The broken a dark fantas.., p.1
The Broken: A Dark Fantasy Romance, page 1
THE BROKEN
ZELIE COLE
The Broken by Zelie Cole
Midnight Books, LLC
www.zeliecole.com
Copyright © 2022 Zelie Cole. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written consent from the author. For permissions contact zeliecole@yahoo.com.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and events described within are products of the author’s imagination. Any likeness to real places, occurrences, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover Art by Wendibones
Contents
Chapter 1 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 2 - Isobel
Chapter 3 - Isobel
Chapter 4 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 5 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 6 - Isobel
Chapter 7 - Isobel
Chapter 8 - Isobel
Chapter 9 - Isobel
Chapter 10 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 11 - Isobel
Chapter 12 - Isobel
Chapter 13 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 14 - Isobel
Chapter 15 - Isobel
Chapter 16 - Isobel
Chapter 17 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 18 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 19 - Isobel
Chapter 20 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 21 - Isobel
Chapter 22 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 23 - Isobel
Chapter 24
Chapter 25 - Isobel
Chapter 26
Chapter 27 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 28 - Isobel
Chapter 29
Chapter 30 - Isobel
Chapter 31 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 32 - Isobel
Chapter 33 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 34 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 35 - Isobel
Chapter 36 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 37 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 38 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 39 - Isobel
Chapter 40 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 41 - Isobel
Chapter 42 - Isobel
Chapter 43 - Isobel
Chapter 44 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 45 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 46 - Isobel
Chapter 47 - Isobel
Chapter 48
Chapter 49 - Isobel
Chapter 50 - Isobel
Chapter 51 - Isobel
Chapter 52 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 53 - Isobel
Chapter 54 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 55 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 56 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 57 - Isobel
Chapter 58 - Isobel
Chapter 59 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 60 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 61 - Isobel
Chapter 62 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 63 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 64 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 65 - Isobel
Chapter 66 - Isobel
Chapter 67 - Isobel
Chapter 68 - Isobel
Chapter 69 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 70 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 71 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 72 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 73 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 74 - Isobel
Chapter 75 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 76 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 77 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 78 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 79 - Cursa Dram
Chapter 80 - Cursa Dram
EPILOGUE
We can go wrong in our minds. But what our blood feels and believes and says, is always true.
- D.H. Lawrence
1
Cursa Dram
Cursa Dram peered around the corner, down the freezing, sodden alleyway. There were only a few today, no more than five or six. He couldn't be sure. Some of them were huddled together—and there was only one child, that he could see. A small enough mercy. He'd thought there would be more. He had resigned himself to the likelihood that they would be mostly children. After all, men and women fought harder for their children than they did for themselves, didn't they? Prayed harder for miracles? Cursa Dram thought briefly of his own father, and it struck him as strange. For years, his only thought of the man, his only dreams, had been of a corpse, skinned and strung up on a gate like an animal. And yet, just now, he thought of his father's sharp and cunning face, his dark eyes and unbreakable calm. The two of them crouched in the brush outside the fortress at Belem. Faintly, indistinguishable to another tribe, a lesser man, perhaps, the wailing of a pack of dogs could be heard. His father did not need to speak. He merely tapped two fingers against his thigh and looked at Cursa Dram with unblinking eyes, in the way that only the Hesati could, and all was known. Don't make a sound. Get out. I will take care of it.
Cursa Dram thought of the boy he was then and how hard it had been for him, even at fifteen, even with all the training he'd had, to leave his father behind. His eyes drifted over to the boy who now stood in the alley, hoping for a miracle. How many had he been willing to slaughter? A dozen? Twenty? He knew the answer, and he dismissed it, out of hand. Reflexively, though, he surveyed the damage—wounds that oozed through filthy bandages, wrapped around filthier people. An arm full of crushed bones, a badly burned hand already smelling of rot. The boy coughed weakly, his skin pale and damp, his frail form shaking in the cold. He sagged against the black stone wall. They would die without her, anyway, Cursa Dram told himself. It was well enough known that she could usually only manage one person on any given day—two, at most. The rest of them wouldn't make the week. Really, none of them would, he corrected. He couldn't let her heal even one of these people today. Once she finished with the baron, if she had enough power left to heal a second, more piteous subject, he had to be that subject. It was the best chance they'd had in months, and it might be months yet before another like this came along, maybe even years. It had been weeks since she'd been brought into public at all. It was a grace that seemed too good to be true, to learn that the baron was not terribly ill. It was only some complaint of the joints, little enough to complain about for a man of that age, Cursa Dram thought idly—and little enough to for her to repair. He recalled an image of ruined flesh, torn to shreds and beyond saving, until she laid her hands on it. He used that image to reassure himself. She would have more than enough power, surely, to take the old man's pain away. She would have enough left in her, afterwards, to come here and heal him, too. She had to.
