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

Soft light stirred me from haunting dreams of pain and blood. Dried tears hooked my lashes together and left a film of crust in the corners of my eyes. I rubbed a fist to chase what little sleep I’d gotten away. With a groan I sat straight. I’d fallen asleep outside the door of the garret, and someone had placed a quilt over my body during the early hours.

The alehouse was strikingly quiet. A quiet I could taste.

I brushed my sloppy braid off my shoulder and slowly inched my way into standing. Joints and bones ached. Siv had wrapped my injured leg, and Sven had proffered an herb to help with the pain. My lips were cracked and sticky. Inside my mouth tasted sour. With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I took a careful step down the staircase. The wood groaned under my weight. I held my breath. Nothing came, so I kept my steps light and descended into the aleroom.

I coughed at the harsh scent. Wet blood soaked the floorboards, and it reeked of sweat and innards. Carnage, as though war had been fought here. Father always told us how most folk pissed themselves as they died. A natural response to a failing body. This was how I imagined a battlefield might look and smell.

“He’s outside.”

I turned to meet the raspy, throaty voice.

Tor sat on a window bench, swirling ale in a horn. Swollen lumps had grown under his eyes. The whites were red and dry. His hair was matted in blood and dried sweat. He looked like a man who’d gone to battle.

“Is he . . .”

Tor shook his head. “He’s him now. The morning air helps the healing.”

I took a moment and rinsed my mouth with mint powders in the water closet behind the counter, then returned and sat across from Tor. He didn’t look at me.

“How did he change so swiftly? I thought this only happened on the last moon.”

Tor flicked his eyes to me. “Or when he draws blood from someone. In that case he takes Bevan’s potion. It dulls the change and keeps him on the proper schedule. He killed that man at Ravenspire, then missed a dose, then killed more at your manor. It was a violent change this time. He’ll have maybe eight nights until the true cycle starts again.”

I winced. “Only eight days. What does . . . what does that do to him, being so close?”

“It gets more difficult for him to break out of the call to blood and violence,” Tor said.

“Halvar said . . . he said you must hurt him.”

“Took a long time to figure it out. A curse of bloodlust,” he said bitterly. Tor swirled the drink in his horn. “Meant to make him a monster for the use of vicious men. But it turned him uncontrollable. If he could not find something to break, he’d break himself. Do you know what it’s like to watch a man who is like a brother murder himself over and over, but never die? But he’d do it if it meant saving someone else’s life.”

My stomach lurched. I closed my eyes against the images of it all.

“If we draw the blood, then we can control it. Satiate the curse’s need, and save him some pain, at least.”

“How long has he lived with this?”

“Too long,” was all Tor said.

I stroked the end of my braid and let him drink in silence for a stretched pause. “Thank you, Tor.”

He lifted his weary gaze. “For what?”

I held out my hand, so he dropped his gaze to my fingertips. “For saving me. You and Halvar, it was you who pulled him away.”

“He didn’t know,” Tor said defensively. “He slipped us that night. Understand, he can’t think during the change. He won’t recognize anyone. Not us, not you. Only blood.”

I rested a hand on his arm. “I know. I don’t hate him for what happened. After seeing what he becomes, I can see it isn’t him.”

Tor took another drink. “Thought you’d be gone this morning, if I’m honest.”

“I considered it,” I admitted. “But I made a different choice.”

“You want to help him?”

“I don’t know how I can, but the idea of him suffering through that again . . .”

Tor looked at his hands, a twitch in the corner of his lips. “You’re not so bad, you know. For a royal.”

I scoffed with a grin. “You’re not so bad for a Shade.”

“No, I mean it. You’re different. Something about you calls to him. Even when the curse takes hold. When the fury changed those people, the ones who attacked your manor a week ago, he slipped me again.”

“So, it was fury.”

“Dark fury, to be sure. But Legion, he ran after them. Almost as if he was running to you. Like some deeper instinct knew you needed help.”

I picked at a sliver on the table, trying to mute the tears threatening to fall. “I knew I saw him.”

