The Warrior's Curse

by Jennifer A. Nielsen

  I shook my head, angry at her suggestion that this was somehow my problem to solve. “He struck first, Trina.”

  “Yes, but to be fair, most of us have felt like hitting you at least once over the past several months. I’m sure Gabe held out as long as he could.”

  She had meant it as a joke, but I didn’t take it that way. And when I didn’t smile, she added, “With Tenger’s death, Gabe will probably become the new captain of the Coracks. How can you finish this battle if you can’t even speak to each other?”

  “Do you know why he hit me?” I asked. “He’s in love with Harlyn.”

  Beside Trina, Basil chuckled. “If that’s true, then surely you understand how Gabe feels.” When I looked at him for an explanation, Basil added, “I loved Kestra. And at first it infuriated me to see she preferred you, because I was the more obvious choice. I was a prince; you were part of a failing rebellion. I offered her protection while you placed her in greater jeopardy.” He smiled. “And I’m clearly more handsome.”

  “You’re saying that Gabe is angry because Harlyn is choosing me?”

  Basil shook his head. “I thought I loved Kestra, until I saw the way you loved her. I’m saying that you are angry with Gabe because he loves Harlyn more than you ever can.”

  I opened my mouth to answer, then hesitated as I absorbed his words. Not so many months ago, Endrick changed Kestra’s memories so that she believed she loved Basil. That had nearly destroyed me. Hoping to restore her memories, I had risked my position with the Coracks, even my own life, and done everything possible to …

  A knot formed in my gut. I had risked everything because I was in love with her.

  I still was in love with her.

  Despite reason and experience and the constant twisting of my heart, I was drawn to Kestra as if she was my next breath. And if my heart twisted with every thought of her, perhaps that was only to hold her in there when everything else wanted to pull us apart. I realized then that, in some form, I always had loved her, even as a young boy. And no matter what consequences might still come to me, I knew that I always would.

  Kicking at the ground, I said, “Basil, I owe you a lifetime of apologies.”

  “You owe me nothing. I have all that I want,” he said, wrapping an arm around Trina, who nestled in against him. Until that moment, I hadn’t noticed any particular affection between them, but clearly I should have noticed.

  “Go and make things right between you and your friend,” Trina said, nudging my shoulder.

  I offered my hand to Basil. “You are a better person than I ever was.”

  He smiled. “I believe you’re right.”

  “Now go and say that to Gabe,” Trina said.

  He and Huge were finishing unsaddling their horses when I walked up. “No injuries?” I asked Huge. I still wouldn’t look directly at Gabe.

  Huge shook his head. “Unfortunately, the carnox I fought with can’t say the same.”

  I laughed at that and so did Gabe, and I wondered in that moment if that single joke would be the last thing Gabe and I might ever see the same way.

  Settling my eyes on Gabe, I said to Huge, “Will you give us a minute alone?”

  Huge looked from me over to Gabe, who had returned to working on his horse, then quietly dismissed himself.

  Gabe continued to ignore me, which only made things harder. I wasn’t about to open with an apology if he couldn’t tear himself away from the fascination of saddle inspection. Trina was right—we did need to talk, but I wasn’t about to apologize to the side of his uninterested face. I grunted and began to walk away. We’d do this later, maybe in another twenty or thirty years.

  But as I turned, he said, “I know where I hit you, and it wouldn’t have done all the damage I see now. Who was next in line to take a swing at you?”

  “I spent time in Joth’s throne room.”

  “Ah.” No sympathy was offered, only a shift of his stance for his next question. “Did you find her? Or let me be more specific. Did you find Harlyn there?”

  “No. Nor did I find Kestra. But I managed to get Joth to agree to a duel with me at noon. No magic.”

  “Congratulations. I noticed the way you were nursing your sword arm when you shook hands with Basil. Magic or not, Joth will be a tough opponent.”

  “I’m hoping that when she has a moment, Loelle might heal me.”

