Cursed by Fire (43 page)

“Good,” he said. “Then do it. And quickly before I shame myself and lose my nerve.”

“So be it.”

Faster than light, Weysa’s blade sang out, cutting his head from his shoulders. In a bright flash of light, his head and body both disappeared before his head could part even two inches from his neck.

“Oh sweet merciful goddess, please!” Selinda crumpled to the ground, passing out cold from the shock.

“Selinda. Selinda …”

Selinda swam up from the darkness, afraid to leave it because she could still hear his voice calling her name,
and when she woke she knew it would be gone. Cut away by the edge of a goddess’s blade.

“Selinda!”

Her eyes snapped open, and to her shock, she found herself staring into beloved green eyes. A beloved face. A beloved pair of hands stroking her shoulders and arms.

“Dethan!”

He chuckled when she flung herself against him, grasping at his back and shoulders in desperation.

“God of dreams, Mordu, please. If this is just a dream, then do not allow me to waken!”

“It is not a dream. Come and kiss your mortal husband,” Dethan said.

She did so in an instant, kissing him as though it would be their last time, and she vowed it would be thus every time from then on. When she came away from him she looked around the room and saw Weysa still standing there, bold and beautiful in her gleaming armor.

“Kitari is with us,” she observed with satisfaction. “I had thought so and now we have proof. I thank you for your sacrifice, Dethan.”

“No. It is I who thank you. You have given me a gift beyond measure.” He looked back at his wife and kissed her once again.

“You may keep your god-made armor. It will no doubt save your life each summer as you wage battle in my name. The curse of fire is of course lifted. You have come far, Dethan. And now, one last gift …”

In a flash of light Weysa disappeared and a large man-size object fell to the floor with a smack in her wake. Dethan flew from his wife’s side and over to the object, which looked like a large chunk of ice.

“Garreth! It’s Garreth!” Dethan said, touching his frozen brother and hissing as his warmer hands nearly stuck to the ice. “Tonkin! Hanit! Come quickly!”

The two came hurrying over and Selinda slid out of her bed to join them.

“My youngest brother,” Dethan said as he and Tonkin slid his brother toward the fire to warm him. “But why would she pick him? He has never led any armies. He has only ever seen me and followed me. I … I would have thought she would have chosen Maxum or Jaykun.”

“She is a goddess,” Selinda said bitterly. “She has her own reasons.”

Dethan turned to her, reaching to touch a now cold hand to hers. “That goddess has just given me everything I could ever ask for.”

“Except your other two brothers,” she said.

“Except that,” he agreed. “But otherwise … I am the happiest man alive.”

“Alive,” she breathed then, running her hands over him. “You’re alive. And … we will grow old together.”

“That will be my every endeavor,” he promised her.

“Good,” she said. “Because your son and I will need you. Now, let us tend to your brother.”

“Not you. You go back to bed,” he ordered her sternly. “You will eat something and then, when he is warmed, you will meet my brother. For now … let me help my brother as I could not help him in all these full turnings past.”

Selinda turned to do as he bade but stopped when she saw a pile of metal on the floor. She quickly realized it was armor.

And there, on the breastplate, was etched the beautiful petals of the wey flower.

Jacquelyn Frank is the
New York Times
bestselling author of the Immortal Brothers series (
Cursed by Fire, Cursed by Ice
), the World of Nightwalkers series (
Forbidden, Forever, Forsaken
, and
Forged
), the Three Worlds series (
Seduce Me in Dreams
and
Seduce Me in Flames
), the Nightwalkers series (
Adam, Jacob, Gideon, Elijah, Damien
, and
Noah
), the Shadowdwellers novels (
Ecstasy, Rapture
, and
Pleasure
), and the Gatherers novels (
Hunting Julian
and
Stealing Katherine
). She lives in North Carolina and has been writing romantic fiction ever since she picked up her first teen romance at age thirteen.

www.jacquelynfrank.com

Garreth walked into the command tent and immediately dropped his burden on one of the cross-legged tables within. He wore full armor, so every time he moved the sound of metal striking metal was made. It was a sound he had grown to love over his lifetime. The sound of a man ready for whatever battles might come his way. A sound he once thought he would never hear again.

“Well, little brother, how goes things with the troops?”

Garreth turned to face Dethan. “Well, elder brother,” he said with a tight-lipped smile, “they are bored out of their skulls.”

“I thought you were sending out hunting parties.”

“I did. And we’ve game aplenty now. But these men have come for a fight and they are itching to do battle. I cannot say I blame them. The summer wears on, and soon you will be returning to your wife and child, taking half our forces back with you to winter. They want to see at least one more glorious battle before they go.”

