Bonds: A Cursed Six novel (The Cursed Six Book 1) Read online

  The white chalk Edgar had been holding to sketch a demonstration of the Three Kingdoms slipped from his fingers as he'd perhaps been listening too intensely.

  The king glared at him immediately and Edgar felt his stomach drop. "Are you looking for scolding, son? To impose upon this meeting?"

  Flushed and trying to hide his trembling, he rushed to collect the chalk where it'd rolled to the far back of the floorboards. "No, Father. Never, Father."

  "Stand, then. Present what your feeble brain managed to retain and do not interrupt again, lest you join your brother up in that tower."

  He felt himself blanch, his bones rattling around in his skin as he stood and looked up to the board that was much larger than it had been before. "Y-yes, Father."

  Edgar continued making a map of the three kingdoms which made up the continent Finvaria. The white lines were flawlessly etched on the blackboard. Thellemere, known as the winterlands, was levied towards the northwest of the continent. Pyracea, the stormlands where it rained even more than it snowed in Thellemere, made up the continent's upper eastern plains and central territories, a tail of land tapering westward to where but a thin sliver divided Thellemere from the southern kingdom, Redthorn, which was readily coined the summerlands, and sometimes 'the roselands', as their wealth was blinding with pure roses.

  When Regional Navre carried on after a pitying glance toward him, Edgar took the time to begin filling in mountains and forests and minor features that made the map all the more elaborate. Father liked things perfect.

  "The choice of offering on the cargo was taken from the Regiments' own revenue, I assure you," said Navre.

  "Much to the rest of our dismay," said Lord Barron of the city Homnland.

  Father looked at the four men sharply and Edgar swallowed hard. It was never a wise decision to irk him, as the king had a side of him that made Edgar think of the disfigured creatures from the harrowing lore his tutor had forbid him from reading—which had so clearly failed. Those creatures had sphincters and serrates that cut a man down to nothing. Just like Father's eyes.

  Navre showed signs of unease, a wise man then, and chose to toss back a gulp of his ale. Those of the Winter Regiments were unlike the dark clad knights and soldiers that made up Thellemere's companies. For starters, the men were large, larger than Father even—though that could very well be the stacks of leopard white and black furs hefted upon Navre's shoulders, down his back, the leather vambraces, and boots twice the size of the man's feet. His eyes actually reminded Edgar much of Mother's and Ethan's, as blue and green as a chalcedony caveside rock. His hair was even as blond as Ethan's, only much longer, like his own, gathered up at the back of his head and falling thick and pin-straight down broad shoulders. Two braided locks descended over his eyes, its ends curled behind his ears to denote his ranking.

  Edgar wished to tell Navre that ranking was nothing in the grand shadow of King Robert. While he did not admire his father, he acknowledged him for what he was: a man not to be challenged. Any moment now, the king would rise from his chair and become a force unrivaled, and Regional Navre and Lord Barron and the rest of the lot would wish they had not called on this meeting with their king.

  His father chuckled.

  It was worse than if he had put a knife through one of their skulls. A carol of humour that did not belong but had been exerted anyway.

  The men seemed to sense this unbecoming sound from the king's throat for the portent message it was; Lord Barron cleared his throat. "We mean only to say Thellemere has been a lone kingdom for centuries. We've prided ourselves in our recluse, abstinence of meddling with the other kingdom's affairs. It's what's kept us sustaining for as long as we have."

  "And there has been word that the city of Ermitine has discovered the water tunnels connected to the shared sea," said Regional Lithol. "It breaks the agreement of the previous rulers."

  "As we warned you it would, Your Grace," Navre said evenly.

  "The eastern rivers were frozen and poisoned with their damn plants. There was no alternative, save for letting the eastern cities dry out. Which would push its citizens westward. The tunnels were a viable solution and it served its purpose. The Pyracean Sea is shared. The waters drawn from it are but our right."

  "Then you ought to have consulted with King Clement on the matter," Navre said through clenched teeth.

