A Heart So Fierce and Broken (The Cursebreaker Series Book 2)

Iisak was wrong. Rhen’s guardsmen haven’t moved on at all.

I do not think they expected to find us—and they definitely were not prepared for us to run directly into their midst. One of them spins Lia Mara around to put a knife at her throat, but he still looks genuinely surprised to find us here.

He looks equally surprised when the tip of my sword finds the pulse point of his neck.

“Let her go,” I say.

Half a dozen soldiers draw their weapons, but I do not lower mine. Lia Mara’s eyes are wide and panicked, her fingers digging into the buckled bracer on the soldier’s arm, trying to drag his blade away from her neck. It’s less convincing than my sword, but either way, he doesn’t let her go.

At my side, Tycho pulls his dagger.

As always, I wish he would run.

The shouts that have followed us from the tavern grow louder, and a crowd spills around the edge of the house. The shouts become a cacophony.

“Is it the heir?” they’re asking. “Right here in Blind Hollow?”

“They found him with her, just like they said. Do you think they’ll kill him?”

My eyes don’t leave the soldier trapping Lia Mara. “I can kill you before you kill her.” I apply a bit of pressure, and blood wells at his neck. He grunts and grits his teeth, but his grip tightens. Lia Mara makes a small sound. Her eyes clench closed, but no blood appears at her neck.

“Drop your sword, Grey,” says a familiar voice from the darkness. “We have you outnumbered.” Dustan moves forward until lantern light finds his features. His sword is in his hand as well, but none of the men have attacked me.

My thoughts have gone cold and dark after the conversation in the tavern, after the reminder of my mother and what she endured from Lilith. When I was a guardsman, I learned to turn off emotion and do what was necessary.

I can do that now.

“Let her go,” I say. “I will not ask you again.”

The soldier sucks away from my blade, but he keeps Lia Mara trapped in his grip. One of her arms hangs limply, and I wonder if he’s dislocated her shoulder in the struggle. She whimpers, and a tear slips down her cheek.

The crowd’s noise has dulled to a hushed murmur at my back.

There are enough soldiers here to overwhelm us. Surely one has an arrow trained on my chest right this moment. But instead of arrogance in the soldiers’ expressions, I find wary regard.

It’s more than just worry for the soldier at the end of my sword.

It takes me a moment to realize they’re afraid of what happened in the castle courtyard. Of what I did in the courtyard.

“He’s just a recruit,” says Dustan. “Don’t kill him for following orders.”

“Then give him new orders.”

Lia Mara gasps again. Either her movement or the guardsman’s has pressed the blade into her skin. Blood appears in a crimson stripe on her throat. Her useless arm dangles against the front of his body. Another tear follows the first.

“She’s the one who saved me,” calls a small voice. It’s Raina, the girl from the tavern. “I told you, Eowen. She’s the one.”

“The Crown is out for blood!” yells a woman.

Dustan’s eyes flick from me to the crowd of people at my back. Rhen allowed fear to dictate his actions, and now his people are turning on him. “We’ll let her go,” he says to me, “if you lay down your sword.”

“I’ve heard that before,” I say.

“Don’t believe him,” shouts a man.

“They killed a man in Kennetty last week!” shouts another.

A piece of red fruit sails out of the darkness to hit the recruit in the head. Another quickly follows. Then what looks like a fistful of manure, thrown by an older man.

“Stop this!” yells Dustan.

Lia Mara’s dangling hand brushes the hilt of the recruit’s dagger. It’s in her hand—and then it’s in his thigh. She’s loose and he’s screaming before I even realize what’s happened.

A brick sails out of the crowd and hits the recruit in the face. He swears, and it knocks him to the ground.

Other guardsmen surge forward. I don’t know if they’re starting for the crowd or for us, but more fruit and bricks start flying. I grab Lia Mara’s hand. Her neck is bleeding, but she’s on her feet. The other soldiers have swarmed forward to meet the rising crowd.

“Grey—” she starts, but I shove her at Tycho.

“Get her out of here,” I say to him. Then I step into the fray.

“Return to your homes!” the guardsmen are shouting, but they’re quickly drowned out by shouting.

The people of the town have weapons ranging from axes and staffs to a few swords. I’m stunned at how quickly the crowd grows to surround us. Their targets are the Royal Guard.

