A Vow So Bold and Deadly (The Cursebreaker Series Book 3)

Harper is curled against me, her breathing slow and even, but sleep eludes me as usual. The darkness presses against the windows and swells into the room like a silent visitor. The fire in the hearth has dropped to glowing embers, providing little light, but I don’t mind. In the dark, it’s easy to pretend there are no worries waiting for me outside her chamber doors. I’m warm and content, and Harper is at my side.

I want to touch her, to reassure myself that she is real, that she is here, that fate must not hate me as much as I thought.

Yield to yourself. Yield to forgiveness. Yield to happiness.

Happiness—is that what this is? The word doesn’t feel strong enough. I forget, so often, that the most powerful moments in my life rarely end up being about my kingdom, or about a war, or about even my subjects. I forget that the world can narrow down to two people, to a moment of vulnerability and trust. To a moment of love that seems to outshine all the rest.

I told Harper that it’s been a very long time, but being with her was like the first time. The only time it’s ever meant so much. I want to wrap myself around her and never let go. I want to bury a sword in the chest of anyone who’d dare to hurt her.

As if my thoughts wake her, Harper shifts and blinks up at me. “You’re not sleeping.”

I roll up on one elbow and trace a finger along her cheek, then take a moment to revel in the fact that I can. We spent so many weeks treading carefully around each other that it feels like I have finally earned the privilege to touch her. “You sound surprised.”

She blushes and nestles under the blankets until only her eyes and her curls are visible. “I thought you’d be tired.”

I touch my nose to hers and whisper, “I am.”

She doesn’t smile. Her hand slips from under the blankets to press against my cheek. I turn my head to place a kiss on her palm.

She’s still studying me. “Are you … are you still going to try for peace?”

She says it hesitantly, as if she expects me to walk back my vow. Last night, she spoke of her father, of all the ways he disappointed her mother, and I wonder if she worries the same about me. It tugs at my happiness, but I know trust is not something you win once, but is instead something you must earn over and over again. I nod and watch relief bloom in her eyes.

“I will send word to the regiment at the border to hold their position. I will have a delegation send word to Syhl Shallow that I would like … I would like to hear his terms.” It’s harder to say the words than I expect. So much has happened between me and Grey, and I cannot ignore the fact that he now bears magic. That he now stands with a country that caused so much harm to Emberfall. Negotiating some kind of treaty with him feels akin to negotiating one with Lilith, and my chest tightens.

“It’ll be okay,” Harper whispers. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”

She cannot promise. She does not know.

“Anything is better than all-out war,” she says, and my eyes lock on hers.

“Anything?” says a female voice in the corner of my room, a glittering shadow near the hearth. Ice slips down my spine at Lilith’s voice. “Anything at all? Are you sure, Princess?”

“Get out.” My eyes snap to the side table, where I tossed the dagger Chesleigh brought me. It’s behind Harper, just out of arm’s reach.

The enchantress slides out of the shadows. Normally, she’s laced up in elegance and finery, the perfect courtly attire of a lady, but tonight she’s in a violet dressing gown tied with a stretch of black satin, the fabric shifting across her body as she slips out of the darkness.

“Such a turn of events,” she says, her voice a dangerous hiss of sound.

“He told you to get out,” says Harper.

Lilith doesn’t stop approaching the bed. “He does not command me, girl.” Her voice is edged, angry, which is unusual. Normally she’s playful. Truly terrible, but playful while she’s wreaking havoc.

“What do you want?”

“It sounds as though you are attempting to change the terms,” she says. She reaches the bed, and instead of stopping, she climbs onto the blankets, crawling toward us, her movements slow and languorous. Harper clutches the sheets to her chest and shoves herself backward until her shoulders hit the headboard.

Lilith smiles, but she doesn’t go after Harper.

She goes after me. Her hand strokes up the length of my leg under the blanket, and I try to scramble back.

But she freezes. Harper appears beside her, the dagger clutched in her hand. “Care to lose an eye?”

My heart stutters in my chest. I don’t know if Harper knows what that dagger could do. I don’t know if it works at all. As always, I have so many hopes and so many plans and so many wishes, but the results always depend on fate.

And fate seems to hate me so very much.

“This reminds me of another time,” says Lilith, and that dark look hasn’t left her eyes. “When the sheets were rumpled and warm and the room was full of privileged satisfaction.”

She slashes her nails across my body. They slice through the sheets. They slice through everything. Fire tears across my abdomen.

“Rhen!” shouts Harper. She lurches forward with the dagger, but my vision is full of spots and flares and I can’t tell if she makes contact.

“When the room was full of blood,” says Lilith.

She does it again. I can taste my own blood, and I don’t know if I’ve bitten my tongue or if there’s just so much of it. I can’t feel anything but the pain, and her weight is on my body now.

Harper screams.

Lilith screams.