He looked behind him at the two others he'd brought. He didn't really want them there. It was awful enough a deed to undertake alone; sharing the thing only made it worse. But there was no way he could get six bodies out of here on his own, not quickly enough that he wouldn't be noticed. More than that, the task needed to be accomplished with minimal noise. He could get through a handful of unarmed commoners without so much as a change in his breathing, but there was the very slight chance that one of them might have the half-second required to scream. He couldn’t let that happen. He could not risk anyone raising the alarm. Not anyone, Cursa Dram said to himself for the hundredth time, as he moved from the dark of the shadows into the grey of the alley. He cut the boy's throat first, passionless and clean, and fast enough that not even a startled gasp escaped his victim's lips. It was all done in the span of a minute—less, really. In a handful of seconds, six human forms that once held souls gazed wide and empty into the sky as three bloody men dragged them away. It was the art of the Hesati, and it beat in Cursa Dram's chest like a second heart. It wrapped him in calm and safety and dark, like a womb. And yet, he was aware of the pitiful desperation of his one repeating thought, as he drew a threadbare cloak around himself and knelt before the door. Please come. Please come, he willed the queen to hear him. If you don't, he mused, all these people will have died for nothing.
2
Isobel
Isobel was tired. Her legs and back ached from riding so long in the carriage without stopping, and she'd had just enough time to change her dress and none to rest. She stood on the dais in the blue silk that Devin preferred, hands folded primly in front of her, face as warm and gracious as she could make it. She had been standing there for hours, per his instructions, waiting to do her "party trick," as he called it. She tried to ignore the wall of bodies in armor lining the room and gazed instead at the sea of colors, the fine clothes and jewels that cradled and comforted the people standing before her. She hated it all, but nothing so much as the gown she stood in, one of dozens in the same outrageously vivid color, dyed to match her eyes. She wore nothing else. She was nothing else. She was the wife of a great man, and that was the whole story. Even her magic had become practically useless over the years, and it had always required some level of sacrifice. She couldn't heal anyone without hurting someone, which defeated the purpose—defeated her, really. Devin glanced sideways at her from where he sat at the center of the platform, as if he could tell that she was failing in her solemn duty to remain perfectly lovely and upright, and meant to silently correct her. Devin held court often enough, but it was unusual for him to bring her. Thus, she was not as accustomed to playing the statue as she might have once been. She was flagging badly, and soon it would not matter what her husband liked or disliked—she was going to fall over.
By some resigned cunning, Devin must have actually noticed Isobel's condition, because she looked up from her reverie to see a page pouring wine into a bright silver cup, which was subsequently offered to he r. She tried to take meager, ladylike sips, but she was just so tired and knew besides that Devin wouldn't let her have any more before tonight. He might not let her have any for the rest of the week, or longer, and she needed the strength. She wanted, more than anything, to be able to help someone else today. She had to. It had been so long since she had done anything that mattered, something for someone who needed her help. Lord Wyvern's gout was hardly a matter of life and death. It was not even a matter of work or starvation. If he could not walk, he had plenty of servants to carry him about his estate. Isobel's heart thudded at the injustice, and she drained the cup, Devin's glare burning her cheek. It took all she had not to laugh when her patient was lifted bodily in his chair by two strong men who brought him forward and set him in front of her. She had thought she was joking with herself about him being carried, until that point. She just wanted the thing over with, but she knew Devin would have to make his requisite speech first. Dimly, Isobel heard bits of it over the rushing of blood in her head that always accompanied the healing magic. It was loud this time. That was good. It meant she could probably take care of someone else afterwards—perhaps even two people, if the damage wasn't too bad. She had been right to drink all the wine. Isobel cherished the tiny joy she felt at the thought, as Devin droned on.
"... my beautiful wife ..." he said. "... light and hope of the Medarrhan people ... " he said. "... the great suffering of our beloved friend and ally, Lord Wyvern ..." he said. Finally, Devin placed a gentle hand on her back. "If it please you, my love." This, he said with so much sincerity, beaming at her with such a smile … A long time ago, even Isobel might have been fooled. The court certainly was. To them, the man was all brown curls and great liquid eyes, wide with concern and adoration. He knew that this would take something out of his wife, but such a kind and loving pair were they that they were willing to sacrifice a bit of her life for the greater good.
