Curse Painter (Art Mages of Lure Book 1)

by Jordan Rivet

  Archer tried to press his coin purse into the man’s hands. “For your troubles.”

  Grampa frowned. “Unless this is full of brass, it’s too much.”

  “Please take it,” Archer said. “Just don’t tell the taxman.”

  “We don’t take charity, Mister Fletcher.”

  “And I don’t give it,” Archer said, closing Grampa’s gnarled hands firmly around the purse. “I have to pay for our meal. I don’t know what meat costs in these parts.”

  The older man studied Archer with narrowed eyes, something solemn and unspoken passing between them.

  “For the grandkids,” Archer prompted.

  At last Grampa nodded. “For the grandkids.”

  Archer turned suddenly to Briar. “Fancy a dance, Rose?”

  She was too surprised to object as he grabbed her hand and pulled her out into the barnyard. He seemed lighter on his feet, as if that purse had weighed on him more than the coins it contained, and his smile was wide and bright.

  Juliet twirled with Abie in the middle of the threshing floor while her husband and daughter played the lively tune. Sweat dampened their collars, and pink stained their cheeks. The other farmers either clapped their hands or danced in an unruly circle around them, no longer paying attention to the two travelers.

  “I think I know this one,” Archer said. Then he hooked his arm around Briar’s waist without warning and spun her into the fray.

  She could barely follow the steps. Archer’s boots beat an uneven rhythm in the dirt, joyous as a summer rainstorm. His dancing was exuberant and wholly unskilled. Briar had never encountered anyone who danced so terribly with such confidence.

  “I don’t think this is right,” she gasped, clinging to his arms to keep from flying right off her feet.

  “When has that ever stopped me? Now spin!”

  Briar spun, her hair flying around her face, half blinding her. She nearly careened into another couple, but Archer pulled her in close at the last second, catching her against his chest. He held her, his heartbeat thundering in time with hers, and she smelled the clean sweat on his shirt, a hint of wheat and honey. Then he spun her out again.

  Soon, Briar was breathless from trying to keep up. By the time the song ended, she was laughing.

  “Now there’s a sound I wasn’t sure I’d ever hear,” Archer said as they escaped to the side of the dance floor, chests heaving and faces flushed.

  The farmers were already calling out requests for the next song.

  “It’s your dancing,” she said, unable to suppress her giggles.

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Nothing, it’s just … vigorous.”

  “That’s a nice way of saying bleedin’ awful.” Archer grinned. “I know my strengths and weaknesses, Rose.”

  Briar’s smile faded. “What made you pick that name?”

  “Sweetbriar roses used to grow in my mother’s garden, may she rest.” His mouth turned up in a half smile. “I still remember the smell, like sweet apples, even though the roses died soon after she did.”

  “They were my mother’s favorite flower too,” Briar said.

  “Yeah? What was she like?”

  Archer looked down at her expectantly, as if they could just chat about their mothers like it was the most ordinary thing in the world. But Briar hadn’t had an ordinary mother.

  When she didn’t speak, he reached out as if to touch her arm. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to—”

  “She was intense.” Briar looked up and found his gaze steady on her face. There was something more than curiosity there, and her stomach fluttered. “Not the sort of woman you would expect to have a favorite flower, actually. We lived in the city, where we couldn’t grow them, but she would seek out the sweetbriar roses anytime we visited the countryside or a clien—a friend with a garden.”

  The words came in a rush, and Briar found herself wanting to say more. She wanted to tell him exactly how intense her mother had been. She wanted to describe the roar of the sea a few streets from her childhood home. She wanted to talk about the cool spray on her face when she snuck to the beach, the way the sand mixed with her paints and muddied the colors, but she held back. Archer might be an outlaw, but he had a goodness about him, too, almost an innocence. He wouldn’t understand what Briar had been in that city by the sea.

  Somewhere along the way, what Archer thought had started to matter to her. She’d insisted she only wanted to do the one job to make enough coin to start her new life, but something made her want to linger. Being with Archer was like being dropped from a great height and painting a powerful curse and rolling up in a warm blanket all at once.

