Curse Painter (Art Mages of Lure Book 1)

by Jordan Rivet

  Briar tipped back her cup to drain her tea, partially hiding her face. Her cheeks had gone a little pink, as if she were embarrassed by her power. He couldn’t imagine why.

  “Thank you, but no.”

  “All right then.” Archer shifted in his seat and—though it pained him a little—asked, “How much do you want?”

  She set the empty teacup in her lap and rested a hand on her lumpy pillow.

  “It’s not about the money. I only work for honest men these days, Mister Archer.”

  “I am an honest man!” Archer lied. “Didn’t I tell you up front that I’m a thief? I serve the blade, the coin, and—”

  “The open road. I understand, but this job isn’t for me.”

  “Aren’t you interested in the adventure? You must be bored in this quiet little cottage.”

  Briar’s eyes flashed. “I like my home very much.”

  Her sharp tone surprised him, and Archer wondered if he’d missed something about the cottage. What was so great about living in squalor? He examined the place anew, seeking some reason for her to defend it so adamantly, such as a newborn baby or a solid gold floor.

  When he looked back, Briar’s hands were in her lap, hidden beneath the folds of her skirt. She seemed to be massaging her wrist. Maybe her injury was worse than she wanted to let on. That needn’t stop them. The more time he spent in her company, the more certain he became that Briar was the one for the job.

  He tried a different tactic. “Don’t you want a chance to be part of something great? If we succeed, we will have done what no other merry band of brigands has accomplished. Even if the gold won’t sway you, you’d be rescuing a fair maiden. Isn’t that as noble as knocking down the house of an evil old swindler?”

  She hesitated for a second, and in that moment, he was sure he had her. Everyone liked rescuing maidens, even other maidens.

  Then she said, “No. Thank you, Mister Archer, but I’m not interested.”

  “I don’t give up so easily.”

  He leaned toward her, and Briar stiffened.

  “I think it’s best if you go.” Her voice rang with a gravity that hadn’t been there before.

  “But if you’ll allow me to share my plan—”

  “I want you to leave my house.”

  Something dark flickered in her face, and cold tap-danced down Archer’s spine. Something told him the petite young woman wasn’t quite what she seemed. She spoke with the solemnity of a Crown Mage. He should go, but he was so close to having everything he needed for his mission. He couldn’t give up.

  “I could tell the authorities what I saw, you know,” he said softly. “Sheriff Flynn and Willem Winton are old pals.”

  Briar’s eyes narrowed. Her hands twitched in her lap, still hidden by her skirt. “Are you threatening me?”

  “I am simply making you an offer you can’t re—”

  The teacup in Archer’s hand exploded, the force knocking him back in his chair. His teeth rattled at the impact, and purple lights sparked before his eyes. Then the chair itself rose a foot off the ground and soared across the room, knocking over the easel and canvas on its way to the door.

  Archer thought he’d be crushed, but the door flew open at the last instant. The chair lurched across the threshold, came to a violent stop outside, and deposited him in a heap on the ground.

  Sheriff the dog bounded to his side and alternated between licking his ear and howling at the cottage, now closed up tight. Archer picked himself up, brushing dust off his coat. His hand stung from the exploding teacup, but all his fingers were intact.

  The curse painter appeared at the window, holding a rung from a ladderback chair in her good hand. “You claimed to be an honest man,” she called. “If you truly are, you will leave me be and not speak of me to anyone. But know that I can curse the life out of you in a few quick strokes, especially now that you’ve sat in my chair for so long. Death curses take to wood especially well. I hope you won’t give me a reason to use one. Good day, Mister Archer.”

  Then she was gone.

  Archer stared at the green curtains long after they stopped swaying. How in all of Lure had she made the teacup explode from the other side of the room? He’d never seen anything like it. Any lingering doubts that Briar was the one for the job vanished. He would just have to find another way to convince her.

  “Quit your howling, Sheriff,” he called to the dog. “I’m all right.” He patted his friend’s wrinkly head and started back to town.

