“The Curse of Kings” is a fantasy novella by Alexandra Lisina, the eighth book of the “Arthur Raish” cycle, genre—detective fantasy. At last, peace and order reign in Altyr, for which the staff of the capital’s Main Investigation Office fought so long. The “Double” killer has been destroyed, the highest undead have been wiped out, and the crime rate has returned to its usual levels. And it would seem there’s nothing else to worry about… if not for a chain of seemingly random events that won’t let the investigators relax. For Arthur Raish, the new case initially also looks insignificant—but, as you know, the more tightly a spring is compressed, the more painfully it will hit later. And what is a spring? A simple coil, by means of which you can return to the origins.