The Fire Prince (The Cursed Kingdoms Trilogy Book 2) (60 page)
Innis followed Hedín to where Cora lay, face up, a bloody, razor-sharp point protruding from her forehead. Rain splashed in her open eyes. Her lips were slightly parted.
Innis stared down at her.
What were you going to tell me?
Hedيn crouched and touched Cora’s cheek, a gesture of farewell.
Innis sheathed her sword; it took two tries, her hands were shaking so badly. Justen’s cloak, jerkin, and shirt were torn above her heart. Blood trickled from a stinging scratch on her skin. “He was aiming for me? He thought I was the prince?”
He can’t have seen me kiss Petrus, then
.
“He went for all three of you,” Hedيn said. “You first, then Petrus and Flin. Thank the All-Mother Flin can burn steel, or more’n Cora would be dead.”
Innis crouched and looked at Cora’s face.
You died instead of me.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN
B
ENNICK PUT THE
spyglass to his eye. “Horses.”
Jaumé squinted. He saw ant-like movements on the marshy shore opposite the southern end of the island.
“And bodies. Two of ’em. There’s been a fight.”
“Can you see Nolt and Gant and Ash?”
Bennick lowered the spyglass. “They’re dead.”
“How do you know?”
“The prince is there.”
“With his army?”
“With mages. Those men are mages, Jaumé. What you call witches.”
“They’ve caught him?”
“They’ve saved him.”
“No.” Jaumé shook his head. Witches didn’t save people. They were evil.
Bennick handed him the spyglass. “Look.”
Jaumé looked—and couldn’t keep back a cry as something huge and gray filled the spyglass. It was as big as a house, with a long nose and vast flapping ears.
“It’s an oliphant, Jaumé. A mage. A shapeshifter.” Bennick took the spyglass back. He watched for several minutes. His mouth widened in a grin, almost of admiration. “Three of them. Clever bastards. Here...” He thrust the spyglass at Jaumé. “Tell me when they cross to the island.”
Jaumé looked for the oliphant, but it was gone. He shifted the spyglass back and forth, looking at the people on the shore. They were all men. Two were naked. “Which one’s the prince?”
Bennick grunted a laugh from the back of the cave. “You tell me, lad.”
Jaumé studied the men again. None of them looked like he was being held prisoner.
The witches are helping him? They’re good witches?
But witches were always bad. Everyone knew that.
Three of the men stood together. They were younger than the others, all dark-haired.
He breaks the curse stone in half with a giant axe,
Jaumé thought. But none of the men had an axe.
Behind him, he heard Bennick stringing his bow.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
T
HE ISLAND WAS
at the confluence of the Szal and the Yresk. Columns of basalt rose in irregular tiers to its highest point. “Is the anchor stone at the top?” Harkeld asked.
“At the northern end,” Justen said. “Where it flattens out.”
The skiff lay on the shore. Arnod was in discussion with Serril and Hedيn, gesturing at the shallow, swirling water that separated the island from the shore. Cora and Hew lay in the boat’s prow, along with the small bundle that was Linea, wrapped in the ripped-off hood of Hew’s cloak.
Three more who’ve died because of me
. What did that make his count now? Twenty-seven?
His gaze rested on Cora’s huddled form. Grief clenched in his chest. Why her?
You were a good teacher,
he told her silently, regretting that he’d never told her while she was alive.
Thank you for everything you taught me
.
And Cora had a husband and children. Who didn’t know she was dead.
Harkeld looked away. He cleared his throat, took a deep breath.
Rand crouched near the horses, holding his left hand in his right, his eyes closed, intense concentration on his face. Harkeld scanned the marshland behind the healer. The rain had eased to a drizzle, and the visibility was improving. Nothing moved except drifting steam. “Where’s Innis?” He felt a prickle of alarm. Had she been sleeping in Cora’s pocket? “Was she hurt when Cora—”
“She’s fine,” Justen said. “I think Rand has her.”
“Look,” Petrus said.
