“You should come for dinner tomorrow night,” Asinia said.
I hid a wince. Asinia and her mother weren’t quite as poor as us, but they definitely didn’t have much food to spare either. And yet, they both kept trying to feed me.
“Asinia.”
“My mother loves you, Prisca. She knows how things have been since your father died.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Asinia raised her eyebrow in that way she did when she knew exactly what I was thinking. “Your mother would do the same for me.”
She waved and turned back toward the square. I continued along the dusty path and unlocked our front door.
“Mama?”
Our house was quiet.
Unnaturally quiet. Eerily quiet.
Sprinting into her room, I dropped to my knees next to her. Her eyes rolled, and she gasped for air.
My mother was in the midst of a vision.
CHAPTER TWO
“Feels like a trap,” Rythos muttered, shifting on his horse as the sun flickered over his dark skin. He ducked his head, barely missing a particularly low-hanging branch. Mountains towered to our east, their jagged, snowcapped peaks stabbing into the sky.
“Of course it’s a trap.” Marth scowled, pulling his cloak tighter around himself with a wary glance at the ruins of the city in front of us.
The Cursed City had once been the capital of Eprotha. Centuries ago, when humans invaded what was now known as the Barren Continent, they were unprepared for the retaliation they would face.
Now, the capital was Lesdryn—on the other side of the kingdom.
After so many days of travel, most of us could use a good fight. But we had little time to spare. Already, we’d had to ride hard from one of the smaller villages in the east for this meeting.
My skin felt too tight. This was, indeed, guaranteed to be a trap.
As usual, Cavis was quiet. His wife had just had their first child, and he was longing for home. But he hadn’t complained. Like all of us, he knew just how important the next few weeks would be.
“What about you, Cavis?” I asked. “Do you think the stone hags will actually behave honorably for once?”
Cavis sent me a wry smile. “Even men like us should be wary of the Cursed City. And the creatures who roam there.”
Few knew that the Cursed City was now inhabited. Fewer still came anywhere near this part of the kingdom. And yet, here we were, at what were once the gates to this ruined city.
“Come out, hags,” I ordered.
“Come innnn,” a voice called back.
I shook my head. Walk into a city of rubble, when the stone hags could wield that rubble to bury us alive? “We have a bargain. Break it and accept the consequences.”
I allowed a hint of my power free. Mostly because a hint was all that was left. Grinding my teeth, I held up a hand, my magic sparking in the sunlight. Soon. Soon, my power would be returned in full.
“You dareeee threaten usss?”
Rythos’s horse shifted under him. He jumped off and pulled his sword. “Don’t make us come in there.”
“They want us to come in there,” Marth muttered. “That’s the point.”
We didn’t have time for this. I let my power strike at the closest pile of rubble—one that had likely been a watchtower. From the shriek that pierced my ears, one of the stone hags had been using it to spy on us. I smiled. Hopefully that would reduce the time we spent in this place.
Several hags appeared from the rubble. All of them moved slowly, their gray skin wrinkled and dry as dust. The one in the center wore a crown of tourmaline.
I dismounted and waited for them to come to us. I’d always found power in silence. Rythos lazily swung his sword in his hand. I gave him a warning look, and his mouth curved in a feral smile. All these years, and I still didn’t know why he loathed the hags.
“The bargain has changed,” the queen hissed. “We will require more gold.”
Galon jumped off his horse next to me, offense flashing over his face. Once agreed upon, deals were never to be broken. Behind us, Marth and Cavis guarded our backs, although I knew both men well enough to know they were hoping for a fight.
“And you believe we will comply with your demands?”
The queen smiled, a grotesque display of crumbling stone teeth. “I believe I know why you need this little ingredient.” She held up a vial containing the specific moss we required. “And if I am correct, you will need secrecy. Because if the king learned of your plans, all of you would burnnnn.”
I watched the queen until she dropped her gaze. She immediately lifted it, but it was too late. We both knew who was more dominant.