Curse of Shadows and Thorns: A Dark Fantasy Romance (The Broken Kingdoms Book 1)

“You poison this land!” the man bellowed. “Hail the Night Prince!”

An Agitator’s cry. They often shouted praises to the Night Prince. This man was without the blackness in his eyes, but had as much hatred as those from a few nights ago.

The blade pierced the sensitive skin under my jaw. Any deeper, he’d ram the tip to my brain; cleaner than slitting my throat. It was a similar strike to what Siv had taught—brutal and would kill good enough.

Either I fought or I died.

The Agitator teased me, played with my fear, and in the interim my fingers curled around a broken stone. I slammed the edge against the man’s head. With a grunt, he lost control of his blade, his body crumbled over me. I jutted my knee against the soft upper part of his thigh. He groaned and rolled off me, snatching his knife.

I scrambled to my feet, drawing the kitchen knife from my boot, raising my weapon as he raised his once more.

“You poison this land,” he said through a wheeze. “Hail—”

“Yes, you said that already,” I snarled. With the point of my blade aimed at the grass, I lunged.

The man parried with more skill than me. The edge of his knife nicked my wrist, swift and deep. Heat from my blood dripped from beneath my lace gloves. I slashed at him again. In my head I replayed each step Mattis and Siv had shown me over the turns. Lunge, parry, dip, jab. Behind me, the grass rustled, and men grunted and cursed. Legion must’ve taken the assailant from the trees.

“Elise!” he shouted. “Run!”

At that, the man in front of me chased the space between us. I cut my knife at his chest.

“Can’t!” I screamed back.

The man dodged my blow, but a swing with his hand caught my jaw. He gripped my wrist as I stumbled, and he dragged me against his body. In a few swift motions, he had the knife free from my hand and tossed five paces away. With teeth bared, he laughed the more I struggled.

“Death to imposters.”

Bile scraped the back of my throat. This? This is how I’d die. The point of his blade jabbed into the space above my hip. I gasped at the pain. Sharp and icy hot. He’d take me slowly, savoring the way blood soaked my dress, the way his blade carved my flesh.

The hate in his eyes darkened.

His sneer curled like a wolf.

A breath of swift air came, followed by a wet cough, and a splatter of something hot on my cheek.

My eyes widened. Below the lump of his throat, an arrow, dark with blood, pointed out from his neck. The man choked and spluttered. His knife dug a little more. Somewhere in the haze I found the strength to shove him away. I fumbled back as he fell to the ground, his last breath gone before he hit the dirt.

At the line of the trees, Halvar lowered a bow. My palm curled around the hilt of the knife still buried above my hip. I cried out as I yanked it from my body. Not terribly deep, but enough I’d either made a fatal mistake and I’d bleed out, or at the least I’d need a good stitch.

The struggle at my back grew louder.

My fingertips went numb when I watched the second hooded man lash at Legion.

“You do not want to see what becomes of you if I make you bleed,” Legion said in a low snarl, eyes like fiery coals.

The attacker moved like a wraith. The next step drew a frenzied curse from Legion. A long gash cut across his thigh. He staggered away to regroup, but the hooded man already had his knife aimed for a killing blow.

I gathered my lost knife and ran.

A fog built in my skull. Movement became rote, almost an instinct. Legion rolled his dagger in hand, ready to fight. To kill or die. The deep gash in his leg hinted at the latter. I didn’t know the best place to land a blow, only that in this moment it was a choice between a good man living and a brutal stranger dying.

One pace from the hooded man, I stabbed my knife through the meat of his back. He roared his pain. He crumbled over his knees. Legion’s eyes were ablaze, but they locked on me, wild with astonishment.

Another breath and he came to his senses and finished knocking the hooded man to his back, using his dagger to pin the man’s hand to the ground. His cries would become the sound of nightmares.

“Who are you!” Legion shouted.

“Agitators,” Halvar said, breathlessly.

“Kill me in service of the Night Prince and I will be a thing of legend.” Blood glistened on the grass from the knife in the man’s back. His skin grew pallid. Legion dug his knife deeper into the man’s palm, but it seemed the attacker had gone numb. He didn’t cry out.

Halvar nudged Legion’s arm. “Enough,” he said more like a command. My escort didn’t move, he remained fixated on carving at the small bones of the attacker’s palm, a flash of red in his eyes, rage on his face as more blood flowed. Halvar shoved Legion now. “I said enough!”

As through a trance, Legion blinked. He shook his head and released the blade, hurrying away from the hooded man. I wanted to reach for him, ask if he was injured terribly, but I was as stone, cold and still.

A shuddering breath, one flutter of his eyes, and the last of our attackers faded to the hells. I trembled. Blood stained my hands that was not my own.

I’d killed him, killed a man.

“Elise.”

The gentle thrum of my name hit my senses as though underwater.

“Elise.” Legion. He was speaking. I raised my gaze. He tilted his head and stepped next to me, hand covering mine, unafraid of the slick blood. “Are you injured?”

Was I? Yes. I’d been stabbed, but the pain of the steel in my side was nothing to this burning knot in my chest.

“I . . . killed him.” I had wanted to kill the man. A frenzy of desire to see him bleed at my feet had come so abruptly I hadn’t noticed until now. And I’d done it. I’d taken a life. A life someone, somewhere out there cared for. I’d ripped it from existence.

