Fiona McIntosh - The Quickening - 02 - Blood and Memory

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Blood and Memory
The Quickening Book Two
Fiona McIntosh
Perfectbound
In blood and in memory of…
William Richards
Contents
MAP
Prologue
He slid off the saddle to unsteady feet. Too flustered…
Chapter 1
The Queen had suffered a sleepless night, churning over her…
Chapter 2
Knave knew. The dog had woken him in the night…
Chapter 3
Celimus munched on an almond cake baked fresh that morning.
Chapter 4
Cailech stood over the prone figure that was slumped amid…
Chapter 5
Fynch was standing at the back entrance to the Forbidden…
Chapter 6
Entering Grimble Town, Wyl knew he could not stand the…
Chapter 7
The days at Rittylworth had passed slowly, following their own…
Chapter 8
Aremys was true to his word. In the morning a…
Chapter 9
Elspyth had stayed true to her promise to Wyl. Resisting…
Chapter 10
As Elspyth was discovering the horror at Rittylworth, Fynch was…
Chapter 11
It felt strange and dangerous to be entering Stoneheart again.
Chapter 12
Wyl looked at himself in the mirror after Lady Helyn’s…
Chapter 13
Wyl had no intention of waiting for Aremys or until…
Chapter 14
The path she had been walking now for two days…
Chapter 15
They had run, terrified, not daring to look behind or…
Chapter 16
Jorn cowered in the cold of the damp cell, frightened…
Chapter 17
Elspyth had taken the rest of that day and all…
Chapter 18
Wyl knew he had pushed the mare hard and had…
Chapter 19
Duke Jeryb’s estate was a series of elegant buildings, running…
Chapter 20
Around the time Ylena and Pil entered Dorchyster Green, Jessom…
Chapter 21
Elspyth arrived on the outskirts of the duchy by dusk…
Chapter 22
The family and their guests shared a meal during which…
Chapter 23
At the insistence of a fussing Aleda, everyone took to…
Chapter 24
King Cailech took the baby with a rush of such…
Chapter 25
Knave could feel the pull of Wyl’s thoughts. He already…
Chapter 26
As Fynch turned back to the willows, his fear of…
Chapter 27
Celimus sat atop a chestnut mare, his new prize in…
Chapter 28
The men stood around the pit, deeply disturbed. Some scratched…
Chapter 29
The curious-looking trio of travelers was escorted to and then…
Chapter 30
Wyl and Aremys arrived at the Thicket from the village…
Chapter 31
Aleda was dying. She knew it and somehow it was…
Chapter 32
Aremys came to slowly. Was someone kicking him? He could…
Chapter 33
Wyl stopped walking toward the cheerful hut. He felt empty…
Chapter 34
Valentyna was picking over a late supper with her Morgravian…
Chapter 35
Fynch was as fascinated to hear Elysius’s tale as Wyl…
Chapter 36
Aleda had slept as deeply as the doctor had predicted.
Chapter 37
Aremys waited outside the great doors that led into Cailech’s…
Chapter 38
Wyl was admiring Elysius’s handiwork. “You did this?” he asked…
Chapter 39
Fynch sat quietly with Elysius outside his small mud cottage…
Epilogue
The corpse of the former Duchess of Felrawthy had been…
About the Author
Also by Fiona McIntosh
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
He slid off the saddle to unsteady feet. Too flustered to tether the horse, Wyl trusted it to remain where
he left it as he stumbled deeper into the copse and retched. The sickening need to be rid of the curse
seemed to last an eternity as he desperately tried to yield it, rip the sorcery free from its sinister grip. At
the rim of his addled mind Wyl acknowledged that this cold, moonlit night was too beautiful for
death…once again.
He believed he could taste the taint of the magic that had claimed his body hours earlier. Wyl did not
want to remember it, but it was so fresh, so horrific, so ugly in his mind, he could not banish it.
Commander Liryk of Briavel has smiled when the man called Romen Koreldy, newly banished from the
realm, had suggested the Forbidden Fruit for their overnight stay before leaving for whichever border he
chose. He had smiled in understanding, knowing that the mercenary had decided to drown his sorrows
within the soft and welcoming embrace of a whore in the region’s well-known brothel. And he had smiled
more widely when Romen had accepted the offer of Hildyth. The Commander had sampled her on a
previous occasion and had known there could be no better place for his grieving companion to lose
himself for a few hours. Wyl Thirsk, trapped in Koreldy’s body, had felt the same until the stiletto had
buried itself deep into his heart, trying to take his life. Except it had not. Romen’s body released its
trapped guest so it could travel…travel into Hildyth and claim her life instead.
It was not a new experience for Wyl. He had felt that same wrenching sense of despair once before and
even now could hardly believe it had happened once again. He was dry-retching now; knew he must
force himself to stop. He looked to where his hands—his smooth woman’s hands—gripped the tree he
leaned against, concentrated on the feel of the rough bark beneath his tense fingers, and forced himself to
ease his convulsions of fear.