  Chapter 3

  Briar scrubbed at the carmine paint she’d spilled on her quilt when she’d cursed the teacup, hands shaking from the adrenaline rush of working so quickly. She kept paint supplies tucked beneath her pillow for emergencies, but she hadn’t been sure that would work. Carmine lake, a bright red made from crushed insects, was an excellent explosive. Transferring the curse to the second cup had been the difficult part.

  According to the Law of Resonance, the third law of curse painting, a curse applied to an object of emotional significance could affect a person from a distance. The stronger the emotional connection or the lengthier the contact, the stronger the curse. But a single curse could also affect multiple inanimate objects that regularly came in contact with each other. Some said the same principle was at work.

  Briar remembered an early lesson in a stuffy art studio a few blocks from the sea.

  “The phenomenon is called Inanimate Resonance by certain third-law theorists,” her father had said after using a single curse to set fire to two books that had spent years tucked together on a dusty shelf. “Others believe the effect is a function of the Law of Wholes. The objects become as one, and that’s why a single curse can touch them. At least two schisms have occurred in the Hall of Cloaks over this distinction.”

  “Which theory do you believe?” Briar had asked, more interested in her father’s brushwork than his words. His curses always worked the first time, something she had struggled with back then.

  “The only thing that matters is that it works.” The light of the burning books flickered in his large eyes as he turned toward her. “You are learning practical curse painting, Elayna Rose. You must use every tool at your disposal regardless of what some academic from the Hall calls it. Petty schisms have no bearing on us.”

  Briar had opened the studio window to release the smoke from the books while her father extolled his singular approach to curse theory. She could still hear his heated voice, though many years and many miles separated her from the lesson. She had known, even then, that her father and mother’s attitudes toward curse painting were different from other mages. But their paintings were prettier and more effective than the work of other mages too. She hadn’t yet realized how dangerous it had been for them to ignore the Hall’s oversight.

  The lesson about resonance had stuck, though. When Archer had threatened her, she’d scrawled an explosive curse onto the teacup in her lap because it was usually stacked on top of the one she’d given to him. With a flick of her brush, the carmine explosion had transferred from one piece of clay to the other. The distraction had given her enough time to paint a more elaborate jinx on the slim wooden chair rung she kept under her pillow, using a mixture of verdigris and malachite. The two shades of green had worked together to hurl the chair across the room—an example of the Law of Wholes at work.

  A few drops of paint had seeped into the rags around her injured wrist. Briar dabbed at the red-and-green smudges, trying not to jostle her arm too much. She had always thought the county sheriff or someone from her old life would force her to use her hidden defenses. She hadn’t expected a threat in the form of a fast-talking thief. Had Archer stumbled upon Winton’s house at the right moment, or was he searching for her specifically? Even if he wasn’t connected to her old life, he’d found her too easily.

  Briar breathed in the smells of dry thatch and oil paint, the smells of home, to calm herself. The job offer had tempted her more than she liked. She needed the gold, but that was
n’t what drew her in, nor was the prospect of rescuing the fair damsel. Lady Mae probably enjoyed just as much comfort in Lord Larke’s castle as she did in her father’s manor—more than the blacksmith’s daughters experienced, certainly.

  No, it was the challenge that tugged at Briar, calling like a siren. The thief wanted her to perform serious magic. It was no petty revenge. A sophisticated enough curse to cut through a licensed mage’s defenses would take preparation, study, and a great deal of power. It would require picking apart another’s magic at the seams and blowing the pieces to bits. The idea of all that destruction lured her, singing to her soul in a way she hadn’t experienced since settling in the cottage.

  Challenges had enticed Briar’s parents too. They’d pursued their destructive magic ardently, disregarding the laws and regulations governing most art mages. They had never accepted limitations, something that had made them exceptional artists. But human decency had fallen by the wayside too often in favor of pursuing their next artistic challenge, the next beautiful curse.

