The Fire Prince (The Cursed Kingdoms Trilogy Book 2) (46 page)

Harkeld did. “It just looks normal.”

“Well, to you, it would.” Rand lowered his hand. “Look at Ebril against the sun. Do you see anything covering him?”

The sunlight was a bright halo around Ebril’s head, making his red hair look as if it burned. Harkeld narrowed his eyes, examining the mage, looking for a dark shadow.

He shook his head. “No.” His frustration found its way into his voice.

“You’re not missing anything,” Ebril said. “They’re pretty unpleasant.”

Harkeld gazed down at his right hand, at fingers and knuckles and—turning it over—palm. There was a curse shadow clinging to it. Rand could see it. Ebril could see it.
Why can’t I?

“The curse shadows darkened this year,” Rand said. “When the curse came into its full power. Do you remember ever thinking that maybe a room needed more candles? Or that the sun had gone behind a cloud you couldn’t see?”

Harkeld shook his head, his frustration building.

He’d thought he’d known everything there was to know about his world. Had thought himself observant, even clever, steering a course through the dangerous political currents of the palace, watchful and alert, never making a misstep, planning his future, Britta’s future, all Osgaard’s future.

Ignorant and blind, that’s what he’d been, and the world he’d inhabited, so narrow.
So much going on around me that I was unaware of
.

“If we could show you someone who’s not cursed, I think you’d see the difference,” Rand said. “Your problem is that you’ve nothing to compare it with. Curse shadows are normal to you. This is how your eyes tell you people should look.”

Their horses splashed through a marshy dip. The air was heavy, stinking. Insects rose in swarms.

“There are more mages coming to join us,” Rand said, waving insects away from his face. “Depending on where we meet them, you may have a chance to see what people look like without curse shadows.”

“Krelinsk,” Harkeld said, remembering what Cora had said.

“Or the delta, if we’re lucky.”

“I hope we sail,” Ebril said. “The Drowned Man’s Shallows are meant to be quite a sight. Some fleet or other got wrecked there ages ago, and you can see the old hulls rotting and masts sticking up out of the water.”

They rode silently for several minutes, then Ebril said, “Rand... can you tell Flin how healers strip people of magic? I couldn’t remember what that gland is called.”

“The Daubon gland. Named after the healer who discovered it. Every mage has one, but they’re not all the same. Hence the variations in our magic.”

“And you kill this gland?”

“We stop the blood flow to it. Within a few days, the gland dies.”

It didn’t sound too alarming, no knives digging around inside his head. “What does the gland do?”

“It produces a substance—lots of different substances actually—that enter the blood.”

“What are the substances?”

“We don’t have a name for them other than
magic
. Exceptionally powerful healers can sense magic in the blood, sometimes, or smell it on people’s breath, but no one’s ever been able to see it.”

Smell magic?
Harkeld felt his eyebrows rise.

“The gland is active from birth, but a person’s magical ability usually doesn’t develop until just prior to puberty,” Rand said. “We test for it by breath and blood.

“Breath and blood?” Dareus had used that expression once.

“A drop of your blood mixed in Jussi’s oil and poured into a bowl of water, and then your breath blown over it,” Ebril said. “Makes different colors, kind of like a rainbow.”

“Jussi’s oil?”

“For the mage who developed it,” Rand told him. “Everyone has the test when they’re a child. It gives a good indication of what kind of magic they’ll develop. If any.”

“It’d be interesting to have you tested,” Ebril said. “See if you have more than just the fire magic.”

Rand nodded. “It would. But we don’t have any Jussi’s oil.”

Harkeld wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or not. Did he want to know if he had more magic?

“This gland... will I pass it to any children I sire?”

“There’s a strong chance, yes.”

“Even if you kill it?”

“Yes.”

Familiar rage swelled in Harkeld’s chest. The mages had done this to him—deliberately corrupted his bloodline—and the taint wouldn’t end with him. It would infect his children. And perhaps their children too.

Harkeld clamped his jaw shut, refused to let the anger spill out of him. Rand and Ebril were mages, but they’d had nothing to do with that deceit. It had happened two generations ago. His grandfather, the lying whoreson of a Sentinel who’d given him this gland, was dead.

T
HAT EVENING,
H
ARKELD
went to the riverbed with Cora and practiced with more scarecrows. The shirts and trews weren’t as travel-stained and sweaty. Frane’s, he guessed. That knowledge was sobering. He concentrated hard, but did no better than the previous night.

He scowled at the last scorched scarecrow and turned away, heading back to the camp.

“Flin.”

Harkeld halted. He took a deep breath and turned to face Cora.

“A month ago, you couldn’t even light a candle,” Cora said. “In a few weeks you’ve learned things that normally take students years to master. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

He took another deep breath, blew it out, tried to let go of his frustration.

“You like to do things well, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he admitted.

“An excellent trait in a fire mage. Particularly one as strong as you.” Cora smiled. “Don’t worry, you’ll master this too.”

“C
AN YOU SEE
curse shadows?” Harkeld asked the dream-Innis that night, as they lay on the sunny grass.

“Yes.”

He frowned up at the blue sky. If she could see them, why couldn’t he? She
was
part of his mind. “Are you blocking it?” he demanded, rolling onto one elbow to look at her.

“What? No. Of course not.”

Harkeld scowled at her. “Then why can’t I see them!” He closed his eyes and sighed. “Sorry.”

