Withering Rose (Once Upon a Curse Book 2) Page 12

"Haven't you ever wondered why your magic comes with a curse?"

  I'm paralyzed by his comment.

  How does he know?

  How could he possibly know?

  "You're shivering," Cole murmurs. But I can't move, not even to wrap my cloak tighter around my shoulders. "We should go inside."

  He takes me by the waist, leading me back to the castle as though I'm a child who's barely learned to walk. I don't say anything. I don't have the strength to say anything. I'm mute as Cole brings me inside and gently deposits me in an oversized armchair. I'm silent as he ushers a fire to life and tucks a blanket around my shoulders. Then he sits opposite me. I'm quiet as I watch the flames dance over his pale skin, mesmerized by how they flicker warmly in irises that are usually so cool.

  "Tell me everything," I finally whisper.

  "I'll have to start at the very beginning," he murmurs, peering at me nervously, unsure of how I'll react.

  I just nod. His eyes narrow with concern, but I don’t want that right now. I don't want pity or comfort. All I want is the truth. The complete story.

  And he gives it to me.

  "Hundreds of years ago, in our world, humans didn’t have magic. There were no kings and queens. The magic was concentrated in the earth and air, and in people like me, people made of magic. The world was populated with shapeshifters and faeries, centaurs and mermaids, even dragons. There were trees that spoke, forests made of magic, waters that could cure any disease, and spirits hidden within the ground, ready to grant small miracles. In that world, humans were nothing. They had no power, no strength. Legends say some were taken to be used as slaves, but most were left alone and ignored, considered unworthy of attention." He pauses.

  "Until?" I prompt.

  Cole glances at me, brows knotted together. "Until everything changed." He sighs, turning his attention to the fire, staring into its flames without blinking. "No one knows quite how it happened, not anymore. The best theory my father was able to uncover was that a human man somehow captured a faerie priestess and tortured her until she finally confessed a spell to trap the magic. He used the incantation and became the first human king, trapping magic within his blood and bonding it to his soul. The magic fused with his greatest desire, the wish to become undefeatable, giving him the most unbeatable weapon of all—the ability to control someone's mind. The priestess escaped, but no matter how hard she or any other magical creature tried, he could not be killed.

  "Word of a human gaining magic spread, and people bowed down to him. He made them see him as a god, he coerced their loyalty, he controlled them. When his kingdom became so great that even his magic couldn’t control everyone, he told his closest advisors about the spell and gave them great power as well. But once they had magic of their own, the king no longer had complete control over their minds. Without his knowing, some of the advisors plotted to overthrow him. They told their greatest warriors the secret of the king's power, and more humans stole the magic from the earth, trapping it and molding it to their souls, bringing their deepest desires to life.

  "But the magic had to come from somewhere. And when the magic from the sea and sky was all taken, the humans began stealing it from the other creatures. The faerie priestesses watched in horror as the world they loved slowly fell to pieces. Faeries turned to flowers as their magic was stolen. Shapeshifters were trapped in their animal forms, no longer able to make the change. Unicorns were killed for the power in their horns. All the magical creatures left went into hiding, trying to escape the greed of the humans. And then the wars began. The humans with magic turned on each other. All the power had gone to their heads, and they were no longer content to follow anyone, not even the man who first gave them power. Battles broke out as they fought for territories, for their own kingdoms, to steal each other's magic and make themselves even stronger. Their children were born with the stolen magic in their blood, becoming powerful too. And only then did the first king realize his mistake, that power is a curse just as much as it is a blessing. So he returned to the priestess he once tortured and begged for her help to put an end to the madness.

  "But it was too late by then. There was almost no magic left, too little for the priestesses to work with, nothing except for the magic fused to their souls, the magic they had been born with. And so, to save the world, they sacrificed themselves. The priestesses gave up their own magic, killing themselves so that with their dying breaths, they could put one last spell on all the humans who had stolen the magic. They were too weak to take the magic away or to kill them, so they did the best they could. The priestesses tied the magic to each human's blood in an unbreakable bond, sealing that union with a curse. Now, instead of limitless power, the magic was bound. Only one human could harness it at a time. New children weren't born with the power already flowing through them, and only one heir could inherit the magic. But whoever got the magic also got the burden of the curse, one could no longer exist without the other. And the curse gave the rest of us hope. If it was broken, the magic would be released back into the world, returning to where it was supposed to be. The first king spent the rest of his life traveling to the many kings and queens, using his mind control to steal the spell from their memory, until not a soul in the world remembered how to bind magic to a human soul. And then he killed himself, releasing his magic back into the world, confident that it would stay there.

  "As time went on, some kings and queens died without an heir, and their magic was released back into the world. Some spent their lives figuring out how to break the curse, voluntarily giving up the magic in order to rid themselves of the burden. But many more decided the curse was a worthy sacrifice and kept the magic for themselves. The memory of those early days and early wars faded into myth. And eventually," Cole says, pausing to finally look at me before softly finishing his story. "Eventually, all human memory of how their royal families were created disappeared entirely."

  I flinch at those last words.

  My family was part of the third group.

