Awaken the Curse Read online

  “So I’ve been told. But why? Aren’t Cade and d’Espe in league with one another?”

  “In league? Hardly. Cade has spent months trying to frighten both d’Espe and myself away before we could discover the secret of the Imnada’s existence. His plan might have succeeded, but for one thing—your disk. Once d’Espe heard about it, he was more determined than ever to remain and continue his work.”

  James’s hand instinctively reached for his neck where his amulet should have hung. The attack on the road, the break-in at the house—it all began to come together. “But he needed my disk to do it.”

  “Indeed. I figured out what he planned and would have been there to warn you but for that last horrid snow that left me stranded in the mountains,” Professor Lacey explained.

  “Gylferion . . .” Cade’s eyes snapped open and focused on James, widening in recognition, a grimace twisting his lips. “Go. D’Espe knows the Imnada’s secret . . . must stop . . . stop before he uses . . .”

  James scrambled to his feet, shaking off the dizziness crowding his vision. Ignoring the questions avalanching through his brain at Cade’s revelation. Time enough for them once Katherine was safe. “How long ago did they leave?”

  “An hour, no more.”

  “I’ll go after them.”

  “The chevalier is strong, Duncallan,” Professor Lacey cautioned. “Stronger than you can imagine. Be very careful.”

  “I’ve a few tricks up my sleeve as well.”

  The professor grabbed James’s arm, dragging him close as if he sought to impart some last piece of wisdom, his craggy face gaunt, the skin wrinkled like parchment, yet his eyes remained as piercing as a dagger point. “I . . . that is . . .” He dropped his hand to rub it on his sleeve as his gaze cut away. “Oh, bugger all, lad. I’m sorry.”

  James nodded. Clasped the man’s thin bony hand in his. “I’ll see her safe.”

  The man offered a sheepish smile in return. “I know you will. Why do you think I asked you to Wales in the first place?”

  * * *

  “There it is, mademoiselle. The very source of Imnada power is but a few footsteps away.” Monsieur d’Espe dragged Katherine the final steps to the ridge where the obelisk stood dark and menacing against a predawn sky. Cold and fear dulled her senses, but not her thoughts. These whirled like leaves upon a wind—or snow, which even now drifted and spun in the dawn mountain breeze.

  “And all this time, the professor really was sheltering in some hovel with a smelly pack of sheepherders and their offspring. I was certain he was buried beneath a drift, awaiting a spring thaw.” D’Espe gave a rude burst of laughter.

  Oh, yes, nothing like a good, ironic kick to the gut to bring on the merrymaking. She couldn’t decide which tickled her funny bone more. Was it her grief causing her to throw herself at James like a common trollop—again? Or her violent braining of him afterwards when he tried to abandon her father to the chevalier’s knife? Hysterical giggles chewed their way up her throat. She stumbled as she fought off both her frenzied laughter as well as the hot tears scalding her eyes. She couldn’t fall apart. She needed to think, and then to plan. “How did you know where to find us?”

  D’Espe gave a halfhearted Gallic shrug as he jerked her forward. “I have ways, Mademoiselle Lacey.”

  “So the rumors are true. You’re working the forbidden magics.”

  His gaze was stony, his lips curled in a sneer. “I’ve done what I needed to gain the prize I sought. No more than necessary. Much less than some I could name.”

  He shoved Katherine aside in his haste and excitement. Coat billowing, he approached the obelisk to caress the rough faces of granite, trace the runes carved upon each side with a lover’s finger. As dawn neared, the sky brightened enough that she could make out the bones of his face jutting like knives, the taut muscles in his neck, and the deadly glint of a pair of pistols strapped to his waist.

  “I knew it must be true,” he preened. “The Imnada are here still, afraid to reveal themselves, knowing we would take up arms to complete what our ancestors began.”

  “That’s why you spent a lifetime trying to find them? So you can kill them?” Katherine blurted.

  The chevalier whipped around as if he’d forgotten she was there or had assumed she’d be silently gibbering in terror. Under normal circumstances, she might have been, but whether it was numb toes or a spinning brain, she couldn’t sit quietly while d’Espe plotted genocide.

