The Warrior's Curse

by Jennifer A. Nielsen

  Nor was it only my thoughts that were stirring. I loved Kestra, or I had loved her, not so long ago. But if I found her again, she would be different now.

  And then there was Harlyn, who should be a perfect match for me, who would solidify my claim to the Halderian throne, who was in every way the logical choice.

  The hostler who had been caring for our horses walked them over to us. After a quick inspection of his work, Harlyn said, “We’ll ride to the forest, and—”

  “All Spirits Forest?” The hostler cleared his throat, then added, “I don’t know what business the two of you might have anywhere near that place, but you don’t want to go there now.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  He stepped closer and lowered his voice to speak. “Earlier today, I changed horses for some travelers who passed near the forest last night, planning to camp near Limsriver, as many travelers do.”

  “And?”

  “They ended up riding through the night and told me they were lucky to escape with their lives.” He looked around before continuing. “They believe the curse is lifting in the woods. Many of the trees have come alive again, birds were flying in and out, and it was snowing. That hasn’t happened in a generation.”

  Harlyn looked at me with wide and curious eyes. That was a confirmation of where we could find Kestra, though I couldn’t understand why she would help Loelle … unless Loelle was somehow helping Kestra. Was that possible?

  “We have to go there,” I said, and Harlyn nodded her agreement.

  “Didn’t you hear me before?” the hostler said. “Those travelers barely got away. Dominion soldiers have surrounded the woods. People around these parts believe that when the curse fades, the barrier will fade too. If that’s true, then you can bet they’ll go in and destroy the place for good. Get anywhere near the forest, and someone will find you.”

  My heart sank, something Harlyn acknowledged with a comforting hand on my arm.

  “Did the travelers see any way into the forest?” she asked.

  The man snorted. “In? You’d be insane to ever cross into the forest, but certainly not while it’s returning to what it was. And no, from what they said, I’d guess the bulk of our good king’s army is positioned there. Even if I were the king’s closest friend, I still wouldn’t trust my life to getting near that place.”

  We thanked the man, then rode off to the nearest bend to privately discuss our decision.

  My eyes drifted westward, but this time Harlyn said, “If I thought there were any chance of us getting past those soldiers …”

  Her voice trailed off, and I turned to her, keeping a thin hold on my patience. “Then what? What would you do if you thought we could get past the soldiers—”

  “I’d suggest that we go.”

  “Why? To protect Kestra, because she’s the Infidante? Or to protect me from Kestra?”

  Harlyn glanced down, lightly combing her fingers through her horse’s mane. “I’ve seen Kestra in battle. If those soldiers confront her, we both know she’s entirely capable of taking care of herself.” Now she looked up at me. “I know that you used to love her. I know that when she left Nessel a month ago, she either broke your heart or carried it away with her. But I also know, and you do too, that the magic inside her is a poison, and sooner or later, she will use it against you, and probably against all of our people. Yes, Simon, if you go after Kestra, then I am coming with you, to protect you and all Halderians from her.”

  She waited for me to reply, but I had nothing to say. Much as I wished otherwise, everything she said was true. I gripped the reins of my horse and turned it northward. I nodded at Harlyn, and together, we set out for the capital, to rescue Basil. If we succeeded, he would give us the location of a dagger that Captain Tenger would refuse to hand over to a corrupted Infidante. I knew that too.

  After Basil’s rescue, Tenger’s next order would be Kestra’s death.

  With little protest, I had followed Joth and Loelle into his home, determined to take control of my life again. So I’d said all the right things, praised Loelle as a blessing to her people, even as she’d brought a curse to me. And I’d done my best to pretend that I was settled with the idea of remaining in All Spirits Forest for as long as I was needed here, but in fact, the very opposite was true.

  All night, my mind had been churning with the things that Joth had said while we were outside. The wider scope of Loelle’s plan was becoming clear; the purpose of her plan was not.

  As Loelle wanted, I was healing the forest. Every day pulling more of Endrick’s curse into my body. His corruption.