“I don’t understand it,” Tor said shaking his head. “I’ve never given fate much credit, but he is different with you. He should’ve changed before we reached the alehouse last night. He was able to keep his head until we arrived. I am starting to believe you do have a role to play in all this.”

“May I . . . see him?” There were questions to be asked and answers hopefully to be had.

Tor nodded. “He’ll be weak, but I have no doubt he’ll talk for you.”

Guilt stacked heavy in my stomach. He’d talk with me when I’d caused last night in a way. If I’d given him a chance to speak to me yesterday instead of bolting into the forest, he would’ve taken Bevan’s potion. He wouldn’t have suffered last night.

I rose and left Tor in his cups.

The alehouse was fenced in the back. A little plot of dry grass was home to a few evergreen trees and three mangy goats. To one side, where the sunrise was brightest, Legion was shirtless and facedown on a thin linen sheet. He rested his head on his forearms and appeared to be sleeping. Beside him was a table with a wooden bowl and folded linens. Across his back the angry gashes were pink and swollen, some covered in the linen. Healed swifter than typical wounds to be sure, but still painful looking.

My stomach turned when I recalled the welts I’d seen after he’d left for his ‘ailment’ before. Had I known they were endless stab wounds I would have done all I could to break this curse then and saved him this pain.

It could begin now.

I worried my bottom lip between my teeth and strode across the lawn. He didn’t move as I approached, and his steady breathing hinted that he was asleep. I hesitated, ready to let him rest, but beneath the dried linen a bit of blood had started to run. With care, I took a new cloth and dipped it in the water—ripe with a spice of crushed yarrow and honey. I gently peeled back the old linen, careful not to catch on any skin.

He flinched and his eyes fluttered open. The inky black of his pupils were strangely constricted, so the bits of gold were in bright rings around the center. When he focused on my face, he tried to sit up. “Elise, you shouldn’t—”

“No,” I insisted, a hand on his shoulder, gently easing him back down. Truth be told, it didn’t take much. “Let me.”

His muscles were taut, but he complied and rested his cheek over the tops of his hands. I splashed some of the herb water over the angriest wounds, then unfolded the cloth and rested it on his back so it soaked into the open skin.

“You saw?” His voice was coarse and raw. Beneath it was shame.

Convinced the cloth would do its duty for a time, I curled onto my side, facing him. “You truly don’t remember?”

I know what Tor had said, but it was strange to think his vicious night was utterly blank in his mind.

“Oh, gods,” he groaned. “Did I attack you? Tell me—”

“No,” I said. “You didn’t attack me, but you looked straight at me. Like you knew me or hated me. I couldn’t tell.”

“Probably both, I wouldn’t know. All I recall is madness.” He stared at the fading bruises on his fingernails. “It is like I’m out of myself and only the scent of blood will keep the pain away. A pain that drives me to do anything, to anyone, all to be free of it.”

A tear dripped onto my cheek, and he studied it with a level of distress, as though he misunderstood the reason. I wanted to touch him, but held back, unsure how to do any of this.

“You told me when we first came here, I could ask questions,” I said. “Do you have the strength to hear some now?”

“I will force the strength if I don’t.”

I smiled because he was not a beast, not the Blood Wraith, in this moment he was Legion Grey. “I’m serious,” I insisted. “If you need to rest, I can come back.”

“But would you? Come back, I mean.”

Would I choose him. The true question he was asking. With one finger I brushed a piece of his hair off his brow. He stared at me, surprised, but I answered with a smile. “I would. Now, is that a nudge to leave you be, or . . .”

“Stay,” he said. He relaxed his face back onto his hands. “Ask anything and I will try to answer.”

In my head I organized the questions. There were so many, but a few were more pressing. “Why were you cursed?”

“The first question, and I don’t know the answer.” He let out a sigh. “I remember the curse, remember it was ordered by a Timoran king, though I don’t know which one.”

I lifted one brow. “Which one? You are younger than Zyben.”

“Am I? I don’t know. Elise, I don’t know my real name. Halvar named me.”

