The Curse of Us Alternate Ending

After Thorin and Ben say their goodbyes...

Daniel bumped his shoulder against mine. “That was well done,” he said.

“No man deserves it more,” I said as I turned toward him. “Your daughter’s getting the finest man I know, and I’d stake my life on that.” I gave him a slight shrug. “I have a few times, as it happens.”

He didn’t dispute it, only smiling as he turned toward the hall behind us and laid his hand on my arm. “Come. Everything is ready for you.”

Lamps along the west wing threw their glow across the floor as we walked. “Your room stands as it did in the years before,” he said. “You’ll understand it when the change takes hold. And hear this as well—if you and Imara choose to return in any year ahead, this door is open to you both. You’ll never need to ask.”

We came to the carved door at the end of the passage, its iron latch worn smooth by years of use. Daniel set his hand on it, but didn’t lift it at first. “Before I open this, I need your word. Is this truly the road you choose? It has to be yours alone.”

I leaned forward at him, my hands catching the straps at my arms as I flicked my eyes a little wider. “What did my wife say when you asked her?”

He offered a small smile and a shrug that told me he understood what I did—that once a woman fixed her course, a man’s only choice was to keep pace. “Imara said she couldn’t wait to fall in love with you all over again.”

I’d lived long enough to know a man can shoulder near anything if the end is worth it. And meeting her free of that curse—starting clean, the way we never had the chance to—that was worth every mile between us. “That’s all I needed to hear,” I said, lifting a finger at him. “Just don’t keep us parted overlong. I’ve got a baby waiting on me to make her.”

Daniel bowed his head to me and pushed the door open. “As you wish,” he said and shut the door behind me.

The room held nothing overly fine—only the plain order of a man’s life set ready for him. A washbasin. A narrow bed. A small hearth gone cold. Clean clothes waiting in the wardrobe. I hadn’t stepped into this place in any life I could name, yet I knew it all the same. I knew where the window stood before I turned toward it. Knew the lines in the stone under my boots. Knew the timbered reach above as if I’d taken my rest beneath it for years.

Not home. Not comfort. But mine.

A bell sounded across the yard, calling the castle to supper and reminding me I couldn’t walk into a hall looking as rough as I did. Dust on my coat, soot at the collar—the signs of a man who’d come through fire and didn’t care enough to wash the last of it off.

The basin waited on its stand, filled and ready. I rolled my sleeves and washed the dirt from my face and hands—enough to make myself fit for a supper table.

I lifted my shirt to work the belt loose, and the knife at my hip marked Selvin’s name in my mind for a breath. But the moment the leather slid free of me, whatever thought I held went with it.

The first boot came free, and reaching for it brought back the sight of her as I found her—lying quiet in that bed after she’d laid her own life down. The heel touched stone, and the memory dropped away with it, gone so completely I couldn’t call it back, not that I ever wanted to.

The second boot fell away, and bending for it made me think of that farmhouse night—the door left open and the lamp giving just enough light to show what waited for me. I rose again, and the vision broke apart, giving way to an old morning when she pouted at me for tracking mud across her floor.

My shirt waited last, and I knew well enough that once it came off, the spell would claim the rest of what tied me to the life behind me. I had that one chance to turn back. But she had already gone ahead, trusting I would follow. So I set my hand to the collar and whispered, “I love you, my darlin’.” Then I loosened the first button and let the past fall from me.

I stood before the mirror long enough to know something in the room should’ve meant more to me than it did. Whatever the thought was, it slipped clear before I could bring it to hand.

With nothing left to trouble me, I dressed for the hall—clean shirt, boots set proper, coat taken from its peg as any man in the king’s service ought.

My hair had grown too long and slipped over my brow in a way that did no credit for the kingdom’s courier—and king’s blood to boot. I pushed it back with my fingers until it lay properly, a requirement for a man expected at the high table.

But as I pulled the door open to leave, something in me gave pause. I looked back over my shoulder, hunting for the ghost that plagued me that moment, and found no cause for it. The room kept its quiet shape, the same as before. So, I just let the notion go and closed the door behind me on my way to supper.

A Week or So Later...

The horse stood steady as I combed out the knots in his mane, untroubled by the long ride we had just returned from.

