Curse-Maker: The Tale of Gwiddon Crow: The Curse-Breaker Series, #4

By Alydia Rackham

What if the only way to save yourself was to beg help from the person whose life you have destroyed?
Gwiddon Crow is a young, vicious Curse-Maker who haunts the Winterly Wood of Albain, free from all laws, unchained from the suffering of her past. Her master, Gwiddon Baba Yaga, calls upon Crow to cast a curse upon the tiny kingdom of Astrum, and destroy the great seal which protects it from Baba Yaga's ally, Mordred the Draid. But the curse goes terribly wrong.
Now, Crow is trapped in Astrum, alone with its resentful, blind prince--and the unbroken Seal is slowly draining her life. She must find a way to free herself from her own spell...
But the only way to do that may lie with the prince whose kingdom she has destroyed.
A stunning and spectacular original fairy tale continues Alydia Rackham's epic Curse-Breaker series. If you enjoy magic, mystery, and the power of true love, you will relish this tale.
Experience this thrilling story when you read "Curse-Maker: The Tale of Gwiddon Crow" today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alydia Rackham
• Release date: Apr 3, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224306404

Alydia Rackham

Alydia Rackham is a daughter of Jesus Christ. She has written more than thirty original novels of many genres, including fantasy, time-travel, steampunk, modern romance, historical fiction, science fiction, and allegory. She is also a singer, actress, avid traveler, artist, and animal lover. 

Book preview

Chapter One

ON THE NIGHT OF A FULL moon in autumn, I sat in the arms of a knotted wych elm, my back to the trunk, one leg bent, the other hanging easily off the thick branch. My black cape tumbled all around me, its edges fluttering like feathers touched by a breeze. I crossed my arms, gazing out to my left at the narrow road that passed beneath me and wound away into vanishment like a dead river. I listened.

The young night air hung heavy with frost. Foxes slipped through the underbrush, disturbing the leaves of the greying ferns. I could hear their careful, clever feet padding across the fallen leaves. An owl passed like a winged reaper overhead, the cloak of his wings eclipsing the cold gaze of the moon.

As I watched below me, the fog slowly rolled in, hiding the roots of the trees. Dew beaded on my fitted, leather travel clothes and on the long, tangled, mane-like lengths of my white hair. I reached up with both hands and wound a strand around my slender, pale fingers, studying the way the crackled moonlight caught my hair’s coal-black flecks and shining silvers. The way it cast shadows across the scars on my knuckles, the black rune tattoos on my thumbs. How it sparkled in the jet stone in the silver ring on my right hand.  

I released the tangled end of my hair and tapped the symbols on my thumbs, absently muttering their meanings under my breath like a chant, first one hand, then the other.

"Cuir, neartu, freimhe," I hummed. "Nimh, betha, cothaigh. Cuir, neartu, freimhe; Nimh, betha, cothaigh..."

Plant. Strengthen. Root.

Poison. Feed. Keep.

I tilted my face back to the interwoven maze of branches above me, smiling as they swayed in time to the rhythm of the wood—the rhythm I had memorized since childhood, even before I knew the words to the song. I tapped my toe, tilting my head side to side. I drew in a deep breath.

"Man may think that he liveth long,

But oft him belies my tricks.

Fair weather often turns to rain

And wondrously it makes its switch."

A lively, wicked wind suddenly cut through the branches, whirling and swirling like a tattered gown, catching up leaves in its skirts. Night birds began to hoot and call in time with me, and deep, guttural, creaking grunts issued from the marrow of the trees.

"Therefore, man, you do bethink,

But all shall fail, your fields of green!

Fair weather often turns to rain,

And wondrously it makes its switch!"

The cold wind cackled now, throwing the leaves toward the skies and ripping delightfully through my cape and hair. I rapped my fingernails against the bark, raising my voice as the tune slithered rapidly every which way through the forest. 

"Alas, there's neither king nor queen,

That shall not drink of death's drink!

