Warrior's Curse

by Alexa Egan

  The bird’s head swiveled toward her window, its gaze like a blade. Stay where you are.

  His voice in her head rooted her to the floor.

  What’s wrong? Why? she pathed—when the answer revealed itself as a shadow peeling free of the stable’s interior. The buzz of Fey-blood magic ground against her nerves until even her hair hurt. The flash of a blade in the dark chilled her blood. But how did he know the wounded eagle was a shapechanger? Luck? Treachery?

  She stared transfixed as the eagle hopped a few steps, attempting to tuck its injured wing against its body. Another awkward step and then it beat at the air in an attempt to take flight, but the wing pinned it earthbound. An easy kill for a Fey-blood with a knife.

  She might not be able to guide her people through the Gateway like Idrin or wield the power of the crystal with the ease of Aneavala, but she could kill one skulking bastard bent on murder. She retrieved her stiletto from its sheath beneath her pillow. Conal had made her practice with the weapon until it became an extension of her body and he had warned her to keep it close at hand at all times. He never said why, but she followed his instructions even now, years after his death. The slender knife felt warm in her hand, the grip easy as she took aim, waiting for the perfect shot.

  The Fey-blood stalked the eagle, herding Gray toward a low stone wall, but now Meeryn saw that what she’d taken for the gleam of a blade was in fact, the glint off a fine-mesh net. The stranger didn’t want to kill Gray. He wanted to capture him.

  Her heart plunged into her stomach. She set her jaw, gauging distance and trajectory as she’d been taught. Took a steadying breath and hurled the blade toward the loathsome sorcerer with all her strength.

  Years of training paid off. The stiletto found its mark, biting deep into the base of the man’s throat. He dropped to his knees before toppling slowly into the mud with a sick thud. She braced herself for a shout, a scream, a witness to shriek a warning to the rest of the sleeping inn, but there was no sound beyond the rain’s steady drip and her own rapid breathing. Spinning from the window, she grabbed up her cloak, throwing it around her shoulders before she lifted the latch on her bedchamber door. None moved in the corridors, and the even the lamp at the top of the staircase had burned out.

  Quickly she sped down the stairs and through the shadowed taproom. The main door would be bolted and barred, but with luck, a side door or even a window might have been forgotten. She found what she was looking for down a narrow passage from the kitchen. Some lazy servant had turned the key and then left it in the lock. Letting herself out into the yard, she paused a moment to gain her bearings. To her left, a path led to a metal gate and the road. To her right ran the stone wall she’d seen from her window and the dark expanse of the stables beyond.

  Even as she pulled her cloak up to cover her head and hurried through the drizzle, a hot starshot wind torched her face while a wild boiling energy pulsed under her skin. She reached the stableyard in time to see the eagle vanished and Gray in its place. He lay unmoving for a moment, the shift from aspect to human leaving him wrung like a sponge. Completely vulnerable. He rolled over onto his back in the mud. Deep bleeding scores raked his muddy chest, and his left arm had been savaged brutally.

  Ignoring the muck soaking into her skirts and the dead body sprawled facedown a few feet away, she knelt beside him, hands clenched in her lap. “Are you able to walk? We have to get you inside before someone stumbles on us. Dead bodies have a tendency to beget awkward questions.”

  Gray rolled up onto an elbow, cradling his injured arm against his chest. His stare moved from Meeryn to the fallen Fey-blood and back again. “More than a few of those questions are mine.”

  * * *

  Up the stairs without mishap. Into his bedchamber, none the wiser. By the time he’d pulled on a pair of breeches, washed the mud from his wounds, and sat while Meeryn bandaged his arm, Gray almost believed they might have succeeded in escaping detection altogether. The body would be found, exclaimed over, and carted away by the authorities. Hopefully, if and when they started asking difficult questions, he and Meeryn would be long gone. As for the other body, if it surfaced from the bottom of the river at all, there would be none to identify a faceless, shredded, water-bloated corpse.

  “A dog? You were mauled by a dog?” she exclaimed, hands trembling as she wrapped the bandage up and around his shoulder and arm.