  Briar had worked hard to distance herself from that attitude and the actions that accompanied it, actions that still hounded her memories and troubled her sleep. She’d tried to live by a new code since escaping to the outer counties, vowing not to inflict physical harm beyond discomfort—itches and rashes were fine—never to make a poor person poorer, and to seek justice when the king’s law failed. But she wasn’t immune to the siren call of real curse magic.

  Briar scowled at the painting of the wheat field on the easel. This Archer character had a lot of nerve to march into her home and shatter her efforts at a good, calm life with a powerful temptation. It was little wonder she’d cursed him with such violence when threatened.

  She returned to the window to make sure Archer and his dog were really gone. Darkness cloaked the street beyond her garden gate, and the woods hummed with evening sounds—rustling branches, crickets, the hoot of a lone owl. Despite his bluster, she didn’t think Archer would actually go to the sheriff. He seemed intelligent—and far too confident for his own good. She wondered exactly how he planned to use an illegal curse painter to break into Larke Castle. It would be a fascinating challenge …

  “No. Stop,” she told herself sternly. “It doesn’t matter.” She swept up the clay shards from the teacup and began preparing a simple meal of brown bread, hard cheese, and vegetables from her garden. She sliced carrots with her belt knife, the rhythmic chopping sound filling the cottage. “You are not going to get involved.” If she was ever going to make her new life worth what it had cost her to start over, she couldn’t get anywhere near that kind of scheme.

  A knock came at the door again. He doesn’t give up, does he?

  She left her knife on the table and went to peek through the curtains. Instead of Archer, the blacksmith who had hired her to curse Master Winton was standing on her doorstep, twisting a felt hat in his muscular hands.

  Briar yanked open the door, planning to pull the large man inside so they wouldn’t be seen together, but as the light from her doorway flooded the stoop, she realized he wasn’t alone.

  Sheriff Flynn stood on one side of the blacksmith, and Master Winton himself stood on the other. A fourth person lingered in the darkness behind them.

  “Evening, ma’am.” Sheriff Flynn leaned his hairy forearm on the doorway. His belly bulged over his sword belt and strained at the buttons on his shirt, and his face was just handsome enough to be dangerous. “I understand you’ve been up to mischief.”

  Briar forced an innocent smile. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Oh, it’s pardon she wants now, is it?” Winton exclaimed. “The little witch. Arrest her, Flynn!” Sweat patches spread under the arms of his purple silk coat, and his flaxen hair stood on end above his red forehead, as if he’d worked himself into a fury on the way from the village.

  “What’s this all about?” Briar asked, playing dumb on the off chance they were fishing for information.

  “There’s damage been done,” said the sheriff. “Up at Master Winton’s house.”

  “What kind of damage?”

  Winton gave a wild laugh. “What damage? How dare you!”

  “Patience, friend,” Sheriff Flynn said. “We have to do right by the king’s law. Little lady, you didn’t have anything to do with Master Winton’s house collapsing, now did you?”

  Briar ground her teeth at his condescending tone. Little lady? The sheriff leaned on her doorframe like he owned the place, making it impossible for her to reach for her hidden paint supplies above the lintel. Not that she should be cursing anyone right at that moment.

  “His house collapsed?” She widened her eyes, hoping she looked concerned and a bit simple rather than deranged. “I don’t see how I could have anything to do with that, Sheriff.”

  “I find it hard to believe myself,” the sheriff said. “But this ain’t the first complaint I’ve had about your … line of work.” He straightened, tugging up his sword belt. “I can look the other way when it’s a man’s trousers ripping in the street or a woman’s prized flower garden dying, but this is different.”

  Briar struggled to maintain her innocent expression, surprised the sheriff knew about those little curses. She thought she’d been so subtle.

  “Maybe we can work something out,” she began. “I don’t know anything about Master Winton’s house, but for those little—”

  “Don’t let her get to you with her doe eyes, Flynn,” Winton hissed. “I know your kind, witch. We don’t need the likes of you in this village, with your larceny and your vandalism.”

