Or at least it would be until the Bride found my newest wife.
I was glad the little Aeglean sorceress was confident about her chances, but the Bride was powerful beyond imagining. Only the gods knew whether Sofie Dar’Vester could beat her death curse and win me the treasure.
And as much as I’d love to think the opposite, my money was on the curse.
Chapter five
Sofie
NotlongafterImade the deal with Bluebeard, the pirate captain left. In his stead, someone knocked timidly at the door to the captain’s cabin.
When I opened it, I discovered a round-cheeked little boy who was overburdened with blankets and furs. He was much cuter now that he wasn’t brandishing a knife at me.
“Cap’n sent me to set up your bed.” The boy sniffed the burden in his arms. “Not sure if it’s fit for a lady, but it was the best I could find.”
I let him in, wondering where this bed was meant to be set up.
Ah. The floor. Of course. Bluebeard was every bit the gentleman I’d have expected.
“What’s your name?” I asked the boy.
He paused in his labors, straightening the makeshift bed. “I’m Jovus, but you can call me boy or cabin boy.”
“I most certainly will not.” I crossed my arms and made a point of sitting down on the captain’s bed.
The boy blanched. “You shouldn’t sit on Cap’n’s bed, miss. He don’t like it. The other brides got in trouble for doing it.”
“It’s Sorceress Dar’Vester,” I told the boy, “and I’m no ordinary bride. I’ll sit where I please. What’s he going to do about it?”
“Chores,” Jovus said like a question, “as punishment?”
I laughed. “I’d like to see him try to enforce that.”
The boy dusted off his hands, suddenly nervous. “I’m supposed to let you inspect me, too. For trying to break the curse?”
All the bluster went out of me at that. He was just a child…though not the only cursed child I’d seen this week. Still.
At least Bluebeard was actually keeping his word. I’d have this curse figured out in no time.
“Come closer,” I bid Jovus.
The boy was…unremarkable. If the curse was on him, too, then it was hiding itself well. Then again, I was surrounded by it here—and I likely carried it myself now that I was Captain Bluebeard’s wife.
I frowned at the wedding ring still on my finger, the opal swirling with some kind of spell. I suspected it was a protection enchantment, though it was either faded with time or broken down by the curse itself. I tried to pull it off.
The ring was stuck. Becauseof courseit was. Yet when I twisted and examined it, it looked as though it ought to fit over the joint. That smacked of some kind of magic. Perhaps I couldn’t see the curse directly, but I could spot little signs of it like this. Death magic was the most cunning of all spell types, after all.
But no amount of squinting or scrutiny gave me even aglimpseof the powerful curse that was at work here. Was this some kind of joke? Did the curse even exist?
Exceptsomethinghad made my spells rebound and sting me earlier. And something was keeping this ring on my finger.
Well played, Sorceress Bride. I should’ve known your work would be cleverer than that.
With a sigh, I dismissed the boy. “That’ll be all.”
“That didn’t even hurt,” he said, suddenly cheerful.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Who told you I’d hurt you?”