  I'm part of the third group.

  We forgot. We believed the magic was rightfully ours. And every woman in my family made the choice that the magic was worth dying for—we used it even as it killed us, and we passed it on knowing it would kill our daughters too.

  "Do you know my curse?" I murmur, eyes on the floor.

  "No," he responds slowly. "I just know you have one."

  I open my lips to tell him, but only air comes out. How would he look at me if he knew I was killing myself in order to use my magic? If he knew my curse was that the magic stole a little part of my own life? Would those eyes ever clear of clouds again? Would they harden against me forever?

  So instead, I latch on to something else he said. I hunt for more of his secrets so I don't have to confess my own. "You said they stole the magic from the creatures and the earth? That other shapeshifters were trapped in animal form? Is that…?"

  I trail off, glancing around.

  We're alone at the moment, but Cole knows what I mean. Is that why all of his people are wolves and bears and leopards instead of people?

  "No," he says after a drawn-out minute. He knows I don't want to talk about my curse, and for the moment, he's relenting. "What I just told you was only the beginning of my story."

  "What happened?"

  Cole cups his forehead in his hands, resting his elbows on his thighs. He runs his fingers through his thick black hair, scratching the back of his head while he takes a long, deep breath.

  "I wasn't lying when I told you about the solstice," he says, words followed by the crackling of the fire and a permeating sort of silence. And when he looks up and meets my gaze, I think I'm finally seeing him for the first time. Cole is baring his soul. The storm is clearing. The beast is finally breaking down his walls and letting me in. "The shapeshifters once lived in segregated kingdoms, keeping to themselves, predators that never mixed unless they happened to be hunting the same prey. We numbered in the thousands. But when the magic started dis
appearing, everything changed. The humans ambushed our kingdoms, using the spell to steal our magic, leaving many of us trapped in our simpler form, no more than animals. The survivors went into hiding, trying to disguise the magic so humans wouldn't be able to take it away. And in the end, after the wars and after the priestesses laid down the curse, there were only a handful of our kind left behind. Most of the magical creatures of the world had been destroyed, and we decided that the only way to remain safe would be to create a kingdom of our own, in a remote place in the world where we would be left alone. My family has ruled that kingdom ever since the first solstice, until fourteen years ago, when a stranger visited and took it all away."

  The golden woman.

  My mind immediately drifts to her, to the magic glowing beneath her skin, the power that called to me, lulling me ever closer.

  "She stole it?" I murmur.

  Cole's expression breaks just a little before he regains control, hardening his eyes to steel. "We were celebrating the solstice as a kingdom, another year passed in secrecy and safety, another year of peace. Everyone was in the palace, drinking and dancing. Our joy as a people was palpable. I was only five, but I'll never forget when she walked into the room. Everything seemed to stop. No one had ever seen anyone quite so beautiful as this stranger with golden hair who almost floated as she passed us by. And then she paused before my parents, collapsing to the ground, landing in the form of a beautiful striped tiger. And only then did we all see her coat was stained with blood. Immediately, we jumped into action. Every so often, shifters would come from other parts of the world, looking for sanctuary. But no one had seen a tiger in hundreds of years. We thought she might be the last of her kind. We never doubted for a moment who or what she was. Magic is what keeps us in human form, our animal forms are our baser selves, and we all watched her shift before us. Why would we doubt? Why would we question? We had been safe for a thousand years, who would want to hurt us after so long?"

  Cole's voice is cracking now.

  His fingers gently press against the scars on his temples, as though they give him strength and take it away at the same time. I slide from the chair, coming to his side in a heartbeat, pulling his hands away and filling them with mine. He holds tight, but his eyes are blank, unseeing. And I know he's not with me anymore. He's back to his five-year-old self, reliving every moment, the same way I do when I think about my mother or my sister, when I think of the way things once were.

  "We didn’t realize anything had changed until the morning," he whispers, tone utterly raw. "I woke up the same prince I'd always been. But my butler never came to my room to help me change. And the servants never brought my breakfast. So I went to search for my parents, and I found them in their room, sleeping late because no one had come to wake them. And instantly, we all sensed that something was terribly, terribly wrong. So we ran out of the castle, not even dressing, but it was too late. By the time we woke up, all the magic except for ours was gone. All of the people we were supposed to protect, all the shifters who trusted us, all of them were trapped in their animal forms, all of their magic had been stolen away in the night. My mother shifted before we could stop her, and as a wolf, she was faster than either of us. My father and I have always preferred the shape of the bear. By the time we reached the stranger's room to see her perfectly still, glowing form, my mother was already dying by her feet. I don’t even know how it happened, not really. The only thing I know for certain is I was too late to save her, too late to save everyone, even my father, in the end."

  "Cole…" I breathe his name, but there's nothing else to say.

  His despair washes over me, tangible, and I recognize myself in that lonely desolation. We're the same, he and I. Different stories. Different lives. But somehow, the same. So completely alone. So unbearably lonely.

  But as our hands grip tight and we cling to the warmth in each other's skin, I wonder if maybe, just maybe, this is the beginning of a new chapter, a new life not marred by so much grief, but alight with understanding.

