Jenna Helland - The Fanged Crown

“I can break the curse!” Verran insisted. “I can see how to do it in my head!”

“You’re not listening to him, are you?” Boult asked Harp, who had gently laid Kitto back down on the tile floor.

“It takes incredible power to work any magic inside the palace.” Liel told Harp. “And the curse is the product of ancient, potent magic.”

“I couldn’t do it by myself.” Verran held up the vial. “But I can with an elixir.”

“We don’t even know what kind of curse it is,” Liel said, brushing a lock of wet hair off Kitto’s forehead. “We need more information, Harp.”

“Enough!” Harp snarled. “Verran, will he be alive? Truly alive?”

“He will be,” Verran assured him. “He’ll be Kitto again. Just like he was.”

“He doesn’t know that!” Boult fumed. “It could be a trick! Or he’s being misled by whatever is giving him access to his power.”

“I don’t think we can trust …” Liel began.

“Bring him back,” Harp interrupted.

“There will be a price, Harp,” Liel said. “There always is.”

“I don’t care,” Harp said roughly.

“We don’t know where Verran’s power is coming from,” Boult said. “We don’t want Kitto to be used that way.”

“So Kitto died for what … to drain a pool of water?” Harp leaped up and squared off with Boult. Harp’s hands were balled into fists, and his body was rigid with anger. Liel had never seen Harp so furious. Even Boult looked surprised, but he didn’t back away.

“Is that all his life is going to amount to? I took him off the Marderward to die in Hisari? For nothing?”

“He’s not dead!” Boult shouted.

“He might as well be!” Harp shouted back.

“We’ll get the Torque.” Liel quickly moved between them. She laid her hands against Harp’s chest and gently moved him away from Boult. “We’ll save Ysabel from Cardew. We’ll stop Tresco from overthrowing the Queen. And we’ll find a way to help Kitto.”

“Do it, Verran,” Harp ordered. His gaze swung from Boult to Liel. “Kitto would die to save any of you. And he would do it without hesitation.”

Liel let her hands drop to her sides. Harp was going to do whatever he could to help Kitto, and she wasn’t going to convince him that there was a safer way. Even if she could stop him, she wasn’t sure that she wanted to. Beside her, Boult shook his head in disgust but said nothing more. Verran crouched beside Kitto’s limp body. He loosened the vial’s golden stopper and tipped a drop of the red liquid onto his palm.

“Is that blood?” Boult asked, staring down Verran’s hand.

“Quiet,” Verran commanded. He smeared the blood across Kitto’s blue lips and began chanting in guttural, hissing sounds. If they were words, then none of the others had heard them before. The blood pooled on Kitto’s lips in unnatural droplets and then abruptly seeped into his skin. Angry red lines branched out across his face, traveling down his neck and to his heart. Verran pulled open Kitto’s shirt to reveal his chest. He poured another drop of the elixir on his hand and slammed his open palm onto the skin above Kitto’s heart.

When Verran struck the boy so violently, Liel cried out. The spell she was witnessing was so different than her own healing, which drew on memories of old-growth forests and windswept cliffs, the warm dens of small creatures, and the infinite beauty of life’s detail. Verran’s spell was the antithesis of that. Here was life’s bloodletting, murder in reverse. It called upon every catacomb, every ream of twisted flesh, and every layer of humiliation. That healing could come from such a place made no sense.

Verran jerked his hand away, leaving a bloody handprint on Kitto’s chest. Again, the elixir pooled unnaturally on top of the skin, only it took the shape of a bloody, clawed hand. The clawed fingers rose off Kitto’s chest and plunged deep into his skin. Kitto arched off the floor as the blood-hand clenched around his heart. Still chanting, Verran slammed his fist onto the blood-hand, sending red droplets across Kitto’s body and onto the legs of the people standing nearby. The blood-hand evaporated into the air, and Kitto jerked upright, his head thrown back. His arms were up in a defensive posture, and his eyes rolled into his head.

“Kitto!” Harp said, dropping to the ground beside the boy.

But Kitto’s arms shot out from his side, and his body jerked in seizure. Harp placed his hands behind the boy’s head to keep him from slamming his skull into the tiles.

“Grab his legs,” Harp shouted. But before anyone could move, Kitto became quiet and still. He opened his eyes and looked around in fright.

“Kitto! You’re safe.”

“What happened?”

“You drowned,” Harp said, helping him sit up. “I told you not to drown.”

“I had the worst dream.” Kitto’s eyes were watering, and he blinked rapidly as if to clear his vision. “I was in chains.”

“You’re all right now,” Harp reassured him. “Can you stand up?”

“I was in chains,” Kitto repeated as Harp and Boult helped him to his feet. “And there was an army of serpents.”

Kitto turned to look at the door. The silver stones and lock had vanished, and all that remained was a plain door made from rough-cut, redwood planks. “Did I open the lock?”

“You did a great job,” Harp told him, pressing the case of lockpicks back into Kitto’s hands. “You got rid of the water.”

“I drowned?” Kitto said in amazement.

“No, the pool was cursed,” Liel explained. “But Verran brought you back.”

Harp caught Verran’s eye. Verran had an odd mix of emotions on his face. He looked like he wanted to cry, fight, and hide all at the same time.

“Thank you,” Harp said to Verran.

“I owe you,” Kitto said sincerely.

“Can we leave?” Verran pleaded. “I don’t feel very well.”

“That was quite a spell,” Liel said, picking up Verran’s pack and handing it to him. “You’re going to feel drained for a while. What type of elixir was that?”

“Something my father gave me,” Verran said, his expression suddenly closed.

Boult cleared his throat. “I agree with Verran. Let’s get the Torque and get out as soon as possible.”

They followed the ramp as it curved around the gilded pillar and through the opening in the floor. The ramp ended in a long room with a low, tiled ceiling. Two rows of flared columns supported the ceiling. Raised walkways divided the rectangular room into four shallow pools, each paved in a different color tile—crimson, royal blue, deep green, and violet—that stood out dramatically against the whitewashed walls. Water dripped off the ceiling, a sign that the area had been filled with water before Kitto broke the spell.

“Is it a bathing hall for serpents?” Harp asked. “Look at all the colors. It’s as festive as a carnival.”

“It’s where they incubated their creations,” Liel explained. “The crimson pool was for bleeding out the slaves to feed the new hatchlings.”

“So, not like a carnival,” Boult said.

“Not any carnival I want to go to,” Harp agreed.

While they were talking, Verran wandered up the walkway and crouched down to look at something on the base of one of the columns. The stone pillars had been painted, but the water had eroded most of the plaster and pigment, leaving only clumps of color sticking to the surface.

“What do you think that does?” Verran asked, pointing to a metal square bolted to the wall with a round indentation in the center. “Do you think it’s a trigger?”

“Whatever you do, don’t—” Boult started to say, as Verran reached forward and pushed it. “Touch it.”

“Verran!” Boult shouted angrily as the sound of a metal gear began grinding ominously from somewhere below them. Verran hurried away from the pillar sheepishly as the grinding intensified. A continuous clanking noise that sounded like chains running through a metal pulley echoed against the tiled walls.