That wasn’t the last time they heard of the curse. When Baldair tried to ask a few ladies strolling along the cliff path overlooking the coast, they gave him looks of horror as he even delicately suggested the pirate queen. Jax watched with a dark fascination at the horror a mere name could bring. The
only name that should be able to instill such fear was the Emperor’s.
“I hate curses.” Baldair announced one night as they sat in the local brewery—the Cock and Crow. “I never want to hear of them again.”
“We could give up on this pirate nonsense.” It wasn’t the first time Erion had suggested it. “Return to the capital.”
“No.” Baldair shook his head a little too furiously, looking almost dizzy after the fact.
Jax really didn’t want to carry him home.
“We came all the way out here for pirate treasure. Everyone is just too… too… uptight to talk.” Baldair looked at his flagon in fascination. “But I know just the thing to loosen lips.”
5. JAX
SUNLIGHT WINKED THROUGH the epically proportioned windows of the gaming room, illuminating the half-naked and entirely hungover man sprawled out on the billiards table. Jax stared at the gilded ceiling, wondering how he got there. It had only taken Baldair two weeks to tire of pirate hunting when it hadn’t yielded immediate results, and now all that seemed to be left to show for it were dizzying hangovers.
“Why in the name of the Mother are there no curtains in here?” Jax muttered to no one in particular.
“Quiet, please,” someone groaned from across the room.
Jax worked his ways to his elbows one slow shift at a time. His head was throbbing, and the movement made him want to be sick everywhere. But he was on a good billiards table, and one simply did not vomit all over good felt. He swallowed
hard.
The room was in utter disarray. Furniture was tipped and turned into makeshift racks for scattered clothing. The carpet was stained six ways to the afterlife; no scrubbing could save it. They’d be smarter to just roll up the rug and toss it, regardless of how fine it was.
Resurrected from the grave of excess, Jax dismounted from the table that had served as his bed. He didn’t see his jacket, or shirt, or trousers for that matter, anywhere. So Jax went about in his underthings as though it was completely normal. And it basically was normal for anyone tasked with keeping pace with Baldair on a night like last night.
He leaned against the door that led into the main foyer of the Imperial summer home, rubbing his eyes blearily. The front door was wide open, and a chicken clucked merrily, pecking at the knots in the woodgrain of the floor. The livestock was an impeccable contrast against the glittering swords and Imperial suns that adorned the paneled walls.
“Let’s see… Erion, last I saw…” Jax struggled to remember. He chased hazy memories through the thickness of a sweet alcohol fog across the foyer.
On the other side of the manor was another room, identical to the billiards area in space and shape, but filled with books instead. The tomes lined the shelves from floor to ceiling, a veritable wealth of knowledge contained within, though almost a comical fraction of what the Imperial Library in the capital city held.
A group of men was collapsed on each other, fallen off their chairs around one of the tables. A carcivi board had its tokens scattered across the floor around them. The man Jax was looking for was spilling drool over the board’s edge.
Jax prodded Erion with a long finger.
He shifted with a grumble.
Jax prodded again.
Another low whine, thick with dehydration and heavy with headache.
“Erion.” Jax leaned over and placed his chin almost atop the man’s shoulder. His breath shifted Erion’s black, short-cut hair as he spoke. “Erion, this is important.”
“Have you ever said something in-inhm-important in your life?” Erion was finally roused to speech. Well, sort of. Fortunately, Jax was fluent in drunk.
“Very much so,” Jax assured him. He whispered with the utmost delicacy he could muster, “Why are you wearing my pants?”
“Because you burned mine, and then gave me yours as apology.”
Jax straightened away, assessing this. It did sound like something he would do in the circumstances. An entirely plausible explanation. Erion was too straight-laced to make up such a clever lie.
He patted his friend on the shoulder, “You can keep them. I think you need them more than I.”
“Shake me again, and you’ll need a new boot because I will have retched in it.”
“I’m not wearing boots.”
“A new foot, then.” Erion winced and continued, as if sensing Jax’s follow-up smart remark. “Stop. Talking.”
Jax had half a mind to scream chaos into the room, just to torture everyone. But he refrained. I am much too good to them all, he applauded himself as he dragged his feet back into the foyer.
He shooed the chicken from the room. A few of the previous nights’ revelers stumbled out with the fowl, people whose names Jax could not recall if someone had a sword point pressed to his throat. He closed the door behind them. The small staff that manned the summer palace was sure to have a conniption the moment they laid eyes on the mass destruction strewn
across every room, so the least he could do was keep out the livestock.
Jax started on the wide staircase that curved up to the manor’s second floor. He glanced at a series of scuffs on the banister, blood drips on the stairs. Someone had not had a good night last night, and he could only hope it wasn’t the prince he now sought.
He had needed the night to let loose. They all had after a lack of information on Adela had turned what should have been a fun trip into a source of frustration for Baldair. The only way it could be ruined now would be if the prince he was sworn to protect had been met with some unfortunate circumstance.
All in all, there was no damage to the manor house that wasn’t more than skin deep. A good clean and some elbow grease, and it’d be back to normal in no time. Perhaps, if he, Erion, and Baldair pitched in a bit of help, the staff might not report their “letting loose” to the Emperor.
