14 || Curse Breaker
A fierce shake stirred Ilyana from the darkness she had grown comfortable in. Her body clung to it — to the rest it salivated over — but the rocking nuisance persisted.
"Illy." A voice broke through a muffled barrier that swathed her. "Ilyana, wake up."
The princess opened her eyes to a world that spun in multiple directions, making it difficult to focus on anything around her. Even though her surroundings were a blur, one thing was clear as it moved in front of her.
Clove.
"Fuck. Thank the Gods." She ran a hand over her face as she sat back on her haunches. "Did you get hit?"
Ilyana shook her head, hissing as a spike of nausea rose in her stomach. "No. I passed out because I healed too much in one go." She closed her eyes again to let her mind settle. Her fingers throbbed from where her magic had passed through them, the tips unsettlingly numb.
"How bad is it? Do you think you'll be able to move, even if it's just down a street or two? We need to get as far away from here as we can before Silas' lackeys have backup sent over."
"I can try." She opened her eyes once more, hoping the world would steady itself soon.
"I can carry you too but," Clove glanced down at her hand which lay limp at her side, "I'm a little battered so it might be slow."
Vibrant blue light emerged as the princess reached out for the injury, her necklace a perfect warning for the captain to back away before her magic could conjure its strength.
"You're not healing anything in your state, so don't even think about trying. Even if you could, you should be fixing yourself first. Not me," she scolded.
Looking down, Ilyana spied a few bruises along her arms beginning to bloom which she had no recollection of getting.
"It doesn't work like that," she began. She tried to push herself up, using the wall for support, so Clove wouldn't have to carry her and make her injuries worse.
"I can only heal others. My power has no effect on me. "
The captain reached out with her good arm, ensuring she was secure on her feet. "That's... inconvenient."
"There has to be a balance somewhere. The God of Life would have been omnipotent otherwise."
They started to shuffle out of the street and back into the intersection where the battle had taken place.
Bodies were strewn in mixed pools of both blood and darkness.
One Ogre, four assassins, and five Wyrith guards were now motionless amongst their weapons.
Even those who hadn't fallen to the Necromancer's Curse now had vines of death wrapped around their skin.
They slithered and pulsed, moving to claim even more lives for themselves.
"What happened to them?" Clove questioned.
"I- It was me. The Necromancer's Curse killed them, but it came from me." Ilyana's eyes stung as they flickered from body to body. Whether or not they were from the Lost Abyss sent to harm them or were a protector sent by her father, they still died to her hand.
"Don't look at them." The captain took her chin and turned it toward her, stepping in front of the carnage to block her view.
"Whatever that curse did was not you and I know that for a fact, Illy.
We've seen what it does — it works in countless cruel and heartless ways without a shred of mercy.
Not a single piece of that describes you.
"You're faultlessly kind, stubbornly courageous despite the danger you know lies ahead, and considerate of even the most annoying people.
I've only been back in your life for a day and I can see that.
These deaths were not you." Clove pulled her into her chest, burying her face into the cool metal.
Even with the hatred that still lingered in Ilyana's heart for being abandoned when she needed support the most, she was glad her friend was here with her now.
If any other guard had been chosen to stay by her side and protect her, she couldn't fathom what might have happened instead.
However, she knew for certain that nobody could best Clove.
"What do we do now?" The princess sniffed, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand.
"We head back to the castle and start planning again," she decided. "We haven't got enough protection now to make it to-"
"But the sorcerer has information we need about the curse. More people will die without that knowledge and I can't watch it happen again. I can't, Clove."
"And if we try to get there in our state, there's no telling what extra trouble we would get into. Nor would we get back in time for the curfew the king placed. You can barely walk."
"I'll be fine. I just need some time," she assured. Ilyana couldn't let their mission be for nothing. Returning empty-handed with only the ghosts of the guards sent with her — whose bodies they wouldn't be able to bring back for their families to bury — would be a disgrace to the royal name.
"Time is what we don't have." The captain stood her ground.
"If we don't, they would have died for nothing.
All because I made a foolish decision. I can't let their lives be in vain when they all worked so hard to get us here.
" Ilyana's lower lip wobbled, yet Clove still didn't seem convinced.
"You said to my father you were only here to protect me, right?
That you weren't here to control my decisions.
I'm going to get this information for my kingdom whether you're with me or not. "
Clove pinched the bridge of her nose. "Your father is going to kill me."
"Not if you stick with me." She smiled sweetly, the upturned edges of her lips struggling to stay put.
"It looks like we're visiting a sorcerer after all."
The ruins on the far western side of Wyrith had always been a sketch on a map that Ilyana had studied — when she memorised every feature of the island that she would one day rule over. Never did she think that she would walk amongst them.
She could feel the history that was contained inside every piece of rubble and fallen brick. A lifetime that had been purged when they had been saved from the necromancers' rule.
After starting with a slow walk with some food and water from her bag, Ilyana felt much better. Her full strength still hadn't returned, and it wouldn't without several nights of sleep, but it was more than she could ask for to help her complete the journey.
"Could that be where the sorcerer lives?" Clove motioned to one of the structures that still stood — a tower with ivy snaking around its base and weaving between its bricks.
"It should be." The princess pulled out the card that her father had given her before they left.
"Once we have this information, all that's left is for us to capture Morana The Cursed and interrogate her for everything she can give us.