  This corruption was the reason I didn’t feel the ice outside; because the ice was inside me now. This was that cold, hard center that had formed like a pit in my heart and had begun to spread.

  I should have felt frightened by it, should have already asked Loelle for a way to purge it from myself, but I didn’t.

  Because now that I knew what this was, I could understand it. Corruption wasn’t what anyone had thought.

  It didn’t weaken or destroy; rather, it fed on weakness to make itself stronger and thus I became stronger too. Corruption was only a powerful magic evolving within a weaker host, binding the one to the other, creating something more perfect than either was alone. I could withstand the ice because I was the ice; I could pass through the storm because more and more, I was the storm.

  Simon would disagree, but he was wrong. He was wrong about nearly everything, I realized that now, including when he had said that he loved me. Maybe he loved the Kestra Dallisor he had captured once, the girl he had forced into betrayal of her family and her king. Maybe he even loved that girl when she had become the Infidante, bound to kill Lord Endrick.

  But whoever I was now, whatever I had become since I had last seen Simon, I was no longer that girl. No longer … me.

  I didn’t know who I was now, honestly.

  A healer, perhaps. And a destroyer. They were one and the same. With magic, I could give strength by destroying it elsewhere, or take strength for myself, destroying its source. I could not give without taking, and I needed to give.

  Increasingly, I wanted to take.

  My life did not belong to Loelle; I was no tool for her and Joth to use in order to accomplish their goals. I had to watch out for myself because no one else would.

  And with that thought, the cold within me spread, assuring me I had made the only decision I could. As soon as possible, I would find the Olden Blade; then Lord Endrick and I would meet again. This time, I would destroy his curse from within its well. Destroy him.

  “Kestra, what are you doing? You’re bleeding!”

  I looked down and realized that, without thinking, I had grabbed Loelle’s knife from off the nearby table and was holding it by the blade. I set it down as Loelle rushed to my side and began to wrap my hand with a rag that had also been left on the table.

  “What did you want with the knife?” she asked.

  I didn’t know, but it frightened me to realize what I had been doing. I had no memory of picking up the knife, and I certainly would never have gripped it by the blade, not in my right mind.

  Loelle finished wrapping my hand, fastening it tight with a pin; then she went to the fire and added two logs before coming to sit beside me. There, she patiently waited until I was ready to explain myself. Which I could not do.

  After several minutes of silence, I said, “I think Simon’s sister is an Ironheart now. I think she was one of the archers out there with Celia.”

  Loelle took that in with a steady breath. Finally, she said, “I knew Simon’s sister, Rosaleen. I knew Celia too, and I’m sorry you had to see what happened to her. But we must keep moving forward, or Celia’s sacrifice will be in vain. All that you are now sacrificing will mean nothing if we do not succeed.”

  I glanced away, finally speaking the truth that I’d kept buried since almost the very moment of becoming the Infidante. “I will succeed, Loelle, because I must. But I fear that I wil
l not survive to see the fruits of it. Not with what is happening to me.”

  Another long pause, then Loelle’s whisper. “I should have warned you.”

  “Simon already tried to warn me, when I saved him from the river below King’s Lake. I didn’t listen to him. I wouldn’t have listened to you either.”

  “But you feel it now.”

  “Yes. I’ve felt it for some time, even before coming here. I didn’t realize—”

  “With the Endreans—your people—corruption usually comes on slowly, over several years or more. With you, it came on within a week. How did it happen so fast?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  “I think you do know.” She blinked a few times, then in a notably gentle tone, asked, “Before you escaped from Brill, how did their palace explode?”

  My eyes darted. “I’ve already explained that—”

  “No, you haven’t, not really. I told you that I was nearby when it happened, and I saw you race away shortly afterward. But how did it explode?” When I still didn’t answer, she added, “Was Lord Endrick there with you?”

  “It’s as I said before, I did not cause that explosion. Lord Endrick did, in his anger at me.”

  “Why was he so angry?” Loelle took a deep breath. “Kestra, before you escaped, did you and he come into direct contact?”