“Outside this tent and a few strides away is that glorious battle to come.” Dethan moved to the front of the tent, looking out the opening and toward the city they had chosen to sack in Weysa’s name.

That was their part of the bargain, the deal that had freed the two brothers from their torments after they had drunk from the fountain. Dethan, Garreth had learned, had been thrust down into the darkest, hottest pit of the eight hells, cursed to burn to the bone over and over again, just as Garreth had been cursed to freeze. But almost a full turn of the seasons ago, the goddess had freed Dethan.

Weysa needed warriors to fight in her name. She and the other gods had grown weak as the people turned away from their faith and belief in them, for they needed the love and devotion of the people in order to gain power. And now that the twelve gods were at war, split into two factions of six, they desired power more than ever. Weysa’s faction consisted of Hella, the goddess of fate and fortune; Meru, the goddess of hearth, home, and harvest; her brother Mordu, the god of hope, love, and dreams; Lothas, the god of day and night; and Framun, the god of peace and tranquillity. They warred with the opposing faction of Xaxis, the god of the eight hells; Grimu, the god of the eight heavens; Diathus, the goddess of the land and oceans; Kitari, the goddess of life and death; Jikaro, the god of storms; and Sabo, the god of pain and suffering.

However, Kitari, the queen of the gods, was being held by Xaxis’s faction against her will, a fact they had discovered only last winter, when Dethan had traded away his immortality in order to discover her true intent. It had been a risky proposition, one that could easily have backfired and meant a permanent end to Dethan, but instead it had freed him fully from his curse, made him mortal, and allowed Garreth to be freed from his icy hell as well.

Somewhat.

For every night, between dusk and the juquil’s hour, Garreth was cursed to freeze again. A reminder, he
thought grimly, of what he had done and of the gods’ discontent with him. Weysa had only freed him to fight; she had not been willing to release him entirely from his curse.

But that did not matter. All that mattered was that they and their army perform well. They had conquered one city already, this past spring, erecting temples to Weysa within its walls and filling its army with more soldiers. Now it was coming on the end of summer and out there, only a short distance away, was the next city.

The first city had been easy. Almost too easy. Dissatisfyingly easy. Garreth had wanted a pitched battle, a fight to vent his anger and frustrations on.

Both of which were great and many.

But more than that, he wanted to please the goddess. Not from fear of her, although that was most certainly present, but in the hopes that she would see what powerful warriors the brothers were, what great assets they were … and maybe it would compel her to find and release the remaining two brothers from their torments.

Garreth and Dethan fought and conquered just the same, in the hopes that one day their brothers would be free. Yes, most of all, that was what they both fervently prayed for.

Just then a courier ran up to the tent. He handed a pair of dispatches to Dethan.

“Ah! A letter from Selinda!” Dethan said eagerly, moving back into the tent and handing the second dispatch to Garreth, unread. Dethan clearly did not care what was in the other message. The letter from his wife meant more to him than anything else.

Rescuing their brothers was a very close second to that.

“Look! Look how he’s grown!” Dethan showed a paper to Garreth excitedly. It was a very skillfully rendered and life-like miniature painting of Dethan’s infant
son. The child was nearly five wanings old, and Dethan had been campaigning for three of those wanings. Garreth and the army had conquered their first city alone before Dethan had joined them at the turn of summer, as was agreed by Weysa. Dethan’s summers were hers, when he would fight, and the remaining months he belonged to his beloved wife, Selinda.

These months had been difficult on Dethan, Garreth knew. He had wanted to be with his wife and child, and the separation had often taken its toll on his mood. But Garreth had easily forgiven Dethan his surly moments. He would have felt the same had he a wife like Selinda and a child like Dethan’s fine son, Xand.

“She writes that they are both healthy and well. That—” Dethan broke off.

“Yes?” Garreth prompted.

“Well, I cannot repeat this part,” Dethan said with a wolfish grin, his eyes bright with amusement as he looked up at his brother. “She would never forgive me.”

“Say no more, brother,” Garreth said, amused by the besotted man.

He was amused, but he did not smile.

He had thought he would never live to see the day his brother was in love. Of all of them, Dethan had never professed to love a woman—even in his youth, when boys tend to be reckless with giving away their hearts. But he was completely around the bend over Selinda, his devotion to her rampant.

Garreth envied him that. He envied the warm home and squirming child that awaited his brother once the cold of fall came calling. Garreth would continue the campaign against the new city until it was defeated, however long that took, but Dethan would leave him to it the moment the weather turned cold.

Garreth left his brother to his letter and turned his eyes to the missive in his own hands. The paper was
folded neatly and sealed with wax, which had been stamped with the intricate image of a dragon of some sort, its wings broad within the circle of the stamp. The letter was addressed:

Intrigued, Garreth broke the seal and opened the letter.