Wielder's Curse

by Elle Cardy

  “I don’t need reminding,” she snapped.

  The old man shrugged and hurried off toward main wharf.

  She took a deep breath and entered the boatshed.

  “Where have you been?” Gley asked her. “We need to take that boat and get going.”

  “You don’t look so good,” Brusan said, eyeing Jasmine warily.

  “That would be because Durne kicked me off his ship. I’m no longer welcome on the Prize.” Saying it out loud gave her a lump in her throat she could barely swallow around.

  Sitting in the corner, Finn sucked in his breath. He clambered to his feet and just stared at her.

  “What did you do?” Brusan asked.

  “You can’t survive without…” Finn stopped short of revealing to everyone the Prize was the source of her power. “I mean to say, the Prize is everything to you.”

  She shook her head. “Not everything.”

  “But how…”

  She went to him and threaded her fingers through his. “I’ll work it out. We’ll work it out together.”

  Gley wanted her to fight the Beast, but how without her talisman? She thought again of how weak she’d grown in Oakheart while she was away from the Prize. She was no good to anyone.

  “What Finn is trying to say is that my talisman…” and for Brusan’s benefit she added, “the object I use to draw, focus, and control my magic, is the ship itself.”

  “Ain’t them objects meant to be small things like,” Brusan’s gaze flicked to Finn, “rings?”

  “Normally they are. It’s why I’m able to wield more magic than most, and probably why Gley here seems to think I’m the only one who can defeat the Beast.”

  “Not alone,” the girl said. “The two of us together.”

  “The three of us,” Finn said.

  “The four of us,” Brusan rumbled softly. “You’ll need someone to watch your back while you’re doing your hocus pocus.”

  “There you go,” Gley said. “It’s settled. You’ll be fine without your ship. I’ve seen what you can do without it. Now can we steal this boat?”

  “No,” Jasmine and Brusan said together. Did the girl not understand what her talisman meant to her?

  Brusan scratched his stubble while he peered through the windows at the surrounding mountains. “We can’t stay here neither.”

  “That’s what I’ve been saying,” Gley said. “We need to get a boat and head south to Yactun.”

  Brusan shook his head. “That’s about one maybe two weeks sailing in a small vessel? Rough waters too. No charts.”

  Gley nodded. “It will take less time if we took that boat over there.” She pointed to a glorious example of Pruma’s ships, a dragon figurehead with fiery wings painted down the sides of the long narrow vessel. “If you sail, I can get us there.”

  “We are not stealing another man’s ship.”

  “I thought you of all people wouldn’t bat an eye at such an act.”

  Jasmine recognized the dangerous look that came over Brusan. While he was a large powerful man, she didn’t like his chances against Gley’s magic. She stepped between them.

  Brusan backed off and scowled. “As much as I’m eager to leave this here island,” he said, “why Yactun? It’s the most inhospitable place on Erenna.”

  Gley looked around them. Fishermen, wharf hands, and general village folk worked nearby. Busy doing their own thing, none paid them much attention.

  “I don’t wish to discuss it here. Just trust me. I’ve proven in the past you can trust me.” She turned to Brusan. “I’ve hidden you when you needed it.” She looked at Finn. “I’ve protected you against crazed crewmen.” She turned her gaze on Jasmine. “And I’ve done nothing but help you, your ship, and your crew since we met. So trust me now.”

  They wanted the same thing: to defeat the Beast. It made sense to trust her.

  Gley shifted suddenly. A soft curse escaped her lips, and she pulled the hood she wore lower across her face and vanished from the world. “We need to go now,” her disconnected voice said in the empty air. “If you won’t steal a ship, then you’re going to have to come up with another idea. And quickly.”

  “Even if we did steal a boat,” Brusan said, peering out the doorway Gley had startled from, “we can’t take that journey without no supplies.”

  Jasmine couldn’t spot anything that would make Gley want to hide, unless the girl wanted to conceal herself from Hefnargatt’s citizens, one and all.