" Hopefully, all of their plans combined would give them a way to break the curse, or another lead at the very least.
Ilyana didn't know what they would do if they didn't.
The entrance room that greeted them was nothing more than a collection of forgotten belongings and a place to harbour a staircase leading further up — the door to which looked like it had been specifically cut out of the wall.
Sections of surfaces did appear to be recently dusted, as if books had been retrieved from the shelves not that long ago.
The captain crouched down to pick up a white fragment from the carpet and inspected it as she turned it between her fingers.
When Ilyana stepped closer, she recognised the item in a heartbeat.
It was a bone shard — one that was a near match to the one that had been stuck in Clove's wound the other day.
"Keep your guard up," she warned. "We're not alone."
Taking the first steps, Clove guided them up the stone stairs with one of her daggers drawn.
As they approached the first floor, she angled it at the chaos that they discovered.
Except for the madness of magic spells and enchanted objects, there wasn't a soul that breathed life.
The second was one they quickly rushed through as it was completely hidden in darkness.
They held onto each other and the bannister at their side to stop them from tripping over.
The third and final floor was where they found their target.
"Back already?" the man at the desk asked, remaining focused on the notes he scratched at inhuman speed. His long, grey beard dipped itself into a pot of ink as he hunched over the space. "Did you happen to find a Dragon's scale outside?"
Both Ilyana and Clove remained silent, clueless as to what the sorcerer was talking about.
When he received no response, a frown deepened the wrinkles etched into his skin. "Two visits in one day. I need to put some deterrent spells outside."
"Good afternoon, sir," the princess greeted, walking closer and holding out her hand for him to shake it. "I'm here on behalf of my father, King Mortas, for information about the Necromancer's Curse." After a clear disapproving glare at her hand, Ilyana decided to pass him the card instead.
With a sigh, the sorcerer held the card up into the air and it burned in a raging ivory flame.
It left no evidence behind of its existence, not even a sprinkle of ashes.
"I suppose it's a blessing that you're here instead of that bastard.
Your family gives me nothing but headaches.
" He dropped his feathered quill and crossed his arms. "What do you want to know? "
"I need to know how to stop the curse now that it's active and I was hoping you would have an idea of how to break it," the princess explained. Her heart leapt into her throat, thudding fiercely in her chest.
"I know very well how to stop it and I have done since before Mortas even met me. It's common sense what needs to happen but you royals are too blind to see it." He rolled his eyes, his fingers itching to get back to his work.
"So you've withheld this information from the king?" Clove probed. "That sounds like an act of treason to me."
"He hasn't asked for it, so why would he get the answer?" The sorcerer's scowl only grew at her accusation. "Say, princess, what causes the curse to be active? The answer to breaking it lies there."
"A vengeful necromancer queen who hasn't been alive for centuries?" Ilyana guessed.
"Were you not taught anything when you were younger? And here I thought learning about the curse as soon as you're old enough to comprehend it was a Wyrith royal tradition."
The princess' teeth grinded together. They had been talking for a matter of minutes and she was already beginning to dislike him.
If he didn't give them the answer they needed after everything they had been through to get to him, she was going to have a stern talk about every Wyrith law he had broken.
He wouldn't be able to touch his magic again.
"Of course I was taught. Two twin queens of royal age is what triggers the curse, but clearly that cannot be correct."
"Why not?" His taunting smile made Ilyana's eye twitch. "Breaking the curse is quite simple. One of the twins needs to die. That way, there won't be twin queens of age." The sorcerer dismissed them with a hand, returning to his work.
"But my sister has been dead for over a decade and there's still a wall. People are still dying regardless." Clove's hand stopped her from getting any closer, from tearing the quill out of his hand and throwing it across the room.
"Oh? Your sister is very much alive. In fact, she was here minutes before you were. I'm surprised you didn't cross paths on the way up."
Air clawed at Ilyana's throat to fight its way in, but none of it succeeded in its battle. The floor disappeared from underneath her, the only thing left to stabilise her being the captain by her side.
Her sister was alive.
After all those years thinking she was alone, being haunted by the memories of that night thinking she wasn't enough to save her family, Viviana had survived. The princess shook her head, nothing but a strained sob breaking from her chest. She couldn't be alive.
She had burst through her parents' bedroom doors to find a dagger stuck through her chest. Her father had cradled the body of her mother who had a hole gaping in her neck.
They had both died to the hands of an assassin who had fled the scene of their crime before anyone could get there.
Her magic had felt the threads of life vanish.
The sorcerer had to be playing a sick joke on her.
"You're wrong. Vivi is dead. If she was still alive, I would know about it. She would have tried to contact her family." Ilyana couldn't get her tears to stop falling.
"Believe what you will, that's up to you. Just know that if your sister was dead, there wouldn't be a fortification of the strongest magic anyone has ever seen surrounding the island." He held out a handkerchief embroidered with the same sigils that had been stamped onto the back of the card.
"I think he's right," Clove decided.
"What? You too?" Ilyana shrugged out of the arm that had wrapped around her waist. "You weren't there that night, you wouldn't understand. They're both dead."
"Illy, what if she's alive but she hasn't been able to contact you?" She reached into her pocket and pulled out the bone shard she found as they had entered the tower. "He said Vivi was here minutes before we were and I found this in the entrance."
"What do you mean?"
"I think a certain purple-haired necromancer is keeping your sister hostage."