“No, it’s true. It just…well, it hasn’t been seen in a very long time. Since the curse.”
“So the curse is real,” she mulls this over, dropping her fingers into her lap. I feel the absence of them so acutely that I clear my throat and stand up, just to give my body something to do.
“The curse is very real. It’s why nothing electric works outside the Boundary. But magic was never something that people could just wield as they wanted. It comes from the elements, from the earth itself. It’s in the sky and the trees and the water. And it chose when it would come and who it would come to. Rumor has it that it was attracted to the strongest emotions—love, hate, sadness. But no one really knows anymore. The land was cursed, and magic disappeared along with the light.”
Mirren appears to be somewhere far away from this cave, and I wonder where it is. Then she asks, “Who cursed it?”
I shrug halfheartedly. I’m sure in all Denver’s research, he’s come across the name, but I’ve never thought to ask him. The name has never been as important as the repercussions of her decisions. “The name’s been lost with time. This land was called something else then, but it was already a wild place before the curse—there were no limits except for one’s own conscience. Magic and technology mingled freely, bringing wealth and abundance with them. But where prosperity lives, so does greed. Some stories say the great queen was grieved by the evil that pervaded the land. Other versions say she herself was after power and she wished to curse all those who challenged her. Whatever the reason, her curse doomed everyone to live in Darkness and everything electric in the world went out.”
I shove my hands into my pockets. A shiver slides up my spine. I speak of things that don’t wish to be spoken of, things ancient and slumbering that would be better left undisturbed. But Mirren soaks up my words as if they are sunshine, basking in them. How she’s lived her whole life in a place that shames her thirst for knowledge, I’ll never understand. Like Denver, her curiosity is a never-ending appetite that demands to be sated.
“No one can seem to agree on whether she meant to eradicate magic as well, or if magic was even something thatcouldbe eradicated. Maybe it was a side effect of the curse. But magic isn’t the same as it once was. It no longer roams freely. It doesn’t frolic with humans or anoint its choices with power.”
“It’s gone?”
I consider her question. Normally, I’d be the first to say I’ve never seen any trace of magic, but it isn’t the truth. Aggie, my friend, and the woman who made the prediction that led me to Mirren, has always known odd things. Though until I was desperate, I’d always written it off as the harmless ravings of a lonely old woman. I wonder if in a different world, the world of the old gods, she would have been revered. If her visions would have been fully formed instead of the ragged snippets she receives now.
“There are traces of it. But it’s muted. Like it’s also lost its light.”
Mirren stares at the bloodstained cloth she used to clean my wounds. My heart stutters in shame. I shouldn’t have allowed her to care for me as she did. Not as I confessed how I planned to use her. As I purposely didn’t tell her the entire truth of how I came to find her and what I intended to do with her. I didn’t deserve her ministrations and know better than to accept them, but there exists a selfish part of me when it comes to her. A part that clings to whatever it is she deems fit to give. A primal urge, to clutch at the small scraps and declare them something likemine.But nothing about Mirren is for men like me.
“Shaw, I think the water healed you.”
Her words drag me out of my never-ending cycle of self-flagellation with a start. I eye the cloth she grips in her hand. I vaguely recall her dipping it in the stream, the same stream I’ve used to clean my wounds since I was a terrified seven-year-old. It didn’t heal me then, not even when I was closer to the brink of death than I cared to admit. A child, cleaning burns and slashes. Setting broken bones with dry eyes because there was no one to cry for anyway. No one that would care.
So why would the water heal me now?
“I cleaned all your wounds with it, and you said there was magic in the elements,” she presses. She stands, waving the bloody rag in front of her. Her expression is animated and shy all at once, as though she is used to being shamed for her excitement.
“I also said it was attracted to emotion. Is there something you want to tell me, Lemming?”
She glowers, setting her lips in a line. “Maybe it couldn’t resist the intense bloodlust that rises in me any time you open your mouth.”
I chuckle but fall somber as I gaze at the rag. It seems unlikely that magic, which has been dormant for hundreds of years, would come back to healme,of all people. A liar, a murderer, and a thief doesn’t seem like a wise first choice.
My eyes drift to Mirren. Mirren, who is kind and selfless to a fault. Who risked her life to save her brother’s then risked it once more to save mine.Shewould be a wise choice to anoint with its power. Because aren’t those most suited for power those who will never seek it?
Her gaze meets mine and something stirs in my chest. “Shaw, what does this mean?”
Even though my feet are surefooted on the cave floor, trepidation and excitement flutter within me, as if I teeter atop a precipice. The smallest movement in either direction will have gravity pulling me into something I can’t escape. Something that cannot be unfound. Undone.
“If you’re right, it means something has awakened.”
* * *
Mirren
Hours later, I blink up at the inky black that has descended over the cave. I don’t remember falling asleep, but it must have been a while ago because night has now decisively fallen. My stomach growls as my eyes finally adjust to the darkness. With a start, I realize Shaw is gone.
I wonder briefly if he’s left me now that he’s been healed but dismiss the thought as quickly as it comes. Now that I know why Shaw needs me, I’m assured of his continued presence. It’s not as if Similian women are easy to come by.
A noise scrapes at the mouth of the cave and cool dread sluices through me. Shaw’s bedroll is ruffled, a toppled canteen spilling its contents across the soft fabric. With his usual deliberateness, he never would have left his things this way.
Not unless he was forced.
Something crashes into the dry brush outside, and I grip the dagger I stashed under my pillow. I climb to my feet. The mare chomps happily at a pile of blossoms in the cave corner, paying no attention to me or the commotion outside.
I tense as I creep to the opening, the dagger slick in my hand. Whatever has taken Shaw discounted me as weak, but they are wrong. He’s mine now, my ticket to saving Easton’s life, and I’ll be damned if I let him go without a fight.
