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

unmoving with hands in her lap. I couldn’t help but study her face for some infinitesimal showing of expression, but there was none. We had considered bringing Vidonia along with us to help with her but decided against it. I just hoped I’d be able to care for her properly during our travel.

I jumped at the knock on the door. Captain Milner joined us, and with him came the last of our party. Cabrina.

She too had been dressed in practical shirt, pants, and boots, with a heavy hooded cloak. Her expression was wide-eyed. It was like she was going to her first party.

I sighed. It was time.

We decided to go with the smallest number of people we could get by with: Zofie, Cabrina, and myself because of our connected charms, then Fumiko as our guide, and Spraggel... well, because he was Spraggel.

We would also be going in secret. The official story was that Zofie had been injured in an assassination attempt and was in bed recuperating. Fumiko had already canceled all her appointments and forbidden anyone but her council and Vidonia from entering her room. Master Rourke and Captain Milner had agreed to stay back and keep things running until we returned. Which meant we had to travel quickly before our ruse was exposed.

Unfortunately, Xiangwei City, our ultimate destination within the Kuiojia Empire, was roughly a third of the distance around the world. Which meant we had a lot of ground to cover, and the only way to quickly do that was to use portals.

To get us started, Rourke had volunteered to open a portal to Iron Landing—the first major town along our path. I had initially argued against this move based on Lady Merrick’s letter concerning Risten. It could be deadly if we encountered her. But, unfortunately, Iron Landing was the only town along our path that held a correspondor—a specialized myst device that could communicate with another pared with it. Or in our case, it also served as an anchor for the remote end of the portal. Zofie commissioned it to be placed in the town just in case she needed to travel there quickly.

So I had reluctantly agreed to pass through Iron Landing despite Lilith being there. Going overland by horse, or even upriver by boat, would take several days and expose us to discovery. We would just have to keep a low profile so as not to attract attention.

From Iron Landing, we planned to take a barge up the Nortesy River to Dunomhir. My family didn’t live in the town but were within riding distance.

Fortunately, Dunomhir also happened to host a retired myst user by the name of Master Oddfrid Vandobarre. We were hoping to get him to open a long-range portal all the way to the Kuiojia Empire. However, this might take some convincing, having left the king’s service rather abruptly a few years back. Since then, he had become a recluse and refused to have anything to do with the royal court.

I had asked Rourke why he couldn’t just do it himself and quickly got an indignant lesson on myst portals. Apparently, there are two kinds—short-range and long-range. Rourke could only use the short-range kind, and despite ‘short’ being in the name, it required a huge expenditure to open it. The one he planned for Iron Landing would nearly deplete him and put him out of commission for at least a week.

However, a long-range portal worked differently. It could, in theory, be opened to anywhere in the world. But to do it did require a unique ability called wayfaring—something only a few people had. These wayfarers were highly sought after and generally very well compensated. Unfortunately, the royal one had vanished along with most of the other myst users in the kingdom. That left Oddfrid as our only option other than going overland.

“It’s time,” I announced. Each of the others moved to their assigned positions while I helped Zofie stand and take her place in the circle. I took a deep breath, looked at each one of our small group, and then nodded to Rourke.

He returned my nod. “The portal will be small, barely large enough for you to pass through. I will put it on the floor so you can drop inside, but you must do it quickly. I can only hold it open for less than a minute.” He looked at us levelly. “And if I say to hold, do not enter the portal. You do not want to be caught in it should I have to drop it.”

We nodded. All of us looked nervous, except Spraggel. He unexpectedly slapped me on the back. “Don’t be so serious Coren. It’s only Iron Landing.”

“I know, but this is the first time I’ve traveled like this.”

Spraggel leaned closer. “You have nothing to worry about. Mikney doesn’t know you’re holding Maggie under house arrest... yet. Once he finds that out, you might have something to worry about.”

“What?”

With a grin, Master Rourke closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. I then felt him gathering his myst. On the wooden floor in front of us, a light blue circle began to glow, almost a cyan color, and barely large enough for someone to drop through. It grew in intensity, and then suddenly, the boards beneath it seemed to disappear.

“Now!” he yelled.

I went first. I hopped forward and fell a good five feet onto another wooden floor. I quickly moved to the side, barely avoiding getting hit in the head by my and Fumiko’s packs. I pulled them to one side just before Fumiko dropped through. She wheeled to the side and began to check our surroundings. A moment later, Zofie’s feet appeared. I quickly grabbed them and helped lower her down and away. Spraggel came next and then finally Cabrina. I held the words for her control charm ready, but she