  I hesitated, replaying those few minutes in my head, as I had often done since coming here. He had reached for me with the intention of killing me, but I had taken hold of his leg, pulling strength from him to heal myself. It had created a cycle of give-and-take between us, one that would be fatal for whichever of us let go first.

  I looked up at Loelle. “I think that I pulled in so much of him that it would be impossible for me not to have been corrupted by it.”

  “And then you have spent a month here, pulling in his curse to yourself.” Loelle sighed. “I believe what you have done here is your only chance to succeed as Infidante. But I am deeply sorry for it. I have been searching for a way to remove the corruption.”

  “I don’t want the corruption removed.” I saw her eyes widen with alarm, but there was no reason for it. “Corruption doesn’t make me evil, like Lord Endrick. It allows me to see things more clearly, to see beyond the pettiness of life and understand what is really important.”

  “Which is?”

  “Power! Not as Lord Endrick uses it, to control the people and keep them in constant fear. But power to give the people of Antora the kind of lives they ought to have had. Power to protect against war and disease and poverty. I can do that for them, Loelle, if I defeat Endrick!”

  Loelle shook her head. “You can’t do those things, or you shouldn’t. Your task is to defeat Lord Endrick; then the people will speak for themselves on how they wish to be ruled.”

  I let that go, for now. There was no point in arguing something that, to her, was only theoretical. However, my future after I killed Endrick could not be left to chance, nor to the whims of a people who had hardly shown me friendship. I had to make plans, whether she was aware of them or not.

  But before that time came, I had to fight him. And that, I was beginning to understand, was the very reason Loelle had brought me here.

  “How can I succeed against him?” I asked.

  “Lord Endrick knows now that you have magic, and he has some idea of what it is. You will not be able to get anywhere near him on your own. You will need an army.”

  If I did, it wouldn’t be the Coracks. Captain Tenger was surely making plans to replace me as Infidante.

  It wouldn’t come from Reddengrad. Their losses had been the heaviest in the battle at King’s Lake. Even if Basil were still alive to command them, he had been captured by the Dominion.

  Nor would Brill come to my aid. I didn’t know if they fully blamed me for the explosion of their palace, but they certainly knew I’d been involved.

  And what of Simon? Would he come, and bring the Halderians, who hated me? Hated me for being half-Endrean, their enemy race. Hated me for having been adopted by the Dominion, their enemy clan. And hated me for having been chosen as the Infidante, a position they felt should have gone to Trina or maybe to Simon’s wife-to-be, Harlyn Mindall.

  No, Simon would not come, nor did I want him to come. He had no claim upon the Scarlet Throne. If anyone should be the heir to that throne after Endrick’s death, it was …

  Me.

  Sir Henry was dead, which made me the heir to Woodcourt, and heir to the throne.

  “I am alone, then,” I mumbled.

  Loelle took my hands in hers. “No, my lady. You have a large army who will follow you into battle. At the command of—”

  “Joth Tarquin.” My eyes widened. “Joth can communicate with the spirits here. Loelle, it won’t work. If he and I are separated during the attack—”

  “It’s almost certain that you will be. But if your magic is compatible, and if you are able to unite your powers, then he will go into the battle sharing in what you can do, and you will enter the battle able to command an army that Endrick cannot kill, because there isn’t enough life in them to be killed.”

  I said to her, “What do you mean, if our magic is compatible?”

  “That’s what we’re here to find out.”

  From behind me, Joth said, “If this works, then together, you and I will ensure Endrick’s defeat.”

  It was very late when Harlyn and I rode into Highwyn. Rawk probably wasn’t far away, but with these tall buildings and narrow roads, I couldn’t see the dragon anywhere. The streets were exceptionally quiet, even for this time of night. Usually I would have expected to evade endless patrols of Dominion soldiers, but perhaps with so many soldiers sent to All Spirits Forest, and after his losses in our battle last fall, Lord Endrick had fewer soldiers to spare. I hoped that was the case, anyway.

