A Curse So Dark and Lonely (Cursebreakers, #1)

by Brigid Kemmerer

Guard commander. As if Grey has men left to command.

Ironheart, the fastest horse in the stables.

I wonder if my unchanged appearance startles him, too.

As always, I just want to get this over with.

The girl will be gone, and the season will begin again. I’ll be newly eighteen. For the three hundred twenty-seventh time.

I hate being out here playing lookout, but my brother has the worse end of this job, so I try not to complain.

I’ve missed enough days of my senior year that it probably doesn’t matter anymore.

Her micro-mini and open denim jacket make my sweatshirt feel like a parka.

He’s right, but cerebral palsy doesn’t mean my curiosity is broken.

My last sight will be a glorious sunrise.

She is half your size.” “She makes up for it in temperament.

Probably not since there were men to command and threats to deflect.

Luckily, my training is nearly as thorough as Grey’s. I duck and catch the bar before she makes contact.

There was a time when he wouldn’t have dared to question me. There was a time when I might have cared.

My left leg is clumsy and about to give way, but I mentally threaten to cut it off if it doesn’t get me out of here. It listens.

This isn’t a museum. It’s a castle. A big one.

Back before our lives fell apart, when Dad had a job and a reputation, I rode horses.

I guess she IS pretty well off

“You are on the grounds of Ironrose Castle, in the heart of Emberfall.”

But as time has passed and my kingdom has fallen into poverty and terror, I have little pride left in who I am.

In truth, I’ve burned the entire castle to the ground. More than once. The music continues to play from the ash and rubble.

“I was not mocking you, my lady.” I pause, but she says nothing. “Ironrose is not enchanted.”

His patience is always endless. I envy that.

I force myself to sheathe my weapon instead of raising the blade and plunging it into her chest. I’ve tried that before. It never ends well.

“Such manners,” she says, a faint trace of mockery in her voice. “One would think you’d been raised as royalty.”

Rhen has nothing to do with her illness, with Dad’s poor choices, with the “business partners,” but this room feels like a smack in the face anyway.

I have to swallow the anger before it steals my ability to think.

Sometimes that’s worse—when the pain is all magic. Magic takes longer to heal.

The most reckless thing I’ve ever done was attack a guy on the street with a tire iron. So I guess this is fine.

none of that is going to be helpful if I can’t get out of this room.

Without warning, my eyes well. The day has been too long. My chances keep running too short.

debating what would be worse: death, or those guys finding me like this.

The map doesn’t look like the United States, that’s for sure.

people who followed fairy lights and were never heard from again.

If this woman can be fierce with a kid on her hip, my body can stand up.

That and the fact that Harper is glaring at me as if I single-handedly caused all this.

The woman tugs at Harper’s hand. “He is the crown prince,” she whispers. “You must kneel.” Harper meets my eyes, and hers are full of wary defiance. “He’s not my prince.”

A reminder that if I manage to break this curse, I will still be left with nothing.

My eyebrows go up. “Ah, so you run from the castle, but you’d submit another woman to your fate?”

I wonder if her stubbornness has kept her from calling me to stop earlier.

“The curse grants him the ability for one hour, every season. No more, no less.”

“Ironrose—the castle and its grounds—is cursed to repeat the same season, over and over, until I …” I search for the right words. I am rarely forthright about the curse. “Until I complete a task. Time outside the castle grounds passes more slowly, but it does pass.”

This is more about the weather than about trust, surely.

Earning this moment feels a thousand times more satisfying than plying women with pretty falsehoods and empty promises.

In the darkness, together on the back of a horse, it’s tempting to forget the curse and pretend my life doesn’t exist outside this moment.

“Something went wrong when I was born. The cord was wrapped around my neck, and I got stuck in the birth canal. I didn’t get enough air. It causes problems in the brain. Some muscles don’t develop the right way.”

I had to have surgery to correct my left leg.

He might be handsome and chivalrous and well-mannered, but underneath all that, he’s a kidnapper. He turned the key in that lock this morning.

I can’t read his expression, so I have no idea whether he’s mad or we’ve formed a truce or I’m going to have to find a way to run again.

When you travel with me, people will assume you are a lady, a servant, or a whore.”

like life has injected age into his eyes, but the rest of his body hasn’t kept up.