A Vow So Bold and Deadly (The Cursebreaker Series Book 3)

When I first journeyed to Syhl Shallow with Lia Mara, our traveling party was fractured in the beginning, with clear lines of division: me and Tycho, Jake and Noah, Lia Mara and Iisak. It made for tense conversation and uneasy nights, leaving everyone irritated and snappish.

This journey back into Emberfall is worse.

Captain Solt provided ten soldiers, as requested, and most of them are lethal and experienced, but to my surprise Solt included Tycho among them.

When I questioned him about it, he said, “The boy is from Emberfall. We may need a fluent scout.”

“Wise,” I said.

Solt grunted. “We’ll also need someone to dig a ditch for the latrine.”

To his credit, Tycho has done everything asked of him, rubbing down the horses, cleaning harness leather, fetching buckets of water—and digging ditches. He’s never shied away from hard work. It’s been three days, and we’ve only been riding at night, so I watch him pitch face-first onto his bedroll the very instant he’s relieved of duty.

Harper has been clinging to her brother’s side, which has generated some glances from the other soldiers, so I have tried to keep my distance from both of them, choosing instead to sit with Solt at meal times. I don’t want to give anyone in our group the impression that I am separate from them. Unfortunately it leaves me with little conversation, because Solt is cool and distant, speaking only when spoken to.

My only true companion is Iisak, who takes to the skies when we ride at night, then lands at daybreak and demands that I practice my skills. Always before, magic was a struggle because I didn’t understand it—and I didn’t want to understand it.

Now magic is a struggle because I know where my limitations are—limitations Lilith herself does not share.

I’ve come to eye my bedroll with the same desperation as Tycho, but when I try to sleep, all I do is worry. I don’t think Harper would lead me into a trap, which I know occupies the thoughts of the other soldiers—but I am also unsure if Rhen truly wanted peace, or if his desires were more strategic in nature. I know Harper believes the best of him, but I’ve seen the worst.

I know this dagger is impervious to magic—the irritating stitches across the back of my hand are proof enough of that. But I don’t know if it will be enough.

I don’t know if I can defeat Lilith. I don’t know if I can save Rhen.

I don’t know if I can help unite these countries.

And deeper, darker, a thought I almost don’t want to admit to myself: I don’t know if I can keep my vow to Lia Mara. I might have magic, but I don’t have the skill with it that Lilith does. She trapped all of Ironrose in a curse that seemed eternal, and I now know that requires a complicated layering of magic that I am nowhere near mastering.

Sleep proves to be elusive at best, and I am no less surly and snappish than the others.

By the fourth day, we’ve circled around Rhen’s stationed regiment, sticking close to the forest. Tonight we’ll need to move out of the woods on the mountainside, which will be the riskiest travel yet, so I practice with Iisak for a shorter time, and then he goes to scout our paths from overhead to see if we’ll encounter any resistance or risk of discovery.

It’s barely sunrise, but most of the soldiers have already fallen asleep. It seems they’ve called on Tycho to guard the camp, because he’s sitting against a tree not far from the fire. I slip between the trees, wondering if I’ll find him dozing, but I should give Tycho more credit. I hardly make a sound, but he whirls off the ground, an arrow nocked on a string before he’s fully upright.

I catch the arrow against the bow so he can’t let it fly.

His eyes are wide, his breathing a little quick, but relief blooms in his gaze. “Sorry.” He hesitates, easing the bow string. “Your Highness.”

“Don’t be,” I say. “You were quick off the ground.”

The praise makes him blush, just a bit. He tucks the arrow in his quiver and hangs the bow over his shoulder. “It’s the first time they’ve asked me to sit sentry.”

“Well chosen,” I say.

His blush deepens. “I’m more worried I’ll fall asleep.”

“I’ll sit with you.”

He looks startled at that, and maybe a little wary, but he nods. “As you say.”