  “Keep your voice down. Yes, a dog. You know the beast. Sharp teeth, sharp claws, nasty disposition . . . a dog.” He winced. “And an enforcer.”

  She dropped the bandage where it unrolled along the floor and scrambled to retrieve it. “What?” she said, a tremor squeaking her voice.

  “Sir Dromon may have offered me amnesty, but his Ossine continue to hunt suspected rebels. I stumbled into the middle of a confrontation between an enforcer and a young avaklos and decided to even the odds.”

  “By almost getting yourself killed?”

  “That part was accidental. The enforcer was quicker than I thought.”

  “Or you might have been slower. Did you ever think ambushing a trained killer while suffering blood loss and a six-inch gash in your arm wasn’t the smartest idea?”

  “The son of a bastard threatened to rape and disembowel the chap’s sister before his eyes if he didn’t reveal his rebel contacts.”

  She blanched, fiddling with the frayed hem of the bandage. “No. There must be some mistake.”

  “The mistake was the enforcer’s. The only crime the shapechanger was guilty of was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “The enforcers are meant to protect us.”

  “Once they did, but Dromon has twisted them into his own private army of murderers and thugs. They prowl the countryside unchecked, and their butchery is all too common.” He tested his shoulder, flexed his arm, gritting his teeth against the pain. “At least this one won’t kill again.”

  “He’s dead?” she asked, casting him a swift sidelong glance as she cleaned up the mess left after her ministrations. It seemed to be taking an awfully long time and involved more than a few clumsy spills and confused shakes of her head.

  “We seem to be racking up the bodies, don’t we?” He offered her a grim smile. “Now that you’ve peppered me with questions, it’s my turn.”

  By now, her face bore the pallor of chalk and the trembling in her hands had spread to her body. She clamped her jaw as she pressed her arms across her stomach as if she might be sick. “Are you outraged?”

  “As my continued existence rests in your knife-throwing talents, I’ll have to claim gratitude rather than outrage.”

  “Few men would admit to being beholden to a woman for anything, much less survival.”

  “But it isn’t the first time you’ve saved my life, is it?” he said.

  Their eyes met for a brief loaded moment before she flushed and busied herself once more with her tidying, though Gray was almost sure she’d folded that towel at least three times already. Her hair fell forward across her face, shimmering strands of auburn scattered among the lighter honey-gold, hiding all but the curve of one cheek and the determined jab of her chin. She fiddled with a ring on her thumb and he was struck anew at the strength in her slender fingers, and the skill he’d witnessed in the stableyard.

  “How did you come to be able to take a man down with a dagger from”—he glanced toward the window—“a good fifty feet? It’s an impressive feat . . . for a girl.” His smirk had the desired effect. She glared at him in typical Meeryn fashion, followed by a roll of bandages to the head.

  “If you must know, Conal taught me.”

  He didn’t have to ask who Conal was. It was clear in the wistful way she spoke his name, the sadness shadowing her gaze as she said it.

  She cleared her throat, fiddled with a frayed bit of linen, rolling it round and round between her fingers. “You’d shown me the basic skills, but he refined them. Drills over and over until my muscles memorized every move . . . but it’s not the same, is i
t? Not when it’s a real person.”

  So that was it. No wonder she looked ready to crawl out of her own skin. He knew all too well the racing heart, the clammy sweat, the jumping nerves, and the hollow ache in the gut. “It gets easier. You don’t stop caring, but you do stop wanting to throw up your guts and crawl into a hole.”

  “I don’t want it to get easier,” she stated, almost angrily.

  She swung away to stare blankly into the hearth, but there was no comforting fire to warm the cold he knew chilled her down to the marrow of her bones, and it wouldn’t help anyway. He knew it from experience. Only time would do that.

  “I know why I passed on my swordmaster’s training to you,” he said, hoping to distract her. “Why did he? Don’t tell me you threatened to tell his grandfather about secret forays to The Knife and Claw for dicing and drinking with the underfootmen.”