A swallow swooped across the twenty yards of water separating the island from the riverbank. Even though the sun wasn’t out, sunlight seemed to glimmer on its wings.
The swallow landed on the rim of the skiff and looked at them with bright eyes.
Serril broke off his discussion with Arnod. “All clear?”
The swallow dipped its head.
“He’s been on the island all morning,” Serril said, turning to Harkeld. There were red marks on his skin where the ropes tying the boat had rubbed. “He’s looked in every crack and crevice a dozen times. You can trust there are no Fithians there.”
Harkeld nodded.
“Arnod reckons this is the safest point to enter the current, so we’ll leave the boat here. Rand, you stay with him. Oren’ll keep watch over you both.” Serril jerked his thumb at the hawk circling overhead.
“You don’t want me to come with you?”
“The rocks on the island are slippery and you’ve only one good hand.”
Rand conceded this with a nod.
“Petrus and Justen, stick close to Flin. The three of us will be with you.” Serril gestured to Hedيn and the swallow. “Now let’s move, before any more Fithians show up.”
P
ETRUS SHUCKED HIS
cloak before entering the water. It was only thigh-deep, but too murky to see the bottom. His feet told him it was a jumble of slippery blocks and ledges. The water flowed in swift eddies, surging around his thighs, nudging him this way and that.
He stumbled on a rock, sat heavily in the water. Prince Harkeld grabbed his jerkin and hauled him up.
“Thanks.”
Petrus reached the island, scrambled up on black rocks and slipped again, landing hard on one knee. He bit back a curse. “Careful,” he called back. “There’s some kind of fungus on these rocks. They’re rutting slippery.”
He waited until both Justen and the prince were ashore before setting off round the island. It was like traversing a gigantic, crazy muddle of stepping stones. Their progress was slow, slipping and sliding, grabbing at rocks for balance, sometimes clambering on all fours. Prince Harkeld fell once, with a loud yelp of pain.
It took twenty minutes to reach the northern end of the island. His shoulder was aching by the time they got there. The anchor stone stood on a ledge of basalt, a barrel-shaped lump of pale gray rock with a contorted sausage of white marble running through it. It was more thickly covered with curse shadows than anything he’d seen yet in the Seven Kingdoms.
Prince Harkeld unsheathed his dagger.
Petrus glanced around. The drizzle had stopped. The Szal rushed brown and fast on their left; the Yresk, green-black and fast on their right. Ahead, where the two met, waves jostled one another.
He measured the distance to the riverbanks with his eyes. More than a hundred yards to the western bank, a good seventy to the eastern. Too far for a throwing star.
Petrus turned back to the anchor stone.
He watched Prince Harkeld cut his palm, wipe his dagger on his trews and sheath it, and place his left hand on the stone.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE
“T
HAT’S HIM,
” B
ENNICK
said. He thrust the spyglass at Jaumé and picked up his bow.
“Who?” Jaumé cried in alarm. Someone was going to kill the prince?
They can’t! The curse won’t be stopped.
He hastily focused the spyglass.
The three men on the island’s tip sprang into view. One had his hand pressed to the curse stone. Two others stood, half-blocking him. A couple of hawks hovered overhead and a swallow dipped and swooped. Jaumé frantically scanned the rocks, the air, the water. Where was the threat Bennick had seen?
CHAPTER NINETY
T
HE PRINCE’S LIPS
moved, as if he was counting. He glanced at Justen, “Long enough, I reckon,” and tried to lift his hand from the anchor stone.
It didn’t come off.
The prince frowned and tried again. Petrus saw the tendons flex on the back of his hand.
“I’m stuck to it.”
Justen grabbed Prince Harkeld’s wrist and tugged. The prince’s hand didn’t move. It appeared to have adhered to the anchor stone.
“Use your fire magic,” Petrus suggested. “Try to burn—”
The prince wrenched hard. His hand came free. He staggered back, falling to one knee.
“You all right?” Justen said, hauling him to his feet.
The prince’s face screwed up in a grimace. “It rutting
hurts
.”