by Jordan Rivet
Before Archer could lunge for the sword, the curse painter turned.
“I know you’re lurking in the shadows,” Donovan said. “Take heed, for there is an incendiary curse in place between us. You will not live long enough to slay me.”
Tomas looked up, his blunt jaw slackening in surprise.
“Ivan? What in all the realms, high and low, are you doing here? This is my brother, Master Dryden. Why would he slay you?” Tomas gave a hearty guffaw, and Donovan shot him a derisive look. He’d clearly figured out whose side Archer was on.
Tomas wore a stupid grin on his handsome face. It was inconvenient really, having a handsome brother. “When did you get here, Ivan?”
“Earlier this evening.” Archer leaned casually against the wall, grunting at the pain in his ribs.
“Have you seen Father?” Tomas asked.
“He’s bleeding badly from a curse,” Archer said. “Can you help him, Master Dryden?”
“Healing is not my area of expertise. I was hired to protect this keep and its inmates, and that is precisely what I’m doing.” Donovan resumed his work on the doorway, adding vermilion streaks among the stars and moons. “Is Saoirse on her feet yet?”
“Not yet.” Archer didn’t elaborate.
The curse painter was too focused on his work to realize something was amiss with his wife. It was a testament to their combined strength that it didn’t even occur to Donovan that Saoirse hadn’t survived their daughter’s curse. Archer didn’t want to be anywhere near him when he learned the truth.
Had Briar and Mae found a way past the door’s curses, or were they still somewhere inside Narrowmar? They’d never escape with Donovan in their way. Archer was running out of time to help, but he’d only have a chance against Donovan if he took him by surprise.
Could the curse painter be bluffing about the incendiary curse on the floor? Archer glanced at the body a few paces from him—and the sword at its hip.
“What happened to the captain?” he asked Tomas, striving for a casual tone.
“He betrayed us,” Tomas said. “He tried to help Mae escape. Can you believe it? We got to her first, though. She’s in the guard station just here.”
Archer looked up. Torches flickered on either side of the guard station door, which was located to the right of the stronghold’s entrance. It was too far. He’d have to deal with Tomas and Donovan before he could get to it.
He took a step toward his brother. “Why can’t you let her go?”
“It was father’s idea, bringing her here.” Tomas shrugged, his sword loose in his hand. “I find her tiresome.”
“If she gives birth to a boy—”
“Yes, but she didn’t, did she?” Tomas said. “I was right all along.”
Archer frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“The baby. It was a girl.”
“She already had it?” Panic bubbled up in Archer’s belly. He was too late. The baby wasn’t supposed to come for weeks yet.
Suddenly it didn’t matter what happened to Archer or to his family. If they had killed that innocent child, those callous bastards would get what was coming to them. Archer dove for the old captain’s sword.
At the same moment, outside, Briar finished painting her curse.
As Archer’s hand closed on the burgundy-wrapped hilt, the mountain gave an almighty lurch, as if it were being slammed hard against the earth. There was a great cracking sound, and the entire front wall of the stronghold began to disintegrate. Rocks fell with a deafening roar, pummeling the ground, collapsing the cursed doorway as if it were made of paper. Archer threw up his arms to protect his battered body, smelling a whiff of linseed oil and smoke. Then the billowing dust snuffed out the torches and covered everything in darkness.
Chapter 33
The impenetrable fortress fell like a wooden house.
The earth shook with teeth-cracking intensity as the rocks crumbled. Briar’s curse targeted the whole front of the stronghold, slicing off a layer of stone three feet deep. Thick gray debris choked the air and scattered across the ground. The veins of the mountain opened, exposing its secret interior to the air. The gaping wound revealed a cross section where the main corridor had been built into the ancient fissure. The front of the fortress wasn’t as much a part of the mountain as it had seemed. Briar’s curse had found a way through the cracks and broken the barrier into pieces.
