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

The sleet has changed over to snow, collecting quickly in the grass and on the buildings, silencing the rattle on the tin roofs. In Emberfall, on the other side of the mountains, I doubt that snow has found Ironrose Castle yet. We only have a matter of days until we’re due to advance across the border, to make good on my vow to Rhen, and I hope the weather doesn’t get ahead of us.

My boots crunch through the frozen grass, and I draw to a stop in front of Solt’s door. His curtains are drawn against the night, but smoke curls from his chimney and there’s a glow at the edge of his window.

Ah, Tycho. I sigh and lift a hand to knock.

It takes him a moment to answer, and when he does, he looks surprised to see me. He’s already removed his armor, and now he’s in a simple linen shirt and calfskin trousers. His dark hair is damp and mussed up, his skin still ruddy from the cold.

His eyes turn immediately wary. Considering Karis Luran’s punishments or our last interaction on the training fields, he’s probably ready for me to light him on fire.

“Tycho told me why you stopped him,” I say.

“The other recruits have noticed his absence,” Solt says. His accent is thick, thicker than many of the others’, and I wonder if my language is as much of an effort for him as his is for me. “They need to be able to trust him to be ready.”

“I agree.” I hesitate. “I’m glad you had words. I shouldn’t have stopped you.”

Now it’s his turn to hesitate. That wariness hasn’t left his eyes. “His unit leader should have handled it.”

“Yes.” I pause. “And I should have handled it.”

He studies me. Wind sweeps across the path, sending snow swirling.

“You have soldiers stationed by the woods,” I add. “They should change shift every four hours in this weather.”

His eyes turn flinty. “I have ordered them to change every two, but if you insist on four—”

“No.” I feel as though my evening has been full of missteps on my side. “Two is fine.” I take a step back and give him a nod. “Forgive me for the interruption.” I pause. “Then … and now.”

“Of course, Your Highness.” This is said with a bit of bitterness, but a bit of genuine surprise, too. He steps back to hold the door open. “Would you like to come in?” he says. “I have meleata on the fire.”

Meleata is seasoned rice that’s been boiled with milk and dried beef, and it’s a common dish among the soldiers here because it’s easy to make and store. At first I thought it was awful, but I’ve learned that everyone makes it differently, affecting the taste with their own favored seasonings. Solt’s quarters are filled with the aromas of oranges and cinnamon, which is inviting, especially considering my empty stomach.

But … it’s Solt.

His gaze turns challenging, and I realize he expects me to refuse. That might be the only reason he offered at all.

I step forward through the snow. “I will. Thank you.”

The door closes behind me, and despite the company, I’m grateful for the warmth. Solt keeps his quarters orderly, which is somewhat unexpected. He’s always struck me as someone who skirts the line of what’s acceptable in a soldier—but his talk with Tycho and now the state of his quarters make me wonder if I judged too quickly. His bedding is tucked in neatly, his armor hung near the fire. “You are welcome to disarm,” he says.

“Am I?” I say darkly.

He startles, then laughs. “Or not, Your Highness.”

He’s not armed, and I’m not afraid of him, so I slip the sword belt free and lose my bracers and the breastplate. My shirt is soaked from the sleet and snow, and he tosses me a dry one. I’m surprised at the hospitality, but maybe he’s surprised I didn’t throw him out of the army. I peel my icy shirt free and don his.

He watches me change as he stirs the meleata, then frowns and flexes his hand. I wonder if he hurt it when he hit me. Any dark humor has left his expression. “I heard that you were …” His voice trails off. “Rahstan.” He gestures to his back. “Whipped?”

His voice is matter-of-fact, so I make mine match. “I was.”

“Some thought it was a story,” he says. “A … a myth? To lure the queen’s trust.”

“She saw it happen.”

“Some thought that was a story, too.”

“Hmm.” I’m not sure what else to say to that. This is the longest conversation I’ve ever had with Solt, and I’m a bit thrown. He’s a seasoned soldier, well into his thirties, with the first hints of gray threading the hair at his temples. For months now, I’ve assumed he was speaking Syssalah in my presence as a way of mocking me, and maybe a bit of it was, but listening to him stumble over his words now makes me wonder if he was ashamed at his lack of fluency.

