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

I nodded and Cabrina stepped forward. She took the bracelet and pulled out my arm, stepping closer than I would normally have been comfortable with.

She glanced up at me as she began to tie it on. She smiled sweetly. “I guess this means we’ll be friends for the rest of our lives.”

Something about the way she said it struck me as odd. A feeling of wrongness began to tug at the corner of my mind.

Coren! I can sense the presence of that complex curse again.

“Where is it?” I looked up, scanning the room.

It’s... right in front of you. The girl! She is cursed with one of the Dark Avenyts!

She turned her face up to me and smiled. Only it wasn’t the innocent smile of a young girl. It was the smug look of someone having just gotten exactly what they wanted.

I jerked my arm back, but it was too late. The bracelet had already been tied. I glanced at Zofie and hers was also in place.

Cabrina held up her own bracelet covered wrist and touched it with two fingers from her other hand. I felt myst begin to build. A lot of myst. This was not some simple spell, but a very sophisticated charm.

I yelled to the guards, but it was already too late. All three bracelets started to glow a bright pink, which swiftly transitioned to a deep red.

Cabrina gave me one last look as her smile began to fade, a look of sad resignation on her face. I felt my own perception begin to fade, and suddenly my world went black.

And out of that darkness, I heard a voice. Deep and seeming to resonate inside me yet coming from far away. It was Abhulengulus, but he spoke strangely. It’s not yet your time, little one, he said. You are everything I hoped for.

The darkness suddenly broke, and I watched as Cabrina collapsed in front of me. Maggie gazed at us in horror. She bent over her friend.

Coren! Abe screamed in my head. Something’s wrong. The charms! They...

Then a longer pause before he said something much weaker.

Help....

And then he was silent.

I looked to Zofie. “Something’s wrong with Abe!”

But I did not receive an answer. My eyes went wide in horror as I saw Zofie’s face—it was completely expressionless. Her arms hung limp at her sides.

“Zofie!” I called. I gently turned her face toward me.

Her beautiful blue eyes swept in my direction, but they did not see me. They held no recognition.

It was like no one was home.

CHAPTER FIVE

Forced Hand

I stepped up to the bars of the holding cell and considered its single occupant. Cabrina sat on a stool in the center of the room and smiled back at me innocently. She looked down and smoothed a wrinkle on her dress.

I watched her silently. I was unsure of how to approach an interrogation. She acted just like a young girl. Yet I knew from experience, she was much more. I wanted to be angry at her but punishing the body would do nothing to the other intelligence inside her. It was like beating up the coat of a thief. The garment had no choice in the matter and couldn’t help that it had been worn while a crime had been committed.

Fumiko would be joining me in a moment. She was overseeing Zofie’s examination by the healer and Master Rourke. She had pushed me out of the room, saying I needed to quit walking around in a daze and find out what had happened. She was right, of course. I was having trouble dealing with this.

When the charm had activated, all of Zofie’s bright intelligence had been yanked from her. She would walk if pulled forward, sit if placed next to a chair, eat if food was pushed in her mouth. But nothing more.

Unfortunately, Zofie wasn’t the only casualty. Abhulengulus wouldn’t answer. I had called his name several times, but he had been deadly silent since his plea for help. The charm had to be interfering with him too. Rourke had examined me after looking at Zofie. He said my curse was still there, and even looked to be operating on some level. But he couldn’t tell me if Abe was truly broken or was just being suppressed. He did admit that combining curses and charms could have unexpected effects. While both used myst and could do similar things, they operated quite differently. I began to suspect that maybe the charm had actually been intended for me, but because of that strange charm to curse interference, Abe bore the entire cost.

Funny, I had wanted to be rid of Abe since I first got him, but over the last couple of months, we had come to an understanding. Now that he was broken, I had to say I missed him.

I shook my head and tried to focus on the problem in front of me. We had to figure this out.

Cabrina loosened her braid and began to redo it. She seemed utterly unconcerned that she sat in a dungeon cell and had just harmed the kingdom’s ruling monarch.

A moment later, Fumiko strode into the dungeon with a guard and Master Rourke in her wake.

“How is she?” I asked. Fumiko glanced briefly at our captive before turning her gaze back to me. Her expression was unreadable. “The same.”

I looked to Rourke. He shrugged. “The charm somehow interferes with mental processing. Her mind appears to still be there, after a fashion. But it’s like she has been separated from her body.”

I frowned. “It’s got to be the bracelet. Can we remove it?”

Rourke cleared his throat. “I’m not sure that taking it off is a good idea. At least until we can learn more about how