Man, ere thou fall off thy bench,

Thy sins thou shalt quench!

Man may think that he liveth long,

But oft him belies my tricks.

Fair weather often turns to rain,

And wondrously it makes its switch!"

As I let the last note ring out, warming and vibrating through my whole body, the autumn wood and its creatures roiled and rattled with the full strength of their merry voices. I grinned, appreciatively slapping the trunk of the tree, feeling it chuckle down within its wood. 

Then—

A screech.

Far off, yet not so far that I couldn’t feel the ripple of it strike me in the side of the neck.

I leaped to my feet, standing freely balanced on the branch, holding onto nothing. My cape went still. I faced the east, not breathing, my gaze wide.

A deep, single-noted hum traveled through the earth, as if something in the roots of the mountains had cracked. For a moment, I stood, studying the vibrations that passed up through the roots, the trunk, and into my boots.

Then, I launched myself up the tree. With swift, sure steps and firm handholds, I maneuvered my lean body between the limbs and toward the height of the canopy. At last, my head broke through the leaves, and moonlight spilled over my hair. I grasped the rough branches, and peered toward the east.

Winterly Wood stretched on in every direction, its impenetrable tangle rolling far, far away from me toward Rye Valley, which lay now shrouded in blackness.

But there, at the very edge of my sight, I glimpsed birds that had taken flight. All along the entire forest wall, they flapped frantically upward, toward the mountains, away from the valley.

I frowned hard, my left-hand fingers closing tighter around the branch.

Then, I let go, perched precariously on a limb that could not hold my weight.

"Eitil," I muttered—and clapped my hands together.

The limb gave way beneath me—but that instant, my cape flung all around me like a python, swallowed my frame, and crushed it.

A moment of blinding pain snapped all my bones—

And then...

I flung out my arms—and they were wings. Great, black wings.

My face had changed to shining black with a long, gleaming beak. My body had covered with sleek ebony feathers, my feet to wiry claws. I sprang straight into the air with a hoarse caw!, beating my wings as I climbed heavenward. I reeled in midair, switching direction, and hurtled down over the face of the forest, my feathers spread wide.

Leaves flittered just below my breast as I skimmed over the beeches, oaks and elms. I dodged bare, protruding twigs; I fleetingly scanned ahead of me for owls. Though none would challenge me—I was thrice the size of any other crow in Edel.

Ahead of me, rising suddenly like black knives from the heart of the wood, this portion of the Eisenzahn Mountain Strand stood like the walls of a giant fortress. Black pines covered their faces, cloaking the shimmering white stone of their bones. I glanced down, and glimpsed the Sopor River glittering like a seam of silver weaving through the immovable wood—leading straight for the Flumen Split: the narrow gap in the mountains that provided the only passage between Albain and the vast Thornbind Wood beyond.

Canting my head, I spied a narrow track below me, and a familiar fork in it. With a breath, I folded my wings and dove straight down.

The wind whistled through my feathers, the stars flashed around me—

I plunged into the shadow of the wood.

I pulled up, brought my wings out with a loud flap—

Shook myself, and threw off my cape.

Another howl of pain split my body—and my booted feet struck the dry dirt of the path.

Pulling in a swift, measured breath and gritting my teeth, I lifted my human head and straightened my human shoulders, never breaking stride as my cape turned back into a garment, and roiled behind my steps.

I took another deep breath, smelling the smoke of a familiar hearth. In a few paces, I spied flickering torches standing at odd angles, lining the crooked path. My boots left prints in the frost.

I finally approached the first set of torches: human skulls upon tall pikes, their gaping mouths seething with crackling flames, their eyes enlivened by brilliant sparks. The flame blackened the teeth of their sagging jaws, and glowed through the cracks in their crowns. The light threw stark shadows against the figures of the trees to either side, making them look like they moved. I strode between the leering pairs, tipping my head back and forth as I had since I was a girl, silently reciting the names I’d given them: Arseny and Afanasy, Vadim and Vasily, Bogdam and Boris, Ivan and Ilia, Pavel and Pyotr. I glanced ahead of me at the familiar cottage.