I sit, putting my back to a tree a few feet away, and he sits as well, pulling the bow into his lap. The early morning forest is quiet and cold, the tethered horses just as tired as the soldiers. I’ve hardly spoken to Tycho since I confronted him in the sleet a few days ago. With someone else, there might be some tension between us, but with Tycho, there’s none. Because the silence is so amiable, I let it hang between us while the sun fully rises, letting my thoughts drift.

If I’m not careful, I will doze off, so I try to fill the silence. “Do you ever think of the tourney?”

Worwick’s Tourney is where I hid when I first fled Ironrose. For months, Tycho was my only companion, and my first confidant when Rhen began searching for the missing heir. It was the simplest three months of my life—until it wasn’t. I used to teach him basic swordplay in the dusty arena, until Tycho learned the truth of who I was and demanded to graduate to the real thing.

Tycho looks over in surprise. “Worwick’s? All the time.”

“How many times do you think he spun the story of our capture?”

Tycho smiles. “At least a hundred. He’s probably charging a fee just to hear him tell it.”

Knowing Worwick, that’s the truth.

“It’s odd to be in Emberfall again,” Tycho says. “Don’t you think?”

“I do.” I remember the first night Rhen and I discovered soldiers from Syhl Shallow were in Emberfall. I didn’t expect to be wearing their colors less than a year later. I’d sworn my life to defend Rhen. I never expected I’d be standing against him.

The thought of him facing Lilith alone tugs at me more than it should.

“Do you think we’ll encounter Rhen’s forces?” Tycho says, and something about his voice is lower, quieter, so I look over.

“We might,” I say. He’s silent, so I add, “Are you afraid?”

He hesitates, and for a moment, I think he won’t admit it to me, especially not now. His voice drops even lower, and he says, “I’m afraid that when the time comes, I won’t be able to kill someone.”

I sense there is more for him to say, so I glance at him and wait.

Maybe he’s encouraged by my silence, because he continues. “The other recruits seem almost excited to do it,” he says. “They have chants about the blood we’ll spill in Emberfall.”

I remember what Noah said, the first day I found Tycho hiding in the infirmary. I thought the others might have been hazing Tycho a bit, because of his youth, because of where we came from, because of his friendship with me. But maybe that wasn’t it at all.

I don’t think they’re doing anything wrong, Noah said. I think they’re just being soldiers.

I remember my days in training for the Royal Guard. “Those chants aren’t uncommon here either,” I say.

“I know.” He hesitates.

Again, I wait. The woods around us are so silent, I can hear the wind slip between the leaves.

“When I was a boy,” he says, “we had cats that would sleep in the rafters of our barn. One of them had kittens, and my sisters and I loved them. We’d play in the barn for hours after chores were done.” He pauses, and sunlight breaks through the trees, painting gold in his hair. “My father lost a game of cards to a few soldiers one night, and he didn’t have the coins he’d promised. They tore through our house. One of them … he … my mother … well.” His voice tightens, and he takes a breath before changing course. “The other soldiers came into the barn. We had a cow, and one of them drew a sword and cut its throat. My sisters were screaming, we were all screaming, clutching those kittens.” He hesitates, but then his voice accelerates, as if he can’t get the words out fast enough. “He drew a dagger and started plucking the kittens out of my sisters’ hands. Killing them one by one. He said, ‘I like when they squeak.’ ” Tycho’s eyes flash with fury. “I shoved my kitten down my shirt. It kept clawing at me, but I didn’t care. And then he said, ‘I bet you’ll squeak, too.’ ” He shudders, and I can’t tell which is stronger in his voice, the current anger or the remembered fear.

He stops there, and he’s so still that I don’t think he’s breathing. There’s more to this story. There has to be more. But this is the most he’s ever told me, so I keep quiet.

“He was hurting my sisters. He was hurting me.” He cringes, his eyes on the trees. “I couldn’t stop him. My father was shouting for the enforcers, so he turned me loose before—before he could be caught. But I don’t—I can’t be like that. I can’t … revel in it.” He frowns, looking a bit abashed that he admitted all that.

