The Sword by Jean Johnson Read Free Book Online Page B

wet?”
    He frowned, opened his mouth, then shut it and shook his head. For a woman from a land that supposedly didn’t have any magic, she had some odd notions of what a Curse was. “No. Not that kind of Curse. My own verse in the song states quite clearly if I fall in love, a disaster will immediately befall the whole of Katan…and that is a large land, home to more than a million people.”
    It was her turn to frown at him. “That’s it? No details? Just some unspecified disaster happens if you fall in love?”
    Saber scowled at her. “It’s more complicated than that!”
    â€œReally? You mean there are specific details such as, ‘if this man, Saber, falls in love with a blonde, locusts will plague every field from spring to fall, and none shall have anything to eat’?” Kelly challenged him. “Or ‘if this man, Saber, falls in love with a brunette, the seas shall rise up in salty flooding, and every mountain spring shall flow red with soured blood for a full month’? That kind of complicated?”
    â€œI mean, in this universe, Curses are real. Prophecies are real. It was written by the Seer Draganna over a thousand years ago, and she has never once been wrong.”
    â€œ What , precisely, was written?” Kelly demanded. “You know, where I come from, about three hundred years before, people were accusing other people of witchcraft, of setting Curses to make the cows dry up and not give any more milk, to wither the crops with a drought or wreck them with a heavy rain and flood, and they were hanging people, because of these accusations.
    â€œBut you know what?” she demanded rhetorically. “The damned cows dried up because they needed to be studded with a bull again so they could drop another calf and produce milk for it, and droughts and floods are simply a natural part of the weather cycle! So maybe these people of yours got all bent out of shape thinking they knew what this Prophecy thing was all about, simply by a misinterpretation egged on by ignorant fear.” She glared at him, then folded her arms across her breasts, wishing her pajama top wasn’t as holey as it was, and in almost indecent places. “Besides, exile doesn’t compare with murder by arson!”
    â€œWell, here , a Curse can dry up a cow or blight a crop with flood or drought,” he pointed out. “The Council of Mages do their best to keep such things from happening, but people do have to take Curses seriously!”
    â€œOkay, fine! Maybe that’s the way it works in this universe, but what’s the damned verse that’s got your undershorts in such a wedgie knot?” she shot back.
    â€œMy what in a what?” Saber returned. Not because there wasn’t a translation for her last few words, but because he had never heard a woman with her level of educated speech use that sort of terminology before.
    â€œNever mind. I presume you do know your own Curse by heart?” she added mock-sweetly, arms still folded where she sat in the middle of the oversized bed.
    Saber glared at her. And recited it.
    â€œThe Eldest Son shall bear this weight:
    If ever true love he should feel
    Disaster shall come at her heel
    And Katan will fail to aid
    When Sword in sheath is claimed by Maid.”
    Kelly blinked. “Oh.” She blushed a little at the blatancy of the last line, but it did sound ominous. And vague, disaster-wise. She dismissed it with a shake of her head. “It’s still a little too nebulous to get all worked up over.”
    â€œDisaster will come to the whole continent,” he argued.
    â€œNo, it just says disaster will come, and Katan will not give aid when it arrives,” she pointed out reasonably, settling her arms a little more comfortably. Her stomach was feeling rather empty. “Do you have any food, or am I to be both a prisoner and starved to death, while I’m an uninvited guest in your