  Gley swore again and reappeared. “I will speak with Kristolf. He will give us everything we need.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “You ain’t gonna force him to give us what we want, because that’s the same thing as stealing, or worse.”

  The girl held up two fingers in a mock salute. “I promise not to use my magic. You’re welcome to come along to watch me behave.”

  * * *

  Rather than walking through the front door of the Slaughtered Lamb, Gley chose to go through the staff entrance at the back. It remained unlocked and led directly into the warm kitchen. After being outside in the frosty air, the kitchen felt stifling. Jasmine unwrapped her scarf, the only one in her party who did.

  Using a hefty mallet, a square-jawed woman pounded flat a side of meat on the bench. When Jasmine and her companions entered, the woman lifted the mallet at them and rattled off a long string of sentences in her native tongue.

  Gley kept her gaze on the floor but lifted both hands in supplication. “We mean no harm.” The faint accent she usually spoke with seemed to have gone missing, replaced by the perfect dialect of an Auslam local. “Just looking for Kristolf.”

  The woman continued her tirade, swinging the mallet in an animated way. Jasmine didn’t think the woman was being threatening, but she wouldn’t have placed any bets.

  Gley closed her eyes and sighed. She said something in their language. To Jasmine’s untrained ears the girl sounded like a native.

  The woman stopped shouting. She studied Gley who stood there, eyes cast down like she was being subservient. The woman said something in a demanding tone. Gley’s response was short and sharp. Apparently, the woman wasn’t going to relent because she repeated herself.

  Saying nothing more, Gley looked up.

  The woman gasped. The mallet fell from her hands and clanged against the bench. She backed away in a hurry. When she reached the doorway to the main area of the drinking house, she cried, “Kristolf!” She didn’t let her gaze fall from Gley’s.

  An impatient reply came from the main room. After a moment, Kristolf appeared. He seemed about to say something but stopped when he saw the four visitors standing in his kitchen.

  “Welcome!” he said. “Usual way to enter is front. No matter.”

  With the back of her hand, the woman thumped him in the stomach.

  “What wrong with you, Addhu?”

  She still hadn’t shifted her gaze from Gley.

  Kristolf followed that gaze, and his pink face went pale. “By the old gods,” he breathed as he too took a step back.

  “We need supplies,” Gley said. “For a journey south. And a boat. How quickly can you make this happen?”

  “We can pay you,” Jasmine said, remembering the coin Durne had given her.

  “Payment not … no,” Kristolf said.

  “You cannot speak a word to anyone about what you have seen,” Gley said. She added something in their language, and Addhu nodded rapidly.

  Jasmine wondered what they saw. Gley looked the same as she always did. Her silver hair escaping the hood was a mess. Her height and build made her look like a child. She wasn’t wielding either. No power fluctuated around her. Nothing. But then, when had Jasmine been able to detect Gley’s wielding?

  “Tonight,” Kristolf said. “Everything you need ready will be tonight.”

  “May the old gods bless your drinking h
ouse,” Gley said, and their faces shone.

  The girl swept out of the room, leaving Jasmine wondering what had just happened. Brusan and Finn looked as bewildered as she felt.

  Chapter 35

  Jasmine wished they’d found somewhere warmer to wait for Kristolf. The boatshed on the edge of town offered little shelter from the cold. Watching the air turn her breath to mist, she wondered how much longer it would be. The man had been so eager, he’d almost tripped over himself to help.

  “How did you get the innkeeper to lend us a boat?” she asked Gley.

  The girl stared out the door toward the hamlet. “It’s nothing that concerns you.”

  “You didn’t do no magic on the poor man and his wife, did you?” Brusan asked.

  “No, I did not.” Gley said and strode to the opposite door of the boatshed. She startled away and used her power to hide.

  On instinct, Jasmine gathered her power to hide also then stopped. More than ever, she had to maintain control over her magic and not use it too much or too often, if at all.

  Brusan went to the door Gley had shied from and peered out. A second later, he jerked from the entrance.

  “What is it?” Finn asked.

