A Heart So Fierce and Broken (The Cursebreaker Series Book 2)
A Heart So Fierce and Broken: Chapter 26

The fire dwindles, but the others are drifting into sleep, so I do nothing to bank it. On the opposite side of the burning embers, Lia Mara is awake as well, her eyes distant and fixed on nothing. She surprised me when she forced her way through the fireplace into my room at Ironrose. She surprised me again tonight. She’s so quiet and unassuming that I didn’t expect her to handle a bow with such assurance. I didn’t expect her to put a shoulder under that branch to carry the stag.

I am not used to people surprising me.

As if she senses my scrutiny, her eyes lift from the fire to meet mine. “You should sleep,” she says. “I can keep watch until Noah wakes.”

Noah is always the first to sleep, but always the first to wake, well before the sun breaks across the horizon. He says that his training as a doctor allows him to sleep anywhere, at any time. He can lie down and replace sleep in seconds, a talent I envy.

When I try to sleep, I lie in the darkness and watch the stars shift overhead and think of all that will be lost if Emberfall tears itself apart in a civil war. I think of Syhl Shallow and how far we have yet to travel and whether we will be any safer there than we are here.

I prefer watching the flames die as the night stretches on.

“No,” I say. “Thank you.”

A hint of stubbornness flickers in her eyes. “Do you think me incapable of waking you?”

“Hardly. I think I am incapable of sleep.”

“Ah.” She glances away, into the darkest shadows, where Jacob, Noah, and Tycho lie in the softer leaves beneath a pine tree. Iisak is somewhere overhead in the branches, or possibly out hunting.

Tycho’s lash marks have scabbed over heavily, with mottled bruising to fill in the spaces between. He still moves stiffly throughout the day and looks grateful every time we make camp.

“He is healing,” says Lia Mara.

“I should be able to help him.” I flex my fingers and shake my head. “This magic seems useless if it only works when my life is at risk.”

“Surely you did not pick up a sword and expect to be proficient on the first day.”

“No, but—but that is different.”

“Why?” She uncurls from where she sits, then claims a short dagger from our stash. When she returns, she sits beside me. “Here. Practice.”

“Practice?”

She takes my hand, her fingers small and cool against mine. She turns my wrist over, then lifts the dagger.

My free hand snaps out to catch her wrist. “What are you doing?”

“You let Iisak tear your arm open when you practice, but you fear a little dagger?”

“I do not fear the dagger.”

Her eyebrows go up. “You fear me?”

No. Yes. Not so much her, but who and what she represents.

When we started this journey, I was so sure she’d be demanding and domineering, much like Karis Luran. I expected her to force an oath from my lips in exchange for safety, or for her to display some trickery or guile. I keep thinking about the first night, when I thought Iisak might kill me. The way she got down on her knees in the underbrush to hold my hand and whisper my name.

I’m not sure anymore.

I release her hand. “I’ve seen what you can do with an arrow.”

She smiles ruefully. I brace myself for the bite of the blade, but she is quick. Blood wells before I feel the pain. Those stars wait, tiny flickers of light under my skin. They scatter when I pay attention to them, like trying to gather bits of dust in a sunbeam. A drop of blood trails down my arm to vanish into the dirt below, and I give an aggravated sigh.

“Not everything can be accomplished by force,” Lia Mara says.

“Clearly.”

“I know you can be gentle. I saw you with Princess Harper.”

A new note enters her voice, one I do not fully understand, a mixture of uncertainty and longing and disappointment. I look up, seeking her eyes, but she keeps her gaze on the stripe of blood on my skin.

“There was nothing between me and the princess,” I say.

“There was something between you and the princess.”

“Never. Truly.”

“I have a dagger, Grey.” She finally looks up. Her words are taunting, but there’s an element of truth in her eyes. “Do not lie to me.”

“I could disarm you.”

“You could be honest with me.”

“The princess …” My voice trails off in a sigh. But of course there are no secrets. Lia Mara knows of the enchantress. She knows Disi was a sham.

“To understand my relationship with Harper,” I say, “you must understand what happened to Prince Rhen. He was cursed by the enchantress Lilith. He had one autumn season to replace a girl and earn her love, or he would become a monstrous beast that would terrorize Emberfall.”

Lia Mara’s eyes are wide. “The monstrous beast that drove out our forces?”

“One and the same.” I pause. “At the end of the season, if he failed, he would become human again and the season would restart. Only … the dead remained dead.”

She studies me. “The royal family was supposedly killed in Disi.”

I look back at her and wait for her to figure it out. Speaking these words still feels too much like treason.

“He did it himself,” she finally says. Her voice is hardly more than a whisper. “When he was a monster.”

“Yes.”

She shudders. “For the first time, he truly has my sympathy.” Her eyes fix on mine. “What about you?”

