Ginn Hale - Lord of the White Hell Book One

Rafie said, "This is my nephew, Kiram." And Kiram knew from the women's sudden warm expressions that they had already heard quite a bit about him. "This is Nakiesh," Rafie indicated the woman sitting beside him, and then the woman on the floor, "and Liahn."

"It's an honor to meet you," Kiram said. Reflexively, he lifted his hands in friendly greeting. A slight pang shot through his left forearm as he moved.

"What's happened to your arm, Kiri?" Rafie crossed the tiny space to Kiram's side.

"He was injured in a duel, apparently," Alizadeh provided.

"A duel?" Rafie demanded. "How did you get into a duel?"

"It was just one of the competitions in the tournament. It wasn't anything serious, and a physician took care of it right away."

"A Cadeleonian physician," Rafie commented as he studied the stitches. "They still use black silk."

"I'm fine, honestly." After four months of speaking nothing but Cadeleonian, Kiram felt strange conversing entirely in Haldiim again. He heard a difference in the cadence of his own words, as if he had picked up a slight Cadeleonian accent.

"Do you have any other injuries?" Rafie's gaze suddenly fixed on the fine scar on his cheek.

"I'm a little bruised but nothing serious." Kiram pulled his arm out of Rafie's grip. "I won the duel." Kiram felt he needed to say as much so that they wouldn't assume he'd just taken a beating.

"Good for you! Come sit here, Kiram." Liahn patted the floorboards beside her. Kiram obeyed and Rafie returned to his seat on the bed. Alizadeh seated himself on the floor and leaned back against Rafie's leg.

Kiram found it amazing that all five of them fit in the room. The smell of strong spices, the sight of familiar faces, and the cadence of the Haldiim tongue spoken so freely made Kiram acutely aware of how genuinely different his own people were from the Cadeleonians. In the past, he could only observe the Cadeleonians as being unusual, but now he could see unique characteristics of his own people. They stood and even sat in a particular loose manner and had an almost sleepy fluidity in their gestures and speech. Kiram wondered if that was how he looked to Javier and Nestor.

Liahn seemed to think he needed cheering up. She held up her right arm so that Kiram could see the long white line running from her elbow to her wrist.

"I took this scar from a Mirogoth shapechanger in the Blue Forest. I took an eye from him in exchange." She grinned at Kiram. Her gums seemed a little too red and her teeth looked a little too long.

"Your uncle stitched her back up," Nakiesh said from the bed. "And if I remember correctly he stitched what was left of the Mirogoth back together as well."

"The reward for bringing him in alive was bigger than the reward for his dead body,"Liahn informed Kiram with a wink.

Kiram stole a wondering glance between his uncle and Alizadeh. They certainly hadn't ever mentioned anything like that in the stories of their travels. Rafie looked a little pained.

"The last thing Kiram needs is to hear more tales of dangerous adventure. His mother is going to be horrified by this entire situation as is."

"He's safe enough now." Liahn shrugged. "At least as safe as anyone can be with the shadow of a curse in the air."

At the mention of a curse Rafie leaned forward just slightly and lightly touched Alizadeh's shoulder. Alizadeh offered him a reassuring smile.

Rafie asked, "Did you find it?"

"No, I hunted the entire city and the fairgrounds but I couldn't pin it down. I know that it's cast from the fortress on the hill, and spills down across this entire valley but its vessel seems unnaturally elusive." Alizadeh scowled in frustration. "Something is hiding it, shielding it from sight."

Kiram frowned, trying to follow the conversation. Were they talking about the Tornesal curse?

"I had no luck with the blood calling, either." Nakiesh held up her palm, which was bandaged. "I sent out our sister crows to look at the fortress more closely."

Kiram asked, "Are you talking about the Sagrada Academy?"

Alizadeh nodded impatiently, as though it was obvious. "Before it became the Sagrada Academy it was a fortress. Did you know that there used to be a Haldiim village just north of here?"

"No, I didn't." He couldn't imagine any Haldiim living this far north.

"The desecrated bodies of murdered Haldiim and Irabiim were hung from the walls of that fortress like banners of loyalty to King Nazario." Nakiesh ran a finger lightly over one of the bones hanging from her necklace. "Thousands of us died in that place. If you dig deep enough in the orchards you can still find bones."

"And ghosts," Liahn added. "Ghosts so wronged that their souls became a desolating curse."

"There's no need to frighten him," Rafie interrupted. He turned to Kiram. "That was all a long time ago. The furious ghosts who became the curse of the Old Rage were all put to rest by the Bahiim. They were locked away in the wood of the Ancients. And they are born into new lives with the passing of those old trees."

Rafie looked to Alizadeh for confirmation but Alizadeh's expression was troubled.

"Until I came here I would have thought so. But something is moving up on that hill."

"It feels like the Old Rage. But all we can see is its shadow," Nakiesh said softly.

"Wait, is this Old Rage curse the same curse that's destroying the Tornesals?" Kiram asked.

All eyes turned abruptly his way.

"What are you talking about?" Rafie asked.

"Well, there's a curse on the Tornesal bloodline. It's been hunting them down and killing them for eighteen years now, but it's been most active in the last three." Kiram looked between their faces for a sign of recognition. Rafie nodded slowly.

"A fellow physician from Rauma once mentioned some affliction that plagued the Tornesal dukes," Rafie said.

"Yfes, but people are always claiming curses have been placed on certain families," Alizadeh replied. "As a rule it's either plain bad luck or bad choices. Sometimes there's murder involved."

"Or social diseases," Rafie added. Alizadeh, Nakiesh and Liahn all nodded at this.

Alizadeh went on. "But genuine curses don't pursue any single individual or even a blood line. They spread from a physical locus like spilled ink. They destroy people and animals alike."

"Maybe it's not a curse, then, but there is something that's killing the Tornesals," Kiram said.

"I'd bet soft gold that it's a greedy relative with a talent for poisons," Nakiesh replied.

Liahn nodded, looking amused.

"It's not poison," Kiram insisted. "Javier said that it's like some kind of insanity. First you hear screams that become louder and louder. Then you begin to have visions of being impaled that grow worse and worse until you stop eating and drinking. After that you die."

"Javier? The young man you introduced me to?" Alizadeh asked, his expression deeply knowing. "He didn't look like he was in the throes of a curse."

"He isn't now." Kiram felt his cheeks warm. "He was saved from it but his cousin Fedeles is dying."

Nakiesh cocked her head slightly as she gazed at Kiram. The motion struck Kiram as oddly bird-like. "Sounds like poison to me."

"There are poisons which would cause auditory hallucinations." Rafie absently curled a finger through a lock of Alizadeh's hair and then released it. Alizadeh leaned back against him. "Frostvine will do it and cause severe, cramping pain."

"But visions of being impaled?" Alizadeh glanced back to Kiram. "You're sure about that?"

Kiram nodded, remembering Javier's haunted expression as he spoke of iron pikes piercing his flesh.

"He said that he could feel the weight of his own body forcing spikes deeper into him. And it was the same for all of them. All of the Tornesals died believing they were being impaled."