  A smile tipped her lips as she allowed herself to be drawn back from her brooding thoughts. “Lucky for Conal, I didn’t have to resort to blackmail, though it did take all my feminine charms and not a little begging to convince him to train me. He was stubborn as a mule. Said we’d be caught and punished.”

  Had she loved this man? Did she still? Did Gray care? He could have stayed at Deepings all those years ago. Done the proper thing and married her as all expected he would. None would have faulted him for taking that path or stepping even deeper into his elder brother’s shoes, but he’d chosen another way, and that door was long closed.

  “What finally changed his mind?”

  Her eyes darkened once more with memory. “A shapechanger from the Viyachne in Wales was killed outside Shrewsbury.” She paused before continuing. “Conal said the Imnada couldn’t count on the enforcers to protect us anymore. That we must protect ourselves.”

  “He was right. But ‘from which side’ would be the real question.”

  “Really?” she replied. “I think after tonight that’s been amply answered. Both.”

  4

  He finished his last letter despite the pain shooting from his shoulder to his fingers, cramping the muscles, making it difficult to hold the pen. He feared the final paragraph was illegible, his signature a complete loss. By the time he’d shaken free the sand and sealed the pages with wax, pain had given way to tingling numbness and fresh blood streaked his shirtsleeve.

  He gingerly stripped off his shirt and unwrapped the bandage with a grimace. The bite wound was ugly but clean, a scent of healing in the pink flesh knitting the edges closed. He’d live—for now.

  “You can stop shooting daggers at me from the window, Badb. I know you’re there,” he said, struggling to rewrap the length of fabric. “And I know you disapprove.”

  A slender, raven-haired girl stepped farther into the room, her cloak of crow feathers trailing across the floorboards behind her. Beyond that one flowing raiment, she wore nothing else, and Gray was treated to flawless marble-white skin, long slender legs, narrow hips, and small upthrust breasts tipped a dusky rose. Accustomed to her less-than-typical garb and taken up with a bandage that fought all his clumsy attempts at folding, he cast her barely more than a passing glance.

  She, on the other hand, sized him up with a flickering burn in her unnatural black eyes, before taking the bandage from him with a sniff of distaste. “I warned you what would happen if you sought to travel this road, shapechanger. Nothing but sorrow can come from returning to your lost home. The past is a dangerous landscape riddled with false dreams and paths that can lead you astray.”

  “You know as well as I do that my lost home offers me my best chance for survival.” He gritted his teeth as she probed at the wound. “Let me guess, Lucan discovered my plan and dispatched you to watch over me.”

  Lucan Kingkiller—the one person Sir Dromon feared and loathed more than Gray. The ancient Imnada warlord possessed the undiluted strength and cunning of the old clans in every inch of his titan’s body. King’s confidant, sorceress’s lover, savage traitor, and captive of the Fey for thousands of years, Lucan was a man out of time since being freed from his prison three years earlier.

  As much an exile as Gray, he’d found a place among the rebels.

  But he’d yet to find peace for his sins.

  The Fey girl deftly wound the bandage, pinning it in place. “Lucan is wroth with you, shapechanger. You throw all our lives into jeopardy by riding alone into your enemies’ camp. Should this girl betray you to Sir Dromon, there will be many who will suffer.”

  “Should I have brought him with me to guard my back? Who would have guarded his? I couldn’t ask that of him. Too many still blame him for the Fealla Mhòr and the massacres that followed. If it’s dangerous for me to enter Deepings, it would be certain death for him.”

  She offered him a contemptuous look. “Enter Deepings? You’ll be fortunate if you don’t end at the point of a sword by dawn.”

  Gray rose from his bed to pour a drink. Held another one out for Badb, who wrinkled her nose and swung away in continued agitation. “If Meeryn wanted me dead, she could have let the Fey-blood have me tonight,” he argued, “but she didn’t.”

  Badb wheeled around, sharp gaze narrowed, cheeks flushed with anger. “A Fey-blood? Here?”