  "Those were not the words I heard when your men were guzzling from the ravines these tunnels made! So I ask you now, are you questioning my methods?"

  Navre sat back, the rustle of furs filling the silence. When the man took to a set mouth and serious face, Edgar looked away, for no good could come of such an expression.

  "Thellemere," Navre said. "Has been questioning quite a few of your methods as of late."

  "Do tell," Father urged acerbically.

  "Your latest absurdity: there is word you are to send one of our princesses away to speak with some foreign prince?"

  "The Prince of Redthorn, yes."

  "Such an action calls for nothing more than questions. Questions dating back to Princess Astrid's very birth."

  "Such as?"

  "Why was she not married to the prince A'zur?!" demanded Lord Barron with his ever tactful tongue. "It would have been a perfectly blessed union, of which the gods would have approved. She and her brother are a wonderful three years apart and both are finely bred."

  Edgar had wondered this same thing, for the closer the blood ran in a union, the more sanctified it became. A promise of impeccable offspring favoured by the gods that would bring Thellemere easy summers and winters. Instead, Father had chosen Ethan and Eleanor to wed.

  "Ethan and Eleanor are but two years apart," answered Father. "And there are things about my first daughter I dare not speak unto you men who are of no worth to know."

  Edgar knew it well. On the outside, Astrid was stunningly beautiful, but there were days where beauty could not amend the wounds and defects inside of her. They did not show readily, these cuts and bruises. It took patience. Months, years, of sitting with her and eating with her before one began to notice her peculiarities. That something, hard to say what, was not right about her. Scarily so.

  There were times she seemed so smart, and then there were nights Edgar wondered whether she'd ever aged past five years in her head. Sometimes she spoke in such a rush. Sometimes, when vital concerns were discussed, Edgar, at only eight years of age, was more keen to respond with appropriate seriousness or facial expressions, while his sister mostly appeared...vacant, offended or oddly devastated. But was that grounds to displease the gods by refusing a union?

  Edgar started on the daunting mountains surrounding Thellemere's northern regions, those which could be seen off into the far distance at both day and night. Then he stole another glance at the men.

  Lord Barron's lip curled. "Have your secrets then, if you will, but remember it is this land entirely that suffers consequences. There is a reason kings before you took to recluse. There are reasons we do not associate ourselves with those stormlanders and summerlanders."

  "You cannot expect ultimate recluse when you share a continent with others. When you share resources. My kingdom is a cold one. Its grounds yield little to nothing, forcing our reliance on those more fortunate. Their coal, their crops, their industrialisation. Let us face the truth: Thellemere is no island."

  The men all took to a silence Edgar felt in his spine, causing him to sketch much quieter lest he draw their attention to him. Then Navre sat back and donned a small smile. "Is that it then, Your Grace? You wish to see Thellemere become the ascendant kingdom, to smother our neighbours into an assimilated state of our true gods?"

  "Regional, you fool," said Lord Lithol. "He doesn't want to convert them. He wants to attempt revolution and permanently dispose of them!"

  Edgar lost his breath at his father's smile.

  "The land becomes an island," the king said.

  "This is madness. If we challenge either Redthorn or Pyracea, the only t
hing our land will become is decimated." Navre seemed more amused than concerned. "This is not to mention your nearing time."

  His nearing time. Edgar wet his lips and drew closer to the blackboard so as to feel smaller. Invisible. On any other day, the feat was easily accomplished. Just then, he felt large. Large enough for his father's sudden silence to latch onto his comfort and make Edgar want to flee the room.

  "My nearing time?" King Robert whispered.

  "Yes," Lord Barron confirmed in a half-made sneer. "You near the cursed age of thirty-five, the age no Misseldon has passed for centuries. And when this age takes you, you will leave this kingdom to clean after your ambitions."

  "I would suggest your tongue be reined," murmured his father. "And your words considered with intellect, for I know well my family's name and fate. It has always been the Misseldons' shoulders to carry this kingdom. It is this very curse which takes our lives that provides this kingdom with the life it has been able to sustain through the winters. It has always been the Misseldons' curse which allows this kingdom to flourish as it does!"