Jax gripped his temple a moment, pausing at the top of the stairs. He’d be happy to help with the cleaning, as soon as his head stopped hurting.
The second floor was lined with doors and two wide sitting areas spaced between them on either side. Some of the doors were ajar, and Jax could hear movement from within that betrayed their occupants returning to life. Other doors were closed tight and silent. He’d check in on Baldair and then find his own bed up here, collapse for a few more hours.
Baldair had taken up residence in the Imperial suite. The staff had seemed surprised by the assumption, as it was usually reserved only for the Emperor. But, being the only member of the Imperial family present, it was fully within his rights. Jax eased the golden door open, relieved that it was already
cracked.
A trail of discarded clothing led down the center of the room to a wide bed that had more blankets on the floor than on the occupants themselves. Two women were curled on either side of a barreled chest. The Golden Prince slept heavily between them, completely oblivious to his observer.
Jax assessed the prince with quick once-over. He had no scratches or scuffs on him, for now. If one of the lasses he groped in sleep was spoken for, he would no doubt have more to worry about than tousled hair.
But who attended a soiree organized by the sixteen-year-old prince and did not expect a night of debauchery? Baldair’s reputation had preceded him down into Oparium.
Jax stumbled back into the hall, dragging his feet toward his room. A few more hours of sleep, and then he’d help clean up, he promised himself. His hand fell on his doorknob, but he was jolted back to awareness when it didn’t turn. It was locked.
He sighed heavily.
He could find any other empty bed and collapse. But he wanted his bed. He’d been sleeping in it for days and had just broken in the pill
ows. Plus, his spare clothes were in there for, well, whenever he didn’t feel like strolling about mostly naked.
Jax gave the door a solid knock. “Whoever is in there, you’re more than welcome to stay, you just have to share.”
Silence.
Jax pressed his eyes closed, keeping his short-fused, hungover composure. Half the house would be comatose for hours to come. Jax knocked again, louder, firmer.
“Unlock the door, or I’ll burn out the lock.” Not the most elegant response, but he was far from thinking clearly. Pillows and a soft duvet in a room tucked behind curtains trumped logic.
“Be quiet, you,” a man mumbled from the end of the hall, raising his chin from his chest.
“Sorry, mate.” Jax shrugged, motioning to the door. “You see who went in here?”
“I didn’t see who went anywhere.” The man laughed drunkenly.
Jax shook his head and clapped his hands together. Magic surged through his veins, burning away the edge of the remaining alcohol haze. He reached for the door knob.
Fire poured from his fingertips and into the metal as focused heat. It turned the latch molten red, melting through the locking mechanism in the door. Jax was mindful to keep his magic under control, even hungover. If it sparked on the wood or carpet, the whole place would go up like a tinder box, unless he could get it back in his command. And given that his head was throbbing at minimal magical effort, he wasn’t counting on himself for that.
The door gave way with a drip of molten metal that he cooled with a step.
“H-hey, you can-can’t do that.” The man struggled to his feet leveraging the hallway wall. “Firebearer scum, you, how did you get in here?”
“Sit back down,” Jax said with a heavy sigh. “This is my room. I’m under the crown.” That was the best way to put it, the simplest way. Most people didn’t ask too many questions because they assumed it meant he was some noble knight or appointed guard—he was always with the prince anyway.
Most out of the West didn’t know the truth of his crimes. He was just another sorcerer, a wielder of fire. And that was its own set of offenses in the South.
Jax ignored the man and dragged his feet into his room. He could weld the door shut again, somehow, if he had to. If the need arose, he’d figure it out. His mind was already muddling from exhaustion.
That was when he saw her.
Cold, sobering horror ripped through him, more vicious than winter’s first chill in the mountains. It ripped at his insides, exposing his most base instincts. Jax took an involuntary step back, nearly bumping into the still-open door.
He knew she was dead. He knew from the gashes that exposed the muscles of her neck, the cuts and nicks that ran up her arms, betraying a struggle. He knew from the blood that had pooled around her still body, staining the sheets with a mark that could never be scrubbed away.
But he couldn’t stop himself from moving.
She may be able to be saved, he insisted to himself in a panic. He had seen palace clerics patch up some bad wounds as a result of training gone awry. He had seen skilled Groundbreakers bring soldiers back from the edge of death.
He pulled at her body, rolling her onto her back to try to get a better assessment of her wounds. Jax pressed his hands into the severed skin of her neck, searching for a pulse, for some weak flow of blood that would give him a redemptive shred of hope to cling to. Something that would not force Jax to face the corpse of another woman beneath his fingers. He needed to be sharp, and alert, and mindful, and all he could think was that there was so much blood.
“Let me save you,” he pleaded.
The woman was long gone. Crimson slicked his hands, giving color to the guilt he tried to smother with every day-to-day act. Her lifeless eyes looked right into the shame he tried to hide under gallons of ale and too-wide grins.
You killed her, the quiet voice nagged the back of his mind. It was your fault.
“No, no…” he spoke back to the voice, his guilt given sound.
You’re a murderer. Once a murderer, always a murderer.