“Your pardon? Halvar did what?”

He grinned—sort of—and nodded. “Tor and Halvar know their first names, but after the curse took hold, not one of us remembered mine, nor who any of us were before. Halvar insisted on Legion for the strength of it, so, Legion it became.”

I dabbed the cloth around his back, my fingers gently pressing the herbs into the gnarled skin. He was warm and calm, and I wanted him to stay like this. To never endure another night of such gore again. “I don’t understand, though. You told me of the waif house, of childhood, so surely you must know your age or something about who you were before. Unless it wasn’t the truth.”

“I never lied to you about my past. I do remember a waif house, but I don’t know if it’s a true memory. If I lied, then it is because the memory might be false. Tor does not have the same memory. In fact, he has no childhood at all. And Halvar insists we sailed as children on the Fate’s Ocean. Which one is true?”

“How is that possible?”

“What we take from it is the curse prevents us from knowing exactly who we are, simply that we three have always been together.”

I flashed him a bemused smirk and moved the towel to a different place on his shoulder, inching closer so my knees touched his side. “You must be someone who would be a danger to the throne.”

“Who is to say? Perhaps I was wicked and a killer before. Perhaps the curse magnified evil.”

I snorted a laugh. “I don’t mean to make light of this, but I don’t believe you were evil. Not a chance.”

The barest of grins played at his mouth. “Oh, so sure?”

“Yes,” I said lightly. “No evil man would sit and read books with a silly girl for hours, or offend wealthy, powerful suitors every time they met. I don’t think Herr Gurst will ever forgive you for putting all the choice in my hands.”

Legion chuckled, then groaned, fists clenched when his skin pulled wrong. “Well,” he said through his teeth. “He is more boar than man.”

I smiled and drizzled more water over his wounds. This time I used my hands to gently massage the herbs. His breathing softened. “Do you remember how you were cursed?”

“Yes.” He lifted his head and looked to me. “I call her the enchantress. I can see her in my head, but not her face. I hear her voice casting the spell, the terms of what would become of me.” He dug his hand beneath his chest and tugged on the black stone he kept around his neck. “She gave me this seer stone. It’s filled with strange fury. I suppose to help me figure how to end the curse. But it does not give up secrets easily. Still, it’s led me this far in this game.”

“A game?”

“To me this has always been a game with the throne of New Timoran. A hunt for answers, and at the end we will see if I succeed or remain a beast, the bane of this land.”

I rubbed the sides of my head when my skull ached. Legion winced but rolled onto his side and faced me. We were close, a single pace from each other. He looked so much like the man I’d kissed in the schoolhouse; I could hardly believe the things that had happened since. “And you know how to end the curse, now?”

He lowered his face back to his hands, a burden in his eyes. “Yes. Turns ago we learned a way out.”

“You said I could help. I’m part of this discovery, I presume.”

“Yes.”

“Why did you infiltrate my life?” I finally asked the looming question between us.

He looked down and clutched the seer stone again. “This. For the most part I’m shown writings, or books, or Night Folk spells to help me understand how to break the curse. Slowly, we learned of a place, said to have all the lore, the sagas, the fury to undo any magic. Even the sort from different kingdoms. But we can’t reach it.”

“Why not?”

He picked at the dry blades of grass. “Only a certain royal can open the gates. It is part of the fury that guards the place and keeps it hidden. It is called the Black Tomb.”

I thought of the child witch and how she mentioned a tomb when the queen put her on display. The eerie omen struck me, and now my heart raced, wondering if she could’ve meant this place. I didn’t tell Legion, unwilling to lift his spirits when really, I knew nothing about this.

“So, you picked me because I’m royal.”

“There is a catch,” he explained, a heaviness in his voice. “The royal must be willing to open the tomb and use nothing for themselves.”

He shifted onto his side, his hand coming to rest in the center of us. I thought to take it, but wondered if it might hurt the healing from those razor-sharp claws.

“There’s something you’re not saying.”