  "And even that you mean to take from us!" Lord Barron roared, rising from his seat in a means of creaking, elderly bones.

  He was speaking of Alan's sacrifice. His father who believed that the offering of his youngest son would lift such a curse. Edgar pushed down the emotions once more, because if he thought about them now, if he revealed the smallest hint of soft emotions in a room where there were but great men and angry emotions, he may have in fact joined his brother in the tower.

  "You speak so loosely of my son?" King Robert whispered.

  "Thellemere needs it's princes and princesses. You would send one off to Redthorn to court a male who is already intended to another, and then you would take from us a prince in a vie to lift the curse, which you yourself have said is the sustainability of this kingdom." Lord Barron grunted. "It is deplorable."

  "I seek to expand this kingdom for the sake of its people."

  "You seek to conquer for your own self-inflation!" Lord Barron raged.

  And such was the last sentence the man uttered in his many years, for a swift sweep sounding through the air signalled his end. There were no gasps, save the one that involuntarily escaped Edgar as he felt the hot spray splatter onto him from behind, followed by a soft thump.

  He couldn't bring himself to turn around, to lay his eyes upon the amputated head of Lord Barron or he would do more than show his emotions; they would escape from his stomach, too.

  He hadn't heard when King Robert had unsheathed his blade, but rather he heard perfectly the sound as the man flicked it, the blood whipped off its sharp surface and onto the floors. He slid it back into the holster.

  Edgar was frozen. He had cleaned himself so well this morning to present his knowledge. He had worn his good boots and red tunic. The tailor had brushed out his hair to the midsection of his back, but he felt now the warm spots where the blond was dripped with crimson. His appearance was defective. Mother would scold him, but Father...

  King Robert expelled a breath, then said to Navre, "By all means, Regional, do send these cargos of 'peace.' And when the Pyraceans are done laughing at it, be sure to return so we can discuss actual plans for ridding of the stormlanders. As for Prince Alan's sacrifice, let Lord Barron's remains relay how I feel on the topic. This meeting is over."

  Chairs scraped, 'Your Grace's' circulated, and then silence.

  Still, Edgar did not dare to shift. Especially when his father's shadow came to loom from behind, his presence capering down his back until breathing was another forbidden action. He clutched the chalk in the one hand, the other fisted beside him, his eyes burning into the blackboard as he bathed in his father's silence.

  Lord Barron should not have spoken out of turn, and on a subject so delicate. Alan was the brother Edgar cherished above all of his other siblings. It was wrong of him to feel such a way, he knew this, but when he thought of his younger brother, the two of them chasing one another and wrestling and making up stories when they ought to be sleeping, he accepted that no other compared. And yet, Edgar knew to never question Father's decision to offer his little brother to the gods. Lord Barron was a fool.

  "Will these cargo ships bring peace?" his father asked him suddenly.

  "No, Father."

  "What will happen?"

  "They will see Thellemere as weak. The cargo will be an act of cowardice."

  "And then they will attempt to claim all of the Pyracean Sea," Father agreed. "I will not allow that to happen, no matter how many of you I must offer to the gods. I will see Thellemere reign all three kingdoms. I will see that A'zur accompanies Astrid into a new life. I will see my hopeless successors perform dutifully. I will see this curse put to an end with my own eyes."

  Edgar wet his lips, imagining himself in his brother's place, placed inside of the giant wooden snow leopard, a slow fire placed beneath its belly. No escape from the rising heat.

  Would people like Lord Barron argue for his life as they did Alan's?

  Why hadn't he argued for his own brother's life? Instead, some eastern lord had expressed more courage.

  And this lord had paid with his life.

  Edgar stood there, long after his father had left him to stew in his words. In a matter of days, he would be losing a part of himself when his little brother went up in flames. When reading those lore volumes that he was forbidden to read, they had often shown him disturbing images and cruel violence placed onto another as punishment. The fourway bind to horses, the ties to the hulls of ships, the loss of a finger or arm. Losing someone so close to the heart, it had to be the same, yes? Only this loss was one others would not be able to see.

