A Vow So Bold and Deadly (Cursebreakers, #3)(83)

Harper is staring at me. Her eyes are wary and uncertain. After a moment, she swallows and looks away. “I shouldn’t have come here. This was a mistake.” Her voice breaks, and she pauses to steady it. “I know it’s war. I know you hate him. I just—I didn’t know where else to go.”

We sit in silence for the longest time. This moment reminds me of another, when she was weary and frightened and in a strange land—and she didn’t know whether to trust me then, either. I rise from the cot to root around on Noah’s workbench until I find a battered deck of cards, then return to sit opposite Harper. I drag a small table between us, then shuffle.

“Like old times,” she says, and her voice breaks again.

“Like old times,” I agree. The cards flip together, and I deal. Harper takes up her hand.

“King’s Ransom?” she says.

“Yes.” I turn a card faceup. The three of stones. I choose an eight of stones from my hand and lay it down. “I rarely play cards anymore.”

“No?”

“They play dice here.”

“How do you play dice?” Maybe the game is steadying, because the emotion has drained from her voice, and now she simply sounds tired.

“I’m not one to ask. I am terrible at it.”

That startles a laugh out of her. “I doubt it. You’re not terrible at anything.”

“I promise I am.”

She lays down a card. We play in silence for a while, the low fire crackling along the wall. I didn’t forget how much I enjoyed playing cards, but I didn’t realize it would summon so many memories. Not just with Harper, but with Rhen as well. In the beginning, when the curse first trapped us alone, I would let him win every game. He quickly caught on, and he was furious. He declared that he didn’t need someone to cater to his pride—and when it came to cards, that was probably true. He asked if I also let him win when we sparred in the arena—and he was surprised when I conceded the truth, that no swordsman would truly risk a member of the royal family.

He drew a sword right there. “Fight me,” he said. “No yielding, Commander. That is an order.”

So I did. I disarmed him in less than a minute. I still remember him breathing heavily, staring up at me, a stripe of blood on his forearm.

I remember being startled when, instead of throwing a tantrum, he got to his feet, jerked his jacket straight, and said, “Show me how you just did that.”

One of the most startling things about the curse had nothing to do with the magic, or the torments, or even Lilith herself. It was the discovery that Rhen never realized how ignorant and sheltered he was—and how much he wanted to learn once he had the opportunity.

I lay down a card on the table. “I do not hate him,” I say quietly.

Harper hesitates, then sets down her cards to press her fingers into her eyes. “He regrets so much, Grey. What he did—it’s tearing him apart. I swear I’m telling the truth. He really was going to come to you with a truce.”

“I believe you.” My voice is grave. “I am unsure if that matters.”

“Why?” she cries. “Why wouldn’t that matter?”

I inhale to answer, and she says, “You once told me that if Rhen allowed it, you would take Lilith’s torments a hundredfold. Now is your chance. Now, Grey. She is killing him. She is—” Her voice chokes on a sob. “She’s so awful. He’s terrified of magic. You know what she’s like. You know what she’ll do.”

I do. I do know.

This is too much. There are too many memories. My chest is tight, my thoughts filling with ice, the way I feel when I must take action.

“She killed Dustan,” Harper says. “She tore his throat out right in front of me. And Zo—somehow Lilith grew wings or created another monster, because she ripped Zo right off the back of my horse.” Harper presses her arms across her abdomen. “Please, Grey. Please. Take Emberfall if you want. But please, you have to help me save him. There is no one else. No other way.”

I look away. Her tears, her words, are tugging at chords inside me again. I shouldn’t care. We’re going to war. If Rhen dies at Lilith’s hand or at my own, what is the difference?

“Please,” Harper whispers. “Grey. He might not be your friend, but he’s your brother. You spent forever together. That has to mean something. You have to feel something.”

“I do,” I say, and my voice is rough.

She stares at me. “Then you’ll help?”

I inhale—but I’m not sure what my answer will be.

It doesn’t matter anyway, because Harper’s eyes flick beyond me, and she screams.





CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

HARPER

I scramble backward on the cot so quickly that I nearly fall off the other side. The cards scatter everywhere. I can all but taste my heart in my throat. A winged creature fills the doorway, black eyes gleaming in the torchlight, and I don’t know if I should hide under another cot or make a grab for one of Grey’s weapons.

Did Lilith find me? Did she send this monster after me? Did she do this to Rhen? Did she—

“Harper.” Grey is on his feet, a placating hand held out to me. “Be at ease.”

He’s too calm. Too nonchalant.