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

Harper is frowning up at me. I long to draw the words back into my mouth, to erase the enchantress’s name from this moment.

Harper is so lovely in the dimness of the stable aisle, her curls coming a bit loose from their pins, her lips flushed and swollen from kissing me. Her eyes are full of concern, and I wish I could reverse time by the span of one minute, so I could steal that worry from her expression.

But I can’t do this again. I can’t keep this from her any longer.

“Lilith?” she says.

The name still has the power to make my heart skip with fear, and I flick my eyes to the shadowed corners of the stable, as if Lilith might appear right here, right now.

She doesn’t.

Harper’s frown deepens. “But Lilith is dead.”

“No. She is not.” I take a breath, and my voice drops. “She has been here, to Ironrose. She has returned with magic, and threats, and a clear desire to make me miserable.”

Harper takes a step back, and it hurts to let her go. I expect to see betrayal in her expression, but there’s none.

There’s resolve.

When she speaks, her voice is level. “When? Where is she? What has she done?” Without waiting for an answer, she looks at the door and raises her voice. “Dustan! Guards!”

“My lady—”

The doors are thrown wide, and four guards sweep into the aisle, weapons drawn, eyes seeking a threat.

I give her a withering glance, then stoop to grab my jacket and sword belt. At least she is fully dressed. “Stand down,” I say to the guards. “There is no cause for alarm.”

“Yes, there is.” Harper’s voice is like steel. “If she’s back, you shouldn’t be alone.”

Dustan has sheathed his weapon, but he glances between us. He’s definitely picked up on the tension in her voice. “My lord?”

I sigh and shove my arms through the sleeves of my jacket. “Commander. I will retire to my chambers.”

Harper inhales to make more demands, I’m sure, but I give her a level glare and hold out my hand. “Join me, my lady?”

She scowls, but she places her hand in mine. We stride out of the stable, but I hesitate as we cross over the threshold, my eyes searching the darkness for the enchantress.

Harper notices, because her step falters, too, and she glances up at me. I force myself to keep walking.

“Talk to me,” she hisses. “How can you say something like that and not tell me anything more?”

“I planned to, but you called for guards.” She is so impulsive. A cold breeze whispers against the bare skin of my neck and I shiver. I want to be inside. I want to be in my chambers. I want to be locked behind a door so thick that no one could penetrate it.

None of that would matter. Nothing stops Lilith.

We reach the rear doors of the castle, and a footman leaps to hold it open. Once we’re out of the chilly night air, I feel better. Less exposed. Dustan sticks close to us, and I want to send him away. I already saw what Lilith did to Grey, season after season. I have no desire to see it inflicted on more of my guardsmen.

But Harper has clearly spooked him. Once we reach my chambers, Dustan stations himself outside, along with three other guardsmen. He inhales like he’s going to say something, but I close the door in his face.

My eyes flick to the corners before I look at Harper. “I suppose I should be glad you did not alert the entire castle.”

“Don’t you dare get mad at me.”

“I am not mad. I am …” My voice trails off, and I sigh. I set my sword against the wall, then run my hands down my face. I have no idea how to finish that statement. I am …

Regretful.

Resigned.

Exhausted.

And the worst: ashamed.

Speaking those words would seem to give weight to my faults, and I’ve done that enough already.

“I do not know what I am,” I say.

“Did she show up at the party?” Harper draws an angry breath. “You should have kept Dustan with you. You shouldn’t have sent him after me, of all people—”

Silver hell. “Harper. Stop.”

She stops.

“Lilith has been here for weeks.” I pause. “Months.”

I watch as she absorbs this information, as her face shifts from worry and fear to confusion and bewilderment. I expect her to yell, for this to fuel her tirade, but instead, she turns thoughtful. “Months.” Her voice grows softer. “Rhen. Rhen. Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

I hesitate, and she sucks in a breath, pressing a hand to her abdomen. “It’s me. She threatened me.”

“Yes.”

Harper presses her palms together in front of her face, then blows out a breath. She drops into a chair in front of the hearth. “Okay. Start at the beginning. I thought Grey took her to the other side and killed her.”

I ease into the chair beside her. “He certainly tried. She bears a scar on her neck—and for all the other injuries he attempted on this side, she’s never had a scar. He may not be aware she lives.”

“And what does she want?”

“She wants me to win this war.”

“Why? Why does she care?”

“Because she wants to rule Emberfall. She blames my father—my country—for the destruction of her people. She wants the throne.”

“Then why doesn’t she just kill you?”

“You see that my dispute with Grey has already put us at risk of civil war. She wholeheartedly admits that she cannot claim the throne and expect my entire kingdom to bend a knee to her. She is powerful, but not that powerful.”