  Even if they could, Edgar thought bitterly, those like Mother and Father would not care.

  *****

  The northern tower where his father had placed Prince Alan was a substructure attached to the castle's south flank. The cylindrical rise was greyed by snow and cold, shadows never quite leaving its vicinity. Though the snow of the previous night had melted and made the ground soft, wet and horrible, Edgar could tell the weather was still spiteful with chill as his breath came out in palls.

  It was good, he figured, that the Misseldons did not feel the cold, for as he scrambled up the many hard steps of the tower's inner corridor, his breaths came out whiter, signalling the true cold. Alan had spent months up here, away from all but the cold.

  Edgar held the Tome of Scriptures closer to his chest as he neared the tower's apex. The feeling of dread and misery did not wane, however.

  Why them, he wondered, even though he knew. But even so, why the Misseldons? Why did their lives resemble that of the cold? Lonely, chilling, blanched of all colour as though they were an unremarkable strip of canvas, long forgotten.

  He would not forget Alan.

  Guards stood at the top of the steps, though they bowed at Edgar's approach and stepped from in front of the wooden door with its ironwrought bars.

  Though Edgar and all others who were not the king were forbidden to visit Alan, these men did not know that. They knew only that Prince Edgar held a sacred tome and that he was Prince Edgar and as such, they dare not defy his wishes.

  When the two swiftly shifted aside and keyed open the heavy locks, Edgar did his face this way and that before stepping inside, modestly sick. Many said that, if it were not for his and Alan's two years apart, they could easily be mistaken as blessed twins for their near-waist length pale locks, similar boyishly girlish slenderness, faces of subtly gifted youth, the slightest bit long. But as of late, each time it was that Edgar slipped away unseen from the castle to meet with his brother, the boy appeared more and more ghastly. Thin from a fruit diet. Gaunt in the cheeks and under his eyes. As if the fire had already begun to drain him of life.

  But this evening, where the sun set early and the skies were blue and dark, his brother's back was to him as he knelt upon the lowset chaise pushed just beneath the lone window in the small chamber. He was kn
elt in the way of their kingdom's prayer, forearm banded across his torso, hand fisted, the other arm's elbow placed atop this fist, hand clutching what must have been a holystone, of which he whispered his prayers into. A startling white gown adorned down to his ankles, where his feet folded the slightest over one another.

  As Edgar closed the door and came closer, he saw that a shiny sheen had taken to rolling down the other boy's cheek and Edgar bit back his surprise, so as not to disturb him. Never was one to disturb a praying vessel.

  Even when the time began to disappear from him, swirling into heavy silence where Edgar stood back patiently. Until Alan said against the stone, his eyes still closed, "Brother."

  "Brother," Edgar whispered and felt a choke in his throat. Why the Misseldons? Could he and his siblings not be born to farmers, where they worked the ice caps and shorelines? If losing Alan was the price of royalty, Edgar did not want it. Had never asked for it.

  "You do not have to be sad," Alan said softly, shifting from his prayer posture to sit on the chaise and look at him. A practical skeleton with skin. Blue-grey skin, just like the colour of his eyes, of which he dabbed a sleeve at and smiled up to Edgar. "Not right now."

  But now was a perfect time to be sad. Their world was so full of terrible things and it was Alan who would suffer for it, and as Father had said, so would the rest of them.

  He thrust the tome out for his brother to take.

  The boy shook his head. "Thank you, Edgar, but I cannot."

  Edgar frowned, for he'd always taken the tome. Where there he would open it to discover the hidden sweets and savoury slabs of meat of which he'd taken great care to conceal to rid of the telling scent. So why deny them now?

  "I am to be clean for my time of death," Alan said, then shifted on the upholstery, petting the space beside him. When Edgar reluctantly sat, Alan shifted close and allowed his head to fall onto his shoulder; he weighed close to nothing. "I have to be clean so that when I die for my family, Roirii is not angry."