Cursed by Malignant Magic (Once Upon A Curse)

Chapter 28

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

I woke to muffled sounds, none of which I cared to decipher. My body ached badly, the marks of battle woven deep into my flesh.

“Legacy…” I mouthed. Where was she? Was she safe?

What about me? Where was I? Was I safe? How was I still alive?

With a pained sigh, I cracked open my eyes. No bars that I could see. Just a pitcher of water next to my bed and a locked door.

“Hello?” I rasped, then a little louder, “Anyone there?”

A shuffle of feet on damp earth announced the arrival of someone before a shadow darkened the gap between the entrance and the floor. The door creaked open, and in walked someone I’d never seen before. A young man, no older than eighteen, with blond hair and Caputo armor.

Did that mean I was in a Caputo camp? Signs pointed to yes, but was it the same one that had imploded?

He held out a roll of parchment, the wax already unsealed. “General Ehuna said to give this to you as soon as you woke up.”

I grunted and took the parchment. It trembled in my grasp, the inked letters blurring as I tried to focus on them.

Legacy is dead by her own hand. In her final breaths, she asked to be buried next to Collie (last name unknown) of the Caputo kingdom. Arrangements are being made to deliver the body in the coming months.

The words hung in my mind, heavy and suffocating. A cruel joke, surely.

A small object tumbled from inside the rolled parchment—a silver bracelet, one that had graced Legacy's wrist against her pulse. The one I’d stolen and the one she’d stolen back.

"It was delivered by a Montrose a few weeks ago," the messenger said, his voice a distant echo against the walls closing in around me.

Legacy was dead by her own hand. Suicide? She asked to be buried next to me. I was no expert, but I thought I was alive.

"This is impossible," I rasped, anger flaring hot and bright within me.

Legacy, who had faced war unflinchingly—how could she fall to her own hand?

"Are you certain this is real?" I pressed, hoping for any hint of doubt, any sliver of hope.

"Seen the messenger with my own eyes, I did," he replied, oblivious to the way the bed seemed to sway beneath me. "General Ehuna said I should deliver it to you if you’re awake. Said she’d be along momentarily if you are."

"Thank you…" I said, my voice hollow.

“Tim. My name’s Tim.” With a nod, the messenger left, unaware that he'd delivered a weapon far more lethal than any magic or sword.

I curled my fingers around Legacy's bracelet. "Legacy, what have you done?"

Tears scorched the backs of my eyes and coursed down my face. Even with all of my aches and pains, it was the void where Legacy should've been that gnawed at my insides most fiercely.

I cried myself to sleep, woke, and then repeated the process, all the while clutching Legacy’s bracelet. A part of me wanted to hurl it across the room—to shatter something, anything, as broken as I felt inside. But I couldn't. It was all I had left of her.

Had she thought I was dead, buried in the tomb of Tannin’s fortress? My heart wrenched with the possibility.

"Collie?" Ehuna's voice cut through the fog of my thoughts. She stood there, tall and imposing, yet her eyes held a softness that felt like a lifeline. “How are you feeling?”

"Is this real?" I asked, thrusting the parchment at her, the words on it still screaming their cruel message. "They say she's gone. That she…" My voice cracked, and I swallowed hard to regain some semblance of composure. "That she killed herself."

Ehuna took the parchment, her lingering touch on my hand grounding, and my eyes blurred with tears again.

After a moment, she said, "You know Legacy better than anyone. Does this sound like her end?"

"I don’t know," I admitted. "On one hand, she'd never let them win like that. On the other, she thought I was dead."

“A lot of us thought that, Collie. We weren’t sure you were going to pull through. Your injuries were…” She sighed and shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

"Legacy and I… We were…" I began, my insides squirming like a sack of eels.

It was one thing to ignore my growing feelings, quite another to voice the reality of them in the presence of someone like Ehuna.

"We were enemies who became allies." I tried to swallow the knot of emotion in my throat. “And then we became something more.”

I hadn’t planned it, hadn’t meant for it to happen, but my heart had made the decision for me. My feelings had carved themselves into my being with the steadfast permanence of the sun rising and setting each day. I wasn’t even sure I knew the depth of those feelings.

Until now.

"Ah." Ehuna's eyebrow arched, a hint of surprise breaking through her stoic facade. "You loved her, and she loved you right back, so much so that she couldn’t bear a life without you."

I looked away, my face heating under the pressure of more tears. “I was trying to save her,” I choked out. “I’d been stabbed in the heart and thought I was dead anyway, but I was trying to bring down Tannin in the process. It was reckless, I know. I messed up.”

"Tannin’s still alive, but Collie," Ehuna said, her voice firm as she knelt beside my bed, "this is not your failing. We are at war."