She crouched on her hands and knees, ears ringing, hands quivering from the magic. The curse had used unprecedented quantities of power. The destruction alone was enormous, and she’d added a verdigris flourish to make the wall fall outward as it collapsed. If Mae was still near the front of the stronghold, she should be okay, and with the cursed doorway obliterated, she should be able to walk right out.
Actually, Briar hoped Mae would run. It wouldn’t be long before Larke’s men recovered from their surprise and poured out of the stronghold like wasps from a broken nest.
The dust gusted, not quite settling in the breezy weather, and Briar coughed into her sleeve. Droplets fell here and there, hints of the rainstorm to come. Briar knelt to outline another curse on a flat stone protruding from the road, hoping to hold off the coming swarm. Her hands shook badly. She must be approaching the absolute limits of her power. She had never fully tested those limits. The destruction was already greater than she’d ever thought she could produce. She wasn’t sure whether to feel proud or frightened of her capacity.
Keeping an eye on the gaping hole exposing the stronghold’s main corridor, she switched deftly from yellow ochre to blue smalt. It wasn’t her most beautiful work, but she’d had lots of practice painting quick and dirty curses recently. This one would put someone to sleep who walked across it without needing to touch their skin. She hoped it would hold off a few of the soldiers while she and Mae escaped into the darkened woods above the ravine.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. The smell of rain sharpened, cutting through the thick dust. Briar painted quickly, praying the storm would hold just a little longer. Hurry up, Mae. I still need to find Archer.
But the first person to stumble out of the wreckage was the broad-shouldered young man who’d killed the old captain. He brushed rubble out of his thick brown hair, blinking at the carnage. There was something familiar about his long-fingered hands and the shape of his high forehead. He looked a little like Archer and a lot like the older man who’d been with her parents earlier. That must be Tomas Larke, the source of all the trouble. The Larke heir had an uncommonly handsome face and a confident stance that said he knew how uncommon his looks were.
Tomas didn’t notice Briar, and she was grateful for the semidarkness, though it made painting more difficult. She worked faster, switching from blue smalt to azurite. Then another figure emerged from the ruined fortress, and Briar’s hands slipped, smudging the paint.
Archer. Relief surged through her. He was alive. She hadn’t killed him. Battered and bleeding, he was on his feet and fighting still.
Their eyes met across the carnage.
“Hey! You there!”
Briar froze. Tomas had spotted her too. He took a step forward, his features turning ugly at the sight of the paintbrush in her hand.
“Did you curse my fort, you evil—”
“Don’t touch her!”
Archer lunged toward his brother, waving a sword. Tomas gaped stupidly at him, only just raising his own sword in time to block the attack.
The brothers traded blows, steel ringing loudly against steel. Archer’s movements lacked their usual energetic quality. He was injured, and he wouldn’t last long when Tomas figured it out. Briar gripped her paintbrush tight enough to bend it.
Suddenly, Tomas stumbled over some debris and exposed his neck, and Briar felt a surge of triumph. But Archer didn’t take advantage of the opening, holding back from a fatal blow. He wasn’t trying to kill his brother, only distract him. Tomas was angry, though. He bellowed wordlessly, his attacks becoming more ferocious by the sec
ond. Archer struggled to meet each strike, and steel clashed in the night.
Raindrops landed on Briar’s face, reminding her to hurry. Finishing her painting would help Archer more than having an anxious spectator. She needed to incapacitate Tomas, though she resisted the temptation to make the curse lethal. She’d had enough of death for one day. Maybe for one lifetime. She completed the shape of a moon over a quiet lake on the slab of stone and added the final flourish.
“Archer!” she shouted. “Get him over here!”
Archer jabbed clumsily at his brother’s toe then dashed toward her. Tomas followed close on his heels.
“Don’t touch it,” Briar called as Archer drew nearer.