Isobel returned his smile with one of her own, one that said, This will hurt me a little, but I am brave and selfless. I love you, and I love our people. And I am more than willing to do this, for them. Then, she knelt down on the ground to cure a pompous grey man of the disease he'd got from drinking too much wine and eating too much pig fat. She moved the baron's scarlet robes to reveal his feet. She winced in feigned sympathy at the swelling and the redness in his toes and ankles. She rubbed her hands together a bit, for show, before touching her skin to the baron's. And the crowd, predictably, gasped and swooned and chittered as his feet turned cool and white beneath her fingers. Having performed the appointed miracle, Isobel suddenly became more anxious than ever to get out of that horrid room, away from those horrid people. There were too many soldiers, too many blades. Why did he keep so many men with him all the time? There were more guards than courtiers, and that was just inside the room. It was a trap, for her, and for anyone else. She would never get away. She would die caged. Isobel stood up, perhaps a bit too quickly, and a very real dizziness overtook her. She reached out an arm without thinking, and Devin caught her, just in time to keep her on her feet. He led her out into the hall, ever the devoted husband, and indifferently dropped her arm as soon as the court was no longer in sight.
"That was off script ... and a bit dramatic," Devin scolded, "but they seemed to like it. You should be very glad of that, my darling monster. Be glad of it, and never again make any changes without consulting me." Isobel felt a bit sicker than she had a moment before. It was a warning, and it was a threat. And she knew full well it was not hollow.
"I'm sorry," she said, trembling more than she wanted to admit. "I didn't mean to. I really did feel faint."
"Go and rest, then," Devin replied blankly.
"No, please," Isobel called as her husband turned to leave. "Please, let me try for one more."
Devin eyed her with cold scrutiny. Eventually, he must have concluded that she'd played her part well enough. "All right," he conceded. "One, and only one. Then straight to bed with you."
Isobel nodded obediently and sank against the wall with relief, as her husband returned to his allies, and to his friends. It was not, for one second, lost on her that she had neither of those things—and probably never would.
3
Isobel
Thankfully, the ten guards Devin had trained to haunt Isobel’s every footstep made an exception and halted at the entrance to the kitchen. It was beneath their dignity, she supposed, to enter a space where women and commonfolk toiled, though they must have cooked on campfires often enough. Perhaps they were simply aware of how silly half a score of trained and armored killers would look trying to wind their way through the chaos and furnishings of the long, crowded room. For whatever reason, only one of the men followed her. His face was not familiar. It always seemed to be a different one of them, every time. She mused that they probably drew lots for it, and the soldier behind her was surely no more or less than the fellow who got the short stick today. Per Devin’s ridiculous protocol, the guard stepped in front of her and opened the tiny black door into the alley. Isobel had not realized how late it had gotten. There was usually a torch lit, was there not? She blinked into the night, seeing no one. It struck her as odd. There should have been at least a dozen people waiting there. Sometimes there were fifty or more. And yet, her coming had been on rather short notice, and it was quite cold and damp out. “They must have given up on me,” she said to the guard, shrugging and turning her back to the doorway.
But then, “Please,” said a voice, and the scrape of the guard’s sword followed. She reflexively extended her right arm in front of the blade, shaking her head. She looked into the alley again, harder this time. She saw a bent and huddled shape, obscured completely by a tattered cloak, barely visible in the dark.
“My lady,” continued the man in the cloak, “I am in need of your help. I am in need of your magic.”
4
Cursa Dram
“What’s the trouble?” inquired the Medarrhan queen. Her voice was strong, at odds with the wanness of her appearance. The light from the room behind her seemed to swallow her up, or almost to shine through her, as if she were a ghost. Her hair hung limp around her too-thin shoulders, and she pressed her forearms over her stomach. It appeared to Cursa Dram that she might collapse if she let go. This could not be her. This could not be all the magic that the Medarrhans had left among them. If this woman was the queen of anything, she was the queen of dead things. She was the queen of long-buried bones. She waited on his answer, studying him with her strange eyes, too blue and too dark, even in the dimness.
“Born with a twisted spine, my lady,” he answered. “I was lucky enough to find a woman who did not mind so much, and she blessed me with children. But I can’t work, you see—can’t take care of them.” Cursa Dram moved so that the light from the doorway fell a little on the gnarled stick he leant on, let her see the scars on his hand. They could have come from years of fighting to survive, from struggling against hate and poverty, from a resentful father who punished a malformed boy for things he did not do. Let her imagine the horror of his story for herself. There was no way she could know that the marks came from years upon years of being cut, struck with steel, learning to strike faster. This woman knew nothing of violence. She could barely stand. And yet … she peered down at him as if she knew everything. She could see beneath the hood and the pretense. She knew who he was what he was going to do. But that was impossible.
“Why do you hide your face?” she asked.
“I am …” began Cursa Dram, quietly. “I have been burned, my lady, a long time ago.” The queen’s face fell, which he had not expected, though he should have. “I don’t trouble myself about it,” he reassured quickly, “and as I said, my wife has made her peace with it. I don’t ask you to mend it, only I shouldn’t like you to have to see it. The king … He wouldn’t like you to see it.” The queen recoiled a little, no doubt picturing a different monster entirely from the one who knelt inside the cloak. Good. He pressed on. “If you will only make me stand straight, my lady, I will go, I swear it. This lowly creature will never again darken your door.”
