Page 63 of The Captive's Curse
Or…through being the rightful heir, which made the most logical sense, considering that the curse had been laid by the original rightful heir’s mother. Hans didn’t seem to have made that connection until he saw the rings.
I hadn’t made it until now, and being a step behind that stupid asshole Hans made me want to claw my own face off in embarrassment.
Of course, none of that shed light on Enzo’s immediate past: his family’s presence in Calatria, his choice to take up residence as a highwayman rather than putting his case before the queen’s court.
When—not if—I had him safe and alone and probably naked, I’d ask.
All that mattered now was that Hans had expected to have to clear out a nest of robbers in order to claim the castle, and instead he’d discovered his own distant cousin in legitimate possession. Any word of this to the queen would cast Hans’s claims in serious doubt.
Gods, Hans truly would kill us all for his own gain and convenience. In that way, at least, he had proved himself the Mad Lord’s rightful heir. How ironic.
My limbs had gone stiff and chilled, and I slowly uncurled, massaging the knots out of my calves and wincing as I lowered my feet to the floor.
I blinked blearily. The sun would probably be over the horizon for another hour, but the heavily overcast sky throughthe room’s one narrow window had left me trapped in twilight gloom. Gods, I was so thirsty. It didn’t seem fair that one could be as susceptible to bodily discomforts when you were about to be murdered by a madman as on any other occasion.
Pounding on the door eventually yielded a surly guard, and after a short negotiation, a pitcher of clean water and a heel of bread. It revived me enough that I had the strength to—what? I paced around and around the tiny space, my stomach churning with a terror that my dull, pleasant life had never given me cause to experience before.
Enzo’s life had been so much more adventurous than mine. Did he feel the same way, chained in the tower, with his chest tight and his mind spinning in circles? I needed a task, anything at all, so that I wouldn’t feel so helpless.
A fire, I could do that. Only the faint glimmer of torchlight under the door lit the room now that the sun had truly gone down. I’d just have to be careful not to set the whole room ablaze as I fumbled about—
And then I stopped, my foot suspended in mid-air, my blood chilling into ice.
The stables. Hans had put the men in the stables, for reasons I’d been unable to work out.
But in a castle built almost entirely of stone, the stables would be the likeliest place for a fire to take hold. Piles of hay, a wooden structure, a hot lantern set down carelessly…how else would Hans account for the accidental deaths of ten or more unarmed, bound prisoners?
“Your Majesty, all of them fell simultaneously on several knives, I’ve never seen anything like it…” Not so much.
Of course, Leander and the others would be out there, somewhere. They had to be working on a plan of their own; Leander would never abandon his brother, unlike my worthless sibling. What would I do if I were him? I’d wait for the brewingstorm to hit, and hope the cover of the rain and thunder would make it easier to take Hans’s men by surprise.
But Hans would have to set his fire, if that was his plan, before then. A plausible fire that spread too quickly for anyone to be pulled out of the stables and saved wouldn’t be plausible anymore in a rainstorm.
If I’d worked it all out correctly, Leander wouldn’t be in time to rescue Finn and the others. Enzo was in equally dire straits, because Hans could murder him at any moment.
Gods. Those poor fuckers in the stable, and Enzo. Their lives depended onme. My weak, stunted magic, my total lack of skill at arms, my dearth of anything resembling tactical or strategic advantage.
Hopefully they hadn’t realized it; if they did, they’d throw themselves on those piles of knives after all.
A tremor went through my belly.
I might live if I sat here quietly.
And then I could…what, write a rousing ballad about my own cowardice and the deaths of my friends while I hid in a closet smelling like onions? Not to mention. How the hell would I look Leander in the eye? I’d die of shame.
No. I had to act, even incompetently. Better to die in a way that some other bard could chronicle, in a song that would stir the hearts and draw the tears of throngs of thousands. And if no one bothered to write such a song, I’d bloody well come back as a vengeful ghost like the Mad Lord, and I’d shriek and howl around the castle making Hans’s life as uncomfortable as inhumanly possible.
I tiptoed to the door and laid my ear against the crack between it and the jamb, straining my ears for anything from the hall. Two voices, low mumbles that could’ve been a pair of guards conversing quietly over their own suppers.
Damn it.
If I used magic to open the lock, I could take them by surprise…but while I might’ve been able to subdue one guard before he made enough noise to give me away, two would be impossible unless I could touch them both at the same time.
And to get them close enough to accomplish that, well. I’d have to use those dangerous wiles Hans had—with unusual accuracy—accused me of possessing.
I stood still and tried to find my center, but my magic kept sliding out of my grasp, skittering away from me. My frantic heart hammered and tonged, and little shivers ran up and down my spine, the product of my overwhelming fear—not so much of death, but of failure.
I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t. They’d all die, and it would be because I’d failed. Enzo would die.