  Near the center of Highwyn, the Coracks kept a small base disguised as a Loyalist home for those occasions when we needed to be in the capital. For safety reasons, we rarely had more than two or three people here at any given time, but the last I had heard, my younger sister, Rosaleen, had been one of those stationed here. Much as I loved her, I had mixed feelings about seeing her again. It had been almost a year since our last meeting, and my life had almost entirely changed. Her life had too. I wasn’t sure if she knew that our mother had died, and how it had happened, and why. Every time I had started to write her a note, I changed my mind and crumpled it up. This had to be something I told her in person.

  “Are you all right?” Harlyn asked. I didn’t answer immediately and she added, “I can see that you’re not. What can I do?”

  “All I ask is for the truth.”

  Now it was her turn to fall silent, and we rode on without speaking.

  Many more than two or three people were here now. Lights inside the home illuminated shadows of at least a half dozen people. As we approached, a large Corack named Hugh, but whom we called Huge, immediately walked outside to greet us. He must have been assigned to the watch.

  “We weren’t sure if you’d come, but it’s good to see you both.” Huge offered to help Harlyn off her horse, and while she dismounted, he added, “I’ll get your horses fed and watered while you go inside. They’re making final plans for a morning rescue.”

  I thanked him, and once I’d climbed off my horse and grabbed my satchel, Harlyn and I cautiously opened the door, announcing ourselves as we entered. I didn’t want to raise anyone’s alarm if they didn’t immediately recognize us.

  “Simon!” Trina was the first to run up to us and enclosed me in a hug; then she stood back and studied Harlyn. They had been friendly before, so at first I didn’t understand Trina’s cool welcome. Perhaps it was a recent loyalty that Trina had developed to Kestra. Trina had been there when Loelle took Kestra away; in fact, she had been there for part of their journey to … wherever. Trina believed that Harlyn had been in on the plan to send Kestra away, one of the many questions Harlyn had never fully answered.

/>   Gabe was the next to greet us. The last time I’d seen him, he had been recovering from some terrible injuries, a gift from the Dominion. But he seemed to be back to his usual self, though perhaps a little tired. No one had done more to search for Kestra than he and Trina.

  Gabe gave Harlyn a warmer greeting than Trina had done, then invited us into the rear parlor to discuss the rescue plans for Basil.

  Captain Tenger was in the room, standing over a table with a large piece of parchment on it, upon which was a map of Woodcourt. He looked up at me; then he noticed Harlyn and nodded, pleased to see her.

  “We didn’t think you’d make it in time,” he said. “But we can definitely use your help.”

  “We intend to give it,” I said. “But I had hoped to see my sister first. Is she still assigned to this base?”

  Tenger’s eyes darted, and I instantly knew something was wrong.

  My voice lowered. “Where is my sister?”

  Trina touched my arm. “Rosaleen was on patrol a couple of weeks ago and never returned. It’s believed that she was captured by the Dominion. We think she’s still alive, but that she’s an Ironheart now.”

  My chest tightened, and I was vaguely aware that Harlyn had taken my hand. “Do we know where she is?”

  Trina only shook her head, but there was deep sorrow in her eyes. She and Rosaleen had fought together several times in the past.

  Tenger cleared his throat to get my attention. “Simon, as always, the best plan for rescue is defeat of the Dominion. Are you still willing to help?”

  I gritted my teeth and nodded, irritated at his dismissal of the awful news I’d just received, but I also knew he was right. Defeat of the Dominion wasn’t our best plan for rescuing those we had lost; it was our only plan.

  Tenger picked up the parchment. “We only know a few things for certain.” He pointed at the lowest level of Woodcourt. “Basil was dragged from the basin beneath the dungeons where he had somehow managed to stay alive and to hide for a month. We know he is in such bad condition that the Dominion’s usual method of torturing information out of him simply isn’t possible, so they are trying to get him well enough for questioning. But we also have to accept that, in his delirium and weakness, he will tell them where the Olden Blade is.”