Don’t think about who you’ve become. Remember who you are, he reminded himself. Remember
who you are!
“I am the son of Fergys Thirsk of Argorn,” he croaked through his new and strange voice.
“I am Wyl Thirsk. General of the Morgravian Legion.” He spoke it more loudly this time, hating the
femininity of the pitch.
“I am alive,” he finally said, voice stronger and steadier, his mind accepting, his spirit resolute.
He repeated his mantra until the nausea finally subsided and his cramping muscles stopped answering the
call to expel the enchantment. It was not possible anyway, he knew.
Wyl Thirsk raised his head to the starry skies and screamed his despair in the voice of the assassin…the
woman he had become this night.
It was a cry without hope. He knew all too well that no shaking of fists or howling to the heavens could
change the dark enchantment that doomed him to cheat death. He understood that his spirit was now
destined to shift from one body to another, waiting for death to make another attempt to claim him.
A wave of sadness crashed against his thoughts as he remembered Romen, his first victim—if he could
call him that. Now Romen’s body was dead too.
Wyl felt gutted to have lost the comfort of that once-strange—now-familiar—vessel that had welcomed
him, sheathed him, given succor and life. Romen’s essence had lived on with him while Wyl’s true body
was mortifying in a tomb. The two of them were one…and now perhaps they must consider themselves
three with this woman among them, part of them…one with them.
She was now their shield; they were now her secret.
Wyl limped to the narrow brook that traveled languorously nearby. It glinted in the silvery light. He threw
himself down at its edge and cleansed his mouth. Now he succumbed to the tears; deep, heartfelt sobs
shuddered through the body of the woman, but the grief belonged only to Wyl Thirsk.
I live, he told himself again, fumbling in his pockets for the linen that held the key to his life. In it lay the
bloodied ring finger of Romen Koreldy of Grenadyn: noble, mercenary, and beloved suitor of Queen
Valentyna of Briavel. Wyl had retrieved it from the chamber at the Forbidden Fruit where he had hidden
it…and now he would use it. Use it to beguile Celimus, the treacherous King of Morgravia, into believing
that Romen was dead and confirm that the mysterious assassin, known only as Hildyth and masquerading
as a whore, had succeeded where others had failed.
Wyl calmed his panicked thoughts, drawing on his skills as a strategist, to think through what he must do.
He would send Koreldy’s finger to Celimus, precisely as Faryl had been instructed through the King’s
scheming chancellor, Jessom, and in doing so he would allow Morgravia’s sovereign, the betrayer, to live
within a false cocoon of safety.
The neighboring realm of Briavel was Celimus’s main concern now and his plans to wed its queen,
Valentyna, would be occupying his time. In his disguise as Romen, Wyl had aided Valentyna in hindering
those marriage plans diplomatically, but Wyl knew she would not do so with ease again. He understood
all too well what a tightrope of careful politics she was treading. Her own nobles and counselors were
pressing for the marriage and the peace and prosperity it would bring; in fact both realms were clamoring
for a royal wedding of such importance. Briavellians and Morgravians alike had become captivated by
the romantic notion of their sovereigns bringing the neighbors into harmony. Both nations could almost
hear the wails of an heir that would once and for all unite the realms under one sovereign.
It made political and strategic sense. Of course it did. When Celimus had first broached the subject to
him, Wyl had been highly impressed by the farsighted plan the young King had devised to force these
two warring realms to set aside their differences, their history of hate, once and for all. He had even
agreed to help shape such a union—until his inner sense told him things were not as straightforward as the
new sovereign proposed. First, the old King, Magnus, had died only hours before Celimus already had
presented Wyl with a well-laid strategy and a team of foreign mercenaries hired and ready to depart. The
side of Wyl that knew from bitter experience that Celimus was a traitorous snake smelled the trap. And
he had been right. His decision not to support the King’s wishes had led to the slaughter of his great
friend, Alyd Donal, and had almost claimed the life of his sister, had he not then agreed to travel into
Briavel, escorted by strangers, and win a princess for the King of Morgravia.
How could he have known—in that moment, terrified for his sister and by how close that vicious axe
blade had come to ending her life in the Stoneheart courtyard—how twisted Celimus’s plan actually was.
Not only had the King planned to use the Thirsk name to win an audience with King Valor and then
Valentyna’s hand in marriage, but he had already ordered the deaths of Wyl and Valor—by different
assassins—once the betrothal agreement had been made. Darker yet, Celimus had contrived to blame
Wyl Thirsk for the King’s death while ensuring that the executioners, one of whom was Romen Koreldy,
were also killed, thus covering his trail of deception.
