Chapter 4 Jax
Chapter four
Jax
The sorceress sprung to her feet, the tense lines of her body obvious thanks to her sodden dress. Since she had just vacated the captain’s bed, I seized the opportunity to settle onto it myself.
She winced as I sat down on the edge of the bed, and I fought the urge to do the same. A sweet and spicy and very feminine perfume rose from the bedding, reminding me of just what I’d gotten myself into. Again.
“What are you looking for?” I asked, knowing full well what she sought.
I watched as Sofie Dar’Vester pulled the key from around her neck—the one my crew had so easily removed while she slept—and opened the chest containing her personal effects. The gasp that flew from her lips would’ve done very well on the dramatic stage.
“You cut into the lining of my trunk!” she said as though I’d insulted her mother. “How dare you search my things!”
I kicked off my sadly waterlogged boots, tipped them out onto the cabin floor, then reclined onto the bed. Sofie’s face was thoroughly red by the time she looked up from her rifled-through trunk.
“That’s my bed!” she snapped.
“Not anymore. This is the captain’s bed, and I’m the captain. I let you use it last night as a courtesy.”
Sofie crossed her arms. “A proper gentleman, aren’t you? Need I remind you that you don’t want to cross me?”
“Go ahead,” I said, draping an arm over my eyes. Dozing in wet clothes wasn’t optimal, but this business of carrying a second curse was proving a bit…tiring. “Curse me thrice, and see what marvelous effects it brings.”
The bed creaked. She had propped her foot onto the wooden frame. “Are you sure you want to tempt me like that?”
“Are you sure you want to tempt the original curse? It’s a nasty one, I assure you.”
The sorceress let out a childish groan of frustration. “Just you wait. In a few days’ time, I’ll understand this curse you forced on me inside and out, and then you’ll know true peril. Better than that, I’ll be free of you.”
“It’s an unbreakable curse.”
Sofie scoffed. “There’s no such thing.”
“Oh, yes there is. The only way to remove it is to play by its rules.”
“Which are?”
The poor lass. She still didn’t grasp the danger I’d put her in by marrying her. She still wanted to believe I was making it all up.
“Every year, my crew and I are required to pursue the treasure,” I explained, making a point of keeping my arm firmly over my eyes.
I didn’t want to see her face when she realized what I’d done—what I would continue to do, until this curse was broken.
“If we are tardy, or try to refuse…let’s say the consequences are personally dire.
And we have it easy compared to your part.
Only my wife can retrieve the treasure, with me at her side.
But they don’t all live long enough to reach the treasure.
The curse claims them, and the clock turns back.
I must find a new wife, and then set sail for the enchanted isle where our prize is hidden once again. ”
“What happens if you don’t find someone to kidnap and trick into marriage?” she asked testily.
“Personally dire consequences,” I repeated, voice flat and my eyes firmly shut beneath my arm. “The same as if we refuse to travel toward the treasure.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning anything from violent illness to horrific dreams to delirium. Sensations of the life being slowly squeezed from your body. Unrelenting megrims, even in crew who never get them. Point the ship back on course, and the symptoms are relieved. Head to port in search of a bride, and they lessen—just enough for us to function. Only when I’ve placed the ring on a new wife’s finger do they dissipate. ”
“I’ve never heard of such a curse.” She sounded annoyed about this rather than skeptical. “Only a living caster could create those effects, not an enchanted object.”
“Perhaps your Dewspell Academy is too nice a place to talk about that kind of magic.”
She scoffed. “And what kind might that be?”
“Death magic.”
The silence that followed urged me to lift my arm slightly, so that I could peer at her with one heavy-lidded eye and see her reaction.
“Ah, so you do know about death magic,“ I remarked, satisfied by the way the color had drained from her freckled face. “The nastiest of stuff.”
But she was steadfast in her disbelief. I didn’t know whether to admire or pity her for it.
“The only way you’d be under a death curse is if a powerful sorceress used her last breath to enact the spell while at the same time making a sacrifice,” she said, “and there aren’t a dozen sorceresses in this world who could pull off that feat, even without the issues of power and timing. ”
“And yet, one has managed it. Examine me all you like, but please, do it quietly.”
“Tell me why you went through my things.”
“Why?” I returned my arm to its place over my eyes, where an icy ache was forming on one side of my face.
“Because I’m not a fool. I know you magic wielders can send messages on paper, spelled to fly to the recipient like birds.
So we rooted out all your paper, ink and pens.
Wouldn’t want Dewspell’s best and brightest coming after me and spoiling all the fun, now would I? ”
Sofie hissed out a breath. “And I suppose, since I’m your prisoner, I’m to be given some horrid berth belowdeck?”
