’s all over, but it’ll pass. I got too close too, once. It took a day before the flashing lights in my head went away. You’re going to be all right, Gabriel. I promise.”

  “What other promises have you made?” The question, the challenge, snapped out of him before he could stop himself.

  “I never told you I was a mage. You assumed—”

  “And it never occured to you to say, ‘No, you’re wrong?’” He turned his head in her direction. “This isn’t about what I assumed, Kerina. It’s about what you let me believe! Across thousands of miles. Past six of Tua’s children and all the deadly traps in these caves. Not once did it occur to you to tell me the truth? I brought you in here…almost got you killed…because I thought you were a mage! Because I thought we could handle it together!”

  “I almost told you, but I…” Her words stuttered. Her voice cracked. “It never quite came out. The way you looked at me, as if I were special, magical… No one had ever done that before.”

  Mage or not, Kerina had been special. Her awestruck smile as she raised her face to the sea breeze, the sun casting its warmth and light on her distinctively marked face. The cheeky grin dancing over her lips before she did something so daring, so audacious she made his breath catch in fear, in admiration.

  “You are…” The words stuck in his throat.

  “I’m sorry,” she said before he could utter the almost-apology forming on his lips. “It’s all my fault. I should never have—I just thought I was doing the best thing for all of us.”

  Motion rustled beside him, and then the warmth of her closeness vanished. He rose to his feet, his head darting from side to side. “Kerina?”

  Her terrified shriek ripped through the cavern.

  “Kerina!” He turned to the sound of her voice. His foot brushed against something soft. Her pouch of herbs. He bent down and grabbed it, fumbling with its ties to pull it close so nothing else spilled out.

  “Kerina? Where are you?”

  Damn this cloth! He yanked the blindfold off his eyes. Shadows loomed against the pale light of the cave. Kerina’s slender form stood not far from him. And facing her was something vaguely human shaped, but wearing a cloak.

  Its outline shifted and swayed as it stalked toward Kerina. No, not a cloak, Gabriel realized. It was hair.

  Luison. The seventh and most accursed son of Tua and Kerana.

  If the old stories were true, what Gabriel’s limited vision had mistaken for a cloak was long, dirty hair covering most of the monster’s form, providing brief but terrifying glimpses of its pale, sickly skin and eyes. The fetid stench of decay and death, heavier than miasma, as tangible as a fog, confirmed Luison’s identity.

  His appearance was said to be so repulsive that his mere presence instilled terror into any living being.

  His touch, however, was death.

  “Get away from her!” Gabriel shouted. Damning his poor vision, he fumbled in the dim light and grasped Kerina’s wrist, pulling her behind him. “Here, take this.” He shoved her herb pouch into her hands. “Get out.”

  “I…” She trembled against him.

  “Don’t look at him. Don’t let him touch you. Just get out. Start running.”

  “But you…”

  “I’ll be right behind you. Just go. Now!” Gabriel heard the patter of her feet against rock, the sound fading behind him. He squinted, trying to make out more of the bulky shadow in front of him. Luison’s odor turned his stomach, but he felt none of the terror that the monster’s presence was supposed to evoke.

  Probably because I can’t see a damn thing.

  But how was he supposed to protect Kerina?

  His jaw was so tight from tension that it hurt. The hulking shadow lunged forward, graceful and swift in spite of its bulk. Gabriel sidestepped. The whoosh of air against his chest told him he had narrowly escaped the monster’s attack.

  The shadow swung out, and Gabriel ducked. Luison threw its head back and howled, the eerily wolf-like sound throbbing with frustration. It probably was not used to its enemies dodging its attacks. Gabriel flexed his stiff hands as he backed away slowly until the heel of his foot touched the cave wall. If he could lure Luison into charging and if he could evade it, Luison would smash into the wall.

  Only one chance to get this right.

  The massive shadow in front of him shifted into movement, but something flicked in the dull grey of his peripheral vision. The sound of small feet, running toward him.

  He flung his arm out to stop her. “No, Kerina!”

  Luison’s cold, clammy hands seized him. One hand wrapped around his neck, the chill freezing the breath in his throat. The other hand gripped the top of his head and yanked it back. Claws punctured the skin on his forehead. The metallic scent of his blood competed with Luison’s fetid stench of decay and death.

  He still could not see Luison’s supposedly horrifying visage, but terror seeped into him. If the ancient stories were true, Luison’s touch heralded impending, inevit
able death.