He didn’t seem to hear her. He lurched straight for the curse, his brother in hot pursuit. Briar shouted his name, and Archer jumped aside at the last possible moment, clearing the painted stone in a single bound.
Tomas didn’t react as fast and ran right over the painting. He collapsed in a heap.
“Got him!”
Archer staggered back to kneel beside Briar and dropped the sword in the dirt. “That was close. I’m a worse swordsman than I am a dancer.”
“Are you okay?”
Archer prodded a lump on his temple. His dark eyebrows were singed. “Been better.”
“I was afraid you were … that I …” Her voice caught in her throat, and for a minute, they just looked at each other across Tomas’s prone form, the weight of their last encounter heavy between them.
Briar opened her mouth to apologize for blasting him off his feet at the same time as Archer said, “Don’t worry about that curse. You did the right thing.”
Briar grimaced and dropped her gaze. “I hope so. Here, help me move him.”
They adjusted Tomas’s position so he wouldn’t lose contact with the cursed stone, Archer grunting at the effort. He didn’t seem to be moving very well with his injuries. It was a wonder he’d lasted as long as he had against his older brother. He might be willing to sacrifice himself for Lady Mae, but Briar wished she hadn’t been the one to hurt him. And there had been other people in the line of fire.
“Archer, my parents—”
“Your father was just here,” Archer said quickly, glancing around the ruins of Narrowmar’s façade. “Didn’t you see him?”
“No.” Briar’s hands knotted around the strap of her paint satchel, scanning the rubble for any sign of her father. If he’d survived the wall’s collapse, he could be hidden somewhere, painting a worse curse. “What about my mother?”
Archer hesitated for a beat. “Unconscious,” he said.
Briar nodded, still searching the ruins. “Did you see Mae?”
“She was in the guard station near the door.”
“She must be here somewhere, then.” Briar seized Archer’s hand. “You’re hurt. Wait here.”
“Not a chance. We have to find her baby too,” Archer said. “Apparently, it has been born.”
“One step ahead of you,” Briar said. “The baby is safe.”
“Then all we need to do is find—” Suddenly Archer’s hand was ripped out of hers. He flew backward ten feet and slammed hard onto the ground with a sickening crunch.
Briar whirled around, scanning her surroundings. Nothing moved but shifting dust, raindrops, a breath of wind.
Her father was near. She didn’t know how he’d gotten a curse to throw Archer like that, but it had to have been done at close range. She reached for her satchel, needing to act before he finished his next curse.
Then an incredible force slammed into her too. Briar landed on her back, the impact jarring her teeth. Storm clouds roiled darkly above. She struggled to draw in a breath—and failed. She tried again, and again. At last, the night air flooded her lungs.
She rolled onto her side, groaning at the ache in her head. She had landed twenty feet from where Archer lay sprawled and motionless. Blood trickled from his ear. He didn’t get up.
No. Not now. Not when we’re almost safe.
Briar sat up, searching the rocks for the hidden mage. Her paint satchel had split open, spilling colors across the dirt.
Movement flickered to her right. She rolled to the left as a large chunk of rock hurtled out of the darkness toward her. She glimpsed the rough curse painted on its side before it struck the spot where she’d been lying and shattered into a million pieces.
“Father, wait! Won’t you talk to me?”
Her father’s heated voice cut through the darkness like a knife. “You forfeited your right to talk when you betrayed us.”
Another rock soared through the air. Briar rolled sideways, feeling the breath of its passing on her cheek. It crashed down, shards of rock scattering like stardust.
“I didn’t mean to.” Briar scrambled to her feet. She still couldn’t see where he was hiding. “I just wanted to leave. I didn’t know breaking the curses on the house would bring the voice mages down on us.”
“And when you attacked your mother, what excuse have you for that?”
“She would have killed me!”
“I wish she had.”
Whether her father’s words were true or not, they did their job. Briar froze, her limbs refusing to obey, and the next attack scored a direct hit. A cursed stone crashed into her, and her arm cracked at the impact.