Harper considers that for a while. I wait, listening to the fire snap in the hearth. I have been terrified of this moment for … for ages. I did not want Harper to know. I did not want her to be at risk. But I did not realize how desperate I was for a confidante until she demanded this truth.

The thought tightens my chest, and I have to swallow the emotion. I still remember the night I met the enchantress, how she tried to charm my father first, and he had the good sense to turn her away.

I didn’t, and I’ve been paying the price ever since.

Harper’s hand falls over mine. “Don’t hide,” she says. “Talk to me.”

She’s kinder than I deserve. “When Grey and I were trapped in the curse, he was the only person who knew how terrible she was. It is … difficult to share that with you. Even now.”

“What does she want to do to me? Leave my body parts all over Emberfall?”

“Worse. She has threatened to return you to Disi.”

Her hand goes still over mine, and her expression freezes. “Oh.”

I hold my breath, worried that Lilith will show herself and make good on her threats, but the room remains quiet. The enchantress does not appear. The fire continues to snap.

Harper continues to exist at my side.

“So she wants you to win this war. She wants you to be king.” Harper hesitates, and her eyes search mine. “And she wants to be at your side once you are.”

I nod.

She’s quiet for a moment. “Do you really want to go to war with Grey?”

“I see no other way for Emberfall—”

“Stop.” She puts up a hand. “Do you, Rhen, really want to go to war with your brother?”

I sigh and rise from the chair, moving to the side table, where I uncork a bottle of wine. “He may be my brother in blood, Harper, but he is not my brother.” I pause to pour. “He ran instead of telling me the truth. He stood in front of me and kept this secret. He declared war on me.”

“No, he gave you sixty days—”

“To prepare for war.” I drain the glass and pour another. “His letter was quite clear.”

“He said, do not make me do this.”

“I’ve made him do nothing. He can stay there and I can stay here and we can all be at peace.” I drain this glass, too, especially because I know this is not true. Syhl Shallow was struggling, desperate for resources and trade, before the curse was ever broken. My father had been paying a tithe to keep Grey’s birthright a secret, but once I was cursed and my father was dead, the tithe stopped being paid. Five years of silver stayed in my coffers—and Syhl Shallow went lacking.

It’s why Karis Luran sent soldiers into my lands, and it’s why Grey is promising to do the same thing if I do not ally with Lia Mara.

Harper appears at my side and takes the glass away. “If Lilith is around, the last thing you need to be is drunk.”

That’s debatable, but I push the cork back in. I haven’t been drunk in months. Not since the night Grey returned Harper to Washington, DC. Before we knew anything about his birthright. Before the curse was broken.

You are incorrigible. I have no idea how I put up with you for so long.

Grey’s words. The only time I’ve ever seen him drunk. Probably the truest words he ever said to me.

He stood with me on the castle parapets before I turned into a monster the final time. I sought to sacrifice myself. I was going to jump. I was terrified.

He stepped up and took my hand.

My throat tightens. I yank the cork free and drink right from the bottle.

“Wow,” says Harper.

“Indeed.” My voice is husky.

She takes the bottle this time. I drop into the chair in front of the fire and run my hands across my face.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she says quietly.

“Because I cannot lose you again,” I say. “I couldn’t put you at risk.”

She’s quiet for a while, and I don’t have the courage to look at her. Weeks of anger were bad enough. I have no desire to see disappointment or censure in her expression.

Her fingers drift along my shoulder then, and she curls into the chair with me, her skirts falling across my lap, her head tucking into the hollow beneath my chin. She is warm and solid and sure against me.

She doesn’t hate me, and I nearly shudder from the relief of it.

“That’s why you were putting on such a show for the Grand Marshals,” she says. “Because you need to put on a good show for Lilith.”

“It needs to be more than a show if we’re going to stand a chance against Syhl Shallow.” I pause. “But yes.”

“I wish I’d worn the dress now.”

“I have never seen you as a pawn,” I say, and mean it. “Wear what you like.”

She falls quiet for a while, breathing along my neck for so long that my thoughts begin to scatter and drift, either from exhaustion or the wine. Or both.

“You used to take Lilith’s torments so she wouldn’t hurt Grey,” Harper whispers.

I remember the endless misery the enchantress would visit upon us both. Some days it was boredom, while others it seemed to be vindictive, or a punishment for crimes only she could fathom. Nothing she did would kill us, not when the curse was in effect, but the pain was very real.

I would draw her attention off Grey when I could. He did not earn the curse, I did. He should have fled during the first season, when I first changed.

Sometimes I wish he had.

