Page 25
CHAPTER 25
Korven
In one great swoop, I landed in front of my mother. “What is it?” I stormed. “I’m busy tonight.”
She laughed, folding her arms at her chest. “What you are is late. I called for you an hour ago.”
“I had…appointments to keep.”
“With her?”
“Some. Why have you summoned me?”
“Courtesy.”
“Courtesy?” I growled. “For what?”
“I do not mean to hurt you, Korven.”
“Tell me, Mother.”
“Your sister is betrothed.”
The blood drained from my face. I knew because I felt it pooled in my heart, bleeding from my failure.
She settled herself on the stone ledge. “It was her choice, my dear.”
“She’s fifteen. She doesn’t know what she’s choosing or the consequence of her?—”
“You don’t give her enough credit. You’ve always protected her so fiercely. I wonder, was it to protect her or because you needed someone to protect?”
“You wouldn’t understand my need to protect Morella.”
She paused. “No, perhaps I wouldn’t.”
“She’s fucking fifteen . Can’t you at least see that’s far too young to make that choice?”
She shrugged. “I was younger when I was shipped away to produce heirs.”
“I need to speak to her.”
“And you will,” she replied in irritating ease. “But you know what she’ll do. She’ll dig her feet in further. Her future as my heir was something you would not allow and now you would deny her this? A choice?”
“Are you considering naming me your heir instead?” I asked, stunned.
“More than that. I’m offering it to you.” She stood, the Cursebringer ring in her hand, open for me to take. “You’ve done well these past five years, and you’ve proven yourself capable.”
“And what of the matriarchal line?”
“I imagine you will pass this ring to a daughter of your own one day. It’s stipulated in our contract, bound to the ring.”
This was what I wanted.
This was what I’d been working for, but Morella…she didn’t need to decide this now. I needed to see her.
“Who is her betrothed?”
“A faraway king, as they usually are. She does not leave for some years yet. You’ll have plenty of time to try to convince her otherwise. As for your current duties…”
I nodded, swiping the ring from her hand. It morphed and folded into a dark band of obsidian shaped like a feather. I slipped it on my thumb.
It was done.
I was the Cursebringer, just as I had set out to be years ago, saving my sister from the heavy weight of this fate. I’d deliver the curses of the land just as my mother had for hundreds of years.
“I need to be somewhere,” I muttered, dismissing myself from our conversation. “You have the names ready for tonight’s curses under this moon?”
She waved a hand dismissively. “I’ll take care of this night. You don’t start until the next Cursed Moon. I made sure it would be so.”
I swore under my breath. My mother had been unable to love me my entire life, but it was these little motions, these boons she would occasionally dole out that made me wonder if she wasn’t constantly struggling against the rules of her own curse.
“Thank you,” I said softly. “I will return to Brackish Castle before the next moon.”
Her dark red lips sparked into a smile. “And will you return alone?”
My body shuddered and I looked to the sun, setting clearly in the golden sky. I had less than an hour before the glow would leave the horizon and Seraphine and I would make our way to the castle. I reached for the pouch of gold marks in my pocket, knowing I’d need to be quick in my last stop.
“I have to go,” I replied, refusing her an answer.
I didn’t know if I’d return alone.
I hoped not.
I leapt from the ledge, headed to the market square.
“Till we meet again, my son,” she called, her words following me through the evening air.
* * *
I left the jewelers at a sprint before shifting into the darkening sky. I soared over Thornhill as a man who had gotten what he wanted.
And still, I wanted more.
My heart felt light, free...afraid.
The coward in me had bought two pieces of jewelry.
One, a necklace with a pendant shaped into a sycamore leaf. I had plans to imbue it with magic and Seraphine could call me to her side if ever she rubbed its surface.
The second…the second was a ring. The single stone was a raw cut amethyst set above a simple gold band. I had noticed it in a shop window while we’d searched for her dress.
I’d inquired about it when I’d stopped at the market for food a few days later, and now, as I shifted back, I felt the weight of it in my pocket.
I feared her answer if I asked her.
If Arthur broke the spell, would she consider him to be her future?
Fuck, I hated that duke.
If he couldn’t save her tonight, I could.
Maybe I could all along.
“Phinie,” I whispered harshly in the darkened room of the Rose and Briar, searching for her form on the bed. It was cold and empty.
Her dress gone, her shoes gone, my cloak...gone. And on the small table in the room, next to the last of the smashed bramble berries, lay the note I had written to her upon my departure. She had left an open book with a dot circled on a map of Moonstone Wood.
A line was scratched out on the parchment as if she’d written something before she wrote,
This is where you can find me if you ever need a friend.
Thank you for staying when you did not need to.
–YS
YS…Your Seraphine.
And next to her carefully crafted words, which raked a knife through my chest, was the most perfect stained kiss of bramble berry juice.
Seraphine had lips.