The Curse on the Chosen (The Song of the Tears Book 2) Read Online Free

but he was alive and had a healthy and vigorous
body. Couldn’t he be thankful for that?
    Nish snatched the fiery crystal out of Flydd’s hand and
thrust it into Maelys’s. ‘You’ve got a small gift for the Art. Try it –
Father could be back any minute.’
    ‘He could be waiting outside right now, laughing his head
off,’ said Colm grimly. ‘We should have jumped off the cliff when we had the
chance.’
    ‘My family needs me,’ Maelys hissed.
    ‘And it’s abundantly clear that you’ll stoop to any depths
for them.’
    His words were another slap in the face. She wanted to do
the same to him; felt an urge to hurt him, but Maelys turned away and clenched
her slender fingers around the crystal, trying to think her way into its heart.
Its light came pinkly through her flesh, flaring and fading; a pulse was
beating in one of the veins of her wrist. Think! There’s got to be a way.
    She couldn’t think of one; Maelys didn’t know anything about
her little gift, which had been suppressed too long, and now was stunted.
Training in the Arts needed to begin in youth and, at nineteen, she was too old
to ever achieve mastery.
    Could there be a simpler way? She touched the crystal to the
columns carved into the rear wall, left and right, high and low, and to the
flat section in between, where the secret door had opened. Nothing happened.
Maelys imagined Jal-Nish’s mocking laughter.
    She rubbed the crystal against her forehead and touched it
to the taphloid hanging on its chain around her neck, again to no effect. Nish
was frowning at her. Did he think their peril was her fault? In a way, it was,
but surely it was better than the alternative? If she’d refused her aunts’
demand in the first place, he would still be in his father’s prison, going mad,
and she and her family would be hiding in the mountains, slowly starving to
death.
    ‘You try it.’ She passed the crystal to him. ‘You’re the one
with the clearsight.’
    ‘My gift is puny,’ he reminded her. ‘Totally insignificant.’
    ‘But linked – to God-Emperor,’ said Flydd. ‘Gift came
from – touch of tears, Nish.’
    ‘I’ll never forget it.’ Nish was clutching the crystal in
both hands, one clasped around the other. ‘During the war, Father thrust my
hands right into the tears in an effort to bend me to his will. Fighting his
compulsion almost broke me.’
    ‘But you got free – single-handedly saved what was
left of – mighty army,’ said Flydd, sounding more coherent now. ‘Fighting
him strengthened you – Nish. Strength you can draw on now.’
    ‘It’s a wonder you still have your hands,’ rumbled Zham.
‘The touch of Reaper crisped Vivimord’s belly like a roast pig, and he’s a
great mancer.’
    ‘Father protected me, I suppose,’ said Nish.
    ‘Power of – tears has grown mightily since –
beware!’ said Flydd. ‘Anything coming to you?’
    ‘Not a thing.’
    Maelys’s eyes met Zham’s. He was standing between the
columns, holding his enormous sword. He gave her an encouraging smile, and it
warmed her. She still had one friend left. Colm was grimly practising strokes
with his notched blade; was he mentally using it on her?
    ‘Nish,’ she said, ‘what if you used your clearsight to see
what’s happened to Xervish’s Art?’
    ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ There was a long silence while
Nish strained until a muscle began to jump in his jaw. ‘I can’t see anything.’
    Panic was creeping over Maelys, suffocating her, but she
couldn’t give in to it. Whenever she wavered, the thought of Fyllis in the
hands of Jal-Nish’s torturers stiffened her spine for one last try.
    ‘What about using me ?’
she said.
    ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Nish.
    ‘I’m not sure I do, either, but something strange happened
to Flydd during renewal last night. After he’d used the fourth crystal, he had
to draw on me. He took my hand and I could feel the heat running up my arm to
my heart … the strength being