Chapter 9: Chapter 9

The professor Jacob had once idolized now hurried away from the scene.

Jacob was unharmed, but the effect of the violence nearby was so great, and the sword through a heart so brutal, that his muscles seized almost as if he'd been hit.

What he saw now was King Dune standing over his latest victim, the falconer.

To explain what happened, we need to go one minutes back in time and look through Pip's eyes. Pip, with fingers plugged into her ears, had been standing several feet away from Jacob and Federline's table when she caught sight of the kestrel circling a particular cycad. King Dune and Queen Daintice had paused to appreciate that ancient, revived tree.

With a swoop and a snatch, the falcon had torn a many-layered chain from off the queen's neck. In the process, it'd also clawed at her mourning hood. This was the worse transgression.

The queen didn't seem to react. She paused on purpose, letting the crime happen. Her husband and bodyguard would deal with it.

Within seconds, King Dune had run to the falconer, dropped his staff with a clang, drawn a sword from his system, and plunged it straight through his body. And slashed through the kestrel.

The crowd there wasn't generally smart enough to run far away. At least they kept a bit of healthy distance. Gasps, terrified excitement, and chirping, nervous discussion filled the space. A reporter took down what she believed were the eyewitness notes of the century.

At the moment of the falconer's death and the professor's hurrying-away, Pip rushed to Jacob, figuring it was time to stay as close as possible. And Jacob rushed to Pip, snaring her arm in his as they watched the scene play out.

The king turned on his heel, attempting to leave as quick as he'd come, when a no-name prince fell in his path, landing so hard on his own knees that he skidded. With hands clasped and flailing in the air, he cried, "Sir, king! It wasn't his fault, it was mine, it was mine, I made him do it!" Then, ridiculously: "Take my life, spare his!"

No rescue from a blade through the heart.

King Dune studied him in silence for a few seconds. His cheeks were flush with dignified rage. Finally, with his system-sword still lingering in one lowered hand, he picked up his staff and laid the tip of it lightly upon the prince's forehead.

"Prince Varjack," he intoned, "I hereby Curse you and your progeny for seven generations never to steal from, transgress against, or commit any unkindness toward my people the Ittanoguans—or else the offender shall die."

Prince Varjack's jaw dropped open, and a sound escaped his lips that would've been comical in any other setting. Hell, maybe it was comical now. His body literally staggered under the weight of a Curse that would afflict his stats, sap his strength, for life.

Watching this play out, Jacob felt secondhand pain. He'd feared the exact same thing: a transgression or wrong move against a royal, and then, suddenly, an unendable Curse. These types of Curses had no parallel with Persuade. They were called Eternal Curses or Cursed Decrees, and while they were nowhere near as detrimental as the more typical, restricted commands, they were somehow more cruel.

It'd be a constant drain on King Dune's MP reserves. For that reason, he might decide to call the curse off later, letting only the shame of the punishment remain. But when you have bandwidth for one hundred Curses total, give or take, you can maintain quite the rotating library of afflicted individuals without sacrificing intimidation or sheer power.

And if he bore the Curse out for his whole life, it really would pass down to Prince Varjack's children and their children, a light decrease in strength and ever-present threat of early death for all their days.

The great rule of Curses is that they can never happen at all unless both parties agree in their minds that it's possible. Prince Varjack "accepted" the Curse in this way even as he collapsed in a sobbing fit. The king strode away. He Persuaded nearby staff to clean the mess immediately, which they did, working as fast as they could to reach their hits of dopamine sooner.

Jacob was watching and yet could not give less of a shit. How could he when he'd just come this close to learning a secret that could have... He didn't even know what it could've done. But everything about Federline's behavior suggested that he would've known if he wasn't systemless.

Dammit, he'd come so close, but the one who'd seemed to trust him most—over and above Motherfucker Malcolm, who'd either been ignorant or scheming when he looked at that gold ball—pulled out at the last minute.

"Ti zhufra." Of course he couldn't do anything with that.

