A Curse So Dark and Lonely (The Cursebreaker Series Book 1)

I hide in the stables.

At first, I tried to join Evalyn and Freya in the kitchen, hoping to lose myself in their chatter, but they were too busy fawning over me.

“Your father’s power must be immeasurable, my lady. Tell us of life in your court.”

“Your beauty knows no bounds. It is no surprise you caught the prince’s eye. Are curls a trademark of your people?”

“My lady, are the women of your lands known to be warriors? You spoke with such fierceness.”

I had to get out of there.

The stables are small, offering six stalls, a low overhang, and a narrow aisle down the middle. The innkeeper—or Bastian—keeps it orderly, the stalls clean. Hay and sweat fill the air, underscored by the cold, wet scent of melting snow. I’d give anything to saddle up and ride out of here, but armed men will now be watching for “Princess Harper of Disi.”

The buckskin blows warm air on my hands, looking for food, then lifts his head to nose at my face.

“I’ll bring you an apple next time,” I whisper. “I promise.”

I have no idea what just happened with Rhen.

Maybe I was overwhelmed from chasing the men out of the inn. Maybe it was the bickering. Maybe he read that wrong. Maybe I did.

I know how quickly a skilled con artist can talk their way into your head and convince you their path is the best path. I saw it happen to my father. Jake and I were paying the price.

Well, right now, Jake is paying the price.

I pull the phone out of my pocket. The clock says it’s three thirty in the afternoon in Washington, DC.

The battery meter is glowing red and I have no way to charge it.

Emotion swells in my chest, tightening my throat. I’ve barely looked at the pictures, but I guess leaving it on drains the power.

Once it dies, I won’t have any connection to them left.

I sniff the tears back, and the buckskin pushes at my fingers again, running his velvet nose over the corner of my phone.

“I have learned that when you go missing, I should check the stables first, my lady.”

I turn my head to find Grey at the end of the aisle.

I look back at the buckskin and slide the phone into my pocket. It’s hard to chase thoughts of Jake out of my head, but standing in this stables, listening to snow dripping off the roof outside, leaves me with the bizarre, disorienting feeling that here is real, and there is not.

“I’m not good at pretending,” I say quietly.

“Pretending?”

“Acting like someone I’m not.”

He steps into the aisle and stops beside me. “I did not see much pretending, Princess Harper of Disi.”

I blush. The horse lips at my fingers, and I pull them out of the way before lips turn to teeth. “When I said for you to prove how serious I was, I wasn’t entirely sure you’d do anything.”

“You give orders well.”

“I’m surprised you listened.” He glances at me, so I add, “To me, I mean. Instead of Rhen.”

He says nothing to that. Instead, he says, “You are the first girl I’ve claimed from the other side who has such familiarity with horses. Why?”

“I used to ride a lot. When I was young. Mom took me—” My voice wavers at the mention of my mother. “At first it was just therapy, after I had surgery to fix my leg. But as I got older, it became a passion.” I pause and stroke my hand along the buckskin’s cheek. “I hadn’t realized how much I missed it until … until I came here.”

“Yet no weaponry?”

That startles a laugh out of me. “Those don’t really go hand in hand where I come from.” I pause. “How did you learn to throw a knife like that?”

“Practice and repetition.”

“Was your father a guard, too?”

“No. My father was a farmer.” He hesitates. “My mother had been a lady’s maid in the castle, and my uncle was a soldier with the King’s Army. When I was a child, my uncle would show me what he knew. I was a quick study. It became a fun pastime.”

“So you grew up wanting to be a soldier?”

He shakes his head. “I grew up intending to inherit farmland.” A pause. “When I was young, my father was badly injured. He became caught in a thresher, then dragged by the horse. He could no longer work. He could no longer walk. I had nine brothers and sisters—”

“Nine!” No wonder he’s good with children.

