THE CURSE SHE SPEAKS
COVENANT OF ASHES
BOOK 4
CHAPTER 1: THE CURSE SHE SPEAKS
The ash did not fall. It waited.
Selah held the bowl with both hands and watched the grey settle on the rim of her fingers. Midnight in the Temple of the Unspoken. No lamps. No voices. Only the sound of her breathing and the far-off drums from the city walls, counting down another day that King Jareth had not repented.
She dipped two fingers in. The ash was cold. It had been collected from the altars of the last three generations. Burnt offerings, burnt treaties, burnt names. The elders said it remembered.
"By dust you came," she whispered. Her voice barely moved the air. "By dust you will answer."
She turned to the gate.
The gate was iron, twenty cubits high, forged the year her grandmother was born. On it, the covenant was carved in letters deep enough to hold blood. DO NOT TOUCH THE ANOINTED. DO NOT SPEAK WITH KINGS. DO NOT LOVE WHAT GOD HAS MARKED FOR WRATH.
Selah pressed her ash-wet fingers to the first letter. D.
The ash clung. It always did when the word was true.
Outside, the drums stopped.
She should have left then. The law said: speak the curse, seal the gate, return to the inner court before the third watch. But the silence was wrong. Silence in this city meant someone was listening.
"Finish it, priestess."
The voice came from behind the pillar.
Selah did not turn. To turn during the rite was death. To acknowledge a voice not her own was exile. But her hands trembled, and a fleck of ash fell to the stone.
"Who speaks in the holy place?" she asked. The words were ritual. Her throat was dry.
"A man marked for wrath," he said. "According to your carving."
Footsteps. Slow. Barefoot on cold stone. She could smell him now. Not incense. Not oil. Iron, sweat, and something like rain on dust. A king should not smell like rain.
Selah finished the D. Then O. Then N.
"Then you know what happens to men who enter here," she said. "The law takes their tongue."
"The law took my father’s tongue," the voice said. "And his head. And the heads of his sons. I am the last. I thought I should see what the law looks like up close."
She reached T. Her fingers shook harder.
"Turn back, Jareth."
The name left her mouth before she could stop it. The elders had forbidden it. To name the cursed was to share the curse.
Silence. Then a sound almost like a laugh, but broken.
"You know me."
"I know the name I am commanded to erase," she said. "I do not know the man."
"Good. Then curse the name. Not me."
He was close now. She could feel the heat of him at her back, not touching. The gate was half-finished. N. O. T.
The drums started again, but faster. A signal. The watch had seen movement at the south wall.
"You should not be here," Selah whispered. "If they find you, they will burn the temple to get you."
"Then let them burn it," he said. "It has not kept me out."
She pressed T. The ash stung a cut she didn’t know she had.
For ten years she had done this rite. Ten years of ash and silence and words that tasted like iron. Ten years of watching her sisters grow old with their eyes on the floor. Ten years of believing that if she spoke the curse perfectly, God would finally end the war.
But tonight the words felt hollow.
"Why are you here?" she asked. Not ritual. Not law. Just her.
Jareth did not answer right away. When he did, his voice was lower, like he was speaking to himself.
"Because I heard you last month. During the famine rite. You prayed for us. For the city. For me."
Selah’s hand stopped on O.
"I pray for all men," she said.
"No," he said. "You said his name. You said 'Let Jareth remember mercy.' The guards were beating a boy for stealing bread. You were in the inner court. No one was supposed to hear."
She remembered. She remembered the boy’s face. She remembered hating herself for the prayer.
"You heard wrong," she said.
"I did not."
The final letters. U. R. A. T. H.
She pressed them one by one. Each letter burned. When she reached H, the gate shuddered. Somewhere deep in the stone, something answered. A low hum, like a struck bowl.
The curse was spoken. The covenant was sealed. For now.
Selah stepped back. Her knees felt weak. The law said to leave immediately. The law said to not look at him.
She looked.
