Cursed by Malignant Magic (Once Upon A Curse)

Chapter 30

Chapter

Thirty

T he moon hung like a thin crescent, barely shedding enough light to reveal the underbrush in the forest as I made my way to the clearing where Ehuna had instructed me to meet her.

"Collie," a voice called, barely above a whisper.

Ehuna, standing like a sentinel among the shadows, her white sigils glowing faintly against her brown skin. Her horse stood nearby, tethered to a tree.

“You’re early,” I noted. “Or am I late?”

Her eyes met mine, sharp as flint, as she held up a roll of parchment. The one about Legacy. My empty heart panged.

"I found this by your bed as we were packing up our camp to move out. Tell me about the messenger who delivered this to you."

No hello or how are you. Just an order that made no sense to me. “Why?”

“Just tell me,” she said, her tone a dagger’s edge.

"Okay… Can't say he left much of an impression since I had just opened my eyes for the first time in…"

“Weeks,” she filled in for me.

I winced. Had I been unconscious that long?

Ehuna's gaze didn't waver. "We must consider every detail. His appearance, his manner… Did anything strike you as odd?"

"He said his name was Tim, which I suppose is a bit too…ordinary? Like he was meant to be forgotten."

"Describe him," she pressed, her voice laced with suspicion that mirrored the sudden tension knotting in my gut.

"Average height, average looks. Youngish, maybe eighteen. Blond hair. Caputo armor. Honestly, it's all a bit hazy." I shrugged.

Ehuna's lips thinned, the lines of her face hardening like they did when a battle plan formed behind those calculating eyes. "You said his name is Tim." Her voice sounded like a low hum, vibrating with the weight of unspoken fears. "I don’t have a messenger in my camp named Tim. Not among my scouts, not in my ranks."

Her admission hung in the air between us, heavy as an executioner's ax.

"What? But he was real. The parchment is real, and…" The implications of what she’d said shot a tremble down my shoulder blades.

She exhaled slowly, the sound almost lost to the rustle of leaves in the gentle breeze. "We’ve discovered underground tunnels in many of our fortresses and camps. This Tim, despite his armor, might have been a Montrose or a Caputo working for Tannin. This reeks of deceit and manipulation."

“What are you saying?” I whispered, instinctively reaching for Legacy’s bracelet on my wrist. A reminder of the touch of my flame-haired enemy who had somehow slipped past my defenses.

“Here.” Ehuna handed me the parchment. "Look at it closely. That seal isn't just any glob of wax, and there is no name written on the outside of the parchment itself."

Squinting, I held the parchment closer and at an angle in the moonlight. The wax was a midnight blue, speckled with gold. Montrose colors.

“Okay. So?” I asked.

"Look there." Ehuna pointed, her fingertip hovering over the insignia. "The edges on the wax are too rough, the crest slightly askew. It's shoddy work, not befitting a real message from the Montroses."

I traced the imperfect lines of the emblem. An imitation, maybe, but why? And by whom?

"I believe Tim was sent to see if you were alive, and if you were, he was to deliver that awful message directly to you.” She took a step back, her face a mask of contemplation in the shadows. "Sending a dead Montrose to be buried next to a Caputo is unheard of."

"Why?" I asked again, rolling the scroll between my anxious fingers.

A fake messenger, a botched seal… And Legacy… If there was even the faintest chance…

“To destroy you,” Ehuna said gently. “To shatter your spirit, to leave you fragmented when we need you whole. To drop you out of the war effort because you know too much. Make you easy prey. Honestly, I’m not sure.”

"And yet I haven’t given up," I replied numbly.

Ehuna's lips twitched, a ghost of a smile fleeting across her stern features. "And yet you haven’t. There’s too much hope in you."

"Hope is for the well-rested and the foolish," I tossed back, handing the parchment back to her. "I'm neither. But I am stubborn."

She smiled, a genuine one with warmth and a touch of sadness. “So you are.”

“Is Legacy…” My voice betrayed the tremble of possibility tangled with despair. I could hardly dare to imagine it, let alone voice it. “Alive?”

Ehuna's brown eyes, pools of resolve under normal circumstances, now flickered with something that resembled doubt. It was disconcerting to see her so hesitant, her posture rigid as if bracing against my emotions.

"Collie," she said slowly, her voice threaded with caution. She rolled her lips together. “How do you feel about seeking the truth ourselves?”

“With your magic?” The answer was obvious, but I didn’t care.

She nodded. Then, with a resolute exhale, she stepped back and raised her arms. Sigils flared to life along her skin, and her gauntlets glowed.

The air thickened as she chanted, words old as time weaving through the clearing. Magic crackled over her gauntlets, a dance of light and power that only served to remind me how much hinged upon her spell's success—or its failure.

The light surged even more, then sputtered like a dying star. Ehuna's shoulders slumped, and the sigils and her gauntlets dimmed to a faint glow before winking out completely.

My heart spasmed, and I stumbled back a few steps as the truth hit me all over again.

"Nothing," she said, her voice tight. "The tracking spell found no trace of her. I’m sorry, Collie."

