Chapter 18

Darkness. Pain. Darkness and pain. Annalise opened her eyes to the sight of a fire crackling several feet away. She tried to sit up and groaned when her head protested. Her thoughts felt like they were made of sodden wool–heavy, swollen, and difficult to move. She lay atop a ragged fur pelt and could hear men’s voices from around the fire halfway across the clearing, although she couldn’t make out what they were saying. Before they’d left Colonel Lennil’s garrison, Soren had told her about the possibility of bandits and she’d tried to remain on guard during the journey over the pass, but nothing could have prepared her for how fast they struck, or the violence with which they abducted her. 

It had been four days since her captors had ripped her from her carriage. After what felt like several hours of riding through the dark forest, her captors met up with a larger group nearly twenty strong. Every morning, they broke camp at dawn and only stopped when they could barely see the ground in front of them. She’d stayed quiet and bided her time, hoping they would give her an opening, but so far there had been none. Even her hopes of using her curse had been dashed—they kept her hands bound and tied to a tree while setting up camp, and when they were on the move, they tied her to her saddle. The rare times she was allowed to eat, she did so at sword and bow-point. There would be no chance of slipping off a glove or spitting on an unsuspecting bandit, especially with the mask still in place. 

She’d had one opportunity the day before to attempt an escape, but even that had failed, and her captors retaliated by drugging her water to the point she’d spent most of the day moving in a drug-induced haze and barely able to control her body. When she’d finally dismounted as they set up camp, her legs crumpled underneath her, and she’d crashed to the ground and slammed her face on a log half-hidden in the snow. Her mask took the brunt of the force, although parts of her jaw were tender and swollen to the touch. The mask hadn’t fared nearly as well, and a large piece that ran over her swollen cheek, part of the nose bridge, and down the chin had broken off, leaving a jagged edge behind. 

One of the bandits brought a bowl of barley stew with bits of dried meat floating in it, and Annalise groaned and closed her eyes. If her kidnappers kept their schedule once she’d eaten, they’d escort her to a tent set up near the fire where she would try to catch a few hours of sleep under armed guard before they woke her before dawn to continue their journey. They refused to answer her questions or speak within earshot of her. She still didn’t know why they’d abducted her, what they wanted, or where they were taking her, but she’d been through far too much to give up now. 

She stared down at the bowl. She was so hungry, but her mind was starting to clear, and she worried that they’d drugged her food. A quick glance around confirmed that none of the men were watching her at the moment, and with trembling bound hands she poured the stew onto the ground and kicked snow over it to disguise what she’d done. She scooped a few handfuls of clean snow into her bowl and ate that, hoping it might fill her belly a little and keep the hunger pangs away. She knew Soren would come to her rescue eventually; she just had to hold on until he arrived.

Shouts. Screams. The Dovean war cry. Figures fighting and flailing in the darkness. 

Annalise jerked her head up to see several bandits peel off from the group near the fire and run towards her. They grabbed her roughly. She screamed and tried to fight them off, but one of them threw her to the ground and kicked her three times in quick succession. Green light lit up the night, and unearthly screams echoed through the clearing. The undeniable presence of a mage made Annalise’s blood run cold. 

Magic users, mages, were rare in Dovea, although not entirely unheard of. King Evert employed a handful who traveled throughout the kingdom in service to the crown, and others had come from far and wide to lift her curse, but overall she’d seen very little actual magic performed. If the bandits had a mage, her rescue party was in deep trouble. Before she had time to think any further, someone jerked her to her feet, and then spun her around so that her back was to her captor and a knife pressed to her throat. 

“Don’t get your hopes up, little girl,” the man behind her growled. His stinking breath made Annalise want to expel the contents of her empty stomach. “Our mage is quite powerful and has a taste for blood.” The knife pressed into her skin. Without thinking, Annalise swallowed and felt a brief sting followed by a trickle of something warm down her throat. “Be still, Princess. There’s no use trying to save yourself; if your rescuers somehow miraculously best my men, I’ll make sure that the only thing they rescue is your warm corpse.” 

The words struck fear into Annalise’s heart, but she refused to lose herself to hysteria. She forced herself to take as deep breaths as she dared, in through her nose and out through her mouth, and focused on what she knew. 

She was held captive.

Soren had sent a rescue party. 

Her abductors had a mage and appeared much more experienced than she’d originally given them credit for. 

If she didn’t do something, she would die. 

Annalise reached to the base of her throat and trailed her gloved fingers through the warm blood trickling from the bleeding cut. In the darkness and confusion, she hadn’t seen if her assailant was wearing gloves, but hoped that he’d been too distracted to put them on before running to her. She knew she was gambling with her life, but she refused to be a pretty object who couldn’t defend herself. 

What was the point of having a deadly curse if she didn’t use it when there were no other options?

She waited until another bright flash of mage fire spiked through the clearing, throwing everything into stark relief, and then in the darkness immediately after, reached up and brushed her fingers over the hand holding the knife. 

It took only a moment for her curse to take effect. The man yelped, and the pressure against her throat eased. 

Annalise darted forward, but she was far too slow, and he grabbed her shoulder. She turned, and in the faint light from the fire, clawed at the man’s face and throat, leaving a trail of bloody fingerprints behind. He immediately let go of her and clutched at his head.

She didn’t have long to celebrate her new freedom—two other bandits were already advancing. Her neck was bleeding worse; when the man with the knife yelped, she’d jerked backwards, but he’d still managed to drag the knife over the side of her neck. The wound wasn’t deep enough to kill her, but she could feel the blood trickling freely to her collarbone. 

