The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 23: The Cursewright's Confession, Part 6

 "Have you given any further thought to what you will do if I cannot cure you?"

Carla frowned, looking down at her hands. "Some. I do not think I would choose to . . . to end myself, if that's what you are asking."

"Would you come to Munazyr with me, then?"

"Perhaps. The idea is more attractive than I supposed it would be."

"Is it," Ammas said, his voice peculiarly neutral. "And do you feel that -- attractiveness is wholly your own reaction to the notion?"

Carala looked at him curiously. "I am not sure what you mean by that." Ammas frowned.

"There is something I must confess to you, Carala, and I fear you will not be pleased with me." His fingers toyed with the hilt of his dagger, drawing it from its sheath and turning it over in his hands. Those gray eyes roamed from the blade to the bench and back again, but seemed incapable of looking at Carala. "It's not my inclination to tell you this, which I suppose is a failing. But Casimir was quite insistent I tell you, and -- he was convincing. And wholly in the right."

"Casimir is often both, I've noticed," Carala said with a warm smile. But her heart was beating too fast. If Ammas felt the need to confess something, it could not be good.

Another long silence fell. Somewhere in this empty house Carala could hear a thin trickle of water, and the pattering feet of mice. Ammas stared forlornly at the bench as he spoke, none too quickly. "Othma Sulivar had certain advice for me regarding you. That curing you might not be the best option. That I might -- bond you to me, as a sort of servant."

Carala stared at him. "You spoke to me once of ancient cursewrights, and how some of them partnered with were-creatures."

"Among other entities, but yes."

"And is this what that would have been?"

"It is."

Still she stared at him, unable to comprehend why Ammas would do something like this, or what it might really mean. At last she made an effort at explaining it, at least to herself. "She suggested this to you as a, a what, an alternative if you could not find the cure?"

"No," Ammas said softly. "She found it preferable to curing you at all, preferable to me risking myself for your cure."

To that she had no answer.

"There was more," Ammas said with the air of someone caught in the worst wrongdoing and having no choice but to admit to it. "She felt it would be an appropriate punishment for the things your father did to our brethren. To her grandson. To -- to my family."

"But I had nothing to do with that," she said in a small voice.

Ammas nodded. "I know this. She knows it. Othma didn't care. It seems I do."

Carala stared at him a long while, trying to grasp what such a bond would have done to her. "Is this something you could have forced on me?"

"Not forced it on you, no. But tricked you into it? Yes, that was in my power."

"Did you -- what steps did you take to create this bond?" She was having a hard time keeping her voice steady.

"I said no incantations, laid no enchantments," Ammas replied, studying his hands. "There are some I would have had to perform. All I did was let you roam when you changed that night in Vilais. That is something I might not otherwise have done, although it is an acceptable form of treatment if no cure is available. But it is a dangerous thing to do."

Carala, who remembered with crystal clarity how she had felt about her nighttime adventures, and particularly how she had felt about Ammas that night, simply sat bewildered. "Why -- why do you tell me this?"