Grey nods. The horse butts at his hands and he gives the animal a soft word and strokes his muzzle. “I helped as best I could, but I was a boy trying to do a man’s work. Over time, much of our land was sold. Much of our livestock. Our crops suffered. We suffered. Every year, the castle would accept ten new guards. As you heard, it is a significant mark of favor for the family. I would have to forswear any connection to them, but I knew it would end their misery. When I came of age, I applied.”

I study him, charmed by his story. My eyes flick over his broad shoulders, the sheathed weapons, the armor he has not yet removed. I try to imagine him in denim and flannel, throwing hay bales into a wagon.

I completely and wholeheartedly fail.

I lean against the stall door. “So underneath Scary Grey there’s a big softy who’s good with kids and animals?”

His eyebrows lift just a hair. “Scary Grey?”

“Oh, please. You know you’re scary.” The buckskin presses his face against my chest, so I gently wrap my arms around his muzzle. “So you joined the castle guard and got stuck with Rhen.”

That earns me a rueful look, and it takes me a second to figure out why.

I sigh. “Fine. You joined the castle guard and you earned the monumental privilege of guarding Rhen.”

“The Royal Guard. And not at first. Guarding the royal family truly was an earned privilege. I spent many months in training.” His voice turns dry. “And then many months guarding closed doors.”

“Not much use for knife throwing then, huh?”

He gives the barest hint of a dark smile. “As I have mentioned, I would rather be useful.”

“Can you show me? How to throw like that?”

His smile vanishes. A line appears between his eyebrows. “My lady?”

I glance at the inn. “I don’t want to go inside. I don’t want to talk to Rhen. I don’t want to leave. I just—” I make a frustrated noise. “I would rather do something useful, too.”

He says nothing. His eyes are dark and inscrutable.

I stare back at him and realization dawns. Something inside me shrivels a little bit. I think of how Jake would tell me to hide in the alley, always with a warning of how vulnerable I am. Grey has never treated me that way, and I don’t like the idea of him starting. “Do you think I can’t do it?”

“I have no doubt you can do it. I think His Highness will not like it.”

“Oh! Well then, posthaste or whatever you’d say here.”

He doesn’t move.

If I have to stand in these stables worrying about my mother and brother—to say nothing of the people in this inn—I’m going to rattle myself apart.

“Please?” I clasp my hands in front of me, the way I used to do when I wanted Jake to walk me down the street for ice cream. “Pretty please, Scary Grey?” I tease.

He sighs and lifts his eyes skyward—which is what Jake used to do, too, and how I know I’ve won.

“As you wish,” he says.

In my head, I expected to feel fierce and lethal.

In reality, I can barely get a knife to stick in the ground.

More than half my throws result in the knife bouncing away or skidding into the slush. The rest barely stick, and then tip over. I feel like an idiot.

I wish I could blame it on the frozen ground. But when Grey demonstrated, his blades drove right through the melting snow and into the softening turf below.

Sweat has set up camp between my shoulder blades, and I’m ready to lose the cloak despite the chill in the air. My right arm aches all the way to my shoulder. The blades are heavier than they looked. We’ve only been at this for twenty minutes, but I wasn’t ready for the physical exertion.

I look over at Grey. “Are you sure I shouldn’t be throwing at a plank of wood or something?”

He leans against the side of the stables, off to my left. “Would you prefer to watch the knives bounce from something else, my lady?”

Ha-ha. I scowl and flex my wrist, rubbing the muscles and tendons. “I had no idea this would be so hard.”

“Once you can stick a knife in the ground, you can stick it in a target.” He nods at the remaining knife in my hand. “Try again.”

My fingers slide along the curved etching in the hilt, which is inlaid with silver, stamped with the same lion-and-rose crest that decorates everything else. For all their lethal power, the weapons are beautiful, with marks of true craftsmanship. So different from my life in DC, where everything seems disposable. Even the people.

“You know what really sucks about this curse? Whoever put it in place screwed a lot of people who did nothing wrong.” I put my thumb against the blade and push just hard enough to feel the bite without the sting. “I didn’t spend the night with the wrong woman.”

“Nor did I.”