He lay back down and stared at the sky, disappointed with himself. “I want to be like King Magnas, but I keep behaving like my father.”
Yelling at you. Punching Justen
. It was just as well he was never going to be a king. He’d be an awful one.

“J
USTEN
!”

Innis glanced up from the packsaddle she was fastening. Petrus strode towards her, his expression grim.

“What’s wrong?”

“I need a word with you.”

Innis secured the buckle and followed Petrus from the campsite. On the edge of the riverbank he swung to face her. “I saw you go into Flin’s tent last night. As a mouse. You slept there, didn’t you?”

She opened her mouth, but no words came out. Horror had frozen her tongue.

“In the All-Mother’s name, what are you
doing
? Breaking Primary Laws because of an infatuation?”

She blushed. “It’s not—”

“Dareus should never have let you be Justen! It’s gone to your head.”

The injustice of this stung. “You’ve been Justen, too! You’ve broken Primary Laws.”

“Only with Dareus or Cora’s approval. Never because I
felt
like it.”

“He’s safer with me there,” she said, defensively.

“Fine! Go ask Cora whether you have permission to sleep in his tent as a mouse.” Petrus gestured angrily back at the campsite. “Go on, ask her!”

Innis bit her lip. She looked down at her feet—Justen’s feet—in their big leather boots.

“Innis...” Petrus’s voice became quieter. “How can you not understand how important this is? A Primary Law! And you, a Sentinel.”

The heat was gone from her face. She felt cold, and slightly light-headed. “Are you going to tell Cora?” What would her punishment be?
I’ll be sent back to Rosny. They’ll scratch my name from the Sentinels’ register. Maybe take away my magic.

“No.
You’re
going to tell her.”

Innis flinched inside herself. “Petrus, can’t we just—”

“No. This isn’t a minor transgression, Innis. She has to be told. Today. Tonight.”

She gazed at him, her throat so tight she couldn’t speak.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Petrus squeezed his eyes briefly shut and raked his hands through his hair. “One of us has to tell her, and it needs to be you, not me. It will weigh the judgment in your favor.”

She nodded mutely.

Petrus looked at her for a long moment, as if debating saying something further. He shook his head and turned on his heel and headed back to the horses.

Innis didn’t follow; her legs were locked in place. Confess to Cora!

T
HEY PRESSED NORTH
, cutting across marshland, pushing through thickets of scrub. Ebril guided them, gliding ahead.

Outcrops of black rock pushed out of the scrubby marshland, some humpbacked like gigantic tortoises, some running in long, low ridges. The shapes were oddly regular. Harkeld squinted, trying to see them more clearly. “Is that a ruin?” he asked, as they came close to an outcrop. “Some kind of fortress?”

Cora shook her head. “It’s natural. I’ve seen something like it in Margolie.”

“So’ve I,” Rand said.

“Natural? How can that be natural?” The black rock stood in tall pillars, as regular as if they’d been hewn by stonecutters.

Rand shrugged. “It’s a type of basalt that cracks that way.”

“Huh.” Harkeld craned his neck to keep the outcrop in sight once they’d passed it.

The sun moved past its zenith. Ebril rode now, whistling under his breath, and Hew flew overhead.

Harkeld concentrated on trying to see the curse shadows. He studied the mages riding ahead—Justen and Katlen—but the only thing he saw was a faint shimmer surrounding Justen, as if he caught the light oddly. Harkeld blinked several times and looked at Justen again. The shimmer still seemed to be there, especially if he looked at Justen out of the corner of his eye.

I’m imagining things.

Harkeld gave up and looked ahead. A mile or so to the north, the marshland butted up against dark trees. The jungle, within which the second anchor stone lay. Movement in the sky caught his eye: Hew, climbing in ever-widening circles. The hawk’s wings and speckled breast seemed to shimmer, like Justen. Harkeld rubbed his eyes and looked at Hew again.

The mage glided towards the jungle. He dwindled to a small dot and returned several minutes later, flying fast and low.

Ebril broke off whistling. “Something wrong?”

Hew arrowed down to land. “Men,” he called out. “Just inside the trees. Preparing to ambush us.”

Harkeld jerked his mount to a halt. “Fithians?”

Hew shook his head. “They’re a pretty ragged bunch. Some have brands on their faces.”

“Outlaws,” Rand said.

“How many?” Cora asked, pushing her horse forward.

“Eight. And not well-armed.”

Eight.
And we are nine
.

“Let’s try to run them off,” Cora said.

“Agreed,” said Rand. “I don’t feel like killing people today.” His inflection was dry, ironic.

“We don’t want them following us, either,” Katlen pointed out.

“So let’s scare the horseshit out of them,” Ebril said. “Some lions, some fire. They’ll run till they reach Roubos.”

Rand’s mouth twitched. “Agreed,” he said again. “What kind of weapons do they have, Hew?”

“A couple of bows. Swords.”

“They can’t be certain how many of us there are,” Cora said. “We’re too far away. So, I think... Petrus, Justen, Ebril, fly there and wait for us, change into lions. When they attack, rough them up a bit, give them a good scare.”

Harkeld glanced at the shapeshifters. Ebril was grinning, Petrus was grave, and Justen looked... miserable?

“Hew, stay in the air. Keep watch.”

Hew nodded.

“Katlen, you and I will burn their clothes. Flin...” Cora waited until she had his gaze. “You deal with their bows and arrows.”

Harkeld nodded. He glanced back at Justen. Why was he looking so unhappy?

“And Rand—”

“I’ll sit back and watch.”