“Absolutely not. In fact, I’ve just decided you’re forbidden to go belowdeck.”
I swore I could hear her jaw working. “And why, praytell, is that?”
“Because the entire crew is cursed along with me. If you’d struck me with, say, a freezing spell to solidify my wet clothes—which would’ve been the cleverer move—it would’ve deflected, possibly straight into you. A navy mage learned that the hard way, a few years back.”
I heard rustling then, as well as a resigned sigh. She was refolding the clothes my crew had upended in our search for paper, ink and quills. “You’re talking about a protection clause within a death curse. You’re saying you and the crew cannot be harmed, except by the terms of the curse itself?”
“Not seriously harmed, anyway. To a point.”
“But that ought to be impossible! Whoever cast this curse had to be highly trained. She must’ve gone to Dewspell Academy.
If you were willing to sail there, I could access her academic records and research.
I would give you my word that I and the other academics would study every aspect of this curse and break it—“
“Ah, because Dewspell is the only place where magic is taught, is it?” I interrupted. “And it readily teaches vile death magic to its students?”
That got her to close her mouth. Briefly.
“We shan’t be going to Dewspell, wife, for any reason,” I continued.
“A nice try, though. I’d wager you’ve seen my handsome mug on wanted posters in its very halls.
I’m sure you’d love to turn me in. But trust me, wife.
You don’t want to tarry when it comes to finding the treasure we’re after.
The curse doesn’t like to be kept waiting. ”
Was she scowling? I was too tired to look, but I felt as if I were being scowled at.
“Who was she, then?” Sofie demanded. “The sorceress who cursed you.”
“She didn’t curse me directly. She cursed the treasure. Do keep up.”
She exhaled huffily, then said, “Did you know it was cursed, when you went after it?”
“I may have.”
She clucked her tongue. “Then you’re a fool.”
“That much is obvious.”
Sofie returned to her clothes folding, I hoped in silence. Too soon, she spoke again. “You didn’t say who she was.”
“That’s not something I’d know. But stories call her the Bride.”
This time, the quiet held a little longer. I heard the sound of her trunk’s lid closing, then the key turning in the lock. Next, she moved to the captain’s desk, searching for paper and ink. As if I were a complete idiot.
“I want to make a deal with you,” she said, her voice so quiet it almost didn’t reach me through the haze that came before sleep.
That had me removing my arm and opening both eyes. By the gods, I even sat up and endured the squelching feeling of wet leather and cloth.
“What kind of deal?”
“I’ll break the curse. It’ll be a challenge, but one I’ll enjoy.”
“And if you can’t?”
The suggestion left her visibly irritated. “Then I suppose I’d have to play by the curse’s rules and help you get your treasure. Not that it will come to that. With curses, there’s always another way.”
“So you say.” I scratched at my beard, fingers snagging on a snarled piece of blue thread. “And in exchange for your expertise, what would you ask of me?”
“That you won’t treat me like a prisoner, you’ll allow me to study you and the crew, and when it’s all done and the curse is broken, you’ll bring me unharmed to my original destination.”
I lifted a brow. “Which is?”
“Aegle.” She said it like it was the sight of some tragedy and not a northerly isle of seafaring warriors—one my ships usually gave a wide berth to.
“Why?” I asked, not really expecting her to answer. “You don’t exactly sound pleased to go there.”
“That’s my business.”
Just as I’d thought.
I inspected her a little more carefully. That red hair was unusually bright, but otherwise, with that fair complexion and high cheekbones…I could see her as a northern islander. But Aegle?
She was but a little thing, scrawny by their standards. Aegle was known for a lot of things, but sorcery wasn’t one of them.
“Shall we shake on it?” I asked, offering my hand.
As if proving my point, Sofie’s hand was fine-boned and completely eclipsed by mine. Still, she seized it as well as she could, shaking it firmly. It was hard to believe this delicate little woman had knocked me overboard. I had to chalk it up to the element of surprise.
Or relentless combat training since her youth.
“So,” I said, one side of my mouth curling upward, “what was it like, growing up on Aegle?”
Her face reddened instantly. She yanked her hand away, spinning and returning her attention to the latched drawers of the captain’s built-in desk.
If she was going to be this easy to read—and to fluster—this would be the most entertaining deal I had ever made.
Or at least it would be until the Bride found my newest wife.
I was glad the little Aeglean sorceress was confident about her chances, but the Bride was powerful beyond imagining. Only the gods knew whether Sofie Dar’Vester could beat her death curse and win me the treasure.
And as much as I’d love to think the opposite, my money was on the curse.