Dustan and his men are trained swordsmen, though, and people from the town fall—quickly. In my years in the Royal Guard, we were never ordered to turn against the people of Emberfall. We never needed to. This is worse than when Rhen was a monster who attacked his people. At least then, he had no awareness of what he was doing.

Blood is in the air, and my blade swings and blocks and parries, but I can’t stop them all at once.

Silver arcs through the air, and I raise my sword to block—just as a fist strikes the side of my head. I go down, a booted foot on my throat, staring up at two guardsmen. One raises his arm, ready to drive his sword right down into my chest. The other aims for my face.

A sword drives into the first man’s side, right at the base of his armor. Above me, an inhuman screech splits the night, and the second soldier lifts from the ground, only to be slashed by claws. Both crumple around me.

I blink, and Jacob is holding out a hand to me. His other hand holds a bloody sword. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” I take his hand, and he pulls me to my feet. A short distance away, Noah is on his knees, trying to help a villager with an arrow through his leg. Behind him, a guardsman lifts his sword.

Jacob must see it at the same instant. “Noah!” He tries to rush forward, but he’ll never beat a sword.

I swipe the throwing blades from the guards that fell around us, and just as quickly, they’re spinning free of my hands. The guard standing over Noah takes one in the neck and one in the head. He falls almost instantly.

Jacob spins, his mouth open in surprise, but I’m already swiping more blades, aiming for the guards that have rushed in to replace the others. “Cover my back,” I say to him.

He does, just as another guardsman appears out of the darkness. I’m ready with a throwing blade, but Jacob surges forward with his weapon fearlessly.

Iisak screeches again, and another guard is lifted from the crowd. Blood rains from his skin, and people scream. Others cheer. The scraver’s wings beat at the night sky, and the soldier’s body drops, just as lifeless.

“Retreat!” Dustan yells, and the strangled panic in his voice is clear. “Retreat!”

The remaining guardsmen turn and run.

A cheer rises from the townspeople. Blood speckles many faces. Arms are upraised in victory.

Noah is still on his knees in the mud. He’s trying to help one of the fallen guards now, but I can tell from here that it’s a lost cause. Beside me, Jacob is breathing heavily. “What the hell just happened?” he says.

I’m scanning the faces around us, the bodies on the ground. “Did Tycho and Lia Mara make it to the woods?”

“We met them halfway. We saw the guards turning back, and we were coming to warn—”

A hand closes on my arm, and I whirl, a knife half raised, but I find myself facing a middle-aged woman with graying hair in a long, ropy braid. “The guards were after you,” she says.

A man with missing teeth presses close and speaks with a hush in his voice. “The winged creature answered your call.”

“They said the heir has magic!” calls another man. “Did he conjure the creature?”

“You helped drive them away,” says another woman.

“What’s happening here?” says Jacob.

I pull away from the townspeople and reclaim my sword from where it’s fallen. “We need to get to the woods.”

The cheering has stopped, but I’m gaining more attention. A murmur runs through the crowd. Torches swing close, sending a flickering light across dozens of faces. I long for the days when I was invisible because all eyes were on the royal family. I keep my eyes down and push through the crowd. Hands reach for me and people press close as I pass, brushing against my bare arms, my clenched hands, my back. Every instinct I have cries for me to draw my sword and force these people to disperse, but I cannot. They drove away the soldiers. They helped me.

Jacob is not as patient. He falls back a step and yanks his sword free. “Hey! If you think he might be your heir, then back off.”

It earns us a circle of space in which to move, and I stride forward.

I glance at him. “My thanks.”

He holds my eyes a moment too long. “No problem.”

Ahead, a group of people is clustered around someone on the ground. More torches flicker in the night, along with a few lanterns. A woman is crying. Blood coats the road.

As we draw closer, I realize the crying woman is the one on the ground. Her clothes are soaked in blood, her hands clutching her swollen belly. Even in the torchlight, I can tell her skin is ashen. Behind me, Jacob swears.

A man and a girl are kneeling beside the pregnant woman. The girl has the woman’s hand clasped between her own.

When the girl looks up, I realize it’s Lia Mara.

She did not run. She did not hide.