The cottage of bones.

Instead of beams and bars and thatch, the mistress of this house had built with the bones of kings who defied her, women who went back on their promises to her, children who had been traded for spells. But the front door and the lintel above had been constructed of very special skeletons indeed: the bones of all the Caldic Curse-Breakers—except one.  

I finally arrived at the front door of the cottage. For a moment I stopped, glancing toward the window to my left.

Flickering orange light peered through a ragged cloth that hung over most of the opening. Quiet music wafted out: music from a stringed instrument, plucked by careful fingers. It was a swaying, tilting sort of tune—like treading gleefully toward some sort of mischief. I snickered.

I reached out and put my hand on the forehead of Aleric Blackthorn’s well-polished skull, and shoved.

The ancient door creaked crankily as I stepped up into the cottage. I immediately dodged a mobile of fingerbones and a set of dangling glass balls. My footsteps went silent as they met the worn-out bearskins on the floor.

The scent of burning tallow candles filled my lungs—a mountain of them, all dripping onto each other, stood upon the mantel in the far corner, lighting up all the herbs, spices, bones, and trinkets hanging from that section of the ceiling.

I maneuvered around the towers of dusty books and locked trunks, aiming for the beaten armchair that sat near the fire—its legs so stacked with tattered papers and odds and ends that it looked as if it had grown out of the floor.

Enfolded in the arms of the chair sat a very old woman, wearing rags. Only if I peered closely—which I often had—could I detect the threads of gold and silver woven into her garments, and the faded silk patterns of flowers: patterns sewn by the finest weavers and tailors in Izborsk. Hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

A scarf that had once been maroon bound around the top of her head, and her feathery white hair stuck out from beneath it. She had a face of leather, riddled with wrinkles; the end of her long, hooked nose nearly touching her protruding chin. In her lap she held the stringed instrument, a triangle-shaped balalaika, and her bony hands plucked the strings of the melancholy, mischievous melody that filled the house. The firelight bathed her gently-swaying form in rich light, and for a moment—as I always did when I first came inside—I felt like I was gazing back into the shadows of a lost world.

I paused, but she’d caught my movement. Her glinting silvery eyes found me, and narrowed as a low, sly smile carved her wrinkles even deeper.

Crow, she creaked, still playing at the strings with her skillful fingertips.

Babushka, I nodded to her.

You have something to tell me, Gwiddon Baba Yaga—called Babushka only by me—noted, turning back toward the fire, and I watched as the flames danced across her iridescent eyes. Eyes that had seen so much—so much more than I could ever imagine...

Yes, I said. I saw something.

Sit down, eat, she nodded to a space in front of her.

I frowned, and leaned around a particularly tall pile of books...

To see that a small table set with a bowl of food, in front of my chair, steamed readily, as if it had just been laid out. I eyed her, and lifted an eyebrow.

You were expecting me to come back early.

Da, she hummed.

I sighed, stepped around the pile of books, peeled off my cape and flung it across the back of my chair, then sat heavily down. I tugged the table closer so it stood between my knees, and I scanned the food. It was a bowl of shchi, filled with cabbage, chicken, mushrooms, carrots, onions, garlic, celery, pepper, apples and smetana. Three pieces of hot, buttered bread sat to the side, along with a wooden goblet of rich, heady red wine. I picked up the goblet and took a long swig of the wine, hoping it would dull the ache in my bones left over from my transforming.

So, I said, setting the goblet down and tearing into the bread with both hands. What was it that I saw?

The witch across from me diddled on the strings with her long nails, and pursed her lips.

I suppose you saw a bit of a disturbance on the eastern border of Winterly, she replied, with a thoughtful lilt to her tone. And perhaps felt a touch of startlement from deep within the earth?

I frowned hard at her, stopping my chewing.

Her eyes flicked to mine for a moment, and then she returned to her music. I finished chewing, watching her, then sat back in my chair.