Bootsteps crossed the straw, and I knew the Earthborn had come with no need to raise my head. I caught him watching me now and again since he arrived, as if I ought to matter to him in some way. Truth was, I felt the same pull toward him and had no notion why. “Which is it?” he asked, settling his shoulder against the stall doorway. “Riding in or riding out?”

I lifted my eyes to him and gave a slight shrug. “Returned not an hour past,” I said, the brush working through the gelding’s mane once more. A pause settled between us before I found the nearest harmless thing to speak about. “Folk say you’ve taken to court as if you were born to it. I half-wondered if wedding talk might be stirring already.”

A soft laugh slipped from him, too quick to hide, and touched with a mischief he tried to school away. Whatever lived behind it seemed aimed at me, though I couldn’t place the reason. “Aye,” he said at last. “That’s why I’ve come.” From his coat came a folded note sealed in red wax, the Darke crest pressed clean into its face. He set it out for me to take. “Carry this to my sister in the City by the Sea. At once, if you please. She’d be positively broken-hearted if I jumped the broom without her.”

I set the letter in my satchel and fastened it shut. But Thorin was already easing back a pace and tipping a finger toward me. “Place it in her hand yourself,” he said. “I insist.”

I tightened the clasp on the satchel and set it over my shoulder. “How will I know her? What name is she called?”

He was already turning away, slipping a piece of candy from his pocket and setting it between his teeth. “Trust me when I say you will know when you’re before her.”

The groom came to take the horse, and I handed over the reins. “Mind him,” I said. “It seems I’ll be gone a spell.”

He nodded, leading the gelding deeper into the stalls. A man may travel by power only to places he’s known, and I had walked the City by the Sea more times than I could count over the long years of my life. So I stepped into the yard, and the dark mist gathered fast around my boots. I set my will to it, and the world drew long and narrow as I crossed its edge.

The world righted itself in the next breath, the dark mist slipping off me as the city’s gate rose ahead.

The right Lord Nicholas stood at the bend where the stone met the old trade path, green robes and black hair catching the wind. He watched me come along as though he’d been waiting for nothing else. “Good evening, Ben.”

“Good evening, my lord,” I said, shifting my bag to show it. “I’ve business with one of your household.”

Nicholas tipped his head, arms folding as his eyes cut toward the water. “I believe you’ll find the lady watching the ships come in.”

I had no reason to hurry, yet a pull took hold of me as I went, nearly putting me at full sprint. Then the apple scent drifted in, and my heart gave its answer, knowing full well what waited at the water’s edge.

A woman stood out on the dock, one hand resting on the post as she shifted on the boards beneath her. Her chestnut hair fell long down her back, catching the last of the day until it shone like a live flame. A low tune moved on her lips, faint enough that distance kept it from reaching me whole.

I knew her—not from memory at first, but from whatever lives at the root of a man’s soul. She was the one set aside for me since the first dawn I ever walked and would ever be.

The moment I stepped fully onto the dock, she turned toward me with a smile that had the kind of welcome a man does not mistake. She came down the pier like she’d been waiting for me, so I met her halfway and lifted the note from my satchel, meaning to place it into her keeping as her brother commanded.

“This came from your brother, my lady,” I said, offering it to her. “He asked that it reach your hand and no other.”

She took the note, her brow lifting just a touch as she looked at the seal and broke it open. A quiet laugh slipped from her when she reached the end, a touch of pink coming to her cheeks as she handed it back to me to read. ‘Take good care of this mate of yours, sweet girl. Your everloving brother—T.’

Everything in me burned wild, stealing my breath and all the courage I thought I had in me. Then she touched my hand, only a brush of fingers, and the flame under my skin drew back enough to let me look at her again.

The wind carried a strand of her hair across her cheek, and I reached without thinking—catching myself just short of touching her. Instead, I took her hand, bowed, and set my lips to her knuckles. “I’m called Ben.”

“Imara,” she answered, her fingers curling around mine and not letting go.

She was the one to step back first, though she didn’t let go. “Well,” she said, slipping her arm through mine, “if you’re in my keeping tonight, you’ll come to supper with me. I won’t have you missing a meal on account of my brother’s errands.”

I let her draw me toward the road, and I walked with her into that evening, and the next, and a million others...