“My brother and I got the lash when we were young,” he says. “Bryon was caught with a general’s daughter when he was supposed to be on duty, and he thought he wouldn’t get punished because we were … kallah. Two of the same?”

“Twins?” I guess.

“Twins! Bryon thought, surely they couldn’t prove which of us it was. He was wrong.” He offers me half a smile, and something about it is a little sad, a little wistful. “Nothing so bad as”—he flicks a glance at my shoulder—“that. But I never forgot.”

This is the first time I’ve heard him mention a brother. It should make me think of any of the siblings that Lilith slaughtered when I was a guardsman, but it doesn’t. It makes me think of Rhen. “They punished you both,” I say.

“They did.”

“Where is your brother now?”

Solt fetches two bowls from a shelf near the corner, then begins to ladle meleata into them. His answer is long in coming. “He fell in battle.” He pauses. “When we fought the monster.”

“In Emberfall.”

“Yes.” His back is still to me.

I knew this would be an obstacle for me with the soldiers from Syhl Shallow. I just didn’t expect it to hit me in the face so acutely. I realign all of my interactions with Solt over the past few months, putting his anger—his hatred of me—into perspective.

Solt turns from the fire with the bowls and sets both on the narrow table in the center of the room, then pours two cups of something dark and thick from a kettle. He gestures for me to sit, and I do, but once he’s sitting in front of me, he looks at the bowl, at his spoon, at his mug. At anything but me. I wonder if he regrets telling me this.

“I’m sorry about your brother,” I say. “I didn’t know.”

He shrugs a bit, then dips the spoon into the rice. “Why would you?”

That’s probably more gracious than I deserve. I touch my spoon to the food, then hesitate. The smell is warm and inviting, almost like something I’ve forgotten from childhood. It’s not something I expected to associate with this man.

He misreads my hesitation. “You fear poison?” His eyes are challenging again. He sounds amused.

“No,” I say, and I take a bite. I might not know him well, but if Solt wanted to kill me, he’d do it with his bare hands.

We eat in silence for a while, and I can’t tell if there’s any tension to it. This reminds me of my days as a guardsman, when you could be sitting across from anyone, even someone you hated, but at the end of the day, you were part of the same team, with the same motivations—and the same enemies. I’ve spent weeks trying to think of how to get the soldiers to respect me, to follow me, but maybe I’ve been going about it the wrong way.

Maybe I should have been thinking of ways to join them.

“Are you hoping to avenge your brother?” I ask quietly.

He makes a dismissive noise. “The monster is gone. I cannot kill it.”

“Emberfall isn’t gone.” I pause. “I’m not gone.”

He shrugs a little, then scrapes his bowl with his spoon, fighting for every last bite of rice.

When he doesn’t answer, I add, “You wanted to fight me. When I shoved you away from Tycho.” I pause. “You didn’t.”

He laughs a little, but not like it’s really funny. “I saw how fast you pulled those blades.” He flexes his hand again, and now I can see his knuckles are swollen. “I felt you take a punch.”

I take a drink from the mug he poured. It’s very thick and sweet, and I can’t tell if I like it. I set the mug aside and hold out a hand. “I can fix your fingers.”

He loses any hint of a smile.

I affect his manner and accent from when he asked about poison. “You fear magic?”

He smiles as if he’s genuinely amused. He extends a hand, holding my gaze as I close my fingers over his. “Fine, Your Highness. Show me such wonders that you won the heart of our queen—” He inhales sharply and swears in Syssalah, jerking his newly healed hand away from mine. He looks from me to his fingers and then back again. The swelling is gone.

I pick up the bowl and take another spoonful of rice. “Such wonders,” I say flatly.

He curls and uncurls his fist, and he glances at me with a new look in his eye. Less belligerence. Greater regard.

“It’s all right,” I say. “You can keep hating me.”

“You ask why I did not fight you,” he says.

I shrug. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

“I couldn’t lecture the boy about respect and duty,” he says, “and then attack you.” He pauses. “I can’t defy your orders on the field. Five hundred soldiers report to me.”