I think of that kitten in Noah’s infirmary. “Being a soldier does not require cruelty,” I say quietly. “Nor revelry.”

“Doesn’t it?” he says. He lifts the bow meaningfully, then pats at the dagger strapped to his thigh. “A little?”

“When I joined the Royal Guard,” I say, “I had to take a life.” The moment is seared into my memory for so many reasons. I can still hear the bell of the arena ringing, can still smell my own sweat and fear. “It was a man condemned to death, but it was still a life. If I failed, I would have been dead and my family would have starved. Is that cruelty?”

He doesn’t have an answer for that.

I lean back against the tree. “Those men who hurt your family—that was not because they were soldiers, Tycho. They may have had the skills and the weaponry to cause harm, but that did not make them cruel. Defending yourself—defending your people—that does not make a man cruel either. When the time comes for you to use deadly force, I have no doubt you’ll do it well, and do it honorably.”

Or he’ll die.

I don’t say that. I’m sure he knows it.

His eyes are on the horizon, but I can tell he’s thinking.

But then his gaze sharpens, and he rolls to his feet in one fluid motion. That arrow finds his hand again, and it’s nocked on the string just as my eyes see the target, a hint of motion between the trees a hundred yards away.

“Grey,” he breathes.

I’m already on my feet beside him. My eyes search the trees, seeking more. This could be a lone scout, or it could be an attack.

There. A glint of red and gold, almost obscured by the trees—but far enough from the first that I doubt it’s scouts working together.

“Hold,” I say to Tycho, and he nods, keeping the bowstring taut.

The sun is rising beyond the forest, but it’s still early, and heavy shadows still linger among the trees. As I watch, more soldiers in gold and red seem to appear among the trees, coming from all directions, easing through the foliage.

There are more than two dozen.

Tycho is frozen in place beside me, waiting for an order, that arrow nocked and ready. But everyone else is sleeping, and … I turn to look … we’re surrounded. I don’t know how they knew, how they tracked us, but it doesn’t matter. If I shout for the others, they’ll attack. If Tycho fires, they’ll attack.

“Grey!” Tycho shoves me down just as I hear the swip of a bowstring, and I duck automatically. An arrow embeds itself in the tree where I was standing.

“Return fire,” I say, but he’s already doing that, snapping arrows off the string with calm focus.

I wish I had a bow. I could return fire with him. As it is, I’m thirty feet away from the sleeping camp, and now soldiers are slipping between the trees with more confidence. They’re shooting at me, at Tycho, but I knock the arrows out of the air while he shoots.

“Rukt,” I shout to my sleeping soldiers. “Solt! Jake!”

In the distance, a man cries out and falls, an arrow jutting from his neck.

“That was my last one,” Tycho says breathlessly, but he draws his sword.

I grab his arm. “Come on.” Arrows fill the air around us, and one pings off my armor. I’m shouting as I run back to the camp. “Solt! Jake!”

We’re not going to be fast enough. There are too many of them. Rhen’s soldiers seem to be appearing through the trees from everywhere now. Solt is on his feet, shouting orders, but an arrow slices him right across the arm. Another soldier doesn’t even make it off the ground before he takes one in the chest. My heart is pounding hard, but everything seems to be happening in slow motion, with perfect clarity. We’ll be overtaken: slaughtered or taken prisoner.

Overhead, Iisak screeches in the trees, and the air thins, turning ice cold. I hear one of the Emberfall soldiers swear. Arrows point up into the sky. A soldier intercepts me, his sword meeting mine with a clash of steel. Just as quickly, I cut him down. At my side, Tycho does the same.

Iisak slashes through another soldier before he can get close to me. A blast of cold wind flares through the woods. He screeches at me, then darts higher, just missing a throwing blade. “Magic!” he snaps.

Magic. Right.