  If only she could turn him to stone or destroy him in a puff of smoke. No, she’d been gifted with little innate talent beyond the basic household magic all Fey-born were blessed with and a smidgeon of healing powers. She could summon him a nice spell for his rheumatism, but stopping him dead in his tracks was beyond her.

  “Of course, I do not want to kill them, mademoiselle,” he answered proudly. “How would I prove to those who disparaged my research that I was right all along? No, I will trumpet my discovery until the world reveres the name of Gilles d’Espe. But once the Other realize the continued threat the Imnada pose, they will take steps to eradicate them. An unsatisfactory outcome, but inevitable.”

  “What threat?” Katherine asked, surprised at how calm she sounded despite her thrashing heart and trembling hands. “The shapechangers have lived hidden away for well over a thousand years with none the wiser. Had they wanted to cause trouble, surely they’d have tried already. We’ve nothing to fear from them.” All her frantic planning and unfortunately this was the best she could come up with. Keep the chevalier talking. Stall for time until help arrived.

  D’Espe paced off a square around the obelisk, his manner dismissive. “The Imnada are dangerous monsters. Haven’t your history lessons taught you they can’t be trusted? They are a treacherous, brutal, cunning race, not of our blood nor born of our seed. Their power does not originate among the Fey as ours does. It is subject neither to our laws nor to our principles, making it turbulent and ungovernable.”

  “You mean the Imnada power you want for yourself?” she continued to argue despite the increasingly angry looks he shot in her direction. “You’re the greatest threat to the Other. Not the Imnada.”

  He slammed to a halt, wild rage boiling up behind his eyes. Katherine cringed, awaiting an incinerating blast of battle magic. Instead, a snaky smile curled over his face, his eyes fever bright. “You remind me of my daughter, Mademoiselle Lacey. Renata has the same reckless courage and the same proud bearing. I will let you live for that reason alone. But say one more word and naught will stay my hand. Do you hear?”

  Katherine nodded, slumping down into the snow, her bones gone to jelly, her innards fighting against the nausea that threatened. So much for that plan. She flashed one last frightened look to the trees, to the deep shadow of the hills. Nothing moved. No voices called. She was on her own. If anyone was going to put a stop to d’Espe’s plans, it would have to be her.

  The chevalier held up a disk of bronze to the first piercing light of dawn climbing over the mountain. “Nivatha Chu. Anada Asantos,” he intoned solemnly.

  The words he spoke meant nothing to her, but their effect was immediate. As he placed the disk in the eastern face of the obelisk, light curled and rippled up his arm to dance over his skin before seeping beneath the snow at the base of the obelisk.

  “Anakalo Filios. Anada Asantos.” The second disk was copper, dulled green with age and bent at one corner, but still recognizable. He placed this one in the southern slot, jiggling it until it clicked into place. Again the light shot free of the obelisk in a rain of sparks, firing its way down over the chevalier’s body to bury itself into the ground. A rumble vibrated the earth, accompanied by a high chiming of bells.

  “The mountain, d’Espe! It’s moving!” she cried.

  The obelisk shimmered as if a ghostly shape writhed beneath its surface. The runes, minutes ago moss covered and barely legible, now glowed blue. The ancient symbols shifted and twisted like living creatures.

  The chevalier ignored
her. Stepping to the western face of the obelisk, he lifted high the third disk, a circle of beaten gold shaved thin as a piece of paper, the etchings on its surface almost invisible.

  “Pinota Asneeri. Anada Asantos.” It caught the dawn sun in a blaze of blinding light before he slid it, like the others, into place.

  Prisms of energy flowed over her, through her. But this power was neither wild nor incomprehensible. It danced with colors she recognized and moved in twisting strands she understood. This wasn’t the power of the shapechangers. This was Fey-born power, derived like all Other magic in the summer kingdom of Ynys Avalenn.

  “D’Espe!” a deep shout erupted from the trees. “It’s over!”

  James! Katherine closed her eyes on a quick prayer of gratitude to every god she could name.

  “The Imnada are here to retrieve the stolen disks. You’ve failed.”

