The Fire Prince (The Cursed Kingdoms Trilogy Book 2) (53 page)

He strapped the tent into place and looked at the graves again. Petrus was still holding Innis. His head was bowed, his mouth pressed against her hair, his lips moving as he talked to her. He cradled her head in one hand, protective and tender. Harkeld had a sudden moment of insight.
He loves her
.

He looked away, feeling like a voyeur, and busied himself checking that the packsaddle was balanced.

“All done?” Rand asked.

“Yes.”

He helped Rand clear away some of the piled driftwood and lead the packhorses off the island. Rain pattered down.

Cora joined them. Hew flew overhead. “Where are the others?”

“Asleep,” Cora said. “A Primary Law broken, but it can’t be helped. We’ll need them awake tonight.”

“Asleep?”

“As mice. Innis is in my pocket. Rand has Petrus and Justen.”

Oh
. His eyebrows rose.

“We need to talk about what’s happened,” Rand said. “Those creatures—”

“Yes. But later. Once Innis is awake. For now, let’s move as fast as we can.”

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

T
HE RAIN KEPT
on, but the cave Bennick had found stayed dry. In moments when the rain thinned, Jaumé saw a low black headland on the other side of the river, half a mile long, and beyond that, more water.

“It’s the island,” Bennick said. He almost looked like his old self, cheerful. “It’s where the prince is going. This will do.”

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

T
HE DRY RIVER
channels began to flow with water. Mid-afternoon, they were forced to leave the riverbed and retreat to the bank, where they picked their way through thick vegetation and tangled vines. “Only a couple more leagues of this,” Hew said, gliding down to speak with Cora. “Then it opens up. Marshy, with lots of hot pools.”

“Good,” she said, batting gnats from her face. “Keep an eye out for tonight’s campsite.”

Harkeld found himself looking over his shoulder frequently, peering into the dense jungle. Sulfurous steam drifted between the trees. He felt exposed, vulnerable, with only two other riders. “You said more mages will join us soon?” he asked Cora.

“Shapeshifters, yes. The others only if the ship can get close enough—which depends on the shallows.”

He had a sudden, vivid memory of Ebril.
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.

Harkeld’s throat tightened. He cleared it. “If we sail, what will we do with the horses? Not leave them?” The beasts wouldn’t survive once the sacks of grain the packhorses carried were empty.

“Hopefully we can get them aboard. But chances of us being able to sail are slim. I expect we’ll need to go overland. And frankly, I’m worried the ship won’t arrive. It should be here by now.”

“It’ll come,” Rand said.

Cora blew out a breath. “You think?”

“Yes. Don’t borrow trouble.”

“No,” she said dryly. “We have enough of that already, don’t we?”

Harkeld glanced around, seeing the wide braided river, the dense jungle, the long string of horses with just two riders other than himself.
What if we die here? What if we fail to destroy the curse?

Failure seemed a very real possibility.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

T
HE FINAL NAIL
came out. Britta stood for a moment, her heart galloping in her chest.
Do it now, or wait?

Wait. Until after her bowl had been collected.

She hurried back to the pallet and ate fast, but the food didn’t want to stay in her stomach. She pressed one hand to her mouth.
Don’t vomit. Don’t vomit
.

An assassin came, left her rinsed chamberpot, took the bowl and spoon.

When he was gone, Britta sat on the pallet hugging her knees. Now. She should do it now.

She was afraid of dying.

Britta laid the arguments out in her head again, and the answer was as clear as it had always been, as obvious.

The longer she sat here, the more her nerve would fail her. And if she did it now, in daylight, there was a chance a passing ship would see her in the water.

Britta got to her feet. She crossed to the window, opened it, inhaled the fresh, cold sea air. Sunlight sparkled on water. Was that a sail on the horizon, heading towards them?

You can do it. I know you can,
Karel’s voice said in her ear.

G
ETTING OUT OF
the window was harder than she’d thought it would be. Britta tipped the chamberpot upside down and used it as a step. She squeezed her arms through the narrow opening, and scrabbled her feet on the wall, trying to haul herself up and out.

Her shoulders scraped through, tearing cloth and skin. A shout came from high overhead. A sailor, in the rigging.

Panic seized her. She heaved, pushed, scrabbled.

The side of the ship was sheer. The sea rushed past a dozen yards below, fierce and foaming. Britta dug her fingernails into the wood, hauling herself out. Behind her, the bolts shot back on the door.

Her body slid through the window—waist, hips, thighs. She was falling—

Someone grabbed her ankles.

Britta kicked, connected with someone’s nose, kicked again.

The Fithian didn’t release her. More hands seized her, hauling her upward.

Britta kicked, screamed, clung to the side of the ship, tearing her fingernails. She kicked even harder when they dragged her back through the window, bit and scratched, flailed her fists.

The Fithians overpowered her silently. Her scream—rage, despair—was the only sound in the cabin.

A hand clamped over her mouth. Now all she heard were panted breaths.

She lay on the floor. An assassin knelt on her back, squeezing the air from her lungs. Another gripped her legs. A hand was fisted in her hair, screwing her head round, grinding her cheek into the floor.

Someone walked into her field of view and crouched: the leader of the assassins. He had a broad, flat face with wide cheekbones. A bruise reddened one cheek, and his nose dripped blood.

“Manacle her.”

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

“S
O,
” R
AND SAID.
“Tell us what happened last night.”

They sat around the campfire, Rand, Cora, Hew, Innis, and himself. Justen and Petrus were patrolling.

Their camp was on the riverbank. Branches overhead kept off the worst of the rain.

Harkeld put down his bowl and listened intently to Innis.

“They stopped at dawn?” Rand asked, when she’d finished.

“Yes.”

“And you couldn’t see them when you were a wolf?”

“No. But as soon as I changed into me I could.”

Rand glanced at Harkeld. “You and Petrus saw them too, but only once they were dead?”

“Yes.”

“Could you hear them?”

Harkeld shook his head. He’d not heard the high-pitched screams Innis had described.

“They attacked everyone—but not Petrus. And not the horses.” Cora looked at Hew. “Tonight you sleep as a wolf.”

Hew nodded, his face grave.

She turned back to Innis. “They’re made of vapor?”

“Vapor inside, skin outside. No bones that I could see.”

“How did they get into the tent? Through the entrance, or the walls?”

“The entrance.”

“Good. Rand, Flin, and I will sleep in one tent tonight. You’ll guard the entrance.”

Innis nodded. Despite sleeping all day in Cora’s pocket, she looked pale and exhausted and miserable.

“Flin,” Cora said. “You’re from the Seven Kingdoms... have you heard of creatures like this?”

He shook his head.

“I have,” Rand said. “In Sondvaal. They’re meant to be a myth. Breathstealers.”

Everyone looked at him.

“They spawn in hot underground vapors—or so the tales go—and rise up through vents in the ground and seek humans to feed on. Only virgins can see them.” He glanced at Innis. “Human virgins, evidently, since you couldn’t see them when you were an owl or a wolf. And virgins are the only people they won’t feed on. Or
can’t
feed on. According to legend they were wiped out in Sondvaal centuries ago.”

“How do they kill?” Harkeld asked.

“They suck your life from you through your breath. They’re meant to give the person they’re feeding on quite vivid sexual dreams.”

“They do,” Harkeld said.

Rand’s eyebrows rose. “You remember?”

“You don’t?”

Rand shook his head. So did Cora and Hew.