A Vow So Bold and Deadly (Cursebreakers, #3)

by Brigid Kemmerer

We. Such a small word, but it tightens my chest and makes it hard to swallow. It’s more than I deserve, surely. I want to pull her against me, to bury my face in her neck and remind myself that she’s alive, that she’s here, that she’s safe. But she’s angry with me, with the choices I’ve made. I force myself to be content with her hand on my arm. With the word we. She’s asked me for action. When Lilith asked, I balked. When Harper asks, I want to leap.

As we turn for the door, I catch a glimpse of us in the mirror. The dresses are truly stunning together, a clear signal that we stand for Emberfall. Rhen once asked me to be his ally, to present a united front to his people. To stand at his side. This … this is different. I’m not a billboard. Anger, familiar and not entirely unwelcome, builds in my belly, chasing away everything else. “Wait,” I say, pulling Zo to a stop. “Freya?” I tug the bow of my bodice loose. “We’re both going to need another dress.”

I hold my breath. “I thought …,” he begins, then hesitates. “I thought you understood my reasons, but perhaps—” “I do.” I peek over at him again. My voice is rough. “I do understand your reasons.” I have to look back at the horse. “When you did that,” I whisper, “you were so much more frightening than you ever were as a monster.” He inhales sharply, but I don’t look at him. I can’t look at him. “Because you made a choice,” I say, and my voice breaks. “Because it was you. Because it was someone I cared about. Because it was horrible.”

He begins to turn away, but I hold fast. “She was wrong.” He hesitates, glancing from my hand to my face. “Wrong?” “She said I would have ordered you to fight until you couldn’t hold a sword.” I lean in, keeping my voice low. “She was wrong. I would have tied it to your hand.”

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t—” “Ah, sister.” Nolla Verin swears. “How can you ask them to fight for you when you won’t fight for yourself?”

“You can be a strong queen without being your mother, Lia Mara.”

“If my people must see strength, then we need to show them ours.”

“No. I do not hate you.” She pauses. “But you have an entire kingdom to rally behind you—and an entire kingdom to protect. Harper has no one—yet still she stays. For you.”

“You know,” she calls behind me, “for Harper, I would have done it for free.” She pauses. “I was curious how much it was worth to you.” “I would have given you ten times as much.” I think of the moment Harper plunged a dagger into Lilith’s chest. I have to put a hand against my midsection to shake off the sudden emotion. “For Harper, I would have given you everything.”

You ruined nothing. You stopped me from taking an action I could not undo.

It tugs at my happiness, but I know trust is not something you win once, but is instead something you must earn over and over again.

“I didn’t mean to humiliate you any more than you meant to humiliate Tycho.” “Exactly.” He pauses, then picks up two dice to slide them between his fingers. “A man who meant to lead this army to its death would not have come here to apologize to me. A man like that would not have cared.” I go still.

Maybe that’s been the problem all along. I’ve spent so much time worrying about how my actions would be perceived that I’ve forgotten to pay attention to what actions would be best. Surely the worst decision would be to do nothing.