  As Katherine watched, a wolf stole low through the undergrowth, but it wasn’t alone. A second animal crept at the edge of the western hills. A third lurked on the far side of the clearing by the road. And a fourth stood at James’s side as he emerged from the wood, its coat black as night, its teeth gleaming like knives. Four enormous wolves, death in their eyes.

  The chevalier gripped James’s amulet, the final Imnada disk, liquid silver leaking around his fingers, dripping like water where it spread to form a glistening pool across the snow. “You’re too late, Duncallan.”

  James’s gaze flicked to Katherine, his expression forbidding. “End it. Or they will.”

  The wolf at his side took a step forward, haunches bunched to spring, a growl rumbling low in its throat.

  The chevalier’s gaze shifted from creature to creature, but Katherine knew he was beyond reasoning, beyond understanding the danger. His face shone with a fanatic’s zeal, his lips drawn back from his teeth in a parody of the wolf’s bloodthirsty grimace. “Let them try.”

  The rumbling intensified until the ground rolled and pitched like a ship in a storm. The breeze had quickened to a wind that pushed against her face with a groan like the scraping together of glaciers or the dying cry of a million souls. Unearthly blue fire licked the sides of the glowing stone column. Over the roaring in her ears, Katherine heard d’Espe shouting, “Krylesos Pryth! Anada! Asantos!”

  Before she thought better of it, she lurched shakily to her feet and stumbled forward over the quaking ground to grab his arm, her fingers digging into the chevalier’s wrist, her nails drawing blood. He shouted, wrenching himself away, but she clung like a burr, tightening her hold. The disk flew from his hand in a flash of silver. They both followed the track of its spinning fall. Both leapt after it almost before it hit the snow.

  He was stronger, but she was faster. She palmed the disk just as d’Espe gave her a slap to the side of the head that left her ears ringing, her knees wobbly. “Get away!” he hissed. “I’ve suffered too much to let a ridiculous little English putain stop me.”

  “Katherine!” James shouted, running toward her, the wolf leaping ahead. “Look out!”

  A pistol appeared from nowhere, the barrel aimed at her head, the muzzle like a great black eye staring her down.

  “No!”

  The enormous black wolf launched itself, body stretched, tail extended, paws as big as dinner plates, saliva dripping from its gaping jaws. Katherine threw herself backwards just as an explosion of smoke and fire shook the blood in her veins. She felt herself falling. Snow filled her eyes, her ears. She felt it drift over her frozen cheeks. She heard the wolves howl in unison. Then nothing more.

  * * *

  James slammed to a halt, mind blank. Heart racing. Focus shredded.

  The black wolf standing guard over Katherine’s body grew as vague and indistinct as last night’s mysterious mist before disappearing completely. So, too, did the other three conjured creatures. Each one drifting like smoke caught in the lash of January wind. The magic he’d spun to bring them to life thinned to a few frayed strands of energy. Then they were gone as well.

  Through the narrowing of his vision, he’d a vague notion of his amulet being lifted high. In spite of the fog that gripped his mind, he knew when it had been placed in the last empty setting within the north side of the obelisk. He took a step, then another. Then he was running, but too late. The earth gave a final great heave as a shock wave pummeled the air. He fell, his spine striking an outcrop of barren rock. The force of the tremor knocked the breath from his lungs and vibrated like a tuning fork along his bones. Shards of stone exploded outward as the obelisk disintegrated before his eyes. Smoke and ash seared his throat and blistered his face. Blood dripped hot over his cheeks and slid like tears into his mouth.

  Katherine lay a few paces to his right, the red-gold tresses of her hair mingling with the seeping pool of blood beneath her. He tried to go to her, but his legs wouldn’t move. His body refused his commands. He crawled hand over hand until he reached her side. Threaded his fingers with hers. Closed his eyes and waited for death.

  Chapter 5

  “. . . Katie . . . need to see her . . .”

  “. . . your legs . . . do you feel . . .”

  “. . . crawl if I fucking have to . . .”

  Words faded in and out. Light, fuzzy and dim, seeped round her eyelids. A heavy weight pressed the breath from her lungs. She tasted the tang of iron in her mouth, a strange buzz tickling her throat to spread outward from the center of her chest, simmering beneath her skin. She coughed, sucked in a few great lungfuls of cold air, and opened her eyes to a stranger bent over her, an odd mixture of sorrow and elation in his weary gaze. She tried sitting up, but he pressed her back onto the turf with a slight shake of his head.