  She still didn’t know what had happened between him and Lady Mae—or what their relationship was—but she had to wonder if he felt what she had when they’d danced.

  In the barnyard, the little girl set aside her drums, and the fiddler switched to a slower, sweeter tune. The farmers began to pair up, swaying through the firelight with gentler steps.

  Archer stepped closer to Briar. He didn’t speak, his face a question Briar wasn’t sure she was ready to answer. Her breath hitched as if she were standing at the edge of a precipice, deciding whether or not to leap.

  The slow song curled around them, as tantalizing as the aroma of sweetbriar roses.

  She swallowed, her throat dry. “Another dance?”

  For the space of a smile, Archer looked as if dancing with her was the only thing he wanted in the entire world. He leaned toward her, hand extending. Then a shadow crossed his face, and he shook his head. His hand dropped into a fist at his side. “We’ve already stayed too long. We should get back before Jemma worries.”

  “Oh. Sure.” Briar straightened her skirt, trying to pretend the sudden reversal didn’t sting. “Lead the way.”

  Archer hesitated, as if he wanted to say something else after all, then he turned resolutely into the darkness.

  They slipped away from the farm without taking any more of the family’s food and walked single file along the edge of the field.

  Briar studied Archer’s back as she followed him to camp, neither of them speaking. A breeze whispered through ripe wheat and stirred his unruly hair. She didn’t want to read too much into a single dance, but she had seen the way he sometimes looked at her when he thought she wasn’t watching. And she hadn’t imagined the way he’d been leaning toward her, the way he had stolen the breath from her chest.

  Briar knew that if he asked her to stay with the team then and there—to stay with him—she would say yes. But whatever Archer felt for her, he chose not to act on it when he had ample opportunity. That told her enough.

  Still, as they walked silently back to camp, the memory of the bright barnyard lingered, the families spinning across the earth after a good day’s work. After fleeing her parents’ home, Briar had struggled to create a picture of the life she wanted instead of the one they’d modelled for her. She had loved the smell of wood smoke, oil paint, and dry thatch in her cottage. Now, she was adding to the image—a well-spread table, laughing people, fiddles and drums. The life she wished for was becoming clearer, taking on shape and hue. When the job at Narrowmar was complete, she would be free to seek it.

  Chapter 14

  Archer could have stayed in that barnyard all night. Briar’s eyes had lit up as she danced, and it was all he could do not to put his hands in her wild hair and run a thumb over her smiling lips. She was normally so guarded, but she’d given him a glimpse behind her tall, tangled walls.

  He had nearly kissed her when she’d suggested another dance, but he wasn’t certain she would welcome it, and when she didn’t speak to him the whole way back to camp, he was glad he’d held back. Well, almost glad.

  In any case, Archer judged the evening well worth a light scolding. They returned to camp much later than intended and found Jemma pacing beside the spring, as agitated as a wolf who’d wandered into poison ivy.

  “You could have been murdered,” Jemm
a said the moment Briar rolled up in her blankets by the fire, leaving them to talk privately.

  “I knew the farmers were good people.” Archer sat on a mossy boulder, pulled an arrow from his quiver, and began trimming the fletching with his belt knife. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have bothered paying them back in the first place.”

  “I’m not talking about the farmers.” Jemma jerked her head toward the fire. “Why did you bring her?”

  “I figured Briar could use a break.”

  “Archer.”

  “We went for a walk. It’s not a big deal.”

  “I warned you about her.”

  “She deserves a chance,” Archer said. “And she says she has an idea for a curse that’ll help us crack Narrowmar. I think she’s finally starting to trust me.”

  “But what about Mae?”

  “What about her?”

  “Archer.”

  “Briar has nothing to do with Mae.” His shoulders hunched involuntarily, and he didn’t quite meet Jemma’s eyes.

  She had to be contemplating what would happen to Mae after they rescued her—and the part Archer himself would play in that. But right then, with Briar’s laughter pealing like a bell in his memory, he didn’t much care.