Celimus, however, had not reckoned on the integrity of the assassin, Koreldy, whose lifetime loyalty the
King thought had been safely secured with an obscene payment of gold, or of a blood pact made
between Thirsk and Koreldy for whichever one of them survived a duel to the death to reveal the King’s
treachery. But little did any of them know about an even greater menace that lurked mysteriously around
their grand plans and lived within Wyl Thirsk himself; brutal and without loyalty to anything but itself, it
was a gift from the witch Myrren to Wyl for his kindness during her trial torture. It had waited patiently
for many years to wreak its havoc, and when it had finally struck, it was savage and shocking, forcing the
spirit of Wyl, whose body was dying from Koreldy’s sword blow, to claim Koreldy’s life and body
instead. Thirsk had become Koreldy and now he had become the whore Hildyth when Myrren’s Gift had
struck again.
Wyl surfaced from his troubled thoughts realizing his mind was rambling over old ground. He could not
change what had happened; he could only move forward now and work to protect his sister—the last of
the Thirsks—and somehow thwart Celimus’s determined intentions to control Briavel through marriage to
Valentyna. First, though, he must track down the Manwitch. He was Myrren’s true father and might have
answers for him.
In making the decision to let go of the past, his biggest regret was knowing that Valentyna, whom he had
loved from the moment she had first breezed into his life when he was General Wyl Thirsk of the
Morgravian Legion, had fallen in love with him as Romen Koreldy. His own feelings for her had only
intensified during his time as Romen and he could never forgive himself for risking that love and allowing
her to think that he had betrayed her when she had so relied on him.
A headache was gathering. He must find out more about who he had become before the pain and this
grief over his love for the Queen claimed him completely. She could never love him now in this strange
and female body. Wyl could not bring himself to look at his new body just yet or touch it. But he held no
such reticence for the memories, not caring that they were not his own. What remained belonged to Wyl
now. They were his to remember and use.
He leaned back exhausted against a tree and delved. Wyl learned the whore Hildyth had simply been
another guise. He was in fact Faryl of Coombe—a brilliant assassin, born in the midlands, familiar with
places far away from Morgravia or Briavel—and riddled with secrets.
Chapter 1
The Queen had suffered a sleepless night, churning over her decision to expel Romen Koreldy. Valentyna
had measured the dark hours by listening to the muted noises of the guard changing. The only other
distraction was the distant, infrequent howl of a dog—or was it a wolf? She wondered if it was caught in
one of the traps laid by poachers…or more whimsically she imagined it had lost its mate and was venting
its despair.
She understood such things, for the sorrowful cry only served as an echo of her own loneliness.
Valentyna asked herself yet again if she could have hung on to the man she loved and still appeased an
angry king? A king, she added, with more than enough fighting power to overwhelm Briavel. The answer,
whichever way she approached the problem, was no.
“Damn duty!” she murmured into her coverlets. She punched the feather pillow that brought no comfort
this night.
To add to the misery, a vision of Fynch haunted her. How he had looked at her she would never forget.
He too had grown to love Romen, despite his misgivings about the man. She and her young friend had
shared so much in the short time they had known each other. But all of that closeness was shattered now.
Fynch was avoiding her because she had so deliberately distanced herself from Romen and ordered him
expelled from Briavel.
She had cast aside a man she loved over Celimus—a man they all hated. A child, not familiar with the
way of politics and diplomacy, would believe her actions made no sense. But this was no ordinary child.
Fynch was special in his serious, deep-thinking manner. He understood all too well, but that did not mean
he felt any comfort in his understanding.
She did not want to lose his companionship, but it seemed the day just gone had risen solely to bring loss
to her life.
King Celimus, she realized, kicking off her blankets with irritation, would probably be close to the border
by now, possibly even crossing into Morgravia. She had no doubt spies would keep him updated on
Briavel’s events, and her standoff with Koreldy would be high on the list of missives. It suddenly
occurred to her that the King might have Romen tracked down upon hearing this news. Surely Romen
would be cautious? He had been warned that to set foot into Morgravia was to risk certain execution.
Failing his own good sense, she trusted that her own Commander Liryk would counsel Romen. Hopefully
they had ridden through the night and would be headed north, back to where he had come from.
“Where Cailech, King of the Mountains, awaits him,” she whispered sorrowfully.
The last time Valentyna had cried passionately was over her father and the time before that when she had
fallen from a horse a decade ago. She considered herself resilient, but silent, heavy tears won now as she
accepted the enormity of her orders. Romen had nowhere to go. Briavel represented safety. Beyond its
borders to the north and west, people wanted to kill him. The south offered only ocean, no comfort. To
the east, only fear in the little-known Wild. Fynch knew it too. That was the reason for the accusation in
that chilling final glance he had given her.
It spoke of betrayed friendships.
And he was right. What had Romen been thinking during that swordfight! It was clear that he had meant
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