I study him.

“They are good women and men,” he adds. “You are sending us to war. If I risk my position, who will they trust to lead them into battle?”

Not me. He doesn’t say it, but he doesn’t have to. He doesn’t trust me either.

Something about that is … almost noble. I can respect wanting to look out for his soldiers. I can respect what he’s lost. I can respect his wary regard.

“Your soldiers know you hate me,” I say.

“Well.” He grunts. “Many of them hate me.”

I smile.

Solt gestures at my empty bowl. “More?”

“No.” I hesitate. “Thank you.”

He stacks our bowls and sets them to the side, then takes a leather cup from a shelf, shaking it before rolling a dozen wooden cubes onto the table between us. “Dice?”

I think of Lia Mara, waiting for me, but I sense we’ve formed a tentative truce here. I scoop half into my hand. “Sure.”

He sets a coin on the table. “I’ve heard this is a quick way to take your money, Your Highness.”

That startles a laugh out of me, and I reach into my pocket to find a coin of my own. “The dice are never my friend.” I glance at him. “Grey.”

His eyebrows go up slightly, and he passes the dice from hand to hand. “You should wait to see how much money I take before you offer me your given name.” He pauses. “Grey.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Gehr Sehts?” he says, and I nod.

Crooked Six. It’s an easy game in theory, with equal elements of luck and skill, where you keep rolling dice until you have a full set of ones, then twos, and so on. I’m fast, but as usual, fate doesn’t care, and he’s rolling his final six when I’m still on my fours.

He stacks the coins. “Again?”

I put two of my own on the table. He wins again. And then a third time.

“You are making me feel like a thief,” he says.

“That’s good, because I’m feeling a bit robbed.” I put my last few coins on the table, but I don’t pick up my dice. “Your soldiers can trust me too, Solt.”

He says nothing to that, but he picks up his dice and rattles them between his palms. There’s a new tension across his shoulders, and I regret saying anything. When his dice spill out across the table, I don’t pick up my own, so he doesn’t re-roll. We sit there in complete silence for a moment.

Finally, he looks up. “I did not expect you to come here tonight.” He pauses. “No, that is not true. I expected you to come here and have me sent to Lukus.”

Lukus Tempas. The Stone Prison, where Karis Luran sent the worst criminals—and the people she hated. Maybe even people she vaguely disliked. I’ve heard stories about the punishments that used to go on inside those walls. Some of them make the enchantress Lilith look like a doting wet nurse.

“Because of Tycho?” I say.

He nods. Hesitates. I wait.

“Many of us worry you will lead us to slaughter,” he says, and his heavily accented words are slow and careful. “There are those in the city who think your magic will protect you and leave us vulnerable. That you will join with your brother and let his forces overtake ours. That you will use our queen until she has no army left to fight, and then you will destroy Syhl Shallow the way we once attacked your lands.”

I’ve heard these thoughts before, in whispers and rumors. This is the first time someone has confronted me with them directly.

Solt looks at me, dead-on, and his voice tightens. “The day we ran drills, I thought you meant to humiliate me. Again. Again. Again.” He makes a disgusted noise.

“I didn’t mean to humiliate you any more than you meant to humiliate Tycho.”

“Exactly.” He pauses, then picks up two dice to slide them between his fingers. “A man who meant to lead this army to its death would not have come here to apologize to me. A man like that would not have cared.”

I go still.

He scoops the rest of the dice into his palm. “You have been running drills with Jake,” he says, and he’s right. I’ve tried running drills with the soldiers, but ever since I ran Solt into the ground, they are reluctant to fully engage. I can never tell if it’s because they don’t like me or if it’s because they don’t care, but either way, it’s never been effective.

Until tonight, I didn’t realize why.

“Tomorrow,” says Solt, “you should run them with me.”

I pick up the rest of my dice for our final game and let them spill out onto the table. Not a single “one” at all. Solt has three, and he chuckles.

“I’m better with a sword than I am with dice,” I say ruefully.

He grins. “I am counting on it.”