He cleared his throat and rubbed one of the red marks on his arm. “There is another piece. Trust, choice, and devotion must be given in equal measure from the royal to me, and me to them. To help must be their choice. You can imagine it is not easy finding a Timoran in the royal house who would care enough to free a monster with formidable fury, yet use none of it to make themselves more powerful.”

“You didn’t know I would, though. Why me?”

He held up the seer stone. “I saw the Lysander manor. I don’t mean to hurt you, but it didn’t take long to find the one who might be the most compassionate in your household.”

Heat filled my cheeks. It was almost laughable to think of my parents or Runa caring about anyone outside of noble Timoran enough to abandon power for themselves. I studied Legion as he studied the grass. Did I care . . . I didn’t even need to finish the thought. I cared. Enough I’d seen him as a cursed creature and still wanted to be here. With him.

“And so you planned everything to get us close to each other.”

He nodded. “I made myself a name in Mellanstrad. I believed more than ever fate played a role when it was clear the second daughter would need a dowry negotiator. I made certain it was me. But the things I said, I never lied, Elise. I thought I would. I thought I would despise you. Truth told, I was hopeless this would ever work because how could I ever give devotion or trust to a Timoran royal, when a royal is who caused this?”

“But you believe you have?” My voice came out in a barely controlled whisper.

His eyes pierced me. “When I told Bevan I was ready in the kitchens—it meant I chose you. That I could honestly give all my loyalty, my devotion, and trust. The protection bond would not have worked otherwise.”

I bit the inside of my cheek and curled my legs beneath me. “This has been . . . so much. I trusted you with everything. But you kept secrets from me, made me believe you . . . wanted things for different reasons.”

He never looked away and I wished he would. There were unsaid things, and I didn’t know if I dared drag them out, or if the truth would hurt worse. Truths that perhaps he did not feel the same things as me or did not want the same things.

“You didn’t tell me you were the Blood Wraith,” I finished.

“Because that is not a name I use. It is a name given to me,” he said angrily. “In moments when I’ve had no control, I was called a Blood Wraith. Fitting, perhaps, but I despise it. I don’t want to be him, Elise.” Fingers still stained in blood, he carefully reached for my hand. His thumb dragged over the two missing tips. “When you told me this, hells I could hardly breathe. I don’t know how you’re still here, still with me.”

I curled my fingers with his and a weight lifted off my shoulders.

“I won’t deny I was terrified at first.” A shy grin played over my lips. “But I’d already given my trust, my devotion, my compassion to Legion Grey. Behind the mask, isn’t that who you are?”

His eyes smoldered in heat. “Yes.”

I swallowed the dryness in my throat, my thumb traced his knuckles. “Well then. There you have it.”

Legion slipped his fingers through mine, pressed the back of my hand to his lips. “You don’t have to do anything more, Elise. After all of it, I see what a disruption this is, how selfish I’ve been—”

“Selfish? This was done to you by Timoran; the least a Timoran can do to make amends is break it.”

“What are you saying?”

That I cannot bear to let you suffer again. Never again. “I plan to finish this. Do you know where the Black Tomb is?”

“Elise—”

“Three hells, what do you want? You slip into my life, drag me to this smelly place, and now you are denying me my sole duty in all this?”

His teeth showed when he smiled. All gods, it was good to see his smile again.

“I would not dream of denying you anything, Kvinna. I’ve no doubt you’d be terrifying should I try.”

“I would be,” I said, hoping he did not see the way my heart raced. “So, what do we do?”

A furrow nestled between his brows. “You’re sure you want to do this? I don’t know what we’ll find once we’re there.”

“Then it will be another adventure.”

The gold faded as more of his smoldering black darkened his eyes. He shook his head and squeezed my hand. “I am forever changed knowing you.”

I dragged out a bit of the bold warrior blood, nestled back on my side, and scooted across the space between us. Our bodies aligned, Legion rested an arm over my waist, and me, a palm on his cheek. His hooded eyes struggled to stay open. I grinned and whispered, “I hope soon you will simply be forever changed into who you once were.”

I rested my head to his damp brow and stayed there until he closed his eyes and at last, slept.