I don’t know how I can focus on magic when swords are coming at me.

“I’ll cover you,” says Tycho.

My thoughts are flaring too quickly, impossible to settle. I once knocked out everyone in Rhen’s courtyard through magic, but I’ve never been able to repeat it. I’ve been able to shove back soldiers one by one during swordplay, but that’s one, not dozens.

But I remember the night I worked on this with Iisak, putting my power into the ground. I couldn’t cover much distance, but when I thought of Lia Mara, my magic seemed to reach for her automatically. I touch a hand to the ground. Take a breath. At my back, Tycho’s sword meets another, and I want to whip around, to join the fray. I send my magic into the ground, and it snaps back to me, unwilling. This isn’t natural. I growl in frustration. Magic isn’t automatic.

Motion flickers in my peripheral vision, and I lift my sword, but Solt is there, covering my other side.

Iisak’s screech reverberates through the woods. Sunlight paints everything in stark relief, and I smell blood on the air. I take another breath and put my hand to the ground.

Another gold-and-red-armored man appears from behind a tree, his sword aiming straight for Tycho. He only has one arm, and I’m stunned to realize I recognize him. I remember how he fought, how he wouldn’t yield even when he was exhausted and panting in the dust of the arena. Jamison’s eyes flare wide when he recognizes me, but he doesn’t hesitate.

Silver arcs in the cold air. Tycho is going to be a second too slow.

I ease my power into the ground and give it a push. Wind blazes through the trees, ice-cold in its intensity, full of snow flurries that appeared from nowhere.

Jamison is knocked back. All of the soldiers are knocked back. They’re flat on the ground, not moving. At my side, Solt is breathing hard, blood seeping from that wound on his arm. Twenty feet away, most of our soldiers are doing the same, looking stunned that the battle quite literally dropped out from under us.

I’m equally stunned. My own breathing is shaking a bit.

“Kill them all,” Solt calls in Syssalah.

That brings me back to myself. “No,” I snap. “Leave them. Break camp. They won’t stay down long.”

“Leave them? ” he echoes.

“Yes. Leave them.”

Iisak settles in the leaves near us. “Your Highness. They will be able to follow.”

“Then we need to ride fast. Let’s go.” I glance at Tycho, who’s looking stunned for his own reasons. I clap him on the shoulder. “As I said. You did well. Very well.”

“Thank you,” he says, but his voice is hollow. He sheathes his sword.

“This was a trap,” Solt snaps at me, at my back, and I look up to find Harper and Jake in the middle of the other soldiers. Her eyes are wide and frightened and angry.

“Maybe,” she says. “But I didn’t set it.” She strides forward, toward me, stepping around the bodies of Rhen’s soldiers who are lying in the underbrush. “I had nothing to do with this. Rhen had nothing to—” She stops short, looking down, and she frowns. “It’s—it’s Chesleigh.”

Chesleigh. “The spy?” I demand. “The spy who found the dagger of Iishellasan steel?”

Solt is heading toward her, too. “Rhen’s spy was among them? Wake her up. We will question her—”

“You can’t,” says Harper, and her voice is flat. She drops to a crouch. “She took two arrows. I’m pretty sure she’s dead.” She glances up at me. “I can’t believe she survived Lilith to bite it here.”

Solt and I reach her at the same time. Harper is right—two arrows jut from the woman’s chest. She has dark hair braided tightly to her head, and a scar on her cheek that I’ve seen a hundred times in the Crystal Palace.

Solt swears in Syssalah, then draws his sword and plunges it into her chest.

Harper jerks back. “Holy crap. She was already dead.”

“She deserves worse,” he snaps.

“I agree,” I say. My chest is tight with worry. I look at the other soldiers. “Break camp. We need to go.”

Harper looks at me. “What’s wrong? Do you know her?”

“Her name isn’t Chesleigh. It’s Ellia Maya.” I look over at Jake. “She’s not just a spy. She’s an advisor to the queen.”