  Briar blinked. She had never engaged in larceny in her life. She wondered how long Archer’s merry band had been thieving in that particular county. Archer. Had he truly summoned the sheriff, as he’d threatened?

  She eased forward so they couldn’t cross her threshold, resisting the urge to glance at her hidden paints. “Doesn’t the king’s law require proof that a crime has been committed?”

  “Aye,” Sheriff Flynn said. “Is that paint on your wrist there?”

  Briar’s fingers twitched. “If you’re accusing me just because I dabble in the occasional—”

  “It’s no use, lass,” the blacksmith interrupted, looking down at the hat in his calloused hands. “I told Master Winton you were talking about him in the market, about how he charges too much for linseed oil and the like.”

  She stared at him, stunned. “You what?”

  The blacksmith refused to meet her eyes. “I reckon you took it too far.”

  “Too far?” Briar asked indignantly. He was right about that part, as she truly hadn’t meant to knock down Winton’s house, but she couldn’t believe he would betray her. She’d given him a discount and everything.

  She wanted to curse the blacksmith halfway to High Lure, no matter how many starving children he had. She wanted to seize those work-roughened hands and cover them with so much carmine he—enough. She stamped hard on the destructive urges pulsing through her. It wasn’t the time.

  She studied the men on her doorstep, assessing her chances. She still hadn’t gotten a good look at the fellow lurking behind them. One of Lord Barden’s retainers, perhaps?

  “What happens now?” she asked, stalling for time. “You’ll take me before Lord Barden?”

  “Ordinarily, yes,” the sheriff said slowly. “But in this case, you hurt a friend of mine. I don’t see as how we need to involve his lordship at all.”

  “That’s more like it,” Winton said. “She’ll just curse her way out of Barden’s dungeon. This calls for more permanent measures.”

  Cold dread crept through Briar’s body. “I can leave town,” she said. “You’ll never hear from me again. I swear it.”

  “Afraid it’s too late for that.” Sheriff Flynn rested a hand on his sword and stepped over the threshold.

  “But—”

  “I don’t reckon you have a thousand crowns to pay for Master Winton’s new house?”

  “A thou—”


  “I wouldn’t touch her money if it were a million!” Winton said. “I want vengeance not recompense.”

  Briar backed away from them. Did she have time to grab her hidden paints? Her knife on the table? The men were blocking the only exit from the cottage. If I can reach the paint chest, I might be able to—

  Then the sheriff stepped aside, revealing the man who’d been behind him. He was middle-aged, with a pinched, narrow face and sleek brown hair. A long, well-worn cloak embroidered with the gold sigil of the Hall of Cloaks hung down his back, and his arms bore the swirling tattoos of a fully licensed voice mage. Briar drew in a sharp breath, her pulse spiking.

  No. Not like this.

  The sheriff cleared his throat with a wet gurgle. “Mage Radner, you are hereby authorized to execute this woman.”

  The cloaked mage nodded formally. “It would be a pleasure.”

  Briar was already moving when the voice mage opened his mouth and spoke the magic words.

  She dove for her paints as the first spell shot across the cottage and struck the table, bursting into a shower of sparks. She landed on her knees by her box of supplies, gasping as she jarred her injured wrist.

  I’m not going down like this.

  The voice mage advanced toward her. Briar fumbled at the clasp on the paint chest. It was stuck. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and she threw herself out of the way as Mage Radner shouted another incendiary spell. It hit the paint box, which exploded in a riot of color. Vermilion, azurite, yellow ochre, indigo. The paints splattered across the wood floor, mixed with splinters and broken glass. Briar grasped for anything she could use as the mage stalked closer.

  “You haven’t a whisper of a chance against me,” he said hoarsely.

  “Then where’s the fun in it for you?” Briar asked.

  “This isn’t about fun,” the mage said. “You’ve an unhealthy attitude toward mayhem.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  He unleashed a string of phrases unintelligible to any but a voice mage. Briar rolled away from the blast, her palms slipping in the paints. Verdigris, bone black, umber.