Page 41 of Heirs of the Cursed (A Curse for Two Souls #1)

40

Bellmare

Jehanne was gone.

Her best friend had departed at dawn, leaving no trace of where she was going except for a letter telling her not to worry and that she’d be back with news in a few days.

And so Naithea waited with an uneasy heart. She kept herself busy by inspecting the forbidden and magical artifacts that Dyron had guarded with his life. As objects that could be of great help if needed, she tucked an amulet into the pocket of her pants, as well as the necklace of the goddess Kazaris that had caught her eye the first time she’d entered the store.

On the second day, she found a dusty map of Lên Rājya and, without questioning about its hidden magic, spread it out on the rectangular table. She traced her fingers over the names of the cities and towns, feeling the texture of the ink beneath her fingertips. She lingered at the indentation that made up Evrethia: the City of Dreams, where the Door of Etmek that separated the two kingdoms stood. The gateway to her home . . .

On the map, Naithea evaluated all her options. She needed a real plan if she wanted to get out of Bellmare alive. Since Jehanne possessed no training, she had to be strong enough for the two of them despite her own fears.

On the third day, an intense sadness swept over her. She believed it was due to her sisters, for they’d never spent so much time apart. But Naithea hated herself for the true cause of that pain: Killian.

Her eyes filled with angry tears at how easy it had been for him to sneak under her skin, to make her care.

Make her love him.

She’d trusted him and given him everything: her past, her present. . . She had even wished for an impossible future by his side. Killian had kissed her scars, had admired and recognized them as marks of bravery. The remnants of his starry caresses still lingered on her skin, which she wished to erase forever.

Naithea covered her body to avoid looking at them, curling herself into a ball on the floor. Yet that night, she was unable to sleep. The wind blew outside the store, rattling the windows. When she heard a door bang, Naithea hurried toward the entrance, thinking her friend had returned, the coldness of the ground brushing her bare feet.

Through the glass, darkness greeted her.

She’d been patient, but she could no longer wait.

Ignoring her friend’s orders to remain hidden, Naithea took the dagger and hung it from her belt, along with a sword she’d found from one of the wizard’s hiding places. Only when she felt the reassuring touch of the blade against her lower back did she throw the cloak over her shoulders.

Naithea opened the door and the hinges creaked before stepping into the abandoned city. There were no merchants leaning against the stone walls, still drunk after a long night of gambling. Nor were there women walking along with their children as was usual.

Only a young boy, raising a shaky hand towards her. The same one who had led her to Dyron the day he’d shown her the poem.

“This is for you,” he said in a trembling voice.

Naithea frowned upon noticing what the boy held in his dusty hands.

A letter.

As soon as she accepted it, the boy skittered away from her, vanishing into the labyrinth of streets.

Her hands squeezed tightly around the paper upon recognizing her best friend’s handwriting. Naithea read the letter as fast as she could, over and over again.

I’ve found information about your sister’s whereabouts, but it’s too dangerous for me to leave hiding. I’ll remain in the brothel until we can meet again.

Her friend knew where her sister was, but she needed to get to her and leave Bellmare for good if they were to stay alive.

Storing the letter inside her bag, Naithea slipped out of the store without looking back. She moved as silent as a ghost, her steps carrying her to the familiar structure of the brothel—a place that had both given her a chance to live and broken her in equal measure.

She breathed in the salty breeze one last time, before she walked through the entrance to reunite with her best friend. When the doors closed behind her, an icy darkness enveloped her and not even the flickering flames of the oil lamps were enough to comfort her.

In fear someone would hear her yells calling Jehanne, Naithea chose to stay silent as she scanned the halls and the rooms. Where once there had been four maids preparing the hetairas’ food, now there was only flour strewn across the counter and half-eaten dishes. The soldiers had gone to the brothel, searching for her and destroyed everything in their path when they realized she was gone.

The brothel was silent, empty.

Naithea’s footsteps echoed through the walls. She scoured it up and down in search of Jehanne, until the only place left was the circular parlor in which her mistress had whipped her.

Her hands hesitated on the door handles, but her heartbeat steadied just in time for Naithea to open the doors and step into the dark room. The icy moonlight seeped through the windows, past the dancing curtains . . .

The sound of the lock froze her in place.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” a deep voice resonated through the room.

Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, drowning out everything else. Memories of shared past danced like shadows in her mind, a painful reminder of the love they once cherished, now tainted by betrayal. Anxiety coiled tightly in her stomach, leaving her breathless. Naithea turned around slowly, and her lips lifted into a feline smile as the tip of the sword kissed her throat.

“I know. It took you long enough.”

Killian grinned back. “There’s something exciting about the hunt, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, taking a step forward as he took one back. “Am I the prey or the hunter?”

“I once said your loose mouth would make me cut out your tongue.”

“Perhaps you should have. Or better yet, you should have sent me to the gallows, and we wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

“It would have saved me a lot of wasted time,” he assured.

They both began to move. One foot after the other, in a circular motion that allowed Naithea to contemplate all possibilities; both escape and attack.