He glared at Pip, as if trying to tease out the truth of those words with his eyes.

He could ask her. Was it even worth asking her? After all, this whole "friendship" was founded upon a withholding of resources—of his system. As long as she had that, she unmistakably had the power in any negotiation. So why would she ever give it up.

He could ask her, even though it seemed like a fool's errand.

He couldn't yet, though. Pip yelped, and her body convulsed. Pinned to her side, Jacob's body did too. They had collectively twitched out of the way of a needle.

She, the assassin, was moving swiftly away with the crowd, once again trying to act natural. Jacob didn't let her. He snared her arm with a palm of friam. Frost consumed her arm from the elbow outward, dyeing it white and deep purple.

A waitress! In her late twenties, with a mark across half her face and neck that could either have been a burn scar or a birthmark. Her weapon, a syringe, toppled out of her hand and onto the floor.

"Grab it," he told Pip.

Meanwhile, he was getting both of the assassin's wrists, binding them together with a hard brick of frost. The resulting handcuffs were sloppy workmanship, larger than intended. Blame it on nerves. The assassin put up a brief struggle, but soon stopped fighting back. She hung her head.

"Wh-wh-what happens now?" Pip said, dropping the syringe in her pocket. "What's the process?"

Jacob was already walking away. Though he was pushing a criminal by the back and shoulder every step, his pace was normal. "There is no process," he said, "we're not turning her in anywhere."

Pip, power-walking beside him, drew a finger across her neck. Will we kill her?

He shrugged a maybe. He wasn't in the mood to decide just yet. Because he knew what was coming. Either he'd kill her as fast as possible, asking nothing and gaining nothing, or he'd kill her slow after a nice interrogation, gaining nothing more than another blow of humiliation.

Fuck. Why was systemlessness such a hard trap to get out of? So pathetic, so self-perpetuating?

He shoved the assassin back to his suite, undaunted by passing staff and their curious stares. opening the door on a wall of dusk. Pip got the lights.

He pushed the waitress into an armchair, and she hardly bothered straightening herself out.

Great. That was a sign she'd probably be unhelpful as an informant—she wouldn't even help herself, was probably planning on biting her own tongue off in a minute.

Then the assassin...

Began to sob.

Oh, please.

"Poor thing," Pip murmured from over his shoulder.

Please, Pip. He remembered how this maid had ached to kill him just hours ago. Now she was about to cry just because a stranger started crying in front of her.

Please. He wished he was beyond caring.

Then Pip's tone rose to a plea. "Don't Curse her, please, sir. She's just a waitress. Look at her!" she wailed. "You can't Curse her now! She's a mess!"

...

Thank you, Pip, bless you and goddamn you.

Pip latched onto his coat, mock-sobbing as she cried, "If you have to do anything, why don't you show mercy!?"

"I will," he muttered, refusing to turn to her, eyes trained on the assassin. "I don't even think a Persuade would go through. I think she's already been Persuaded."

True enough. When a later Persuade with similar subject matter was added to the "stack," the first Persuade bore out. Say this woman had been commanded to do a royal's bidding, and that Jacob commanded that she do his own. His Persuade would have no effect.

Well...yes it would. By doing nothing, it would narrow possibilities down, and he'd know for sure that this killer was a royal's lackey.

For now, he just had his intuition—which he was trying sincerely not to rely upon, but that was so damn difficult when he had so little else.

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He did have ice, though.

He had an eccentric reputation which he wouldn't mind merging with tropes of the eccentric serial killer. The Paranoid Ice Killer, they could call him. (Jacob wasn't in a mood to be creative.)

"Dry your tears and talk," he said. "What's your name?"

"Susan," she warbled.

"Your name."

"Susan! That's all!"

"And what were you doing with this, and why?" He yanked the syringe from Pip's pocket.

"I don't know, I don't know."

"Pip, hold her down while I—"

"That's not mercy!" Pip cried.