That makes me stop and look at him. “How did you get caught up in this?”

I actually don’t expect him to answer, but he says, “I did my best to defend him. I failed.” A pause. “So perhaps you should not count me among those who did nothing wrong.”

“Why do you defend him if he got you trapped by the curse?”

“I swore my life to defend the crown. To be a part of something bigger than myself.”

I wait for him to say something else, but when he doesn’t, I realize it really is that simple for him. “You have a lot more faith in him than I do.”

“I have faith in you, too, my lady. Put the blade in the ground.”

I grit my teeth and draw back my arm, thinking through everything he told me about grip and release and timing—and snap my arm forward to let the knife fly.

It skids in the mud and flips over.

I sigh.

I move forward to fetch the knives from the ground, but Grey beats me to it. He wipes them on a rag we claimed from Evalyn. “Loosen your grip. Just let the knife go, and it will finish the movement for you.”

“Will you show me again?”

He nods. His knife drives straight into the ground. Effortless.

Then he turns and hands me the other two.

I take one. My fingers wrap around the hilt, and I draw back my arm.

Grey catches my wrist. “Relax. Your hand is the guide. The blade is the weapon. Do you understand?”

“Maybe?”

He moves behind me, putting his hand over mine, shifting my fingers to match his. His left hand closes on my shoulder, holding me in place. “Soften your grip,” he says.

I swallow. He’s not against my back, but he’s close enough that a few deep breaths would brush me against him. The entire length of my arm rests against his, from the buckled leather encircling his forearm to the hard muscle of his bicep.

“Softer,” he says.

I force my fingers to loosen until I’m worried I’m going to drop it.

“Yes,” he says. “Now breathe.”

I take a deep breath. My back brushes his armor.

He lets go. Steps back. “Throw.”

I throw. My arm feels faster somehow. The blade goes flying.

Then it drives straight into the ground with an audible thock.

I throw my arms up in victory and ignore the fact that my knife landed at least ten feet closer than the knife Grey used to demonstrate. “I did it!”

He holds out the other blade. “Do it again.” But he looks pleased.

I take the next one and try to re-create the same grip. “This is so weird. Yesterday I wanted to kill you.”

“Indeed. That gives me hope.”

“Why?”

“If you have come to trust me, that means you may come to trust him.”

I think of Rhen’s fingers brushing along my temple. Heat begins to crawl up my neck, against my will. “I don’t think so.”

“Would you not have said the same of me?”

Okay, so maybe he has a point.

I draw my hand back again. This throw bounces off the ground, and I sigh. “I hope I don’t ever have to defend myself this way.”

He reclaims the weapons and wipes them clean again. “If you need to defend yourself, do not throw your weapons away. Never arm your opponent.”

“What would you have done if you’d missed that guy’s leg?”

Grey gives me a look, then takes a knife, flips it in his hand, and throws hard. The other two follow in rapid succession. All three drive into the ground, each landing an inch apart. Thock. Thock. Thock.

Whoa. I turn wide eyes back to him. “Now I’m wondering why you didn’t impale all of them, Scary Grey.”

He grins, probably the first real smile I’ve seen from him. The expression steals any tension from his eyes. “Someone had to drag him out, my lady.”

This reminds me of yesterday morning in Arabella’s room, when he showed me how to hold the dagger properly. I wonder if this is what he was like before the curse. More lighthearted. Less burdened.

As soon as I have the thought, I wonder what Rhen was like before the curse.

Grey fetches the knives and wipes them clean.

“Is this how you won your spot?” I ask. “Knife throwing?”

“No one skill would win a man a spot in the Royal Guard. Weapons can be learned. Technique can be perfected. To serve the royal family, one must be willing to lay down his life—or her life—in favor of another. That is what must be proven.”

“Do you think it’s worth it?”

His eyebrows go up. “Worth it?”

“Guarding Rhen. I know you swore an oath. Do you think he’s worth the sacrifice?”

He hesitates. The easy smile is gone. He holds out the knives to me. “Time will tell.”