The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 29: The Apprentice, Part 4

 "I see." Mielle would say no more, brushing down her steed as they waited for the carriage to reach the temple, the tension in the air far thicker than Ammas had expected. 

Slowly he paced up and down the portico, gesturing for Casimir to stand up. His belly seethed with anxiety, and by the time the carriage came to a halt in front of the temple he had convinced himself he had made a grave error; that whoever Varallo Thray and the Emperor had sent to learn his trade would prove to be no more than some brute whose true goal was to seize Ammas's newfound status for his own. The Emperor would get the last laugh in the end, as he had so often. 

As Barthim had predicted, the porch of the Prideful Lioness was crowded with curious onlookers, Barthim himself grinning and chuckling as he bustled to and fro, topping off his patrons' tankards and glasses with the spirits he carried on a silver tray.

The carriage driver hopped nimbly from the bucket and hustled to the carriage door, opening it with a flourish and bowing. Ammas braced himself, a polite smile painted on his face. At his waist he folded his gloved hands, willing himself not to seize the hilt of his dagger.

A small figure, clad in simple but elegant black dress, stepped from the carriage. Lightly it tugged back its hood, revealing a cascade of midnight-hued hair. The crowd on the Lioness porch gasped as one.

"Carala," Ammas said faintly.

She smiled brilliantly, curtseying deeply. "Master Cursewright," she said, the smallest tremble in her voice.

With no thought for who was watching, not the crowd, not the guardsmen or their Captain-Commander, not Casimir, not even Barthim as he gawped with his mouth wide open, Ammas swept her into a fierce embrace, the warmth of her body against his a comfort he had never imagined, the delicate hand cupping the back of his head just under the edge of his hat a touch he had missed beyond words. They stayed that way a long while, so long the carriage driver had to clear his throat three times before Carala broke away to tip him. 

When Ammas finally recovered himself enough to escort her and Casimir into the temple -- to commence her apprenticeship, he thought with amazement -- Barthim the Beast began to applaud, joined by entirely too many of his half-drunk patrons. Mielle Thalia shook her head, smirking.

"I will make him pay for this," Carala hissed under her breath.

Inside, she and Ammas faced each other across the table, Casimir's chessboard between them, the boy himself watching them with a dizzy smile from the table's edge. It might have been that early autumn afternoon, when she had come in desperate need, seeking a cursewright who had nearly decided to murder her instead of treat her.

"How did this come to be?" he asked, slipping his hat from his head with trembling fingers.

"Oh, no great mystery. I have been deemed unmarriageable." She said this in a more cheerful tone than Ammas suspected those words had ever been spoken.

"You have? Why?"

Her smile faded somewhat. "The wolf of light," she said hesitantly.

"The wolf of light," Ammas repeated, frowning. "What of it?"

"It returned. More than once, and where others in the Palace could see it. And there were dreams. My father was half-convinced your cure had failed. Varallo Thray thought it might be something else, but he made me wear this." She raised one delicate wrist, adorned with a simple bracelet of pure silver. "It never burned, I will tell you. Varallo does not understand these things as well as you do, but he thought it was a wolf spirit that had attached itself to me. He told me and my father that such a spirit might be the basis for a cursewright's bargain -- so he called it. I did not know what that means, but surely you do."