  If the ancient stories were true, Gabriel’s life now numbered in seconds.

  Chapter 16

  If Gabriel thought she would leave him behind, he was wrong. He couldn’t fight alone—not blind. And she wouldn’t let him, even if he’d still had his vision. She got him into this mess, and she was going to get him out of it.

  She had only run off to grab some supplies from further back in the cave—a rare form of frankincense she’d seen growing on the walls while fighting Kurupi.

  She didn’t know yet if it was really the herb she thought—she hoped—it was. She’d only seen it in pictures. But she had to believe it could help.

  When she returned to Gabriel, the hairy, human-like beast had him in its clutches, its talon-like claws starting to pierce Gabriel’s forehead. Each claw reminded Kerina of a scorpion, and if there was any similarity there, the creature would be injecting a poison into Gabriel’s skull. Knowing what little she did about Tua’s children, she could only imagine that would mean death.

  Gabriel wrestled with the creature, unable to pry its talons from his forehead. She needed to act fast.

  Fumbling, she retrieved a vial of a calendula tincture from her pouch, then removed the lid and crumbled the dried frankincense sap to mix the two. She still wasn’t sure if this actually was frankincense. The sap came from trees said to grow in Oman, Yemen, and the horn of Africa, Somalia, and Ethiopia. Those were parts of the world now divided from her own—parts her people no longer had access to. If not for Anya’s books on ancient herbs, Kerina wouldn’t even know about it—despite the fact it had once been considered an easy-to-access herb and one of the oldest known herbs in history.

  It was a miracle the herb was growing here. Possibly, impossible. But it was the only hope she had.

  With the tincture ready, she pounced on the creature’s back, pouring half of the potion into the creature’s eyes. The herbs made a healing mixture, but would still sting. The beast howled and stumbled back, releasing Gabriel from its grasp. Then she swiped some of the tincture on Gabriel’s wounds as well to draw out the poison.

  Behind her, as she hovered over Gabriel’s body, the creature wailed. Gabriel was conscious, though he stared past her, still unable to see.

  “Wait here,” she said.

  He reached out as if to grab her but missed as she stepped back, his fingertips grazing against her clothes but unable to take hold of anything.

  Kerina turned to face the beastly creature that was now rolling on the ground. She had one more ingredient she needed to add to the remainder of her tincture: root of water hemlock. She combined the root with the tincture, then ran toward Tua’s seventh son before he could recover from her last attack.

  Kerina needed to get the tincture into its mouth to neutralize its poison from the inside and hopefully kill the beast. She leaned over the monster, but it twisted again, its body knocking into her legs and throwing her off balance.

  She clutched the vial to her chest, plugging the top with her thumb so that the tincture wouldn’t spill. It meant she couldn’t use her hands to break her fall. The ground rushed up to her elbow, sending a shattering pain up through her arm to her shoulder and down to her wrist.

  She winced, climbing to her feet. There was only enough tincture left for one more attempt. She leapt toward the creature again, this time jumping over its rolling body while trying to time when to pour the tincture.

  Then, inexplicably, the creature wailed, as though injured. Kerina poured the tincture down its throat before leaping away from it. That’s when she saw Gabriel had gotten back to his feet and hit the creature in the knee with a large stone.

  Within moments, the creature stilled.

  Dead.

  They had actually truly defeated one of Tua’s children.

  Gabriel dropped the smashing rock to the ground by his feet, beside the head of the defeated creature, and looked right at Kerina and smiled. She let herself smile back.

  They did it. Together.

  But before they could celebrate their victory, the cave shook with a rumbling wail that made the ground tremble beneath them. Above them, small stones shook loose from the rocky ceiling.

  “What’s that?” Kerina asked.

  Gabriel pressed his lips together. “Tua must have felt one of his children die.” He closed the space between them and grabbed her arm to escort her back the way they had come. “We need to get out of here.”

  Kerina pulled free. “No, we need to defeat Tua and get the Legacy Stone.”

  Gabriel scowled. “And how do you propose we do that? You don’t have magic. I’ll come back with my men once I get you to safety.”

  Kerina picked her pouch up off the ground and tied it to her belt, then crossed her arms as she leveled her gaze at him. “I’m sorry I lied to you, Gabriel. I am. But things aren’t so different now than they were then. The only difference is that you know the truth. I am still the capable woman who helped get us here, helped evade Tua’s children and even kill one of them. If I hadn’t told you the truth, we would be going to face Tua right now.”