“Run,” I shout to Harper. “Run.”

Lilith’s face appears above mine, and blood is in a long crimson streak on her face. “You were mine,” she hisses. Her nails claw down the front of my chest. I swear her nails scrape my ribs, and I cry out. “You thought your broken girl could stand against me with that?”

Harper is shouting, but my brain can’t make sense of the words. I don’t know if she’s hurt, if she’s fighting, if she’s running, if she’s dying.

Lilith’s nails drag across my face. I feel my eyelid pull and tear, and suddenly that eye is blind with a wash of blood—or worse.

More shouts fill the room. My guards, led by Dustan and Zo.

“Harper,” I gasp. “Harper, run.”

“Stop!” Lilith screeches. “Stop thinking of her!” The windows shatter, exploding with glass that rattles across the floor. An icy wind sweeps through the room. I swing a fist to strike at her, but she catches my arm, and I feel the bones grind together. The pain is blinding. I try to breathe through it. I try to live through it.

She grips my jaw, and her eyes fill my vision. “You’re going to watch her die,” she says, her breath hot against my lips.

“I’m going to watch you die,” I grit out.

She smiles—but then she’s ripped away from me. I blink through blood and see Dustan bury a sword in her abdomen. She gasps, clutching at the blade. For an instant, he looks viciously victorious, but I know better.

“Run,” I choke out. I can’t watch her harm my people. “Get out. That is—an order.”

Lilith takes hold of the blade bare-handed, dragging it free, the look on her face almost euphoric. Her silk dressing gown has spilled open, revealing a stretch of naked body, the sword bringing blood and other viscera with it. There’s another wound, higher, pouring blood from her shoulder.

Dustan stares at her in horror.

He needs to run. He needs to run. He needs to run.

“Run,” I gasp. “Dustan—”

Lilith tears out his throat with her bare hands.

His body drops, lifeless.

She turns for the guards who were standing at his back, their swords ready. In her fist, she’s clutching the skin and muscle that she tore away from his neck, blood dripping down her wrist.

They blanch. Their swords clatter to the ground. They run.

I’ve seen it all before, when she first issued the curse.

It’s no better the second time.

My eyes finally find Harper. She’s got a bloodied dagger in her hand, but Zo is in front of her. I barely register that Zo has found my bow and quiver in the corner before an arrow is flying.

One strikes the enchantress through the neck. Then another through her shoulder. Another through the leg. Lilith staggers to her knees.

Another through her back. The enchantress is hissing, jerking at the weapons. She pulls one free of her neck and blood spills down her shoulder, but the wound closes just like the others in her abdomen.

That one slice in her shoulder remains unhealed, and blood continues to pulse from the wound. I stare at it, but my eyes don’t want to focus and all I can think about is Harper.

Zo grabs the last arrow from the quiver. Her eyes are wide and afraid, but she takes aim.

“Rhen.” Harper tries to limp past Zo to get to me.

“Go!” I cry. I try to get off the bed, but my knees won’t hold me. “Zo—get her out. Get her out.”

“No!” Harper screams.

Lilith stops jerking at the arrows. She’s braced a hand against the floor, and she’s wheezing now. This won’t stop her, though, I know.

It’ll just make it worse.

She grabs Dustan’s lifeless wrist, pulling one of his throwing blades free. I realize what she intends to do, and I leap for her.

I’m too slow to stop the throw, and all I do is affect her aim. The blade doesn’t drive into Harper’s chest or neck—it buries itself in her upper thigh. She falls.

Lilith scrabbles for another.

“Zo!” I call. “Get her out. Get them all out.”

Zo fires her last arrow, and it takes Lilith in the shoulder, throwing her forward. It puts us eye to eye again. But behind her, I see Zo drag Harper into the hallway. Zo is shouting orders at the guards who must be running to assist.

My body is in agony. I can’t stand. I can’t move. But suddenly it’s silent. I’m alone with the enchantress.

For the longest time, I listen to Lilith’s wheezing breath. I listen to my own.

The world begins to go spotty. Blood is pooling on the marble floor around me. Maybe she’s finally done it. Maybe she’s killed me.

But Harper got away. She got out.

Eventually, I hear a sickening pop, and I realize Lilith is pulling the arrows free, one by one.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

I blink at her. Only one eye works. I reach a hand to touch my cheek and find a mass of broken skin and blood. I try not to whimper, and fail. I wish for death to find me.

Lilith leans down and kisses me. There’s blood on her lips. “I like you better like this,” she whispers.

She got away. I lock my thoughts on that. Only that. Lilith can do what she wants to me. Harper got away. She’s safe. Zo will keep her safe.

“Finish it,” I breathe.

“Oh, no, Your Highness.” She kisses me again, and my body involuntarily shudders. “You know I need you.” She traces a tongue across my lips. “Now wait here while I go rip out her heart, the way you ripped out mine.”