  “You are weak, mistress. Rest now.”

  Did she know this man? He was strong. Built like a behemoth, he had the size and formidability of a wrestler—or a small castle. The hand he used to prop her up bore calluses across the palm and scars across the back, though his touch was surprisingly gentle. He was striking to look at, with overlong dark hair, high-slanted cheekbones, and deep-set piercing eyes black as sloe. And she hadn’t the foggiest who he was or how he’d come to be here.

  “Did we win?” she asked, surprised at how gravely and feeble her voice sounded. She wiped a sleeve across her face and was surprised to see blood left smeared upon the cloth. She ran her tongue over her lips. Had she bit down on it as she fell? Had she split her lip?

  “Katherine? You’re alive. Thank the gods.” Spectacles foggy and tears muddying the dirt on his face, Father knelt beside her, replacing the mystery man, who withdrew with a silent nod.

  “Where’s James? Did he stop d’Espe?”

  Father wiped at his eyes with a dirty shirtsleeve. “The chevalier managed to slither off like the snake he is. We can only hope wherever he turns up, he’ll gain his just deserts, the villainous reprobate.”

  “And James? You haven’t answered my question. Father, he isn’t . . .” She struggled up onto her knees, the world swaying, black swimming at the edges of her vision. “He’s all right, isn’t he? He’s not . . .” She couldn’t say it. Couldn’t even think it.

  “We were worried about you. The shot . . . it . . . I don’t know how he did it, but he kept you alive. He saved your life.”

  “James?”

  “No. Lucan. He’s with James now. He is doing what he can, but there are some injuries even . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “What’s that supposed to mean? And who’s Lucan?” A niggling uneasy thought teased her sloshy brain as she scanned the clearing.

  Something wasn’t right. The obelisk should have been just to her right. But now there was nothing beyond a blackened patch of scorched earth and a few tumbled stones. The man who’d spoken to her—Lucan—knelt as Father did, sleeve rolled back, blood sliding down over his wrist. James sat propped up beside him. Face pale as death. Dark hair flopped boyishly over his forehead. Lips pursed to sip at the blood pooled in the man’s open palm.

  “What are you doing?�
� She wrenched away from her father, stumbling like a drunkard across the clearing, but the man speared her to a halt with a mere lift of one brow as he rolled his sleeve back down over his wrist. “The blood of the Imnada is potent medicine. I offer it in gratitude for my release.”

  “I don’t care. Get out of my way,” she said, adding when he hesitated, “Please.”

  The man dipped his head in a proud courtier’s bow, though she had the distinct impression subservience was not normal to his character. “As you wish.”

  “Will he die?” she whispered.

  “The blood will hold him to this body. He will live. And where there’s life, there’s hope.” He rose, offering James a last look before turning his attention back to Katherine. A stark animal brutality within his gaze froze her in place. This was the blood she’d tasted on her tongue and saw upon her sleeve. His blood. This man . . . this creature . . . had saved her. “I have kept three of the disks, mistress. But this one I return to you—and to him.” He placed the silver disk in Katherine’s open palm, closing her fingers around it. “Hold it in trust as a gift. Use it if you have need.”

  She felt herself nodding dumbly. After he departed, she turned to James, brushing the hair back from his brow. Stone dust floated over his shoulders, coated his hair and face.

  She studied his face as if trying to see the truth behind the drawn gray features, tight with pain. Why had he really come to Wales? Had he intended her seduction all along? Had he sought to punish her as much as her father for what he saw as a grave betrayal? Was everything said in the cave nothing but lies? She blinked back tears. Not on her part. She’d meant every word.

  So could one love and hate the same person in equal measures?

  “Katie, the pistol . . . I saw you fall. I saw . . .” Drops of life-giving blood stained James’s lips scarlet, his gaze clouded with pain.

  “The Laceys are harder to kill than you thought.”

  He blinked, his eyes seeming to focus for a moment, bright and hard. “It would seem. Yet, something’s died within you.”