Thinking quickly, Annalise removed her gloves and brought both hands to her neck, covering them in her blood. When the two bandits advanced within range, she flicked the blood at one of them while lunging for the other, ducking under his arm and shoving her hands into the junction of his neck and shoulder.  

Their twin shrieks of pain cut through the night like the cry of a screech owl. Annalise stepped around their writhing bodies and returned to the side of the first man, who now lay still on the ground. She picked up his knife, then rolled him onto his stomach, searching for weapons, and was rewarded with a battle ax hanging in a scabbard at his back. She didn’t know how to use the weapon, but she’d watched the soldiers and noblemen at her father’s tourneys, and had seen the castle servants chop wood.

The ax was heavy in her hands and cumbersome to wield, but she was Annalise, the cursed Crown Princess of Dovea, and she refused to go down without a fight. 

She wiped her blood over the blade of the ax, then used the knife to slice a length off her petticoats and wrapped the fabric around her neck to bandage her wound. The cut was shallow and wouldn’t cause her any long-term harm, but the more she bled, the greater chance someone innocent might get hurt. 

The fight was still going on around the fire, but Annalise knew better than to jump into the chaos with an unfamiliar weapon. Instead, she put her back against the large tree and crouched. If anyone dared threaten her, she’d make sure they regretted it.

At some point in the confusion, the number of people in the clearing doubled, and there was no more green mage fire. In the darkness, it was hard to tell who belonged to which side, but she caught flashes of silver and blue amongst the men still fighting. Finally, the Dovean man nearest her speared the last bandit through the chest. After his opponent fell, the man teetered on his feet, but used his sword to stabilize himself. A small group of individuals stepped towards him and asked something, but he shook his head and waved them off. 

“Princess Annalise, where are you?” Annalise relaxed as Soren’s voice, wild with worry and alarm, broke the silence. 

“I’m here,” Annalise called back. She hefted the ax in her hands, ready to respond if it was a trick or if an unseen enemy was lurking in the darkness beyond the ring of the fire. 

“Stay there. Don’t move, I’ll come to you.” Soren’s silhouette dipped his head towards the others, then nodded as if agreeing with whatever they said. She could just barely make out that instead of Dovean blue and silver they wore some type of homespun cloth, although it wasn’t the same colors or cut as what the bandits had used and was hard to see any other details in the fire’s light. They spread out around the clearing, a few taking up station to either side of Annalise, separated by nearly twenty feet. She tensed, but they weren’t looking at her and were instead facing the forest with bows at the ready. 

Soren walked to her, sword still in hand. She noted with some alarm that he was limping so badly his right leg was dragging half a step behind him. 

At just that moment, the cloudy night parted and the nearly full moon shone brightly down on them. 

“Oh, Annalise, you’re okay. I was so worried,” Soren said, his voice hardly more than a whisper when he stopped in front of her. His expression turned from relieved to stormy when he took in her cracked mask and the bandage around her neck.

“Who did this to you?” he growled. He lifted the tip of his sword just a fraction, as if ready to mete out retribution to whoever dared injure her.  

“Those men.” She nodded to the three corpses near them at the edge of the clearing. “One of them had a knife.” 

“Let me see.” He reached out for her, but she took a half-step back, shaking her head. “I’m covered in blood.”

He glanced down at her gloved hands, which were soaked with blood, then at the ax that she still clutched, and his jaw tightened. “Okay, in that case, let’s go to the fire. I need to see how badly you’re hurt.” 

As they entered the ring of light, the events of the past ten minutes hit Annalise like a boulder. She let the heavy ax slip from her grasp with a thud and then, in the next step, sank to her knees in shock, fighting for breath. She hated her curse almost as much as she hated using it, and yet, in only a couple of months, she’d killed four people. Her fingers twitched as she registered the sticky blood soaking her gloves, and she dry-heaved at the memory of their tortured screams as the curse had taken its toll.

Soren had turned when he heard the ax drop. She looked up at him now, struck momentarily speechless at how handsome he was. His hair was ruffled and glinted golden red in the light of the fire, and a blood splatter across his cheek and nose gave him a fierce air. His eyes burned into hers like molten coals, and she imagined for a second that he was a fire god incarnate. 

“Annalise, are you injured? How can I help?” he asked, crouching down, his face twisted in concern. 

She shook her head, speechless for a long moment until she finally found the courage to force the heavy words out. “I’m guilty of using my curse to kill three men tonight and am ready to receive the punishment that you promised my father. I’m sorry, Soren, for putting you in this position. There was nothing else I could have done,” she said as tears coursed down her cheeks, one swollen and one still hidden behind her now-ruined mask. She risked one last glance up at him, to imprint his face as the last thing she would ever see. “And yet, if anyone was to do this, I’m glad that it is you. I trust you to make it quick and as painless as you can. Thank you for these past few weeks; they have given me more happiness than you will ever know.” As she finished speaking, she bent her head in submission, awaiting her fate. 

Instead of the bite of the sword on her neck, she felt a soft gloved hand on her face. 

Soren tilted her chin up until she was forced to look at him. His eyes glistened in the firelight, and his expression was so tender and loving she wondered if she’d already died and this was her reward from the Goddess. “Dearest, you won’t die today, not while I draw breath, and certainly not by my hand,” he whispered. “I could never harm a single hair on your head, let alone kill you. I may have failed to protect you and shield you from these horrors today, but I swear to you that I will do everything within my power to ensure you never have to use your curse again.”