Cursed: Briar Rose's Story - Kaylin Lee Page 0,14

delighted by the recruits. They will make good messengers. Foolish, obedient. Good messengers, indeed. We will only need to keep one or two alive to fetch Zel.

I pressed a hand to my mouth. So that was the curse’s plan—to bring innocent Sentinels with me to the crater, then use them as messengers to make sure Mom came for me.

I couldn’t let that happen. I shot to my feet and tried to run, but the curse was too fast. It spiked pain into my heart so viciously I slammed to my knees on the warehouse floor. OBEY!

“—you well?” A blurry face appeared in my watery vision. A broad-knuckled hand gripped mine and helped me to my feet. You WILL obey, the curse shrieked. Another jolt of pain shot through me. OBEY, OBEY, OBEY.

“I’m fine,” I rasped, amazed I could speak over the pain. “Th-th-thanks.” My fingers were clutching his sleeve, so I made myself let go.

The red-haired boy had helped me. He nodded slowly. “You’re welcome,” he mumbled, the words thickly accented.

Other recruits wove around us as they moved to the other side of the room for what I guessed was the test. I must have missed the announcement.

He jerked his head toward the cleared area and the crowd of recruits gathering there. “You trying out? Or leaving?”

Another jolt of pain. Obey now, the curse said flatly. Or I’ll kill you.

“Trying out,” I somehow managed to answer, my words clipped. “Of course I’m trying out.”

The boy stepped back, his tentatively open expression now shuttered. “Good luck.”

I followed his stiff, broad shoulders to the other side of the room, wondering what was so different about him.

Lower than the dust, the curse whispered dismissively, sounding almost bored. Worthless. The West is nothing.

I rubbed my sore, throbbing chest. The tall, red-haired boy was a Westerner. He must have recently moved to Asylia from the settlement of Westerners that Ruby Contos found in the Gold Hills.

Perhaps Elektra knew how fully their plague had decimated the West, and the curse held her same victor’s view of the plague’s Western survivors.

“There will be a short, written test first. Then a test of strength and reflexes.” Raven handed a sheaf of paper and a pencil to each recruit. “Write fast. Don’t cheat. If you’re not done by the time I blow my whistle, you’re out.”

I sat at the table with the other recruits and started the test as rain pounded the tall windows, pouring down the glass in rapidly-branching rivers. My pencil flew across the page, my body so motivated by fear of the curse’s threat that my hand seemed to leap ahead of my thoughts.

How long had I dreamed of this moment? Training to become a Sentinel, a hero—the best of the best. And here I was. Now, thanks to the curse, instead of serving the Sentinels, I’d betray them instead.

How heroic.

Chapter 7

One year after I left the Masters in their crater, the curse startled me in the middle of the night with a sizzling jab to the heart. Wake, it barked. It is time.

I sat up abruptly in my dark, cold bedroom, my pulse racing. “Now?” I whispered. It couldn’t be time to go back to the crater already. Didn’t I have four more years before the curse’s fulfillment?

Quiet. Do as you’re told. Something had caused the curse to replace its usual mocking tone with a strange, brisk solemnity. Get to the Sentinels compound unnoticed.

My limbs were heavy with trepidation as I dressed in dark clothing, careful of my steps so I didn’t wake Alba. What business did we have at the—

Do not question me, creature, the curse hissed. Get to the compound. NOW. We have work to do.

The predawn streets were dark, silent, and freezing, hushed by a blanket of fresh snow, an early-spring surprise that clung to the tops of my boots as I walked to the compound. It was locked, but the gate guard let me in.

“You work too hard, Bri,” a bearded Sentinel said affectionately as he waved me through without question.

Everyone at the Sentinels knew me by now, it seemed. I did my best not to return the favor. “Thanks,” I mumbled, breaking eye contact quickly.

I entered the main building, which held a few, large training rooms, but the curse directed me upstairs to Dad’s office, instead. My heart was in my throat as I entered his dark office and went to his desk.

There. The curse was stiff with attention. Read it.

I picked up the stack of files on Dad’s desk,