“Why would you do this?” I shouted. “Why would you get my hopes up like that only to—”

I cut short with a sob, nearly doubling over with the pain of loss.

“I… I didn’t mean…”

“You can’t just use me or play with me like this,” I screamed. “I have feelings. I’m a real person.”

“Collie, I would never…” Ehuna heaved a battle-weary sigh. “I’m sorry. I realize now I could’ve handled that a lot better. Done the tracking spell beforehand just to be sure. I’m terribly sorry.”

The forest around us seemed to hold its breath, the ancient trees standing sentinel as grief settled on my shoulders like a cloak woven from lead. I balled my hands into fists, trying to contain my forceful emotions.

I’d been thinking those words for quite some time, how I was expected to be obedient for the sake of someone else, how my own needs always came second, how I was treated as a lesser Battle Mage, not by Ehuna but by everyone else. I never meant to lash out like that, but my emotions had churned themselves into chaos.

But there was something else there, too, swirling around the abyss of despair—a fierce, unyielding determination.

I wiped away my tears and stood up straight again. "Fine. I accept your apology," I said, my voice surprisingly steady. "I’m ready to finish this."

Ehuna studied me with those perceptive eyes of hers, the ones that could see right through me. "Are you certain you’re ready? We can take all the time you need."

I tilted my chin up defiantly. "Tannin took my love away from me. Now I want to take everything away from him.”

"Okay, then," she conceded, her expression softening for a moment before her general's mask slipped back into place.

We set up camp for the night, deciding to head into the forest rather than stay in the clearing. Although I shivered, we didn’t light a fire, since the smoke might alert others to our location. I curled up on the ground under my coarse blanket and faced away from Ehuna so she wouldn’t see me cry even more.

The night held still and quiet, save for the crickets and the distant hoot of an owl.

"I never talk about Charlotte," Ehuna whispered from her spot a few feet away.

I had no idea if she was speaking to me or herself, but I listened closely, still facing away from her.

"Charlotte was… She was everything to me. We met when we were young, just teenagers, studying to be High Mages. She was so full of life, so passionate about everything.” Ehuna’s voice, usually so fierce and determined, was filled with a deep, aching sorrow. “We fell in love, and for a while, it was perfect.

"But my parents… They didn't approve. They had their own plans for me, and Charlotte didn't fit into them. They tried to separate us, but we were stubborn. We thought love was enough.

"Then, one day, Charlotte was gone. An illness, they said. But I never believed it. It was too sudden, too convenient. Of course I couldn’t prove it."

Tears welled up in my eyes as I listened, my broken heart breaking further for Ehuna.

"After that, I couldn't stay,” she said, her voice now trembling with quiet fury. “I couldn't forgive my parents for what they did. So, I left. I joined the war, hoping to make them regret ever trying to control my life. But the truth is, I don't know if they even care. I haven't spoken to them since. And Charlotte… She's gone. There's nothing left but the memories."

Silent tears streamed down my face. I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing at all.

We lay there in the stillness of the night as the weight of her story settled between us.

I clutched my blanket tighter around me, the only solid thing in a world that had been torn apart by pain and loss.

Early the next morning, Ehuna once again tied my wrists with frayed ropes, more for show than anything else. The trek to Tannin’s fortress was a few hours’ horse ride from here.

Later that afternoon, we emerged from the cover of the woods, and I caught sight of a bleak Caputo fortress looming ahead, one I’d never been to before. The sight of the cold stone walls sent a shiver up the back of my scalp, and I had to remind myself this was part of the plan. A necessary evil.

"Keep your head down," Ehuna murmured. "We need them to believe you're defeated and broken. Save your fire for later."

The gates of the fortress swung open with a groan, and we were met by guards whose eyes gleamed with malice.

“I caught the traitor again,” Ehuna announced. “Take her to the dungeons.”

They grabbed me roughly, pulling me off the horse and away from Ehuna. I stumbled forward, my gut searing with the promise of retribution. A dozen or so soldiers led me through torch-lit corridors, the number of them high likely because I had a bad habit of escaping.

"Welcome home, Collie," one of the guards sneered as he shoved me into a cell.

The cell door slammed shut with a resounding clang, sealing my fate. Alone in the darkness, I leaned against the cold stone, allowing myself a moment to breathe. The air tasted stale, thick with the scent of despair and forgotten prisoners. My pulse thrummed between my ears, a relentless reminder of the danger I'd walked into.

And then I heard it—the faintest whisper in the dark, a voice frayed at the edges but unmistakable.

"Collie?"

My heart lurched. That voice… It couldn't be. I squinted through the gloom, straining my eyes until they ached.

" Varna ?" I whispered.

There was a shuffling sound from the cell next to mine, and then a hand shot out and gripped the bars on my door.

"At least we’re not chained up like last time," Varna said, her voice carrying a note of wry humor.

A million questions bubbled to the surface, each one more important than the last.

"Varna, what are you—"

The distant echo of footsteps approached, cutting through our reunion like a blade.