  “Traveling with a woman probably made me look less threatening to the farmers. They gave me food and information instead of running me off their property.”

  Jemma raised an eyebrow. “Information?”

  “Larke was seen heading southwest.” Archer gestured with the arrow. “We can finish the job without him turning up unannounced.”

  Jemma was quiet for a moment. “I suppose that is good news.” She cast a meaningful look at Briar’s sleeping form. “But I still don’t like this.”

  “There’s no ‘this’ not to like.” Archer stretched his arms over his head and yawned. “Why don’t you get some rest, Jem? I’ll finish your watch.”

  “Don’t you dismiss me. I agreed to follow your lead, but—”

  “You did,” Archer cut in. “And unless you’re planning to overthrow me as the leader of this band, I’m holding you to that agreement. I know what I’m doing.”

  Jemma bristled, and for a few tense heartbeats, she looked like she really would challenge him. Instead, she dropped a curtsy fit for a king and marched off to her bedroll. Archer winced. He didn’t like pulling rank, but the closer they got to Narrowmar, the more important it was to remain united. Besides, he had gotten useful information, no matter what Jemma thought of his little expedition to see the farmers, and he wouldn’t trade that dance with Briar for anything.

  The next morning over breakfast, Briar told them her new idea for breaking into Narrowmar. Jemma studied her with pursed lips for a long time then opened up the rough map she’d sketched of Narrowmar to begin puzzling out a strategy.

  By the time the others had tucked their breakfasts into their bellies and saddled their horses, Jemma had a fully-fledged plan. It was ambitious, and Archer, for one, hadn’t even known the curses Briar had proposed were possible. The plan could go wrong in a hundred different ways. That was just part of the fun.

  Their journey to Bandon Forest took all morning and part of the afternoon. Archer couldn’t seem to catch Briar’s eye as they rode. Was she avoiding his gaze deliberately? They hadn’t discussed last night’s jaunt, and Archer began to question whether she even felt the pull between them. Maybe she wasn’t spending the entire day thinking about that swift, jubilant dance and the way they’d looked at each other in the breathless moments after.

  Still, he couldn’t stop glancing over at her despite how studiously she ignored him. Maybe she was looking at him whenever he turned away, stealing glances as furtive as his.

  They’d barely spoken a word to one another by the time they reached the forest, the final obstacle between them and Narrowmar. Bandon Forest was older than Mere Woods, treed with sparse, venerable pine. The light filtering through the branches had a misty quality, and it was quieter, too, as if fewer animals crept through the underbrush and fewer birds livened the canopy.

  As they went deeper in the hushed, thoughtful forest, Archer and Briar gradually moved nearer to each other in the column of riders. Briar kept her face turned to the road, but she tugged on the reins when her horse tried to charge ahead of Archer’s, casually matching his pace. He eased closer until their knees were almost touching, drawn toward her like a fish on a lure. He hummed snatches of the song they’d danced to the night before, and a blush rose in her cheeks. He would get her to smile at him yet.

  Lew tried to speak to Archer, but Archer was too busy admiring the way the wind stirred Briar’s wild hair and wondering what it would feel like to run his fingers through it to track the conversation. Lew snorted and rode off before whatever he was saying could register. Nat kept frowning at Archer and Briar, worrying at the mismatched buttons on his shirt, and even Esteban eyed the pair with a glum sort of curiosity.

  Once Jemma shouldered her mare between them, as if to remind Archer of her disapproval. Archer trusted Jemma with his life, and in a distant way, he knew he should heed her warnings, but Briar’s pull was too strong. He was tumbling toward her with a recklessness that didn’t even bother him, truth be told. He could only wonder if she was falling too.

  Between Briar’s not-quite-glances and Jemma’s glowers, the atmosphere was rather fraught, and Archer felt himself winding as tight as a bowstring as the day wore on. If he could just have a few minutes alone with Briar—

  He started in surprise when frantic hoofbeats announced Lew’s return from another scouting expedition. Archer had an arrow halfway out of his quiver before he realized he was reaching for it.