Pain screamed through her, but that mattered little compared to what her father had said. She had spent a year hiding from her parents, but she didn’t want them dead, and until then she hadn’t thought they truly wanted her dead either—only back in their power. She remembered how they’d leapt forward to scrub her cheeks clean when she’d painted stars and moons on herself as a little girl. She’d thought they cared for her in their own way. She had underestimated the extent of their anger.
Another stone punched into Briar’s thigh, and she collapsed to the ground. That time the pain was enough to provoke her into action, to awaken her self-preservation instincts. Her paints had spilled from her satchel and scattered across the ground. She stretched for anything she could use, fingers twitching, fighting through a haze of agony.
But then despair filled her up like water in a glass.
Her family hated her. They wouldn’t forgive her betrayal. No matter how many little acts of goodness she performed, she had already hurt too many people. She would never make up for what she had done. Why was she even trying?
Vaguely, Briar recognized the effects of a psychological curse. Anxiety. Despair. She couldn’t fight it. Her father must have something of hers, something with enough resonance left to affect her. She remembered how the people of New Chester had stared into their drinks, unable to pull themselves out of their spiraling gloom.
She felt utterly isolated. She deserved it. She destroyed everything.
Tears blurred her vision and raindrops fell onto her spilled paints. The colors smeared, slipping away from her. She couldn’t fight it. The anxiety of the curse smothered her, cutting much deeper than the physical pain. Briar curled into a ball, unable to counter the terrible power of her father’s curse.
Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Archer raising his head. Despite his injuries, he was still trying to fight, trying to reach her. He had something in his hand. Something that shone purple inside a glass jar. He rolled it toward her across the damp, cracked earth.
Briar reached for the jar with her unbroken arm, summoning the last of her strength. It spun toward her, a slow wheel, her final hope. Her fingers closed on the jar. She had no paintbrush, no tools of the trade she had learned from her parents, from the mother she had attacked and the father who was trying to suffocate her with despair.
She cracked the jar open on the stone and dipped her fingers in the rare purple hue. She remembered the stars and moons on her cheeks, her parents ordering her never to curse her own skin. But as her father’s curse deepened her despair, she had to try something, anything, to fight him off. So she began to paint an unravelling curse on her own body. She looped the design arou
nd the eyes she shared with her father, beneath her mother’s nose, across her own sunburnt cheeks. She spread patterns down her neck, her broken arm, her chest.
The anxiety and despair receded a little, allowing the physical pain to return in earnest.
Nearly delirious with agony, Briar continued scrawling the curse onto her skin, using every drop of the precious pigment. She painted by instinct, the creative rush hot in her hands. Mages never cursed their own bodies, but what else could she do when it was her own flesh and blood causing such pain?
The painting taking shape on her skin was different from a typical unravelling curse. It was a new creation. She couldn’t see it, but she imagined it looked like waves curling across a beach, spreading sea foam, fragmenting the sand. She swirled the paint, following the contours of her skin as if it were a shoreline.
She sensed the design nearing completion. Just before she smeared the final stroke, she looked at Archer, his broken form splayed on the ground. Though it must hurt him to move, he lifted his head and held her gaze for a blazing moment. He nodded, giving her one last burst of strength.
She closed her eyes and completed the final stroke, dabbing a line of rare purple across both eyelids. The despair shattered, releasing a rush of pure liquid hope. The curse was broken.
Briar opened her eyes. A dog-sized stone was flying toward her, about to deliver her father’s final blow. She flung up her purple-coated hands to protect her face—and the stone stopped at her palms. It hovered for a moment, cursed rock brushing oil paint–slicked skin. Then it fell.
Briar drew in a shocked breath. The ambulatory curse must have broken the instant it touched her skin. The unravelling curse was still working.
Another stone flew out of the darkness. She raised her hands, and that one stopped too. Wonder filled her. She’d never seen anything like it.
