Assassin of Curses: (The Coren Hart Chronicles Book 3) Jessie Eaker (best reads txt) 📖

to remove that curse from the high priest, and I couldn’t. It’s one of the few restrictions with myst. I can’t do something that creates a contradiction.

“I remember that. But what has that got to do...” I trailed off as it hit me. My mouth fell open as I looked into my beloved’s eyes.

“I had planned to tell you at the picnic.” She glanced irritated at the roach. “But things got in the way.”

Then she smiled. “We’re going to have a baby.”

My mouth fell open as my less than ideal brain tried to process her words.

A baby.

A complex set of emotions when through my head. I was going to be a father. I felt woefully inadequate for the task.

Assuming we lived that long.

“I am unable to remove her curse,” I announced.

Cabrina pressed the dagger point a little deeper into her throat—a thin trickle of blood oozed around it. “Remove it. You know I’ll kill this girl. And then if you still won’t, I’ll kill each of your party one by one. I think I’ll start with Spraggel.”

I glanced at Zofie and then back to Yonge. “It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s that I can’t. It won’t come off.”

Cabrina lowered her knife. She looked to Zofie and squatted down in front of her—the youth’s head level with Zofie’s stomach. “Oh, I see,” she said with an exasperated sigh. “And here I thought the princess wouldn’t whore herself out to the first commoner she came across.”

Cabrina stood, but it was the cricket that continued. “I will just have a healer expel the unborn one. I have no need of it.”

Zofie jerked as if punched. She placed a protective hand on her stomach. “No! You mustn’t.”

Cabrina stood and gave Zofie a puzzled expression. “Then tell me how we’re going to open the vault while you’re still cursed.”

She licked her lips. “Maybe it’s not the curse. Maybe it’s my will to open it. Since you were controlling me, my will was not being expressed. I’m sure the ancients thought of that.”

The cricket leaped toward the giant jewel. “It could be.”

Yonge himself mused. “Definitely possible.”

The guards all answered in unison. “Then let’s try it.”

At the guard’s direction, Zofie headed up the ramp to the platform. One of the guards took Yonge’s wheeled chair, and I followed, with Fumiko and her guard bringing up the rear.

Zofie stepped up to the jewel. A guard approached and handed her the long silver cylinder that was the Griffin’s Key. She looked at the darkened facet on the diamond’s surface and then back to the cylinder in her hand. Her gaze did the circuit again, then she took a step back and looked up at the entire vault. I could tell she was thinking. She finally turned toward Yonge. “Something doesn’t seem right. In the other artifacts, there was either a passphrase or multiple people were required to activate them. Is there any record of such a thing?”

Cabrina frowned. “A phrase? I am not aware of any such thing. There was no mention of it from my scholars.”

The cricket jumped up to perch on the rail around the platform. “All we know is that if the Forever Nexus Shadow had to be moved, the Xernow heir would provide the key.”

Zofie looked to me. “Was there anything in the key’s chamber that might be a clue?”

I shook my head. “The guardian only said he was sorry to see me.”

She looked back at the crystal. She stepped forward and placed her palm against the darkened facet. “I am Princess Zophia Olwenna Xernow, the current Xernow heir. I command you to open.”

The crystal seemed to shudder and then gave out five beautiful, musical tones. I could feel the platform vibrate with each one. The sequence was strangely familiar. Where had I heard it before?

The cricket jumped up and down excitedly. “It didn’t do that last time.”

Cabrina looked at us in surprise. “But what do the tones mean?”

Then I knew where I had heard it. It was from Zofie. She would sometimes hum it to herself when she was stressed or anxious.

I noticed Zofie was tearing up. She glanced my way and gave me a half-smile. “It’s the lullaby Father used to sing to me all the time when I was a young girl. He told me it had been in our family for generations.” She put a hand on her middle. “And when I got older, I was to sing it to my child.” She looked back to the crystal. “Now I know why.”

She placed her hand on the facet again. The tones sounded once more, but this time she was ready and started to sing. The jewel took up the song with her, and together they sang.

I had never heard her sing before, and I was struck by its beauty. As I listened to her, I couldn’t help but wonder how many more times I was going to fall in love with this woman.

As they sang, a line appeared on the huge jewel running from top to bottom. And when they finished the song, the gray facet turned a pale blue, and a small round slot appeared in it. Zofie took the Griffin’s Key and inserted it in the hole, which fit the key perfectly. She then pushed it home.

A loud gong sounded three times, like a warning bell. Then the jewel slowly parted along the vertical line, and a puff of chill fog rose from it, carrying the scent of times long past. As the vault continued to open, it exposed a small chamber inside, brightly lit from the glow of its crystal walls. A round marble pedestal, identical to those we had encountered with the other ancient artifacts, rose from the floor. There was only enough space in the chamber to barely walk around