So what was it?

Mm, she grunted. I do not know.

I narrowed my eyes.

"What do you think it was?"

Eat your shchi, she said, jerking her chin toward it. And put some slype on your hands.

Why? I demanded.

I see a spot. She pointed with a gnarled finger at my left hand. I lifted it toward the light, and spied a dark blotch on the back of it.

I haven’t noticed that before, I murmured.

Mm, she grunted again. What have you been doing?

Nothing, I shook my head. Just a strengthening spell on the fog.

Ah, but you haven’t put slype on yourself for weeks, she noted, arching an eyebrow.

It stinks, I shot back. She snorted.

Put it on, she ordered. "Unless you’d like to look like me far earlier than you ought." And she bared her pointed teeth in what was meant to be a ghastly grin. I rolled my eyes and reached up to snatch a little black bottle off the mantle.

I don’t mind a little spot on my hand, I muttered.

Mm, you may not, the witch sat back in her chair. Not now, when you’re only four and twenty, with a body still strong and quick. But you will wish you had listened to your babushka, she wagged a finger at me. When you try to shake off that flying crow someday, and two of your bones stay broken. Mark me.

I smirked, not replying, and popped the cork off the bottle. I dripped just a bit of the black, oily liquid into my right palm, put the cork back, and rubbed the slype onto the back of my left hand.

Keep rubbing, Baba Yaga ordered. Until you cannot see the spot.

Yes, I know, I glared at her, but kept doing it, until the oil rubbed in and the spot on my hand faded. I feigned a gag and shook my head, putting the bottle back on the mantle.

Smells like dead fish.

Hehe, the witch chuckled. Not so bad.

I said nothing, just picked up the wooden spoon and started stirring my steaming soup.

So what was it? I pressed, slurping a spoonful, then wincing at its heat. But I kept eating. The witch gazed at me, tapping her fingers on the face of her instrument.

I said I do not know, she repeated. But someone is coming who will tell us.

I stopped with my spoon halfway to my mouth.

Who? I asked in a low voice. But she didn’t respond—just smiled.

The fire in the hearth guttered.

My attention flashed to it.

Then, fingers of smoke began to creep out past the mantlepiece, as if something had blocked the chimney.

Slowly, I lowered my spoon back into the soup.

The smoke thickened, blackened. It trailed upward, past the candles, mingling with the flames and disappearing into the shadow of the ceiling.

Without a sound, I lifted the table in front of me and set it to the side. Then, I slowly settled back in my chair, draping my arms over the rests. With my jaw set, I waited.

The thick smoke pooled on the ceiling, and began slithering down amongst the witchly ornaments, dripping onto the floor beside Baba Yaga. It writhed out of the corners of the cottage, seething over the bearskin rugs, filling the air with the exotic musk of myrrh.

As Baba Yaga and I watched, the serpentine smoke began to twine around itself, crawling from the floor toward the ceiling again. Forming an ever-thickening pillar. All the lights in the cottage changed hue, taking on a pearly emerald—and sparks danced freely around the flames.

A figure formed within the shroud of smoke: tall and willowy, like an iron lance. Surrounded by sinister, cobweb draperies that stirred with their own wind. Ripples of clarity brought forth the shapes of strong, graceful arms bound round with silver bracers; long, white hands—the right one bearing a glittering ring. An elegant, figure-hugging black tunic with upward-sweeping shoulders, evoking the visage of a horned asp. A sundering cape dripping and slithering from the back of his shoulders and round his flowing skirts, hiding his feet. Jewels of jet and poison-red sparkling like scales across his chest. A tall collar guarding a graceful neck.

A raven head, with midnight hair spilling down to the front of his chest, crisp and feral as the feathers of a crow. A sharp, refined face with perfect features, and skin white as moonlight. Eyes like chips of silver, with an ethereal, shining distance. Coal black eyebrows, black lashes; grey, unsmiling lips. And across his face—upon his delicate cheekbones, brow and nose—lay deep red discolorations, like the sear of heat, or the welt of a deep bruise. But it did not mar his beauty—in truth, it accentuated it. And the ice-cold ferocity in his bearing added terrible power to his heavy glance.