  “Those wretched phantoms again.”

  Jasmine shot to her feet.

  “How do they keep finding us?” came Gley’s voice floating in the air.

  “They ain’t found us yet, so stay hidden,” Brusan said and pulled Jasmine from a patch of pale light reflecting from the bay’s waters.

  A scream shattered the quiet.

  Jasmine edged closer to the doorway. Near the main dock, three phantoms floated and shifted among the locals. Villagers scrambled, knocking over fishing traps and baskets. The commotion spread.

  Someone tugged on her arm. When she turned to see who it was, no one was there.

  “Get away from there or they’ll see you,” came Gley’s voice. “Is that what you want?”

  Of course, it wasn’t. Jasmine moved deeper into the darkened boatshed and rubbed her arms. She was certain the temperature had dropped. The mountains loomed outside the shed’s back windows. Their power throbbed against her senses like fear against her heart.

  “Incoming,” Brusan muttered from the opposite door and lifted a meaty fist. As if that could do anything against the phantoms.

  A shadow appeared at the doorway.

  Brusan swung his fist and hit nothing.

  “I’m no foe,” said the shadow that had stepped aside. The man lowered his dark hood and revealed a badly scarred face. His gaze searched the group and stopped at an empty space near Finn. “What have you been doing, Galia?”

  Gley appeared in the exact space the man was looking. “The name is Gley.”

  “Answer my question.”

  “There is more here than you realize.”

  “Isn’t there always?”

  “Who is this?” Brusan said.

  “This is…” Gley stopped and looked expectantly at the man.

  “Dras,” the man said.

  “An old friend,” Gley finished with a tight smile.

  “So, you trust him?” Brusan asked.

  Gley studied the scarred man as if she was trying to decide.

  “What are you doing here?” Dras asked her.

  “You’ve seen the star?”

  The man nodded, his jaw clenching, pulling at his scars.

  “That’s what I’m doing.”

  “Where?”

  “Oakheart and now here. Wherever she goes.” Gley lifted her chin at Jasmine.

  The tall man turned his intense gaze on her.

  She hid. She swore and revealed herself. No weakness clung to her limbs, so that was something. Of course, the Prize hadn’t yet left town. She could still feel its pull, still draw strength from it, even this far away.

  “The sand fly flower,” the man murmured as he studied her. “Jahdi mentioned her.”

  “We’re going to Yactun,” Gley said, “so you might want to stop following me.”

  The man spun. “Yactun? Don’t be foolish.”

  “It’s the only way.”

  “There’s never only one way.” He scratched at his scar. “Jahdi wants you back.”

  Pain flashed across Gley’s features before she turned away and stared out the windows. It made Jasmine wonder who this Jahdi person was. “I don’t belong there. I have to right what’s wrong.”

  “Then I’ll come with you.”

  She spun. “You can’t.”

  Dras approached her and lifted a strand of her silver hair. He studied it like a lover might after a long absence. “Come with me. Let’s return to Jahdi together.”

  Gley pulled away from his touch. “Go back alone.”

  A fierce grin stretched across his face. “I can’t.”

  “A phantom is coming,” Brusan said.

  Everyone moved rapidly. The man named Dras reached over one shoulder and grasped the hilt of a longsword he’d strapped to his back. Brusan pulled out a wicked cutlass. Even Finn carried a dagger. Gley lifted her short quarterstaff in readiness. Jasmine’s paltry paring knife was laughable. In the last five months, she’d relied too much on her magic. That would have to change. She cast around the boatshed and found a long-handled prong. She had no idea of its intended use, but it would serve just fine as a weapon, though perhaps not so effective against a phantom.

  “It veered off,” Brusan said, lowering his cutlass.

  A small fishing boat pulled up beside the boatshed. Kristolf and a younger man whose beard was the same orange as Kristolf’s hopped off and secured the vessel to the dock. Dras rapidly sheathed his sword and raised his hood. He made a show of guarding the door on the far side.

