Assassin of Curses: (The Coren Hart Chronicles Book 3) by Jessie Eaker (best novels in english TXT) 📕

to help her so badly. But I was beginning to think only the Creator himself could help her now. Her kingdom was in trouble.

The deep kind.

It was not her fault. Her brother Wynn had murdered their father, blamed it on her, put a curse on her, and then took the kingdom for himself. The irony of it was that it hadn’t actually been Wynn, but one of the Dark Avenyts controlling him. Or at least that was our current theory. Unfortunately, Wynn escaped our last battle and was still at large. I was confident we had not seen the last of him.

Wynn wasn’t the only casualty of the Dark Avenyts possessions. Zofie’s cousin Risten Brightmare, who had been her closest friend, had been captured and turned into one of their puppets. Like Wynn, Risten had also gone missing.

Our intelligence indicated Wynn had dispatched Risten to parts unknown right before we managed to retake the throne. It was apparently some sort of special mission. But whatever it was, we were sure the Dark Avenyts inside Risten would use her deadly sword-master skills to succeed.

That is where I come in. I am this generation’s Thief of Curses. Using my Abhulengulus curse, I not only helped Zofie regain her throne, but I was also able to take control of, or steal, the curse Wynn had placed on her. While she still bore it, I was at least able to mitigate the worst of its effects.

Abhulengulus, or Abe as I generally called him, was quite the unique curse. He possessed his own intelligence. A most disagreeable one, I might add. And not only could he steal other curses, he could also influence my luck. Which usually turned out bad.

I couldn’t help but glance at the curse anchor on my left wrist—a most unusual placement I had been told. Most people bearing a curse would also have a symbol high on their chest where the curse attached to their body. It generally resembled a round coin-sized tattoo. But mine, being such a unique curse, was located on my wrist and oddly shaped. It took the form of an almost flowing triangle with a single eye in its center. And when the eye opened, Abe would talk to me in my head, so only I could hear him. He would even answer my questions.

If he felt like it.

Zofie groaned in her sleep and frowned. Having an unpleasant dream, no doubt. Not that I was surprised. There hadn’t been a lot lately to have a good dream about. Except perhaps our engagement. But any wedding was going to have to wait until after the kingdom had enough food to make it acceptable to have the celebration.

The possessed Wynn had set out to destroy the kingdom so that it posed no threat to the Dark Avenyts’s advance. He did a pretty good job of it too. The royal granaries were empty, and all the coin in the treasury had been spent. Not to mention, about half of the kingdom’s precious myst users had been spirited away to parts unknown—or killed outright.

As I looked at Zofie’s sleeping face, I couldn’t help but smile at the line of drool escaping her lips. She seemed so innocent in slumber, but inside that head of hers was a sharp intellect finely tuned to the art of statecraft. She was a born leader. I had assumed she had gotten it from her father, but as we had recently discovered, her mother had also been the leader of a secretive people called the Keepers. And much to Zofie’s surprise, she had also inherited the role of their Guardian.

Unfortunately, they had tried to force Zofie to forsake her kingdom and immediately assume the role. But with the help of my curse and a rather large crab, we managed to make them understand Zofie’s fate lay in a different direction. They had ultimately agreed to wait until Zofie had dealt with her kingdom first.

I sighed and brought myself back to the present. Looking down at my paper, I stroked my lips in contemplation. What to write? What wondrous observation could I make? What pearl of wisdom would be useful to Zofie and the kingdom? I had to move this along. I was under a bit of a deadline.

It was almost time for lunch, and I, for one, had resolved not to miss this meal. Well, actually, I tried not to miss any meal. But for this one, Zofie had invited me to a picnic. When I asked where, she told me I would be surprised, but otherwise, kept her plans secret. It was cold outside today, as one would expect in mid-winter, so I couldn’t help but wonder where it would be. I was sure the meal would be nothing special. Zofie had decreed that with the food shortage, we would eat as the people did. But even with all those challenges, I was looking forward to it. We had been so busy lately, a chance for a little recreation would be most welcome.

I looked back down at my paper. I was almost out of time. As they say, it was now or never. I looked up into the rafters one last moment as I constructed the exact wording in my head. Then I carefully dipped my quill in my ink bottle and boldly wrote: “We won’t give up.”

I nodded in satisfaction. Simple and straight forward, yet from the heart. It was surely my best work.

A knock sounded on the thick door. I started at the unexpected sound and placed a hand over my pounding heart. Zofie jerked upright and looked around in momentary panic. Her eyes locked on mine, and she visibly relaxed. While we both had been expecting the interruption, we were on edge. Things were just too quiet.

True, winter made news travel slowly. But based on past history, Wynn would not be sitting idle. He