Jareth stood three paces away. No crown. No armor. A plain tunic, torn at the shoulder. Dark hair cut short like a soldier’s. A scar through his left brow. And eyes that were not cold. That was the worst part. She had expected cold.
He was younger than she thought. Maybe thirty. Old enough to have blood on his hands. Young enough to still be looking for something else.
"You’re not supposed to see my face," he said quietly.
"You’re not supposed to be here," she answered.
They stood in the ash and the silence.
From the courtyard came shouts. Torchlight flickered under the gate. The watch.
"They’re coming," Jareth said. He did not move. "Will you give me up?"
Selah thought of the law. She thought of the ten years. She thought of the boy and the bread.
"No," she said.
Jareth’s jaw tightened. "Then you die with me."
"Then we die," she said. "But not tonight."
She grabbed his wrist. His skin was hot. She pulled him, not toward the inner court, but toward the old door behind the altar. The one the elders said was sealed. The one her grandmother had shown her once, when she was seven and afraid of the dark.
"There’s a passage," Selah whispered. "It leads to the cisterns. From there to the outer wall. But you have to go alone. If they catch us together—"
"I’m not leaving you," Jareth said.
"You have to." She pushed the door. It groaned. Dust fell. "If I’m caught hiding you, they’ll brand me. If I’m caught with you, they’ll kill us both. And the curse won’t be finished."
He stared at her. "You would do this. For a king you’re sworn to curse."
"I’m doing this for the boy," she said. "And for the prayer I shouldn’t have said."
The shouts were closer. Boots on stone.
Jareth took her face in his hands. His palms were rough, and they smelled like ash now too.
"Selah," he said. Her real name. No one had said it in ten years.
Her breath caught. "How do you know—"
"I listened," he said. "Every month. From the roof. I wanted to know what my enemy sounded like when she thought no one was listening."
He kissed her forehead. Not her mouth. Her forehead. Like a blessing. Like a goodbye.
Then he was gone through the door, into the dark.
Selah closed it behind him. Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely set the latch. She turned back to the gate just as the bolts slammed open.
Six guards. Spears. Torches. And behind them, High Elder Malak.
"Where is he?" Malak demanded. His eyes were on the ash. On her hands. On the door behind the altar that was now slightly open.
"Gone," Selah said. Her voice was steady. "The curse was spoken. The gate is sealed. No man entered."
Malak stepped forward and grabbed her wrist. Ash smeared on his robe.
"You lie," he said. "I smell him. I smell sin."
"Then smell the covenant," Selah said. "It is intact."
He struck her. Not hard. Enough. Her lip split. The taste of copper and ash.
"Search her," he ordered. "Search everything."
They tore the altar apart. They opened the door. The passage was empty. Jareth was already in the cisterns.
Malak came back to her. "If you are lying, the brand is next. If you are not lying, then God has abandoned us, because the king walked out of here alive."
Selah said nothing. She let the ash fall from her hands to the floor.
Outside, the drums stopped again.
Hours later, she was alone in the inner court. Her lip was swollen. Her hands were raw. The elders had posted two more guards.
She knelt on the stone and pressed her forehead to it.
"God of my fathers," she whispered. "Was that mercy, or was that betrayal?"
No answer. Only the quiet.
But on the gate, where her ash had dried, one letter had changed.
The H in WRATH was smudged. As if a thumb had brushed it while it was still wet.
As if someone had touched it after she left.
Selah stared at it until dawn.
When the first light came through the high windows, a novice ran in, breathless.
"Priestess," the girl said. "There’s news from the south wall."
"What news?"
"The king’s camp is gone," the girl said. "But they left something at the gate. A crown. And a note."
Selah’s blood went cold. "What did it say?"
The novice unfolded a scrap of cloth. The ink was still dark.
It said:
"Then we burn together."
Selah closed her eyes.
The curse was spoken.
The king was gone.
And somewhere in the dark, Jareth was waiting to see if she would keep the next vow she hadn’t made yet.
The ash had not fallen.
It was waiting too.