  Lew came in fast and pulled his horse up sharply, red beard flying. His face was pale. “There’s a town ahead.”

  “We should be coming up on New Chester,” Jemma said.

  “Aye,” Lew said. “But something’s strange about it.”

  “What kind of strange?” Archer asked.

  “There’s no people there,” Lew said. “No wood smoke rising from the chimneys, no lights in the windows, but the houses aren’t burned or anything like that.”

  Archer grimaced and caught Jemma’s eye. A mutual friend of theirs had moved to New Chester to open a country inn. Archer had hoped to visit for a discreet fact-finding conversation and a good night’s sleep in a real bed. New Chester was the last town before Narrowmar.

  “Maybe we should go around,” Esteban said.

  “We need to find out what’s been happening at the stronghold,” Jemma said.

  “It doesn’t look like anyone’s there to tell us.” Lew rubbed the back of his neck. “It was spooky.”

  Nat shifted in his saddle. “I don’t like this.”

  Archer had to agree. Lew didn’t rile easily, but he kept glancing behind him at the shifting afternoon shadows. Archer tapped his fingers on his knee, weighing how much they needed to speak to their innkeeper friend before approaching Narrowmar. Tomorrow they would reach the shallow, wooded ravine that led to the entrance of the mountain stronghold. There would be no turning back then.

  Briar spurred her horse forward to address Lew. “You said all the houses are intact but the people are gone?”

  “That’s right,” Lew said.

  “How about animals?”

  “Didn’t see any of them either.”

  “Or hear them?”

  Lew shook his head, and Briar frowned, twisting her reins pensively.

  “You think it’s some kind of curse?” Archer asked.

  “Possibly. I’d need a closer look to know for sure.”

  “You could drop dead as soon as you crossed the town boundary,” Jemma said. “We can’t risk it.”

  Briar blinked, as if surprised Jemma cared whether she lived or died. Archer supposed things were rather frosty between them. He wondered if Jemma had ever threatened to beat Briar within an inch of her life. It was something she did frequently—and she usually meant it.

  “
Did you see any bodies?” Briar asked Lew.

  “None.”

  “I think I’ll be okay.” Briar turned to Archer, meeting his eyes fully for the first time all day. “It won’t take me long. I can meet you back here.”

  “I’ll go with you.” Archer had been waiting for an excuse to be alone with her. He had half a mind to finish what they’d started last night.

  “That’s not necessary,” she said, not sounding as if she meant it.

  Archer shrugged as casually as he could manage. “You need someone to watch your back while you’re sleuthing.”

  She smiled, and for an instant, they were dancing across a torchlit barnyard, a fiddler playing in the background. “I suppose company would be nice.”

  Nat pushed to the front of the group. “I’ll go!”

  “No,” Archer said.

  “Maybe he should go, Archer,” Jemma said. “We still need to work out some details for the plan.”

  “I don’t mind, honest,” Nat said.

  “I have a few things I wish to discuss with you as well,” Esteban said. “If you stay behind, we can—”

  “I said no.” Archer didn’t care if he was being irrational. He wanted nothing more than to sneak away with Briar again—and something in her smile told him she felt the same way. He faced the others, avoiding Jemma’s flat-eyed stare. “The rest of you make camp. The horses could use an early night.”

  “Whatever you say, Archer.” Nat dismounted with a gloomy lurch. “Not sure I’ll sleep well if all the people in the next town have dropped dead, though.”

  “I told you there weren’t any bodies,” Lew said.

  “If it is what I think, it won’t spread here,” Briar said. “We’d better go in on foot, though.”

  The others scoured their immediate vicinity for a good clearing in which to stay the night while Briar and Archer readied their various weapons and paint supplies for the expedition. He finished preparing first and paused to watch her transfer brushes and jars to a canvas satchel Nat had found for her somewhere. She glanced up to meet his gaze, her deep-brown eyes holding a mixture of mischief and intensity. Why had he ever thought she wasn’t interested? He felt giddy, like a boy sneaking away for his first kiss behind the stables. He could hardly wait to be out of sight of the rest of the team.