"It is!" he roared. "Her arm will heal. What I'm about to do, years later, it will heal." (A total bluff, but he and Pip were playing improv and "Susan" was their audience.) "Pain in the soul cuts deep. Pain from the system...nothing can heal that. Besides, I said I'm showing her mercy, not kindness."

And few would do the same for a prince.

"Now, hold her down."

Pip twisted Susan so that she was pinned face-down on the couch. Again, Susan wasn't fighting back, and not much muscle was needed, but she did cry out. Then, with Pip kneeling beside the couch, head bowed in elegant permission, Jacob stepped over, bent, and applied fresh friam to the waitress' back.

Her screech was instant—stifled.

She was biting down on the couch cushion, wetting it with tears.

Jacob considered it a good thing he wasn't using his switchblade. Then he'd have so much more of his own mounting nausea to deal with. Turning the pain into a series of ice-cold splotches always made bags of organs easier for him to handle.

That being said, if Susan didn't give anything away soon, he really would have to finish this. Maybe it would take a threat with the knife, dismemberment.

But then she gave.

Her teeth tore away from the couch with a gasping scream that turned into laughter. "What the hell am I doing," she said, apparently to herself. "I'm already dead!"

She sounded like a whole new person.

"This is a moment to be savored," Susan said, her voice shaking with her body. "I'm part of Alzenian history!"

Fuck. No she wasn't.

He lunged for her throat, sensing nothing good could come from this if she kept talking.

"Prince Jacob, y—"

Grabbed her throat, seized.

"Jacob—" Her voice was hoarse, tiny, escaping in mid-death. "Jacob—J-J—y-you..."

And just when he thought it'd died for good, it shouted in one triumphant burst, "You are Cursed until James the Just is dead!"

It was like his heart dropped through the chasm of his chest...and disappeared.

He'd been Cursed, alright. He'd gotten himself Cursed because his stubborn paranoiac self couldn't let a lead go unpursued. And now look.

Look, at those trembling hands over a throat gaining newfound strength. Hands trembling over a scarred yet ecstatic face. Jacob wasn't trembling out of fear. He was feeling profoundly sick, that was part of it—but it wasn't fear at all, not yet, just his sudden lack of coordination. He had put too much strain on his muscles and this trembling was in protest.

Not trembling. Tremoring. He had tremors all over.

Had his marvelous vacationing brother, Prince James the Just, just put a lock on his soul, and his health, and the last trace of his power...?

The worst Curses did it all: they lasted for ages and they played upon feelings that were already latent. They didn't inflict new pain so much as stir up the shit that was always there.

Jacob knew the makings of this Curse had been a long time coming.

Susan slapped him away. That was all it took right now to get him away: a slap. He staggered obediently backward, crumpling on his side.

His internal organs were begging him to sob, to scream, to release any sound of agony. He held it back and the protests could only come in racking convulsions.

He felt helpless. His inner child wanted to curl up and die.

His better instinct said otherwise, and told him to do three simple little things, things that just about anyone, suffering any amount of Curses, could handle:

Keep watching.

Remember your friam. Your blade. The techniques that don't need muscle and split-second timing. The craftiness, the craft.

And learn, the hard way, to trust your maid.

Pip was standing between him and the waitress. She was getting the oddest feeling of payoff. Within the past sixteen hours—the worst day of Jacob's life and quite possibly, perversely, the best day of Pip's—her decision to stay with Jacob had produced the desired result: his IQ had brushed off on her, ever so slightly.

She was on the offensive, but this time she wasn't throwing a blanket. She wasn't holding a depleted Iron. She was bringing her hands close together the way a martial artist might channel energy and force it forward.

Susan had a mad look in her eyes and was laughing incoherently. Persuasion Ecstasy took many forms, and this was merely one of the most obvious.

No surprise that she didn't see it coming when Pip positioned her hands directly, precisely, in front of her chest and didn't strike.

Calmly, she called out her combination weapon: "Dusteye."

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