Page 9 of Heirs of the Cursed (A Curse for Two Souls #1)

8

Bellmare

Through the desolate streets of Bellmare, Naithea’s heels echoed, each click a solitary punctuation in the empty streets. At night, most people loitered near the harbor, where taverns and inns were still warmly lit, inviting them to succumb to their most forbidden desires.

She couldn’t help but enjoy that sense of short-lived freedom. If only she were brave enough to grab her things and escape, she’d run away from the woman who held the leash around her neck.

Madame Dimond hadn’t forced her to sell her soul. She hadn’t kidnapped her in the middle of the night and made her sleep with so many men she’d lost count. Instead, she’d protected her from the debt collectors and given her a choice : to work for her in exchange for a warm bed and three meals a day.

She’d endured Madame Dimond’s punishments for years, watching her friends sob at the harsh blows of the whip as her blood soaked into the leather. Every bone in her body begged her to leave, but she hadn’t had the courage to abandon the city in which her mother had grown up, in which she’d grown up . . . To walk away from all the memories she had of her childhood and let them die for the idea of a better life.

Love was a weakness, she’d realized.

During the dark nights, Naithea wondered if love was more than that: something vulnerable to the ravages of fortune, something too fragile that could break if not cared for delicately.

She shook her head and quickened her pace, trying to escape from her own mind. The pressing need of unraveling the mystery behind the Royal Army’s presence in Bellmare urged her onward.

The farther she walked, the darker the city became, and the flickering flames of the hanging oil lamps warmed her skin against the chill of the night sky. The phantom caress of sweat slid down her spine, but Naithea ignored her feelings and followed her friend’s instructions faithfully.

Her breathing grew heavier as she noticed the small store a few steps away. There were no windows to reveal its interior, and something inside her stiffened at the impending darkness she glimpsed through the lock.

The door opened with a sharp creak as Naithea pressed her palm against it, upsetting her balance. Yet, with a swift adjustment, she steadied herself and scanned the quiet street for any prying eyes. Her heart raced within her chest, but she refused to let its echoing rhythm drown out her resolve.

Once she closed the door behind her, she was plunged into blackness, with only glimmers from the moon and stars creeping through the roof of the store to guide her. She wandered amidst the shelves adorned with contrivances, each one brimming with enchantments capable of unraveling the world. Conflicting emotions stirred within Naithea, but her curiosity rose above her fear as she moved forward, staring at her surroundings in awe.

She lifted a necklace of pearls from the confines of a jewelry box and delicately caressed them. Under her fingertips, their lustrous surfaces warmed.

“You should put that back where it belongs,” a voice warned Naithea. The necklace slipped from her hand and fell to the floor with a thud . “You don’t want to know what will happen if you’re not careful enough.”

Naithea kept her eyes open, scanning the store, which was considerably larger than it appeared at first glance. With an unsteady breath, she knelt to retrieve the necklace and carefully placed it back into the jewelry box.

“What is it?” she dared to ask.

“The pearls of Kazaris. Word has it that she enchanted them with ancient magic,” the voice explained and footsteps echoed so close to her ear that Naithea turned on her boots to find only darkness. “Whoever counts the pearls shall make a wish and the goddess of destruction will grant it.”

“And what’s the price to pay for her blessing?”

Noises of movement carried on around her, until it revealed the figure of an older man. The little hair he had left was bristly, of an orange-blond color, and where one of his eyes should have been, there was a large lump. Someone had sewn up his eyelid and burned the skin with hot wax. The other one was deep green, which resembled the woods that surrounded the city.

The man seemed to be in the last quarter of his immortality, his back hunched over with the weight of years. He rested his body on a curved staff with a sort of sphere in the center.

“Clever girl.” A yellowish grin reached his remaining eye. “Those who touch the necklace and make a wish will lose what they love most.”

“Why do you have it in your possession if that’s the case?” Naithea asked curiously.

The gaunt man kept such a disturbing answer to himself. She didn’t insist for one. Instead, Naithea’s boreal eyes shone with approval. One had to be cautious when revealing secrets . . . and certainly not trust anyone.

“What are you looking for?” he asked instead.

Naithea shrugged. “Can’t a simple hetaira be curious about dark artifacts?”

“You broke into my store in the middle of the night. Curiosity never leads that far.”

“I was informed that you prefer to attend to your customers under the protection of the moon.”

“My clients know how to find me, and you’re not one of them. I would remember a woman who hides her essence behind a boreal gem.”

Naithea’s hand flew to the necklace hanging around her neck and held the six silver-tipped star between her fingers. The borealis gemstone embedded in the center pulsed against her palm in warning.