“It was all I could do,” I say to Harper. “Only his loyalty kept him by my side. No one deserves an eternity of torture for that.”

“Grey once told me it was his duty to bleed so you would not.”

I know. I heard him say the words.

I thought of them when I watched a whip split open the skin of his back.

I long for that wine bottle again.

“You didn’t have to take it all on yourself,” Harper says. “And you don’t have to now.”

“I do not know how to defeat her—”

“Together,” she says. “The way we did before.”

She sounds so sure.

“Yes, my lady,” I whisper, and I drop a kiss along her temple.

I wish I felt the same.

“Your Highness.”

My eyelids flicker. The room is cold and dark, and my left arm has gone numb. Harper’s weight is heavy with sleep, her breath slow and light against my skin. The fire has burned down to embers.

“Shh,” the voice says. “Do not wake your princess.”

I blink slowly, my eyes seeking a face in the shadows. It’s unusual for a servant to enter my chambers after I’ve retired for the night.

Then Lilith’s fine features snap into clarity, and I jerk in alarm.

“Shh,” Lilith says again. “I’d hate for her to wake and force me to take her back to Disi.”

My heart has leapt into a panicked race, pounding so hard that I’m sure it’ll wake Harper. “Leave me,” I whisper. “Please, Lilith.”

“You told her the truth,” she says.

She makes it sound like a weakness, and I clench my jaw. “I will not hide your crimes any longer.”

“I commit no crimes.” She leans closer, until her lips are a breath away from mine. Her eyes glitter in the darkness.

I hold very still. I would give every scrap of silver in Emberfall to my new spy if she could appear with a weapon that would stop Lilith right this moment. My fingers long to grip tight to the girl in my arms, as if I could keep her safe by sheer strength of will. “I have made preparations to go to war. I will stand against Grey. I have done as you asked.”

“Good boy,” she breathes. Her lips brush against mine, and I snap back. Harper shifts in my arms.

Lilith smiles. “No matter what you tell her, she cannot cross the veil without my assistance. If I take her away, you will have no way to reach her.”

“I will do as you ask,” I say. “You have my word.”

“Good.” She traces a finger along the scar on Harper’s cheek before I can jerk her away.

Harper startles awake, slapping a palm to her cheek. Her breathing is quick and rapid. “Rhen. What—who—you.” She goes very still in my arms.

“Yes. Me.” Lilith’s eyes flash with danger in the darkness, and she hisses the words like a snake. “You weak, broken, worthless little—”

Harper launches herself out of my arms, and I realize a moment too late that she’s seized the dagger from my belt.

“No!” I cry. I remember the last time she threw a weapon at the enchantress.

But Harper doesn’t throw it. She drives the blade right into Lilith’s midsection, throwing her weight into the movement and bringing the enchantress to the floor. Harper kneels on her arm, then wraps the fist of her free hand in Lilith’s hair.

She leans down close. “Go ahead,” she whispers. “Take me home. Let’s see how long you live on my side.”

Wind swirls through the room, making the candles go out and the flames in the hearth flicker. Lilith is gasping, either from shock or pain. “I will make you pay—”

“He’s doing what you want him to do. Did Grey give you that scar? I bet I can make a bigger one.”

“Harper.” I can’t breathe. “Harper, please.”

Lilith is practically drooling with rage. “I will end you—”

“Then do it. Lose the only leverage you have.” Harper leans down closer. “You’re the weak one,” she whispers. Lilith screams in rage, then slashes her free hand against Harper’s arm.

Harper cries out and snaps back. Blood has appeared in three long stripes across her bicep.

My door swings open. Guardsmen charge in, drawn by their screams.

Lilith disappears, leaving nothing but the dagger and a stain of blood on the floor.

Harper slaps a hand over her arm. She’s all but wheezing. “Is it bad?” she says. “I can’t look at it.”

I’m staring at her, and it takes a moment for my eyes to leave her face. I pull at her fingers gingerly. The sleeve of her dress is shredded, the slashes bleeding freely.

Dustan appears at my side, and he drops to a knee.

“Brandyn,” he says to one of the guards. “Fetch a physician. The princess will need stitches.”

Harper sighs. “More scars. Great.”

I can’t stop staring at her in wonder.

“What?” she says.

I have no words. “How—how did you—” I break off. “How?”

“I hate her,” she says simply. “It wasn’t hard. Or do you mean, how did I know how to pin her like that?”

“Who?” says Dustan.

“Yes,” I say.

“Easy.” Harper picks up the blade, wipes it on the skirts of her ruined dress, and holds it out to me, hilt first. Her eyes are fierce and determined. “Zo taught me.”