“Come on, live.” He shook the corpse by the shoulders. The woman’s head rolled, the gash in her neck tearing further.
A killer. A wild dog.
Jax let out a scream of anguish. It was the sound of his torment and the sound of victory for the monster that lived in him. A different woman died beneath his hands. Fire sparked around his fingers.
“What in the gods?” The drunken man from before was suddenly in the door frame.
Jax gave a huff of amusement, and another, and another. It was a weird and crazed sort of laughter. This would happen. It suited him. No matter how far he ran from his past, from what he was, it always caught up. Even across the world from his home, from the scenes of his crimes, people would see him and know him for what he was.
“This isn’t what it seems.” He grinned, and held up his bloody hands, straightening away from the body.
“Murderer!” The man cried chaos into the early morning.
6. JAX
HE STOOD, HANDS in the air, trying to keep his calm in the wake of rising, all-consuming panic.
Jax just grinned on as the room filled. Men and women crowded the space until they were standing on their tip-toes to peer over the crowns of each other’s heads in the doorway. As long as he was grinning, he wouldn’t say or do anything else stupid. The grin masked the fear in his eyes. It pulled his lips taught and prevented any further damning statements to fall from his mouth. It kept everyone at a distance, their unnerved reactions preventing them from moving too close to the man who had, literally, blood on his hands.
The noise of the people’s accusations and panicked speculations was just that: noise. Jax allowed it to wash over him.
How quickly they turned.
He had been their friend last night. He had been the shoulder that some had slumped against and drooled on as they poured out all their awful secrets. There were no two more damning words put together than “sorcerer” and “murderer”. It played into their darkest fears and fulfilled their most macabre suspicions.
At this point in his life, he found it more exhausting than disheartening.
“Move aside,” a voice bellowed from the hall. “I said move aside!”
Baldair, in his bare-chested, messy haired, broad-shouldered, princely glory, made his way to the door frame. He was holding his head and cursing like a sailor—which showed he had learned an extended vocabulary in the time spent thus far in Oparium—but his eyes gained clarity when he surveyed the room. A frown marked the prince’s
face as he took in the corpse on the bed. Baldair swallowed thickly.
“What in the name of the gods above, Jax?” he demanded.
“I found her like this,” Jax explained simply.
“Her blood is all over your hands!” a woman shouted from the entry.
Jax felt magic flow up his forearms. It sparked around his wrists and tongues of flame danced between his fingers. It singed off the blood, burning it to bubbling and then ash with a metallic stink.
“There, no more blood.” He grinned even wider at the person. They took an involuntary step back.
“It doesn’t change why the blood was there in the first place.” A man had yet to be unnerved to silence like the rest of them.
“I was trying to save her.”
“More like finish the job,” someone mumbled with a side eye at the state of the corpse.
Objectively, it was quite clear that the woman was well and truly dead. But he hadn’t been thinking objectively. Jax had been thinking with the mind of a man who still believed there was hope for his immortal soul. The man the monster within him had yet to fully devour. k`1`2
“Quiet!” Baldair rubbed his eyes then looked back to the room, as if the gory scene was an illusion he’d no longer have to deal with.
“Sorry, this is real,” Jax preempted his thoughts. “Not some kind of hangover dream.”
“Nightmare,” the prince mutte
red under his breath. “And you’re not helping, Jax.”
“What’re you waiting for?” One of the other people demanded, pointing an accusatory finger at Jax. “Strike him down! This man deserves Imperial justice!”
“Someone fetch the prince his sword!”
Jax sighed heavily. If he was going to be killed, he’d want Baldair to be the one to do it. But this wasn’t the day he was going to die. If Baldair had spared him the executioner’s block in Norin for a crime Jax confessed to, he wasn’t going to take his head for a mere compromising situation. However extremely compromising it was.
“I will see justice served,” Baldair assured them all. His regal tone lacked weight to Jax’s ear. The man was weeks away from his seventeenth birthday and had yet to truly function in any kind of noble fashion. He lacked the same effortlessness in command that his father, or even his older brother, seemed to muster without a thought.
But the prince had spoken, and the room was quiet, hanging on his next words.
“I cannot get to the bottom of this with an audience.”
“What’s going on?” Erion, still wearing Jax’s trousers, pushed his way through the mass of people.
“Erion, good.” Baldair turned to his friend. “See everyone downstairs. No one is to leave the billiards room or study. Wake the staff and have them put on tea for our guests. If they have any rashers of bacon or eggs to cook up, tell them it should be done.” The prince looked back into the room. “This could take a while…”
“My prince, this man has committed a murder. Do you want us to stay as guard?” One of the fairly sober-looking men asked.
Jax couldn’t refrain from rolling his eyes at the comment.
“This man is innocent until he is proven otherwise,” Baldir insisted. “Furthermore, this is one of my personal guards. I have no reason to suspect him of such deeds.”
Jax looked back to the bed, missing the skeptical stares of the people Erion ushered out of the room. A sliver of light was working its way up the woman’s corpse with the dawn, as if the sun was eager to peek through the yet-drawn curtains at what had happened. Silence grew, alerting him to the fact that it was just him and the prince left.