“He left you no choice,” Legion said. Gently, he ran his fingers over the gash above my hips. At the sight of it, my knees buckled. His arms curled around my waist, holding me up. “I’ve got you. Halvar,” he faced the driver, “a little help.”

Halvar slung my arm over his shoulder and helped Legion limp me back to the hansom.

Through tears, I glanced at Legion’s bloodied leg. “You . . . need help.”

“I’ll survive,” he said. “I always do.”

How had the smirk returned to his face so quickly? I doubted I’d smile again.

In the cab, Legion drew me against his side. I was grateful. Now that my heart had settled back in my chest, I couldn’t stop shivering. My head reeled through each moment. All I saw was red in the corner of my eyes.

Did this mean I was a murderer? How could Legion sit so near me. I tried to scoot away, but his strong arm held me against the warmth of his side.

“Your body is going into a stun,” he whispered. “Staying warm will help.”

Battle stun. I’d heard of warriors falling into an illness from loss of blood that sometimes finished them off before the wound.

“You drew blood, and the sun is setting,” Halvar hissed.

“Then hurry,” Legion clipped back.

The stable hand mounted the driver’s bench, the cab swaying under his weight. “I told you she fights back.”

“Yes,” Legion agreed. I wanted to shout at both men that I was bred of warriors and was not some damsel they needed to pander to. Legion tightened his hold on my shoulders, drawing me close to his body. “Why do they flock to me?”

Who? The Agitators?

I lifted my head to ask him, but Legion rested on warm palm against my face. “Elise, sleep now.”

How could I sleep when my body was alive with nerves? “You . . . need help.”

Legion tightened his hold on my face, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw. I hoped he’d never stop. “I need you to sleep.”

Exhaustion draped over me in heavy, palpable waves. Fear, too. “I won’t wake up.” My voice came soft and haggard.

“You will.” Legion’s voice trembled through my body, I felt it to my bones. “Today is not the day you die.”

My head drooped onto his shoulder and my mind faded into thick, syrupy black.

A knife pierced my skull. No question, someone was carving through my bones. My lashes stuck as I cracked my eyes. Abysmal light burned. I winced.

I was bleeding over the soft, fur coverlets on my own bed.

At my side, Mavie washed the blood from my fingers, tears on her cheeks. I had many things I wanted to say, but my mind fought me.

Again, I closed my eyes and embraced the oblivion.

When I woke again, the room was lighted by an oil lantern on a table with a bowl of stew. Hand on my head, I sat up. The skin around my middle tightened. Through the thin chemise I wore, a new linen bandage wrapped my hip bone.

“Mavie sewed you up.”

I lifted my gaze. Runa closed a book and rose from the sitting chair. Her hair was loose about her shoulders and reminded me of pale silk. “Mother and father have both visited, as well. And Ravenspire has vowed to hold no mercy for any Agitator. In your name, our uncle has vowed, they will die.”

I didn’t want to know how much more blood would spill because of this. There had already been enough. I wanted to know one thing. “Legion,” I croaked out. “How is he?”

“He insisted his wound needed the attention of the healer in town. I saw no wound and have not seen him since. Honestly, I think daj is furious he left in such haste. It sent him into another fit of coughing and he has ranted deliriously about his need to be informed on the details ever since.”

My brow furrowed. “Legion was wounded. I saw it. His wounds were greater than mine.”

Runa shrugged and sat on the side of my bed. She brushed my hair off my brow. “As you say. I’m sure he’s still resting, then.”

How could she have missed the blood on Legion’s leg? “How long has he been gone?”

“Elise, I don’t know—all night. As long as you’ve been sleeping.” A new day. The faintest hint of gray dawn broke the black sky. I dropped my legs off the side of the bed, but Runa placed her hands on my shoulders. “No, stay down. You’ll get dizzy again. You’ve been muttering all night.”

The door opened and Mavie entered with a carafe and wooden cups. With a touch of reluctance, Runa took the cups from Mavie so she could kneel beside the bed. Mavie’s eyes were wet as she took my hand. “The way he carried you in . . . I thought for sure you were dead.”

“Legion?”

Mavie nodded. “He brought you in, gave instructions to your care like a bleeding king, then left with Halvar and Tor. Siv was sent after them, too. To help, I suppose.”

Siv? A flash of anxiety clenched my chest. Both Legion and Siverie had explained nothing malicious was between them. Siv could help Legion heal. They would both return without trouble. I couldn’t accept another option.

Runa snorted a laugh and poured some water. “Honestly, maybe that’s why daj is so upset. Another man making demands in his household.”

“I want to know he’s all right.”

“Later,” Runa insisted. She handed me the water. “What happened out there?”

I took a sip; the coolness soothed the burn in my throat. “I don’t know. We were alone, then the Agitators came from the trees.”

“Those bastards don’t know when to stop.”

I closed my eyes against the memory of killing the man. The tears were relentless, though, and came anyway.

I dropped my legs off the side of the bed. “I’ve rested enough.”

Mavie seemed ready to protest, but Runa interrupted. “Very well. Mavie, would you draw a bath? No doubt, our parents will be needing to speak to Elise anyway.”

Mavie dipped her head, offered a final glance my way, and disappeared into the washroom.

I cared little about repeating the details to my parents. I didn’t want to relive it. I wanted—needed—to find out what had become of Legion Grey.