“Grey,” she says, her voice wavering. “Grey, you have to help her.”

“I’ll find Noah,” says Jacob.

I drop to a knee beside the woman. Tears have formed tracks through the blood on her face. Brown eyes blink up at me. “The baby. I’m going to lose the baby.” She clenches her eyes and more tears flow.

“No,” says Lia Mara softly. “No, the baby will be fine.”

A knife hilt protrudes from the woman’s abdomen, buried just below her rib cage.

Lia Mara’s eyes meet mine. I see the plea there.

Breath eases from my lungs. This is more than a slice across the wrist. This is more than half-healed whip marks.

Jacob reappears, skidding on the blood- and mud-slicked cobblestones. “Noah is helping a guy who got trampled by one of the soldiers’ horses.” Then he must see the knife hilt as well, because he lets out a breath and says, “Whoa.”

I look at the woman. “May I touch you?”

She nods. Her eyes are wide and glassy. “Please,” she whispers. Her breathing is ragged and fast, and I suspect her lung has been nicked by the blade. “Please.”

I watched my mother bear eight other children. This woman does not seem large enough to be far into her pregnancy, though I am far from an expert. I am better at taking lives than preserving them. I place my hand near the knife hilt. Throwing blades are not very long, but they’re long enough to do some damage. If I pull the weapon, she could bleed to death.

Under my hand, her belly twitches and shifts. The woman gasps, and fresh tears roll down her cheeks. “It moved.”

Lia Mara smiles. “See? Your baby will live.” She saves the worry in her expression for me. For this baby to live, the mother needs to live.

The stars in my blood sit ready, flickering beneath my skin. I try to remember the way it felt with Lia Mara or with Tycho, how the magic leapt from my skin to theirs. I press both hands around the hilt and try to clear my mind. The woman whimpers.

“Shh,” Lia Mara says. She leans down close and presses a hand to the woman’s cheek. “Look at me,” she croons softly. “Your baby will be fine.”

“Jacob,” I say, my voice low.

“Yeah.”

“Pull the knife.”

He does not hesitate. The blade slips free. The woman cries out. Blood pours over my hands. The stars under my skin spark and flare and swirl.

Blood continues to flow.

“It’s not working,” says Jacob.

I take a breath and focus. I press my fingers against the wound, but it does nothing to stop the blood. The magic refuses to make the leap to save her. She’ll be dead in minutes.

“Gently,” whispers Lia Mara.

Gently. I think of Tycho in the loft. I think of Lia Mara whispering against my fingertips. The stars spin and sparkle and begin to crowd my vision, adding light to the world. I need them to be faster, to close this wound and save this young mother. Lia Mara compared this to swordplay, but she was wrong. This is like grabbing hold of a sunbeam and telling it where to shine.

But the sparks and stars swirl more readily now, moving where I direct. Blood no longer flows over my fingertips. A fluttering brushes against my hand. The baby moves again.

I blink, and the stars scatter. The woman’s chest lifts, and she lets out a sigh. Her eyes have fallen closed.

“The bleeding stopped,” says Jacob.

I move my hands and widen the tear in the woman’s clothing. No wound exists anymore.

I drag a wrist across my suddenly damp forehead and let out a breath.

“She is healed!” yells a man at my back, and a cheer goes up among the crowd. “He has magic!”

“It is the heir!” says a woman. Her voice lifts to cry out to the crowd. “His magic healed Mina!”

Then she drops to her knees.

I suck in a breath, but a man behind her does the same. Then another. A murmur runs through the crowd, and they all begin to kneel.

“We need to leave this place,” I say to Lia Mara. She nods quickly.

When I stand, I expect to have to push through the waiting people, but to my surprise, Tycho stands there. Blood is in his hair and in streaks on his cheeks, but he looks uninjured. A small boy hangs in his arms, wailing.

“The guards trampled people to flee,” Tycho says. “His leg is shattered.”

A woman pushes past Tycho to drop to her knees in front of me. Her clothes are mud spattered and her hair has pulled loose from a braid. She grabs for my hand, clutching at me with surprising strength. “Please, Your Highness. Please help him.”

I want to flinch at the title—but flinching feels like a luxury when people are truly suffering.

I nod at the woman. “I’ll try.”