  Gabe threw his arms outward. “Look around us, Hatch. She won’t have a moment. We are overrun with the injured, and none of what we did made any difference! Endrick was killed without our help, and now what we have on the throne is worse.”

  “This isn’t over. If Kestra still has the Olden Blade—”

  “We’ve been through this, over and over and over again. So if you came here for the same fight we keep having—”

  “I didn’t. I came to tell you that I know how you feel about Harlyn.” Gabe started to speak, but I quickly added, “I know you love her.”

  Gabe closed his mouth, then opened it again to say, “Another quest that will make no difference, regardless of what I do. For weeks, I’ve watched her openly pursue you, only to be met with polite indifference, or at best, a kiss to her cheek that makes you appear to be in physical pain. And I know what she says in public, but I don’t believe she truly loves you. How can she, when you haven’t shared any piece of your heart with her? It is cruel the way you let her hold on to a thin hope for you to change when we both know you cannot tear yourself away from Kestra.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “You’re right that I owe Harlyn every possible apology. Have you told her how you feel?”

  “No, and I won’t. I’m not about to empty out my soul to her and have her reply that she can’t wait to marry you.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry I hit you, Simon. I never should have done that. But I’m not sorry for my reasons.”

  I would’ve replied, but Gabe’s eyes had drifted behind me. I turned around and, to my surprise, saw Harlyn speaking to Trina, who pointed over at me. Our eyes met, and Harlyn motioned with her head that I should follow her.

  I started toward Harlyn, but Gabe called out, “Hatch!” I paused but did not look back at him. Forced to speak to me thus, he said, “At least I do understand you now. I know what it’s like to care for someone who is beyond your reach. I haven’t changed my mind about Kestra, but I hope you know that I understand what it’s like to give a piece of your heart to someone who won’t return those feelings. Our situations are not so different.”

  “How did you figure that?” Now I turned to him, angrier than when we’d fought. “Have I set terms for whether Harlyn gets to live, maybe offered to kill her myself? Have we spent hour after hour debating whether Harlyn’s life has any value beyond her use in battle? Will your own life be threatened if anyone discovers your feelings for Harlyn?”

  Gabe looked down. “No, none of those.”

  I frowned at him. “Then our situations are very different, and you do not understand. But if you want to try, begin here: I did not give Kestra a piece of my heart. She is my heart.”

  Harlyn motioned to me again and I left Gabe, but when I had almost reached her, the heads of my cavalry rode through the gate. I offered Harlyn my arm and together we went to greet Commander Reese.

  He looked in better condition than most others who had returned this morning, so I hoped he was bringing good news, but that didn’t appear to be so. He shook his head, dismounted, and gave me a low bow. “We lost ten riders. My first officer, Edgar, was among them. And maybe ten doesn’t seem like many compared to the losses others have taken, but it’s a tenth of my cavalry.”

  “I’m very sorry.” The weight of responsibility for those losses was heavy on my shoulders. “I tried everything I could to keep the worst of the battle from reaching you.”

  “I can see that.” Reese gave a deep sigh. “If you wish to remain our king, then you must trust us, as you ask us to trust you. We are soldiers. We are part of this battle too.”

  “I’m glad
to hear it, because this is not over. I still need you to keep our riders alert.”

  “Our riders?” Commander Reese reached out to shake my hand, and for the first time I saw a sincere hint of respect in his eyes. “Yes, our riders are at your service.”

  “We thank you,” Harlyn said. “But for now, you all must rest. Use any resources from Woodcourt that you need.”

  “Thank you … my king.” He bowed to Harlyn. “And my future queen.”

  Harlyn only lowered her eyes. “Can we go somewhere private?”

  Our walk into the library was long and unusually quiet. I couldn’t help but think of how Gabe must be watching us, and hating me for leaving with her. How he must be wishing he could hit me again.

  Once we entered the library, before Harlyn said another word, she checked that every door was closed and even glanced up at the windows high above us to be sure we were alone. When she finished, she turned to me, looking as nervous as I’d ever seen her. “Don’t get upset. The wound is gone.”

  My brows furrowed. “What wound?”

