A Curse So Dark and Lonely (The Cursebreaker Series Book 1)

Like so many other things, sleep eludes me.

I listen to the wind as it whistles through the shutters. The fire has fallen to almost nothing, but I don’t care to feed it. The cold suits my mood.

Morning can’t be far off, but no light slips through the edges of the shutters, so it must still be early.

I’ve hardly slept. I would like to blame the lumps in this mattress, or the rough woolen weave of the blankets, but in truth, it’s Coale’s parting words that keep ringing through my thoughts.

For five years, we have begged for help, but our cries go unanswered, our people starve, and our kinsmen die.

I wish I could claim ignorance, but I can’t. Regardless of how I chose to keep myself sequestered in the castle, I knew it was happening.

My fault. All of it.

I keep thinking about those men who burned the house. This man wears a crest, Grey said. But he did not recognize it. Decent weaponry. Better than common thieves.

Five men. Organized. Burning a house. I can’t think of why they would do such a thing, unless Freya is lying. But—

I stop these thoughts in their tracks. This line of thinking is useless. Any soldiers under my command were sent to the border years ago, and I have no one to enforce laws that have clearly long since been forgotten or ignored. Five years, the innkeeper said. It is truly a miracle that my subjects will still kneel to me—especially since I have nothing to offer them.

A gust of wind knocks the shutters against the window, and I jump.

I will never find sleep this way. I need a distraction.

I pull on my boots and fasten my doublet, leaving my sword and belt on the chair. I don’t want to wake our hosts and risk eavesdroppers, so I quietly ease across the floor to open the door to call for Grey.

But Grey is not there.

Surprised, I swing the door fully open. My guard commander sits on the hearth, playing cards with Harper.

He spots me immediately and stands. There is no guilt or chagrin in his expression, but then, there shouldn’t be.

That said, I can’t identify the feeling that swells inside me, hot and sudden. Not quite anger, and not quite bitterness. Those are familiar.

This is not.

“What are you doing?” I say.

“Playing cards,” says Harper. “Keep your voice down.”

“I was not talking to you.”

“I don’t care. People are sleeping.”

Grey steps away from the fire and moves halfway across the room. “Forgive me, my lord. How may I serve?”

His voice is even, formal, and practiced. The way he speaks when he’s unsure of my temper.

“Is the inn secure?” I say to him. “Or have you been too busy to check?”

His expression does not flicker. “The inn is secure.”

“And the horses?”

“I did not want to leave while you slept.”

“I’m awake. Go. Check.”

He nods, turns on his heel, and heads for the door without question. He barely pauses to pull his cloak from the hook by the door, and then he’s gone, disappearing into the darkness and swirling snow. Bitter wind whips through the doorway, making the fire flicker. The chill reaches me from across the room.

I ease down the remaining stairs and take Grey’s seat on the hearth. His six cards are abandoned in a small pile on the table.

“We were in the middle of a game,” Harper says.

“I see that.” I survey the arrangement of the cards and pick up Grey’s hand. “King’s Ransom?”

“Grey taught me.” She slides her cards together and tosses them on the discard pile, then sits back to draw the blanket up over her body.

I gather the cards and begin to shuffle. I feel like arguing, and I’m not entirely sure why. “You no longer care to play?”

“You sent my opponent out into the snowstorm.”

“Grey has duties to attend to.”

“Sure he does.”

My hands go still on the cards. The room is thick with warmth from the fire, and the light plays across her features, making her eyes gleam when she looks at me. She has an uncanny talent of pricking every nerve ending I have.

I hold her gaze. “If you mean to say something to me, I insist that you say it.”

“I don’t think I need to.”

We sit there silently glaring at each other until Grey returns, shaking snow from his cloak and brushing it from his hair.

If he notices the tension, he chooses to ignore it. “The horses fare well. I saw no tracks.”

“Good.” But I don’t look over. I don’t want to be the one to break this standoff.

As soon as I have the thought, I feel childish. Petty, the way I felt when I ordered Grey out into the snow.

Harper looks away anyway, but not like she’s giving in. More like she doesn’t care. “Are you done in the bedroom, Prince Rhen?”

As before, she makes my name sound like an insult, but now it makes me surly. “Why?”

“Because I’d like to get a few hours of sleep somewhere other than a chair.” She folds the blanket over her arm and limps toward the staircase.

Her gait takes me by surprise every time. She’s so strong-willed, so certain of herself, that I expect her to move with a grace and assurance that matches her temperament. I can understand why Evalyn would immediately think of an engagement to align distant nations. Harper speaks in a manner that leaves no room for disrespect. Like a ruler, not a subject.

She must be stiff and sore, because her limp is more pronounced now than it was earlier, and she moves slowly, grasping the railing to climb the stairs. Once she’s closed herself into the bedroom, I become very aware of Grey standing to my left.

I look down at the cards and shuffle them between my hands. “Sit, Commander. Play.”

He sits. I deal. We play in silence.

I like cards. I like games in general, especially games like this: simple on the surface, where the real strategy lies in figuring out the player. This was one of the few things I enjoyed doing with my father. When I was very young, he told me that playing games is less about the cards in my hand or the dice on a board, and more of an opportunity to understand an opponent and the way he thinks.

Grey always plays like he fights: direct, without hesitation. A man trained to make a judgment and act immediately. He plays well, but his moves are never calculated in advance, and are always in response to mine.

I wonder how Harper plays.

A part of me hates that Grey already knows.

“How did you get her to play with you?” I finally ask.

He lays a card on the pile. “I did nothing.”

I scowl, thinking of the carefully weighed words that led to her shifting an inch closer to me on horseback. “This will never work. She does not trust me. Worse, she regards me with contempt.”

Grey inhales like he wants to say something, but he must think better of it, because he does nothing more than toss another card on the pile.

“Say it,” I tell him. “Whatever it is, Grey. Say it.”

“With all due respect, my lord, I believe you regard yourself with contempt.”

I make a disgusted noise. “We battle uphill with this girl. She will present a challenge at every turn. Can you not feel it? If we cannot make progress now, there is no hope in the future.”

Grey says nothing at all and simply waits for me to play a card.

I sigh and place one on the stack. “I know you have thoughts, Commander.”

“Yes. Many.”

“Out with them.”

He looks up at me then. “You are good at discovering my moves well in advance. I sometimes think you know what cards I will play before I myself do. Even without knowing my hand.”

Silver hell. “Not cards.” I fling them down, done. “I want your thoughts on the girl.”

“I’m giving them to you.” He pauses. “You speak of progress. You speak of challenges in the future. Your thoughts, as always, are twenty moves ahead.”

I stare at him.

Grey sighs and gathers up the cards. “You asked how I got her to play with me. As if there were some trick to it.” He wraps up the stack. “My lord, I did nothing. I sat down and asked.”