Chapter 54
Emrys
The silence after a battle was never truly silent.
It carried the ghost of screams, the echo of steel striking bone, the poisonous pulse of the dark magic writhing under my skin.
If my men had been with me, I would’ve had to endure looks of horror and fear, and their hushed respect.
I hated it. But I’d learned to live with that weight.
The mental scars of battle would never leave me.
This time, though, the heavier burden was on my body. I’d never fought so many men at once, and in such close quarters. In its desperation to feel the fight, the curse had risked killing us both. Had the beast not been so enraged, I could’ve taken down many of them from a distance.
Riding north, my limbs dragged as though weighted with lead. With each stamp of my stolen horse’s hooves, my thoughts lagged even farther behind. Only when the world tipped sideways did I notice the warmth soaking through the left gap in my armor.
I pressed my free hand to my ribs. Pain cut through my other senses instantly, and my hand came away slick with warm blood. I leaned into the pain, trying to lessen its impact, but my muscles didn’t fully cooperate. The cut was deep enough to part muscle, and I hadn’t even felt it.
The curse was keeping me alive, pulsing through my veins like it wanted me to remember what I owed it.
Damn the bloody gods. This would slow me down.
My thoughts, honed by pain, turned toward practicality. I couldn’t bandage myself properly while atop a horse, but there was a stream not too many miles away. I could make it there without falling out of the saddle.
Probably.
I urged the stallion toward it. I lost consciousness more than once. The passage of time and the scenery appeared to skip ahead in erratic, sudden bursts.
Somehow, I reached the stream in one piece. The water’s glimmer in the fading light held a sense of purity following the bloodshed. It called to me like a siren’s song.
The horse drank immediately. I slid from the saddle, collapsed, and then staggered to my feet.
Not caring about the blood streaming in rivulets down my side, I followed the horse into the water fully armored.
The cold struck me like a blade, but I was already half numb from blood loss and using so much magic that it hardly mattered.
I didn’t know what the limits of the curse’s magic were, but with how much I’d used and how much damage I’d taken, I feared I was close to one.
I kneeled in the water for far too long, water swirling crimson with the remnants of lives I’d destroyed. I would never be clean of what I’d done, but I let the water take every reminder it could from my body.
I wanted to press on. Isca was ahead, and every heartbeat wasted was a risk to her. But another fight in this state…and I might lose more than blood.
I dragged my walking carcass onto the bank, untying my breastplate and jerkin.
After tossing them onto the rocks lining the shore, I ripped a strip from my under-tunic.
The fabric clung where it brushed the flap of skin, and when I pulled it away, the sudden air felt like being stabbed all over again.
Each heave of fabric tugged at the wound, sending a fresh line of fire through my chest. I pressed the bloody cloth into the gash and wrapped the remainder around my torso, yanking it tight until black dots danced in my vision.
The pain was almost welcome. It reminded me that this was something that would get me moving toward her.
There was a rocky slope not far from the bank. It looked like a defensible place to rest—ideal for a brief respite while the curse mended my body. I tied the horse downriver to a tree surrounded by grass and soft vegetation so it could graze.
It was hard to pull full breaths into my lungs with the bandage pulled so tight, but I managed the walk back to the rocky slope without passing out—barely.
I shifted the boulders with heavy-handed use of magic, all brute strength and no finesse.
One-by-one, they ground aside, and finally, an alcove opened, offering a burrow just big enough for me.
My vision blurred, and the effort it took to drag the stones back into place took its toll as I struggled to remain conscious. I crawled inside and let my body collapse.
Sleep swallowed me whole.
When I woke, it was with the taste of smoke in my mouth and nostrils.
My joints ached as I pushed upright in my self-made cage of boulders, head throbbing.
My hand flew to my side. The wound had knitted together under the bandage during my short rest, but the cloth was stuck to my skin with dried blood. I’d bear another curse-born scar.
It was deep night. No sunlight poured in through the gaps left by the boulders. Only smoke, that was thickening by the second, and flickers of firelight.
Someone had followed me, like one of those crows I’d warned Cadoc about. And they were trying to burn me alive.
Still half in a daze of sleep, the image that first came to mind was not the blaze around me, but Isca in the library, slipping a folded letter into the flames. At first, she hadn’t known I was there, watching her. But then she turned, and a soft smile had blossomed on her face.
Even then, when I’d done everything I could to avoid her, to push her away, she’d welcomed me.
A smile found its way to my lips too. But mine wasn’t soft. It was the beast’s bloodthirsty grin.
I pulled the surrounding air to me. The bubble of air would allow me to breathe while suffocating the now-roaring flames beyond. Startled shouts rose at once from a dozen mouths.
I almost laughed, overcome by the malicious joy that bloomed in my chest like a poison flower. They thought I was so easily beaten.
Nothing would keep me from her. Nothing.
I flung the stones aside in one massive burst of dark power. They screamed through the air, slamming into trees, smashing whatever they struck.
Dust and smoke curled around me as I stepped into the clearing. Like a lion emerging from the shadows, knowing it had already caught the scent of its prey’s blood, I moved with slow, deliberate steps.
Two men were still on their feet, fleeing. I let them run until the one ahead reached a tall tree. With a flick of my wrist, I tore its roots from the earth. It toppled sideways with a groan of splintering wood.
The men didn’t have time to scream before it struck. One was crushed instantly. The other writhed, pinned but still breathing.
The curse roared in delight.
Mercy was not in me, but exhaustion was. I lifted the tree. Then pulled the only survivor out from under it by one protesting hand. I dragged him, kicking and screaming, across the clearing to the line of horses left behind by the dead.
Rifling through saddlebags, I found rope. I chose one mount at random and tied his feet to the stirrups, leaving his hands tied together but loose enough so he could guide the reins. Then I cut the other horses loose.
I wasn’t in the mood for wasted words. I pointed my sword at him. “If you try to flee, you’ll die before your horse makes it two steps.”
The thought of wasting even a heartbeat chasing this fool when Isca was still their prisoner made my jaw clench hard enough to ache.
The soldier nodded, throat working.
“You’ll follow me to Tir Gelida,” I said. “On the way, you’ll answer my questions. And if you lie,” I let my magic flare just enough to set the end of his long hair on fire then snuffed it out, “I’ll know.”
I could do no such thing. The magic the curse granted me was all aimed at destruction and keeping me alive, not mental manipulation. Fortunately, the soldier believed me. Scared people were easy to fool.
Our conversation wasn’t one that the histories could record as a shining example of diplomatic or even investigative prowess. I hammered him with blunt-force questions. He answered to the best of his knowledge.
I didn’t like what I learned.
But we were already approaching the gates of Tir Gelida, so the whys of it all no longer mattered. The stones of the towers rose from the ground, tall and jagged against the lightening sky.
And the curse purred, sensing Isca’s nearness.
My pulse did not match its satisfaction. I was certain more fighting lay ahead.
But when I reached the gates, there was only stillness. Stillness, and the chilling fear that I was already too late.