A Vow So Bold and Deadly (The Cursebreaker Series Book 3)

There are dead guards littering the castle hallways. Some are pinned to the walls with their swords, while others have terrible slash wounds. Blood coats everything. I remember the first week of the curse, when I discovered a room that represented what Lilith had done to Rhen and Grey. It was horrific.

This is like that, times a hundred.

Lilith must have been doing this for hours. Slowly and methodically killing his guards and servants, so we’d have no idea. I was begging him for peace while she was guaranteeing it would never be possible.

Freya and the children would have been in the room right beside us. Sweet, gentle Freya.

The thought of her dying at Lilith’s hands almost makes my knees buckle. Zo half drags me past all of it. I can’t decide if I should be helping her or fighting her. The throwing blade caught me in the thigh, but it was a glancing blow and it fell free. I know you’re not supposed to pull a blade out of a stab wound, but I have no idea if it’s okay for one to fall out on its own. Blood already soaked through my sleeping shift, and between the knife and the sprained ankle on top of my CP, I feel like a marionette with a broken string.

The night air is cold and smacks me in the face when we get outside, but Zo doesn’t stop. I’m barefoot and panting in the stable aisle by the time she eases me onto a bench beside the stalls. It’s the middle of the night and the stables are deserted. Her own breath is fractured and broken, making panicked clouds in the cold night air. Her hands are shaking as she starts unbuckling her breastplate.

“Stop,” I say. My hands are flailing, wringing, uncertain where to settle. “Stop—what are you doing—”

“Here.” She jerks the breastplate over her head. It sounds like she’s wheezing.

“Zo—we have to go back. I have this dagger. We just need—we just need—she’ll—she’ll—”

She shoves the breastplate into my hands. “Put it on. I’ll saddle a horse.”

“Zo—”

“Put it on!” she shouts.

She’s never yelled at me. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her raise her voice. I’m so startled that my fingers start fumbling with the buckles automatically. The horses must feel our panic, because they’re all circling their stalls restlessly. One of them kicks the stable wall.

“We have to go back.” I’m babbling. Keening with each breath. Every time I blink I see Lilith’s fingers ripping the front right out of Dustan’s throat. I see Rhen’s abdomen turned to ribbons of flesh. Like it was nothing. I wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t fast enough. “She’s going to—she’s going to—”

“We have to run.” She pulls a bridle out of the closet beside Ironwill’s stall, followed by a cloak that she tosses at me. “Put that on.”

I’m shaking so badly I can barely get it around my shoulders. “Zo—”

“We are not going back.”

“We—we can’t leave him—”

“She killed every guard in the castle,” Zo says. It takes her four tries to get the bridle buckled onto the horse’s head. “Can you ride?”

A boot scrapes against the cobblestones at the opposite end of the aisle, and Zo whirls, drawing her blade.

A stable boy swears and stumbles back. “I heard the horses—”

“Run,” she says to him. “Get off the grounds.”

“But—but—”

“Run!” she snaps. He nods quickly and darts through the door.

A cold wind whips through the aisle, making the stall doors rattle, and I shiver. “Zo. We need a plan. We need—”

She rounds on me. Her eyes blaze into mine. “What are we going to do, Harper? She tore out the commander’s throat. With her bare hands.”

She’s right. I know she’s right.

We need to get help.

I don’t know who can help with this. She slaughtered all the guards. My breath hitches again.

Zo doesn’t wait for an answer. She moves to the next stall and jerks the closet door open. Another blast of wind swirls through the aisle, reminding me of my first night in Emberfall, when the weather in the woods changed from autumn warmth into a heavy snowfall. The horses resume their pacing. A few give a nervous whicker. That one down the aisle kicks the wall again.

Every hair on my arms stands up.

I don’t know what I can feel, but it’s not good.

Zo appears in the doorway of the stall, and I know she can feel it, too.

“Zo,” I whisper. “Zo, we need to go.”

She leaves the second horse and returns to Ironwill, boosting me onto his back before I’m ready. Her foot slips into the stirrup, and she climbs up behind me. Without hesitation, she clucks to the horse, and we fly out of the stables.

The wind hits us hard and fast and nearly unseats me. Clouds have filled the sky, blocking the moon, plunging the grounds into darkness. I’ve got the reins, and Zo’s got her arms around my waist.

“You should’ve kept the armor,” I say breathlessly.

An earsplitting screech splits the night, the loudest, most terrifying sound I’ve ever heard. Ironwill’s ears flatten and his back bunches underneath us, and he bolts like a … well, like a spooked horse.

“What is it?” Zo breathes into my ear. “What is she doing? Can she … can she shape-shift?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” She made Rhen change shape, but I’ve never seen her do it. That doesn’t mean she can’t.

Zo remembers the monster Rhen became. Is that what’s behind us? Did she do it again?

I steal a glance over my shoulder. All I see is the black sky, flickers of darkness. Another screech pierces the air. Ironwill flies into the woods, jerking at the reins, his hooves pounding into the ground.

We need to get through the woods. I don’t know why, but there’s always been something about the edge of Ironrose’s territory that seems to limit Lilith’s power. We need to get through these woods, and then we can figure out a plan to rescue Rhen.

Without warning, my throat chokes on a sob.

At my back, so does Zo’s. Her arms grip tight.

I don’t have words. I don’t know what to say. My thoughts are in a blind panic. I keep searching for hope, but there’s none. Everything is bad.

That screech rings out again. Something shoves into us, and Zo cries out.

“Zo!” I scream.

“Keep going,” she says, redoubling her grip on my waist, but she’s pulling at me, as if something has a grip on her. “Keep going!”

I dig my heels in to the horse’s sides, but it’s almost like Zo is on the ground, pulling me back. In a moment I’m going to be yanked off this horse.

Then she lets go. She’s gone, her scream echoing in my ears, matched only by the screeching behind us.

I haul back on the reins, but Ironwill bucks and bolts and nearly gets me off his back. “Zo!” I cry. “Zo!”

Claws seize my upper arms, and I shriek in surprise. I’m being pulled, yanked, dragged.

“Let go of me!” I cry, and I wrench my arms free. Those claws hook on the armor that I never fully fastened, and suddenly, I’m being choked.

I have an image of Rhen pulling half-fastened armor over his head, ducking free of it. My chest catches with a sob, but I grab the breastplate and flip it up hard, scraping my face in the process.

But it works. She lets go. A screech of rage echoes behind me.

I cross the tree line out of the woods, duck close to Ironwill’s neck, and we flatten into a gallop. My tears soak into his mane, and the wind catches my sobs, but nothing pursues us beyond the woods. We run and run until the darkness swallows us up.