  Harlyn removed her cloak. Her dress was torn in several places, but most prominently, one sleeve was bloodstained. Her blood, I guessed.

  “The wound is gone,” she repeated.

  “How?” The only possible explanation seemed … impossible. “Kestra?”

  She nodded. “You’ll be angry with me for most of this story, so I must remind you that I was only following orders you agreed to.”

  “You tried to kill Kestra.”

  “I fully intended to do it, and I still wonder if I should have done it when I had the chance. She was weakened—Joth had taken nearly all her strength. I don’t know how she found it in herself to continue running from me, but she did. Then she entered a tunnel that I think is used by Endrick’s Ironhearts. It was small and dark—”

  “And Kestra became afraid.”

  Harlyn frowned. “Yes. And although I had the opportunity, I couldn’t harm her when she was like that.” She shrugged. “Then, when I finally worked up the courage to do it, I literally couldn’t. The disk that I had intended for her backfired, and I shot myself instead.”

  My brow wrinkled. “How did that happen?”

  “Half-lives. They would’ve done worse, but Kestra tried to persuade them to give loyalty to her instead. I don’t know if it worked, but they didn’t bother us after that. And then she did something that caused my wound to begin healing. She saved my life in there.”

  “But I thought—”

  “I think in her weakened state, the corruption itself was weakened and she was … like the old Kestra, or the Kestra that I think she must have been once.”

  Hope filled me. Perhaps Loelle was wrong and there was a way to heal Kestra. But in Harlyn’s very next words, all hope vanished, leaving me emptier than if she had never spoken.

  She said, “By this morning, Kestra’s strength had returned and, with it, every bit of corruption I’d seen before.” Harlyn looked up at me. “I saw it for myself, Simon. When she is weak, the corruption fades. But it’s always there inside her.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “I don’t know. I last saw her as she was leaving the tunnels. Her strength had returned, she had taken all my weapons, and she was going back with them to face Joth.”

  Alarms rang in my mind. “She went alone?”

  Harlyn drew in a slow breath. “Not alone. Kestra called two Ironhearts to help her get out of the tunnel. One of them was Rosaleen.”

  My heart stopped. “You saw Rosaleen yourself?”

  “Briefly, but yes, it was her.”

  “She and this other Ironheart are going with Kestra to face Joth?” Pressure began to build inside my chest. She could have a hundred Ironhearts with her, and Joth would cut through them in a minute to get to Kestra.

  Harlyn took my hands in hers. “I followed her to the end of the tunnel. I don’t think she knew I was there. Simon, she released the two Ironhearts, gave them their freedom.”

  “So where is Rosaleen?” Again, a spark of hope lit within me. And again, Harlyn snuffed it out.

  “Kestra sent Rosaleen to find Darrow; then she planned to face Joth alone.”

  I pulled my hands free and backed up, pushing my fingers through my hair, trying to sort my thoughts as they flew apart in every direction.

  Harlyn said, “Kestra is strong, and she is smart. We have to trust her to do to Joth what she did to Endrick.”

  She was right about that, but it didn’t make me feel any better, not if this was about trust. “She’s still corrupt. What is the difference between Joth on the throne, or Kestra?”

  “It makes every difference.” Harlyn closed her eyes and seemed to be deep in thought. Finally, she opened them and said, “Do you remember when I told you that before Kestra killed Endrick, he made her kneel? Darrow asked me how he was able to get Kestra to her knees.”

  “You told him that you didn’t know.” I tilted my head. “Is that true?”

  “No.” Her eyes darted. “Endrick gave her a choice. Either she would kneel, or he would use his magic on me. She chose to kneel, for my sake. She saved me again in the tunnels, even after knowing I was there to kill her. Kestra is different from Joth. She is fighting the poison inside her, fighting harder than I could have imagined until I had to watch her try to resist its hold on her. It’s like an infection that comes back again and again and again, each time a little stronger, and yet she still fights. Joth never has fought it.”

  “She cannot fight it forever,” I said.