The necklace was her most valued possession, a treasure Iseabail had discovered clasped in her little hands, the chain wrapped protectively around her. From that moment on, she’d never taken it off. It was the only link to the home she’d wondered about so many times. Yet her sadness had been replaced with resentment.

“Don’t think you can take advantage of a decrepit old man like me,” he warned her. “I may seem insignificant, but I see more than you think.”

“Then you know exactly what I’m looking for, Dyron Selmi.”

The man frowned in reflection, and Naithea wondered if he was pondering whether he should accede to the young hetaira’s wishes and answer her questions. The wisest choice was to banish her from his store and his life before she drew unwanted attention.

“Information. Is that what you crave?”

“Yes,” Naithea replied with a short nod.

“The same information you so effectively extracted from Soldier Ramsdean,” he guessed.

The hairs on her arms bristled with icy dread. It wasn’t just that she’d discussed such information only with Jehanne; it was his choice of words, as though he were aware of her magic.

“I need to know why the Royal Army is in Bellmare. There are many places in Lên Rājya, each more powerful than the last. What has brought them here?”

Dyron took a step to approach, and despite her wariness, Naithea didn’t back down. “King Kirus didn’t only lead his army here, but also to the rest of the cities.”

“Why?” she asked again, intrigued.

“I thought that information was already in your possession.”

Naithea thought about her next move. There was nothing she wanted more than to return to the safety of the brothel. But no place was safe anymore. Not when the Royal Army prowled the city with an air of entitlement, aware that they wielded the weapons capable of killing them all, almost yearning for a reason to do so.

“What do you want in return?” Naithea offered, even though experience had taught her that deals were a dangerous thing.

“Neither you nor anyone else has what I want yet,” the man replied, taking another step toward her.

He paused to touch the rectangular iron frame of the painting hanging on the wall, which glowed under his touch. Naithea watched as the light slipped through Dyron’s fingers and drew the silhouettes and shadows of the artifacts around her.

“However, what are you willing to give me? Your voice?” he asked with a wicked grin tugging at his broken, blackened lips. “That dangerous power of yours that you fear so much?”

“Never,” she uttered.

Apart from the necklace, her magic was the only thing that belonged to her. The only thing that no one had managed to take from her in all those years of suffering, pain and loss. The only thing that would be hers for the rest of eternity.

“Don’t worry, child. I need your gift exactly where it is.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, shielding herself from the sudden chill that seeped into her bones. Naithea’s heart skipped a beat at his response. His statement contained information woven between loops of secrecy, but she wasn’t certain if she wanted to ask questions about the meaning behind it.

“Then why did the king deploy his armies?” she questioned.

“As you well know, he seeks two souls that were stolen before the curse doomed Ro’i Rājya,” Dyron provided a truthful answer.

“Why is he so interested in those two souls?”

“Wouldn’t you be interested if it had taken the life of your newborn child?”

Naithea’s eyes widened, and the rest of her body froze. But her mind raced as she searched through her memories.

The news of Queen Demira’s pregnancy and the seventh heir to the throne had been a great cause for celebration throughout the cities. She remembered making more money than she had in years due to the presence of the king’s heralds in Bellmare. Still, she didn’t recall hearing about the child’s birth or the announcement of his name.

Naithea drew calculations, trying to remember the season in which she’d heard about the queen’s pregnancy.

And then, she knew.

King Kirus’ child should have been born around this time.

Ideas began to sprout in her mind, some more disturbing than others, but all plausible. What Leonel had witnessed in Ro’i Rājya had been so dreadful that the king had opted to send his most lethal warriors throughout the kingdom. The expression on his face as he relived those terrible moments in the Fallen Kingdom should have been all the warning she needed.

“The holly of death,” she whispered. “I’ve never seen it with my own eyes, but its presence can only mean that something bad looms ahead.”

“There are many hidden curses in the world, some more dangerous than others. The fate of this one in particular is intertwined with the power held by those souls you have heard so much about.”

Her heart echoed in her ears as she commanded, “Tell me who they are.”

From the look on Dyron’s face, Naithea deduced that revealing that information was dangerous, and that the wizard had worked too hard to jeopardize everything. It was the hetaira’s impatience, or perhaps the benevolence of the goddesses, that compelled him to respond.

“The Dark Twins.”

“That . . .” Naithea shook her head, swallowing the lump in her throat. “That’s impossible. If the cursed princesses of the Fallen Kingdom aren’t locked up, that would mean . . .”

“That they’ve been missing for the last twenty-one years,” Dyron finished for her.

“Where are they?”

The old man turned his back to her. “Have a good night, Miss Utari.”