“Where’s my sister?”

“Which one do you mean?” Killian tilted his head. “Meissa or Jehanne?”

“You know perfectly well who I’m referring to.”

“I wonder . . . Who would you choose if you could only save one of them?”

Naithea didn’t answer. She couldn’t choose between the sister who loved her with all her heart and an innocent person. All she could do was hold the hilt of her sword tighter.

“You’re going to die tonight, Naithea,” Killian promised.

“She’s already dead.”

The prince stepped away, pulling the sword away from her skin to swing it over her and end the curse once and for all.

Just in time, Naithea unsheathed her own sword to parry the attack.

The sound of steel against steel echoed through the hall. Stars glittered in Killian’s midnight-blue eyes, accepting the challenge. With a scream growing in her throat, Naithea attacked. She lifted the sword her enemy had taught her to wield, prepared to cut him down and see his blood spilled on the ground as hers had been.

They plunged into a fight of emotions.

A fight born out of hatred.

Born out of betrayal.

Each blow was a reflection of the other. As Killian attacked harder, Naithea was elusive. The combat was the result of a duality that could last for hours if neither of them surrendered. Both knew the other’s movements and how to intercept them before they reached their target.

Naithea twirled on her boots, stepping away from his attack as she raised her sword to slice through the leather suit, just as he brought his weapon down toward her head. A low growl escaped Killian’s lips, prompting her to lift her gaze and see a thin line of blood trickling down his side.

“Come on, kill me if you have the guts!” Killian spat as his free hand closed over the wound.

‘Do it.’

‘Kill him.’

Naithea hesitated.

If she didn’t kill him, she’d never be free. It was her arrogance that held her back—or perhaps the lingering feelings she still had for the prince standing in front of her.

“I’m not going to waste my magic on you.”

“ Coward ,” he spat.

Naithea’s heart clenched in her chest. “You are, by hiding behind a fabricated name. I’ve always known that the Crown Prince was useless.”

Killian attacked.

Whether they knew it or not, the heirs of two warring kingdoms were fighting with their hearts. Fighting for freedom, to protect and persevere. To erase once and for all the hope they thought they could have together and replace it with ancestral hatred.

Killian lunged at her and the sharp blade of his sword struck her hand. A scream left her lips—the precise distraction he needed to disarm her completely. It took just one more strike for the sword to fly from her grasp, disappearing into the shadows of the room.

With a snarl, the prince twirled his sword between his fingers and delivered a slash that tore the fabric of her clothes and the skin of her collarbones.

Blood stained her fingers as she tried to stop the bleeding. A part of Naithea had hoped that Killian would spare her life, that he’d choose her. The blood on her hands only confirmed that he had made his choice and she was not part of it.

Killian kicked her stomach, knocking her to the ground. She coughed as the air left her lungs and reached for her dagger, but the prince kicked her hand, extinguishing all hope of fighting back. He hovered over her, the tip of his sword resting on that spot in her chest . . . Where her broken heart beat.

Their gazes met, finding nothing in his blue eyes but loathing.

“I always knew you didn’t love me. Not like you loved Maliya,” were Naithea’s last words. “I was doomed from the beginning.”

Something burned in Killian’s eyes.

Tears .

“Do it!” she yelled once again.

His scarred hands closed tighter around the hilt of his sword, urging him to strike the final blow. The tip of the sword cut into her flesh; blood spurted around it. But Killian Allencort was unable to continue, as a blow to the head destabilized him.

The second knocked him to the ground.

And then, he fell unconscious.

Naithea crawled along the ground, recoiling, as she tried to make out the man who had saved her. A tuft of dark brown hair covered his forehead and two emerald eyes gazed at her in silence through a mask of blackness.

He dropped the metal bucket, clinking against the ceramics. “That was . . . Interesting. I didn’t think it would work,” he said in relieved amazement.

Naithea frowned. “Who—?”

“ Run ,” he commanded. “Now.”

He didn’t need to say more. Naithea retrieved her sword and rushed for the doors, still holding pressure against her open flesh. Behind her, the man snatched the sword from the unconscious prince. They would need all the weapons they could find to fight what was to come.

They ran through the cobblestone streets of the city, not knowing where they were headed. Their only guide was the borealis gemstone pendant that throbbed between her breasts and burned her skin through the broken threads of her shirt. She could hear the sound of drums in her ears, as if two hearts beat with the rage of a thousand tigers until the rhythm became one.

They headed southeast, toward Saevus Forest. Still, the goddesses offered her no protection as the clattering sound of horses’ hooves echoed behind them like a warning of death.

Naithea kept running despite the pain.

“Faster!” the man behind her shouted.

She obeyed, regardless of her desire to yield. Naithea’s eyes grew wide as a soldier appeared before her. The horse he was riding reared and neighed, making her stumble with the broken branches and cold rocks below her feet.

As her savior helped her back on her feet, one of the soldiers leaped from the horse and advanced toward her. He drew his weapon, ready to strike . . .

The last thing Naithea had time to do was raise her sword and avoid the impact.