Page 15 of The Royal Curse

Perhaps it owed something to the circumstances of my birth, but I’d always been superstitious. Twilight mages had a unique view on the mercurial cruelty of the gods, after all, and we tended to pay more attention to omens and instincts and that prickling sensation on the back of the neck that indicated trouble brewing.

I had it now. Badly. The air practically crackled.

And Andreas was making a joke, disappearing over the edge of the cliff while the guards chuckled.

A drop of water hit my nose. Then two on my scalp. And then the heavens opened up again with a roar, water sluicing down and drenching all of us instantly, icy cold and so thick I could hardly breathe. The guards cursed as their hands slipped on the rope. Andreas had to be blinded by this, his feet sliding out from under him…

“Andreas!” I shouted through the din, barely able to hear myself. Something terrible was about to happen, I could feel it… “Come back up!”

I stumbled forward, the mud sucking at my boots, water sheeting into my eyes, chilled to the bone and shivering.

And then Carlo shouted and dived for the edge of the cliff, his face a white rictus. Something flipped through the air: fuck, a trailing end of rope. The rope had broken. Carlo flung himself onto his belly in the mud and reached—and missed. The rope slid out of sight.

Andreas. He’d fallen. Gone, and all for me, and I could’ve borne the pain of missing my dose, but he’d given his life for me and I didn’t think I could bear the guilt of it—I skidded to a stop beside Carlo and leaned over the side, chest clenched tight with horror.

And I saw him. He’d fallen where my saddlebag had. On top of it, in fact.

As I stared down at him, he pushed himself up on his elbows and grimaced, shaking his head and spitting out water.

The rain slowed as abruptly as it’d come down, the cloudburst over. It still pattered down on us, but quietly enough that I heard him call out, “Next time, let’s worry less about the knots and more about the rope, hmm?”

Beside me, Carlo let out a hysterical-sounding whoop of laughter, rubbing a mud-drenched hand over his mud-drenched face. He couldn’t have been covered in more of the stuff if he’d tried.

The others came forward in a body, Sergeant Salvius taking charge and organizing them to lower another rope, anchor it firmly, move that rock out of the way, damn you…

My heart galloped so quickly it could’ve beaten any horse in my mother’s racing stables, so much that my vision went gray and I couldn’t feel my fingers and toes. I tottered a few steps away and dropped down on a boulder, my face in my hands.

Andreas was alive.

He’d retrieve my potion.

Everything was fine.

But the sensation on the back of my neck, and the chill running down my spine, hadn’t abated in the least.

Of course, that could be the freezing rain.

But I didn’t think so. The gods weren’t done fucking with us yet, I just knew it.

Chapter Six

“You’re lucky to have made it here,” the landlady said, bustling ahead of us as she led the way upstairs to our rooms. “That last switchback on the way down into town always goes out in this much rain. It won’t be passable by morning. They’ll have to bring engineers or mages in to clear it. And they say it might snow again tonight, too.”

I wasn’t paying much attention, barely able to lift my feet from one stair to the next. A combination of cold, wet, exhaustion, and the aftermath of several different shocks had left me with my head swimming and every joint wobbling.

“We’re very glad you can put us up for the night, thank you,” Andreas said from behind me. “My lord’s worn out.”

We’d agreed that it’d be better if I traveled incognito. It still sounded very strange to hear myself referred to that way.

“Oh yes, you all look done in,” she said, clucking a bit. “I’ll have hot water up for you in no time at all. And you may be visiting us for a few nights or more, you know, if you were planning on going east. The river’s flooding.”

She finally stopped nearly at the very end of the narrow corridor, and I almost crashed into her. The gloomy shade of dark green on the walls made it impossible to see where I was going, even with the few lamps along the corridor.

“Here’s your room, your lordship,” she said, bobbing a curtsey and letting the door swing open. “Best in the house.”

“It’s very nice,” I said, though I hadn’t seen it yet and couldn’t care less. “Thank you.”

I staggered through the doorway. A maid or someone had already lit a fire and a lamp, and I immediately collapsed into a chair next to the hearth. My wet clothes would need to come off, and the quicker the better, but I simply didn’t have the strength. Damn Benetto for catching cold, anyway. My clothes instantly started to steam, and it made matters even worse.

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