She Stole My Curse novel · Chapter 8 of 32

Chapter 8: The Ember Lord

I showed Aurek the message that night.

He read it twice and handed it back.

"Go if you want," he said.

"You don't mind?"

"You're not my prisoner." He turned back to the net he was mending. "You keep telling me you're not going anywhere. Let's see."

That stung more than it should have.

The border vents lay a half day's swim south, where the reef ended and the rock turned black and red.

The water got warmer the closer I came.

Then it got hot.

Columns of shimmer rose from cracks in the seabed. Tube worms as long as my arm waved their red plumes. The rocks glowed orange in their seams.

In my first life, I had come south only twice.

The second time, I'd died here.

My hands started shaking. I closed them into fists until they stopped.

Brannoch Ashvent was waiting in a garden of red stone pillars, alone, just as he'd promised.

Without his guards and his armor he looked less like a warlord and more like a big, tired man with a beard full of soot.

"You came," he said. "I wasn't sure. Your sister says you've gone mad."

"My sister says a lot of things."

He grinned. It took ten years off him.

"Sit," he said. "Don't touch that rock, it'll take your skin off. That one's fine."

I sat on the one that was fine.

He sat across from me and leaned his elbows on his knees.

"At the Choosing," he said, "when your sister took my pearl, the whole hall cheered. Your mother cried. I looked over and saw you."

He studied my face.

"You looked at me like I was already dead."

I didn't say anything.

"Nobody's ever looked at me like that," he said. "I've been in four wars. I've been stabbed twice. Not once has anyone looked at me like that."

"Why does it matter?"

"Because then your sister asked my captain where the sea witch lives," he said. "On our second night bound. She said she wanted a love charm. She laughed about it."

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