“I was trapped similarly. I was charged with replaceing girls to break the curse.”

Lia Mara frowns. “How long did it take for you to ‘replace’ Harper?”

“Time in the castle did not pass at the same rate as time in Emberfall. I have no real way of knowing. A few years passed here, but within the walls of Ironrose …” Now it’s my turn to shudder. “It was interminable. Harper was our final chance—and she was not even the girl I chose.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She saw me attempting to take another young woman and attacked me with an iron bar.”

Lia Mara snorts with sudden laughter. “I knew I liked her.”

“She wanted nothing more than to go home. She fought for it so fiercely. But when she could not, she turned her attention to Emberfall. She renewed Rhen’s faith that he could save his people.” I pause. “She became a princess by her words and actions, if not by blood.”

“Ah,” says Lia Mara, her skepticism clear. “So it is merely admiration between you.”

“We endured much together, but fate did not put me in her path for anything more than friendship.”

“Is that because you felt nothing for her, or because you were sworn to obey the prince?”

Lia Mara is too clever by far. “Does it matter?”

She meets my eyes boldly. “Yes.”

“Because I was sworn to obey the prince, I could not have feelings for another,” I say. “If you are seeking sordid secrets, you will replace none.”

“I saw the way she looked at you, behind the inn.” She pauses. “She allowed you to escape, even knowing it would put Emberfall at risk.”

“She allowed me to escape because she knows I will not put the kingdom at risk.”

“She would have come with you, if you’d asked.”

“Jacob asked, and she refused.”

“Jacob is not you.”

I flinch and look away. “Regardless. I would not have asked.”

I expect her expression to turn cynical, but maybe she hears the truth in my words, because she frowns, her eyes sad. “You were very loyal.”

Yes. I was. I look away, into the fire.

She squeezes my hand. “When a man no longer deserves your loyalty, it is not a failing of yours, Grey.”

I do not know what to say. Does Rhen deserve my loyalty?

Her fingers brush against my wrist, feather light. “Perhaps you needed a distraction.”

I look down. Beneath the blood, the wound has closed.

“Do it again,” I say, and my voice is a bit rough.

The dagger lifts, and she brings it down swiftly.

This time, the blade slices through the back of her hand. She gasps.

I do too. “What are you—”

“Shh.” She grips my hand and slaps it over her wound. “Heal it.”

I try to force the stars to jump from under my skin and into her wound, but of course they scatter and dance, impossible for me to catch.

“Distract yourself,” she says. “Talk. Tell me something. Ask me something. Anything.”

“Who is your mother’s spy inside Ironrose Castle?”

“Fell siralla!” She smacks me on the forehead. “Stop worrying about that foolish prince!”

It’s so unexpected that I laugh.

She glances away, but her eyes are rueful. “He does not deserve your worry. Prince Rhen is not your ally.”

I do not want to think about Rhen. Lia Mara’s blood is sticky beneath my fingers, but I do not want to see how effectively I’m failing to heal her wound, either. I keep my hand wrapped around hers. “Tell me what you just said.”

A blush rises in her cheeks. “Ah … I do not believe there is a translation.”

“Now who is the liar?”

“Fell siralla.” Her blush deepens. “Stupid man.”

“I believe I liked it better when there was no translation.”

She laughs, and the sparks of light in my blood whirl and dance in response. Every instinct in me wants to force them across the spot where our skin touches, but I tell myself to wait, to be patient. To be gentle.

“How do you speak Emberish so well?” I say.

“I had tutors,” she says. “Mother says it is the height of ignorance and arrogance to not speak the languages of our border countries.”

That’s a rather frank assessment. “I’m sure our border guards were schooled, but any tutors in Ironrose were killed in the first season of the curse.”

“Truly? Jacob and Noah speak it so well.”

I shake my head. “They call it English. Their language is similar on their side.” I pause and turn the sounds of her words over in my head.

“Fell siralla,” I try.

She shakes her head. “Softer. Fell siralla.” The words fall off her lips without effort.

I try again, and she giggles. “Your words are so hard-edged. Softer.”

“Fell siralla,” I say, and this time she bites her lip to hide her smile.

She takes my free hand and brings it to her mouth to whisper against my fingertips. “Fell siralla.”

I barely hear the words. I am thinking about the softness of her lips brushing against my fingers, gentle as a butterfly. I am certain I have touched a woman’s mouth at some point in my life, but just now, none come to memory.

“Say it again.” My voice has gone husky.

“Fell siralla.”

Her fingers have gone slack on my wrist. I brush a thumb across her lower lip, and her mouth parts slightly. I replace myself wondering what the line of her jaw feels like. The slope of her cheek. The curve of her ear.

Soldiers could burst from the trees this very moment, and I’d fall immediately.

“You have stopped practicing your pronunciation,” she chides, but her eyes are dancing.

“Stupid man,” I say dutifully.