A dark light swelled out from him, tightening my chest. I didn’t move. He lifted his chin, and looked directly at me. His bright, pupil-less gaze darted through me to my spine.

Gwiddon Crow. His musical voice like the surface of a lake at twilight. Crow, Baba Yaga motioned to me, then to him. This is Mordred.

Chapter Two

MORDRED INCLINED HIS graceful head to me. I didn’t move—just narrowed my eyes.

He is a draid, Baba Yaga told me. A dark elf.

I know what he is, I answered quietly, not taking my eyes from him. What is he doing here?

Mordred almost smiled, and lifted his right eyebrow-slightly.

He is also the king of Albain, Baba Yaga added.

I slowly leaned back, stretched out my legs in front of me, and crossed them.

Well, then, I raised my eyebrows. "He should know right now what I think of kings."

Mordred truly smiled now, and chuckled.

I like her, Vedma, he glanced at Baba Yaga. I gave him nothing but a cold look.

Please, sit, Baba Yaga waved a hand—and her guest chair appeared.

The bear skin near Mordred’s feet writhed and twisted, and rose off the floor, warping itself into the shape of a tall armchair, with the mighty, toothy head crowning the top. When at last it had stopped its transformation, Mordred stepped around it, swept his skirts out of the way, and sat down with the casual elegance of a cat, his right elbow propped on the armrest.

Would you have something to drink or eat? Baba Yaga asked him. He absently flicked his fingers.

No, thank you, I’ve just eaten.

Baba Yaga shrugged, and sat back in her own chair.

What brings you here, Mordred?

He looked at her for a moment.

I’m certain you noticed the disturbance at the edge of Winterly Wood not long ago, he said.

I did, Baba Yaga nodded. But Crow was out in the wood at the time, and saw the birds take flight.

Mordred glanced at me. The firelight glinted off his silvery eyes.

What did you perceive? he asked me.

I am keeping my thoughts to myself, until I hear what you have to say. I canted my head. That’s the reason you’ve come, isn’t it?

He peered at me, his brow furrowing, then leaned slightly toward me.

Tell me, he said, pointing vaguely. Where did you get such an ugly and unusual scar? It covers the entirety of the left side of your face, all the way down to your neck, and looks like the white craters of the moon.

I lifted my chin, unmoved.

I was struck by a hot fire shovel when I was fourteen, by my father, I said. I killed him with it. Then, I narrowed my own eyes to slits. Where did you get yours?

He grinned again, laughing softly.

Child, I am older than you can imagine, he said, looking over at me with something like warmth. I honestly cannot remember when I first noticed these marks on my face. But I do know they’ve arisen from my struggles, my pain, my suffering... He considered me again, his mirth fading, something like sadness entering him. Just as yours have.

I blinked, and glanced down.

Tell us, Mordred, Baba Yaga urged. What is this all about? I don’t like the feel of it.

Mordred gazed at her long.

What do you feel?

She set her jaw crookedly, and leveled a look back at him. Her voice lowered to a deadly, rasping tone.

That a curse has been broken.

Mordred’s mouth tightened, and he gazed down at the hearthstones with a cold consideration.

It may have been, he murmured. I fear that someone has pulled the Sword from the stone.

Baba Yaga gasped.

The sound made me sit up—set my heart bashing into my ribs.

The true sword Calesvol? How can that be? Baba Yaga rasped. It has been lost for a thousand years! Ever since you killed Merlin the Wild!

Mordred suddenly looked at her without moving his lowered head. 

A chill passed through me.

I...did not kill...Merlin, he said, with painful and precise decision.

Whaaat? Baba Yaga stared at him, her eyes wide and terrible. Why did you lie to me?

I lied to everyone, Mordred answered icily. "After