  Kristolf’s gaze searched the group and stopped on Gley. “Is brother’s eldest. Boat belongs to him. Had to tell to … convince? Yes, convince him. Deepest apologies.”

  Gley stepped forward. When her gaze fell on the younger man, his knees folded, and he bowed at her feet. He rattled off something long and earnest in his own language.

  Speaking their tongue with confidence, Gley replied then motioned for him to stand. When he didn’t, she touched his shoulders to lift him.

  Awe glowed in his face. Kristolf had a smug grin so wide his eyes almost disappeared behind his round cheeks.

  “Great honor,” Kristolf said.

  “The honor is mine,” Gley said.

  The two men chuckled. Kristolf pressed a fist to one shoulder and bowed from the neck. “Everything you asked, and more.” He winked.

  “We deeply appreciate your generosity. We will return as soon as we’re able.”

  “Many times thank you.”

  The air turned icy. The song of a sword drawn from its sheath drew Jasmine’s attention before she noticed Dras move. His cloak billowed as he pushed Finn aside and struck at a phantom that had appeared among them. The blade went straight through. He swore an oath in another language — one not spoken by the locals; one Jasmine had never heard.

  When the shadow lifted a black blade at Finn, Jasmine’s heart stopped. She saw again the first attack months ago, his blood on the deck of the Prize, his pale, anguished face. She couldn’t let it happen again. Instinct took over. Power burst from her and struck both Finn and the shadow. Finn went flying backward as the shadow shredded into ribbons that twisted and curled in the air then vanished. Blackness surrounded her as the vision of the boiling seas crashed in. An acrid stink of ash and sulfur rose up to suffocate her.

  Breathe, she told herself. Just breathe.

  The faint waft of onions and rum told her Brusan was near. His presence served like a gust of cool wind blowing the wrongness away. The vision cleared, and Jasmine blinked past the last spots of corruption.

  “More will come,” Brusan bellowed next to her. “We need to leave.”

  Like salt statues, Kristolf and his nephew stood there in stunned silence.

  Dras
turned on them, his scarred, broken face looking fierce and frightening. “You must leave this place. Go into the mountains. Take the whole town with you.”

  Both orange-haired men stared at Dras. Kristolf’s nephew covered his mouth with both hands.

  “Now!” Dras yelled.

  The shout shook them, and they scrambled from the boatshed.

  “Tell them anything,” Dras called after them. “But get them out of here. All of them.” Dras turned on Gley. “How could you endanger them?”

  “You say it like I had a choice. I’m not—”

  “Can we argue later?” Brusan cried as another phantom appeared, a rend in the fabric of the air.

  Darkness covered Jasmine’s sight again. The black oceans boiling under fire. Black soot billowing into a dark sky. Beneath the ruined oceans stirred the Beast. Malevolence. Ice cold viciousness.

  With all her might, Jasmine pushed the vision away. It cleared long enough for her to see Dras pick up Finn. Her love was unconscious. Blood ran down the side of his head. She’d done that to him. She’d hurt him again.

  Blackness crowded in on her.

  Brusan lifted Jasmine over his shoulder. She wanted to protest but all she could do was groan as the vision claimed her. The ground swished past her blurred sight. The world shifted. They were on a boat. Waters shifted beneath her. Power vibrated the air. Dark and light. Fire and ice. She’d hurt Finn. The fires boiled up around her.

  Her power was nothing but a curse. She was nothing but a curse. What hope did she have of defeating the Beast?

  Chapter 36

  Brusan’s held her hands gently in his. They were large hands covered in calluses. Even as she fought against the vision and the sharp agony of knowing she’d hurt Finn, his touch reminded her of home.

  “I need you to focus, lass,” he said. “There ain’t no time to wallow.”

  His presence helped her find the anchor she needed. Borrowing his strength, she blinked, and the visions thinned. She took a ragged breath.

  Brusan nodded as if satisfied by what he saw. Without another word, he pushed her into the familiar, urgent tasks of sailing the vessel out of the harbor and into the open sea. What she had done to Finn had to be shoved aside.