  “And heading to a death sentence,” Gabriel said, his hands curling into fists against before he winced and released them. “His children are child’s play by comparison, and we barely survived them.”

  “I’m going, Gabriel,” she said. “With or without you.”

  What Gabriel didn’t understand was that her journey wasn’t just about finding safety. It was about having nothing left to live for. If she died fighting Tua, so be it. At least her death would have meaning, which was more than she could say for her life.

  Before Gabriel could block her path, she stormed past him. There was only one way forward: a narrow passage that she was certain would funnel right into Tua’s lair.

  The tunnel wasn’t wide enough for her to walk through normally; she had to put her back against one wall of the tunnel and side shuffle her way forward. She glanced back to see Gabriel hesitate, but when she looked ahead again and started shuffling deeper into the tunnel, she heard the quick patter of his jogging footsteps to catch up.

  When she looked back again, he was shuffling down the cave behind her, the opening a tighter squeeze for him than for her, but still passable.

  Kerina wanted to smile at him again, but whatever moment they had right after they’d defeated the last of Tua’s sons had passed. Gabriel’s expression only reflected anger and annoyance. So she continued forward and didn’t look back again, the weight of the guilt too much to bear.

  It was clear Gabriel didn’t believe she could handle this last battle. And although she hated to admit it, losing his confidence in her shook her resolve. Her faith that they could win against Tua had vanished. But she had come all this way. There was nothing to go back to. This was the only path for her to take, whatever the outcome.

  It wasn’t even herself she was fighting for anymore, she realized as the tunnel opened up to a final cave. It was him.

  Kerina stepped into the final cave, and Gabriel came up slowly beside her. The cave was much larger than all the others before it, and the stone in this cave was black with some kind of white residue in patches all around them. Stalactites pointed down, and a wind howled all around them.

  The air here was moister, colder, which chilled Kerina to her bones. But Gabriel seemed to rise two inches taller beside her. Was he simply preparing for a fight, or was the air here easier for him to breathe? Sometimes she forgot that while she was lacking in real magic, Gabriel existed from magic itself. She might not really be a mage, but he really was a siren.

  “There it is,” he whispered, and Kerina followed his gaze to a large emerald stone embedded high up on the cave’s wall, above the dark recesses where the walls curved into shadows below. “That has to be it.”

  Kerina had to crane her neck to see the stone. “How do we get to it?”

  “You don’t,” came a silky smooth voice from the shadows.

  Her gaze turned to the direction of the voic
e as an absurdly handsome man stepped out of the shadows. Beside her, Gabriel gasped.

  This was Tua? A handsome man with noble features, golden flax hair, and bright blue eyes?

  Gabriel trembled beside her. “It’s hideous.”

  Kerina’s eyebrows pulled together. “What?”

  “Stay back,” Gabriel ordered, putting his arm in front of her to block her path. “We don’t know what this spirit is capable of.”

  “Kerana,” Tua said, addressing her by a name other than her own in a way that made her shudder. “You’ve returned to me.”

  Chapter 17

  Gabriel tightened his grip on his spear. He scarcely dared to take his eyes off the vaguely humanoid figure in front of him. The edges of the figure blurred, like wispy threads fraying in the wind. Its core was absolute darkness, and it wore of cloak of shadow and flame. In the flicker between crimson and black, disembodied faces moaned and writhed in torment. Were these the souls that Tua had stolen?

  Tua’s hollow voice was colder than the southern wind that drove ice-floes across the sea, but his words rippled a chill down Gabriel’s spine.

  Kerana.

  Did Tua think that Kerina was the woman he had abducted and raped? The woman who had borne him seven monstrous children?

  Instinctively, he stepped forward to protect her, the shaft of the spear perfectly balanced in his hand, ready to hurl in her defense.

  Tua’s gaze flicked to Gabriel, as if finally noticing him. Gabriel saw, for the first time, the hint of Tua’s shadowy features. Slitted red eyes in a cadaverous face. If death wore a visage, it surely looked like this.

  Nausea roiled in the pit of Gabriel’s stomach, but his weight barely shifted as he aimed the spear at Tua’s chest—where the heart would be.

  Kerina’s hand landed lightly on his shoulder. “Gabriel, what are you—”

  From his peripheral vision, he saw her shake her head, her ringlets swaying. “He’s just a man. He’s nothing like his children.”

  Was she blind? Tua was worse than his children, all the more frightening because of the hints of humanity he had abandoned en route to becoming a demon. “Just stay back.”