  Gray sipped at his brandy, letting the heat burn life back into his limbs. “No longer. Thanks to a well-aimed knife.” He gave a dry humorless snort of laughter and rubbed at the back of his neck in a useless bid to ease the crick in it. “Didn’t see that one coming, though not surprised. She always was a terrible hoyden.”

  “Who killed the assassin is irrelevant. It is the fact that he was here and knew what you were and where you were traveling that is of concern.”

  “Someone’s been talking.”

  Badb paced the floor, her lip caught between her teeth in a very un-Fey-like expression. “Return to London, son of Idrin. It is the safest course until we know who has exposed your secret and where the danger lies.”

  “I can’t return and you know it.”

  She stamped her bare foot in frustration. “Then wait for Lucan . . . or call upon your friends. They would ride with you. They would share your danger.”

  “I can’t ask that of them. Mac and David have done enough already. And they’re needed elsewhere. This fight is coming to us whether we’re ready or not. And I fear we’re not nearly ready enough.”

  “It’s not a sin to ask for help, shapechanger. Or to admit you are not strong enough to succeed unaided.”

  “Alone means no one else gets hurt.”

  Badb leveled him with a stare that seemed to strip him down to each individual thought in his head, each drop of blood in his body. He felt her in his mind. Seeing what he did not want her to see, understanding things about him that he barely understood. “Or does alone mean you do not get hurt?”

  * * *

  Gray came for Meeryn as dawn pinked the sky. The inn was already awash in confusion over the discovery of a dead body. As the landlord struggled against a tide of frightened staff, inconvenienced guests, and bothersome magistrate’s men, Gray ordered his young groom to load their luggage and see that the coach was hitched while he settled their accounts, all with the calm efficiency and arrogant aplomb of a nobleman born. None questioned him. None dare even approach him. Instead they bowed and scraped and fell over themselves in their desire to order all as he wished it. Not until they were safely away did Gray’s air of regal superiority slip, and Meeryn detected the most minute cracks in the otherwise bland features. There was a tightness to face and a greenish cast that gave him a washed-out appearance. Deep lines bracketed his mouth, and his eyes lacked their usual icy brilliance.

  “How do you feel this morning?”

  He lifted his head, shadows hollowing his eyes. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because you’ve got the appearance of someone who’s eaten one too many of Mrs. Waverly’s mince pies.”

  “There’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time,” he said with a rare softening of his granite expression. “I�
�m surprised Grandfather hasn’t found himself a new cook. Mrs. Waverly was always ghastly. The woman could ruin a boiled egg.”

  “Yes, but she’s familiar. Besides, your grandfather hasn’t hired or fired anyone in years. He handed over the running of the household to me when I came of age. I was mistress of his house and hostess for his parties.”

  “An onerous task.”

  “I suppose he assumed it would be my role sooner or later so I might as well get used to it.”

  The greenish hue to his features gave way to pink, a singularly alarming combination of colors. But he rallied and managed to look only slightly ill when he said, “Ollie would have been proud to take you as mate and wife.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I was eleven when he died. If he thought of me as anything at all, it was more likely as a nuisance and a child.” Leaning forward, she offered sotto voce, “Don’t panic, but I believe His Grace had you in mind when he began grooming me for the part.”

  Gray studied his hands, turned the diamond on his finger round and round. His dismay would have been comical if it hadn’t been at her expense.

  She sat back, smoothing a hand over her skirt. “Now you do look as if you wish to cast up your accounts, but rest easy. That idea is no longer applicable. Nor am I serving these days as anything more than a glorified messenger.”

  “Surely my grandfather still has need of a hostess and . . .” He seemed to grope for the proper word.

  “Housekeeper? Not really. There are no more parties and the duties of maintaining and directing the staff have been given over to Mr. Pym.”

  “Wasn’t he—”

  “Sir Dromon’s butler? Yes. The Arch Ossine has sprinkled quite a few of his staff among Deepings’ servants since your exile. Pym’s the latest.” Was that disgust at Pryor’s insolence she read in his expression, or was he really about to be sick? “Should we stop the carriage? You look a bit green at the gills.”