Of course he was still alive. I was still alive, so apparently the fortress cave-in and my stabbed heart hadn’t been that bad.

"But she's still gone," I said, tears streaming down my face despite my best efforts. "And I never told her…never told her how much…"

I couldn't finish, the admission too raw, too late.

"Then fight for her," Ehuna urged, her hand on my shoulder steady as bedrock. "Fight with the love you carry for her as your armor."

I looked at her then so she could see my truth. “I’m damn tired of fighting this stupid war.”

“So am I,” she said, which just about yanked the bed from underneath me. “So maybe we can find a way to end it.”

I shook my head, clearing it of the fog of sorrow that threatened to cloud my judgment. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that Tannin came to me after you were captured by the Montroses. He asked about you, seemed to know all about you. I got the feeling that he wanted you to himself because of your abilities, and either he would have you, or no one would.”

“Abilities. Plural,” I noted.

Ehuna nodded. “Your ability to sniff out magic and wield it without a gauntlet.”

My eyes widened. “You knew about that second one?”

She huffed. “I’ve known you a long time, and you’re not the greatest at keeping secrets, Collie.”

I sniffled. “That’s…fair.”

"Tannin and a few of the other advisors only seem to be in the war for themselves. If we're going to rip the mask off these treacherous advisors and potentially end the war, we need a plan. We need evidence, something that'll stick to their slick hides like tar. Also allies. There are those within Tannin's own ranks who've grown tired of his scheming."

Her lips curled into a wry smile.

"It’ll of course be risky," she cautioned. "I’ll gather the allies. You can do the sneaking and finding. And when the time's ripe, I’ll 'capture' you and deliver you straight into the snake's den because that worked so well the last time. I’ll be sure to have more surprises up my sleeves this time, though, and you have to promise not to bring a whole fortress down on top of you to defeat him. When you’re up for it, of course."

I clenched my fists, feeling the familiar itch of magic beneath my skin.

“I’m not sure if he thinks you’re dead or not, but he won't expect someone like you to come at him a second time."

"Someone like me?" I swallowed thickly. "Impulsive, rebellious, and capable of starting a brawl in an empty room?"

"Yes, someone like you," Ehuna said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “May fortune favor your boldness, Collie.”

I had a sharper weapon than boldness.

I had a grudge.

It took several weeks for me to find the strength to get out of bed and several more for me to walk the perimeter of our camp without losing my breath.

It would take an infinite amount of time to recover from my shattered heart, though.

At first, I felt numb, as if my mind couldn’t fully comprehend the reality of the loss. It was like a bad dream that I desperately wanted to wake up from.

As the days went by, the numbness gave way to an overwhelming wave of sadness. I would find myself breaking down in tears at the most unexpected moments.

I struggled with a sense of helplessness and guilt. I kept replaying the battle with Tannin in my head. I’d figured I was dead anyway. I’d just wanted him gone and for Legacy to be safe. If I could, I would go back and change every single thing I did wrong. The "what ifs" haunted me, and I often found myself beyond angry at myself.

Sleep eluded me most nights. I would lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, my mind racing with thoughts and memories. When I did manage to drift off, I dreamt of Legacy—sometimes comforting, other times so vivid that waking up was a cruel reminder of reality.

Ehuna tried to console me, but her words often felt hollow. She meant well, but no one seemed to understand the depth of my pain. I felt isolated, as if I was navigating through a fog that only I could see.

A part of me felt incomplete, like a piece of my heart was missing. I hadn’t been prepared for the profound impact that one person could have on me.

During that time, Ehuna and I hatched yet another plan, this one with much fewer holes in it than our previous ones.

I rifled through the cache of supplies, my fingers brushing over the cool metal of daggers and the supple leather of Caputo armor. The weight of my satchel tugged at my shoulders, grounding me to the purpose at hand. As if I needed the reminder.

"Are you sure you’re up to leaving tonight?" Ehuna asked.

"Better now than never," I murmured, securing a small dagger in my boot. "Besides, I’ve been cooped up too long."

Ehuna approached, the sigils on her skin glowing faintly in the low light. Her gaze swept over my preparations, assessing, calculating. “Just be careful.”

I slung the satchel over my shoulder, feeling the heft of it against my back. “See you soon, Ehuna.”

"Until then," she said.

The night air nipped at my cheeks as I emerged from our camp, the dark velvet sky shining with silver pinpricks of starlight. Somewhere above, Tannin's predator bird surely circled, its keen eyes searching for prey.

"Come and find me," I whispered, a challenge to the wind that carried my words away into the night.

Taking a deep breath, I set off down the hill, armed with my grief and fueled by a determination that burned hotter than the fiercest forge.

"Legacy," I whispered, her name an incantation. "For you, I will end this."