  Harlyn stepped closer and put one hand on my cheek. “Simon, she fights because she loves you. And as long as she loves you, she will never give up.”

  I shook my head. I wanted to believe Harlyn. More than anything, I wanted some bit of hope to latch on to, even the thinnest evidence that a future with Kestra still remained. But every time I dared to hope, it was ripped away and I broke a little further.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Whatever you think you saw to have told me this—”

  Harlyn sighed and gave me a slight smile. “Do you have any idea how much I wanted to return with a report that Kestra deserved to die, or to say anything to finally separate you from her? Once I was trapped with Kestra in that tunnel, my plan was to learn the truth about her.” She took another breath. “The problem is that I did learn the truth. I know that she loves you because those were her own words. She believes that she lost you months ago, but we both know that is not true.”

  I looked at Harlyn again, really looked at her, and this time I noticed a tear in the crease of one eye, and the way she was attempting to control her breathing.

  “I’m so sorry,” I told her. “Harlyn, in any other time or place, I would have chosen you from a million others.”

  She forced a smile to her face. “Only if Kestra was not also one of those million, no?” Now her smile became more sincere. “I always knew that you still loved her, even when you denied it, maybe especially when you denied it. But I believed that you would eventually come to see who she really is. The problem is that last night, I was the one who saw who she really is. Kestra is worth fighting for, Simon, worth saving. If she survives this morning’s battle with Joth, then I will do everything I can to help you protect her until a way can be found to bring her back.”

  “Do you believe that?” I asked. “That she can come back from this?”

  Harlyn smiled. “No, I don’t simply believe it. The Kestra I met last night will find a way. I know it.”

  Along with acquiring Endrick’s powers, I had also inherited a sense for the number of Ironheart soldiers here in Highwyn, and their general location. Which meant I also knew that they had wasted no time in attempting to leave Highwyn as quickly as possible, hoping that with enough distance, they might finally escape their servitude.

  Only two had responded to my call for help in the tunnels, and of those, only one remained: Simon’s sister. I doubted she had obeyed my order to find Darrow. More likely
, she had scattered with the others as soon as she was outside the palace walls.

  I strode toward the throne room, hoping a show of confidence would mask the reality that I was completely alone in this fight. Or … perhaps not.

  Directly in front of the throne room doors, a dozen half-lives stood with their eyes on me. I saw them clearly enough, but had not seen them before. If these had been in the group down in the tunnel, I hoped they were here to offer their loyalty once again.

  If not, then I was in serious trouble.

  Until I was sure, I braced myself, wondering if their intent was to stop me from entering the room, but that didn’t seem to be their purpose. As I stepped forward, so did they.

  “You are coming with me?” I asked, more incredulous than not.

  I couldn’t hear their words, and I didn’t know if they were even speaking, but I did see distinct nods, and I returned them with gratitude. So I would not be going in alone after all.

  “Stay close.” I hoped that would be enough.

  I hesitated outside the doors to find every possible bit of Endrick’s power that I could identify within myself. There was so much he could do that I’d never known. He could temporarily slow time and detect when someone was lying. He had dozens of powers still unexplored, or that he considered unnecessary for his reign. What little I already knew of his abilities made him far more powerful than I had suspected.

  When I was queen, it might take years to understand it all. I intended to use every moment expanding my kingdom, or making the countries that had wronged me pay dearly. I’d start with the Brill. With what was left of them.

  After that, my expansion of power would never end, never diminish. For once I finished with Joth, I would be immortal.

  He was about to regret everything he had done to me.

  At my command, the doors flung open, and I marched through them with Harlyn’s sword in hand. Joth must have known I was coming, for he stood at the base of the stairs to the Scarlet Throne, without any visible weapon but looking as if he’d been waiting for me.

  If he expected a fight, I’d bring a battle, or the whole war, if necessary. I’d be a hurricane against his storm, iron for his tin. Whatever he thought of me, I would be stronger and fiercer. Faster than he could think, darker than he could see, and unafraid of the worst that he might bring.