Page 63 of The Cursed and the Broken
“Oh, I would. They were following us the whole time, waiting to strike. You heard the bull. They know about your power—who you are, Kitarni. I don’t know how, but they know. And they’re coming.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Our soldiers are strong, but we cannot prepare for something we know nothing about. We need numbers, locations. We need to know the threat they pose against both our homes.”
True, true, true.
“I’m fine,” I insisted, swinging a leg over the side of the bed. Gritting my teeth together, I bit back a cry, trying and failing to ignore the burning pain in my chest.
He was there in an instant, calloused hands grasping my calf and propping me back on the bed. His touch inflamed my bare skin. “You arenotfine. You could have died yesterday and I …” He looked away with a frustrated growl. “I promised no harm would come to you. I failed.”
I raised a hand to his chin, tracing the stubble that had grown over the last few days. “You can’t protect me from everything,” I whispered, feeling miserable.You can’t protect me from myself. From what I must do.
His brows pinched as he studied me. “I can and I will.I must.”
Shaking my head, I sighed. “I can look after myself. I’m the only safeguard your soldiers have got against the cultists.”
“I can’t deny your magic is incredible, but even you have your limits. With this injury, magic is firmly out of the question.” He looked me over studiously. “Still, you wield a blade far better than I’d expected. You’re fast, but you can’t rely on throwing knives or daggers in a sword fight. I think we’ll have to amend that.”
“I’ve been taught swordplay,” I said indignantly.
His grin was devilish. “Not by me you haven’t.”
I pursed my lips. “Are you always so arrogant?”
He crossed his arms, that damnable dimple winking back at me. I supposed more training couldn’t hurt and he handled a blade like the god of war himself. Hadúr would be pleased. “Fine,” I groused, blowing out a breath. “I accept your proposal.”
Dante chuckled. “That’d be a first. Unfortunately for you, you’re not going anywhere until you heal.” He looked at me pointedly.
Huffing, I rolled my eyes. “I’ll sleep on it. But no promises.”
Leaning in, he placed a gentle kiss on my mouth—barely a brush against my lips—before walking out the door, leaving me alone to my thoughts.
Groaning, I shook my head, burying myself carefully in the silky sheets. Even that slight movement sent pain rippling up my shoulder.
Dante was right. I’d be out of action for weeks, if not months. As far as I knew, healing magic was not a common gift. If what Dante said was true, it took a skilled táltos indeed to claim spiritual energy as their own and, apparently, they were in short supply. Dante would have had a witch or táltos tending to my needs the instant we made it back to the keep otherwise.
So how, then, had my father claimed such power? He’d gifted it to me before passing from this world into the next, so I’d never know. But perhaps there was a way to train that skill or find someone to learn from. I set that thought aside to revisit later.
Between the very contrasting gifts of healing and destruction, I was a puzzle. An anomaly. Mama never should have kept me in the dark. I might have gone to the banya for help, might have—
I sighed. There was no use for dreaming or laying blame. Even if I’d searched for the banya, Baba Yana, I wouldn’t have found her. She was just as puzzling as I was, and far more mysterious.
I had little in the way of options. Both my fire and blood magic were useless if I couldn’t heal myself. I clenched the quilt tightly. Would it be so bad if Dante scouted the woods without me? We needed to act. Soon. I grimaced, thinking of the corruption in the Sötét Erdo and how quickly it was spreading.
We had more than cultists to worry about now. The creatures were volatile, but time was our greatest enemy. If the cultists’ dark magic continued to flood the earth, our families—our homes—would fold beneath its touch. That couldnothappen. Eszter and Mama were still my priority.
I didn’t want to send more men to die, didn’t want to think of Dante hurt or worse. Their shamanistic power wasn’t enough to quell the tides of fanatics overdosed on bloodmorphia. Which left me with the most important question.
Was I ready to face my demons in the woods? Was I ready to die to save the ones I loved?
I woke to the sound of humming as gentle hands busied themselves with my bandages. Cracking my eyes open, I found a beautiful woman slightly older than me applying salve to my wounds. My skin tingled under the cool balm, but her fingertips were so gentle I barely felt them.
“The prodigal princess returns to us at last.”
Not a blemish or sunspot marred her light skin. Her blue eyes sparkled as she looked down a button nose, bow lips smiling as she appraised me. Her raven hair was braided in a coronet upon her head, the sleeves of her royal blue dress pulled back to work.
Groggily, I studied the craftsmanship of the taffeta, the fine needlework of the silver whorls swirling over the bodice, the square-set sapphire dipping into her decolletage. If anyone here was royalty, she fit the description. Raising a brow, I studied the stranger. “Princess?”
She smirked as she twirled one of my locks in her hand. “Your heretic ancestor labelled herself a queen. Given your power stems from the bloodline, I figured it was only fitting you bear such a title, too.”
This one didn’t mince words. I liked her already, but there was something about her I couldn’t quite place. A strange aura that spoke of something ancient. Something otherworldly.