She laughs against my fingertips—but it ends on a gasp. She pulls her arm free from mine.

“You did it.”

The blood is gone, along with the slice across her forearm. I take her hand and run a fingertip along the smooth skin there.

She shivers. “See? I knew you could be gentle.”

I want to touch her mouth again and prove exactly that.

“Do you think you could try it on Tycho?” she says.

Tycho. For a wild, crazy moment, I can barely remember who Tycho is, much less what I should be trying.

Stupid man, indeed. I cough. “Yes, I should try.”

“Will you wake him, do you think?”

I do not know. I have to shake my head to clear it, but Lia Mara seems to take that for an answer. I slip across the clearing to where Tycho sleeps. His upper body is bare, because he says a shirt pulls against the wounds when he sleeps. Despite the warmth in the air, his arms are tucked close against his body, and his breathing is slow and deep.

I drop to a crouch and put a hand lightly against his shoulder.

He jerks and tries to whirl. His eyes snap open, seeking danger.

I lift my hands. “Be at ease,” I whisper.

His eyes are a bit wild, and not quite awake. It makes me wonder what dreams haunt his sleep. “Grey—what—”

“There is nothing to fear,” I say. “I wanted to try to heal your wounds.”

“Oh. Oh.” He burrows back into the pine needles, pressing his face into his forearm. His breathing eases, but there’s a new tension to his body, as if he’s worried it will hurt. “Go ahead.”

I rest my hand against his shoulder again, as lightly as I can. The bruising is extensive, the worst of the damage stretching across his lower back. Some of the wounds are an angry red, and I know Noah worries about infection. I have never flinched from violence, but my gut tightens every time I see his injuries. I am responsible for this.

When I move my hand across a shallow lash mark, his breath catches, but he doesn’t say anything.

“I don’t have to try,” I say quietly.

“No. Do it.”

A cold lick of wind rushes between the tree branches, and I know Iisak must be near. The sparks beneath my fingers feel more sure. I close my eyes and think of Tycho at Worwick’s. The way he begged for lessons in swordplay. The way he stepped in front of Kantor to stop him from hurting Iisak. The way he kept my secret, even at the risk of his own life.

My hand moves, my fingers drifting across broken skin. Tycho whimpers.

My eyes snap open. His are clenched shut, his jaw tight. Nothing is healed. A tear sits on his eyelashes. “Forgive me,” I say.

“Keep trying,” he whispers.

“Tycho—”

He swallows. “Keep trying.”

I hesitate before touching him again. It’s so much more damage than a tiny slice across the back of a hand.

“He is so trusting of you, Your Highness.” Iisak’s growl-soft voice draws my attention, and another cold breeze flickers between the trees. His black eyes gleam at me from the darkness. “Do not waste it.”

I close my eyes and put my hand against the worst of the marks. Tycho’s breathing shudders, but he keeps still. I don’t know if Lia Mara speaks or if I just imagine her voice. Gently.

Those sparks and stars flicker and wait. I turn my thoughts away from swordplay and violence. I think of Tycho grinning about winning the race to Jodi’s tavern. I think of him standing in the loft, promising to keep my secret. I think of my panic easing, how he was the first person I trusted after so long.

I’ll keep your secret, Hawk.

My eyes are closed, but the stars seem to fill my vision anyway, brightening the way they did in the courtyard. They’re everywhere at once. I want to grab hold of them and drive them into his wounds, the way I’d put a blade in an enemy, but now I realize that Lia Mara was right. This is a different kind of skill.

My hands brush over his injuries, and I let the stars dance along beneath my fingertips. Tycho gasps again, but I don’t stop. I trace every line of broken skin, every ridge of damage, every stitch placed by Noah.

“Ah,” breathes Iisak, and I shiver again. “You have discovered the knack for it.”

A sob breaks from Tycho’s throat, and I snatch my hand away. The stars flicker and die. I open my eyes. “Forgive—”

I stop short. The bruising is gone. The wounds have left scarring, like mine did, but the skin is closed. Tycho braces his forearms against the ground, then rises to his knees. Tears have made lines in the dirt on his face, and he’s breathing as hard as he does when we race across the city.

Then I can’t see anything else because he launches himself forward and wraps his arms around my neck. His breath is hitching against my shoulder like he’s a child. “I knew you would fix it. I knew you would.”

The emotion in his voice is so potent that my own chest feels tight. My hands are shaking like I’ve been in a battle. This feels powerful. This feels useful. I feel so many things that my thoughts cannot contain them all. Regret that this happened at all. Guilt that I could not help him before. Relief that I could help him now.

And underneath it all, so tiny that I almost don’t acknowledge it, a kernel of pride that instead of magic bringing fear and torment, the way Lilith did, or pain and death, the way my sword would, my magic brought healing and trust, and that is not a small thing at all.