Page 61 of Heirs of the Cursed

Darcia focused her blurred gaze on the hooded figure standing in the middle of a clearing, just a few feet away from them. His cape was a dark red, and the golden edges displayed an elegance unbecoming of Dawnfall. His fingers rattled on the handle of a sword that glinted in the light of the flaming torch in his other hand, illuminating the path ahead. Through the dim glow, she noticed a face marked by scars.

“What in the Akhirat is the Chaser doing here?” she whispered.

“I bet we’re about to find out,” Alasdair replied.

She didn’t need him to say anything else, for the moonlight revealed another equally hooded figure. From his clothes and gait, she deduced that he was a man—one who had grown up on the streets or in the modesty of a city home, nothing like Camdenn and its luxuries.

When Harg uncovered his head, neither Alasdair nor Darcia shuddered at the sight of his scarred face. But when the second man removed the hood of his black cloak, a soft gasp escaped her lips.

It was Conrad Voreia.

“Good evening, Koller,” he greeted him, a sibylline grin tugging at his lips.

The flames vibrated at his words.

“How was your trip to the capital?”

“As long as the previous ones, I’m afraid, though I come bearing gifts,” Conrad informed the general. “But first, tell me. Did the commander like the compass I gave you?”

“Ward hasn’t written back. You know how he is; he likes to take his sweet time before sharing his thoughts. However, I have heard news from the other platoons, and they are working tirelessly to find the princesses. Soon, Lên Rajya will once again be the great kingdom it has always been, and anyone who stands in our way will be hanged.”

Panic gripped Darcia’s veins, and in that moment of unease, Alasdair wrapped his arms around her, drawing her to him with comforting strength. His grip around her tightened as Conrad took a step forward.

Her stepbrother cleared his throat. “Any significant progress?”

“None, for the moment,” Harg revealed. “Both Camdenn and Hamleigh are protected and well defended, even from Two Bloods and rebels.”

“Then we are left with Bellmare and Dawnfall.”

“Unless they had been raised by savages in the Desertic Lands, they can’t be far.”

“In that case, we’re in luck.”

Conrad pulled two small objects from the pocket of his pants. Still too far away, Darcia leaned forward and squinted to make out what he held in the palm of his hand.

Bound by a thin and fragile rope, she saw two keys—one white as snow and the other black as oblivion.

Light and darkness.

Harg looked cautiously at the keys and twirled them between his fingers. “What are these?”

“I have powerful connections, or have you forgotten, General? When I heard about your request, a friend of mine helped me find a witch who was once known for sharing a bed with King Ivarion.”

“Lady de Greene.”

The witch who had wanted to be queen and never was. Darcia had heard the story when she was only nine years old, after an old, dusty book fell off the shelf from her father’s study. It told the story of powerful sorcerers and feared witches, those whom the world now knew little about. Among the many faded and crumpled pages, Darcia had come across the most intriguing of them all:The Fable of the Heartless Witch.

According to the legends, Lady de Greene was a woman banished by the goddesses. One night, as she wept in front of the Ocean of the Dreaded Depths, she wished to be powerful and envied, beautiful and desired. The ocean heard her plea, and darkness answered her prayers for she met Prince Ivarion Allencort, the heir to the throne.

Lady de Greene’s ambition knew no bounds; she’d proven that when she murdered the king to become queen after the Council had arranged her marriage to Ivarion. But the witch had been careless, unaware that her beloved slept in the adjoining room and had watched her murdering his father in cold blood.

By the time the prince had given the order for her capture, Lady de Greene was long gone. Since his coronation, Ivarion had ceased to be the sweet, devoted and benevolent man, and had become a sadist with a heart of ice.

But the witch was now just a story for the youngest souls, a memory nearly as forgotten as the tales of the Fallen Kingdom. Darcia knew that all myths held some hidden truth. Still, it wasn’t the old witch that worried her the most, but that her stepbrother had proven adept at getting what he wanted by selling himself to the highest bidder.

“She had those keys safely tucked away. It’s said they open the ancient temples of the twin goddesses: the white key unlocks Kuheia’s sacred home, while the black one opens Kazaris’.”

“Just like the princesses,” Harg thought aloud.

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