  Cole blinks and finds my eyes.

  We stare at each other.

  In the depths of his irises, the lonely years of his life flash by. The loss of his mother. The loss of his people. The loss of his father. The countless hours wandering these halls as the only one of his kind still left with any magic, the only man in a kingdom of beasts. I understand why he listened to my cry for help when he found me lying nearly dead in that field—he recognized himself in me. I understand why he tried to frighten me away—he recognized her in me, the glowing woman who stole the lives of nearly everyone he loved. My magic is everything he hates. I'm everything he hates. But I'm something else too.

  Salvation.

  I know because it's what I see when I look at him.

  Someone I could finally belong to.

  "I want to get rid of it."

  The words come smoothly to my lips. Weeks ago I said them to my father, but I never truly meant them until right now, staring into his midnight eyes, clear and sparkling with stars.

  I don't need the magic if I have him.

  He makes me want something better, something more.

  He makes me want time—a lifetime of his fingers wrapped in mine, his gaze watching me, his warmth seeping into my skin, his touch whispering that I'm right where I'm supposed to be.

  The seconds cease to exist when he tugs gently on my hands, bringing me smoothly onto his lap. Cole is my small pocket of infinity. Everything stops when he trails his fingers up the lace still covering my arms. I can’t breathe as his caress brushes over the bare skin of my shoulders. The bloom in my soul expands as though I've found a new sun and I lean into him, hungry for more of this glow spreading through me. Cole's thumb finds the line of my cheekbone, tracing it as his other palm cups the back of my neck. We drift closer, pulled by an invisible force that's stronger than any other magic I've ever known.

  When his lips touch mine, gentle and unsure, it feels like coming home for the first time in a decade.

  I'm not afraid.

  I'm not alone.

  I'm empowered.

  I'm brave.

  My hands find his scars and brush over them softly, as though I can wipe the pain away, and then I pull him closer. I close the distance between us. I force his doubts to vanish.

  "Omorose," he growls against my lips, and it’s a new purr I've never heard before. Desperate and passionate. Wild and untamed. Beastly.

  Our movements become urgent.

  Eager.

  We explore, finding our true selves for the first time in each other.

  Kissing Cole is my new magic.

  Just as addictive. Just as thrilling. Just as all-consuming.

  Only this sort of magic holds no curse, no pain, no dark side. Instead, it makes everything light. And we spend the rest of the day discovering the source of this newfound power, letting our touches linger, our gazes deepen, our connection strengthen.

  We sit in front of the fire long after the flames die out, creating our own source of heat, hardly noticing as the sky outside darkens. Only the rumbling of both our stomachs manages to distract us enough to move locations. But every nook in the hallway provides the perfect spot for a stolen moment.

  Or two.

  Or three.

  Cooking dinner takes twice as long as usual. Cole slips behind me while I'm cutting vegetables, wrapping his arms around my waist and placing an innocent kiss at the base of my neck. I forget the food, spinning into that embrace. Before long, I'm sitting on the counter with my arms draped over him, distracted by the taste of him. And after my third straight failed attempt to finish chopping the carrots, I finally kick him out of the kitchen.

  An hour later, I find him before the same fireplace. Only this time, the room is lit with a hundred glimmering candles, and a whole nest of pillows and blankets rest in the center of the circle where he's waiting for me with the book we've been reading together. Not surprisingly, the food gets cold before we manage to eat it.<
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  We don't talk about the magic again. We talk about everything else. Cole tells me the few memories he has left of his mother, the pepper-gray color of her fur, the hearty tone of her laugh, the many hours she spent coaxing him out of the bear cub and into the wolf pup that looked like her. But it was no use, according to Cole. He's always been his father's son. Same quick temper. Same onyx hair. Same smoky eyes. And the years they spent together before the earthquake, years where they were the only two true shapeshifters left, only solidified that bond. His father taught him to hunt as a man and a beast. How to track. How to survive in the wilderness and how to rule a kingdom that had become wild. The wolves that still linger in the palace halls are his uncles and cousins, the only family he has left. The leopard with golden eyes was once his mother's closest friend, and like Cole, she still holds a lifetime of guilt for not being quick enough to save either of his parents. The older animals, he says, still remember who they were. It's the newborn pups who worry him the most, who he fears might never find the human counterparts hiding deep within their souls.

  The hours fly by.

  Kissing.

  Touching.

  Talking.

  In no particular order, but a constant mix of all three.

  The spell is only broken when my eyes drift shut in a sleepiness I can no longer hold off. With Cole's chest as my pillow and his voice as my lullaby, I can't help but drift away, completely safe and at peace in his arms.

  Cole wakes me the next morning with a soft kiss to my temple. But when I open my heavy lids, rolling closer, I notice a lightning spark in his stormy eyes. I realize our night of ignoring the outside world is over. Our unspoken agreement to forget about magic for a little while has dissipated in the harsh light of day.

  "Come with me," Cole urges, pulling me to my feet. "I have something to show you."

  He keeps hold of my hand as we walk down the halls and enter the library. I'm not sure what could possibly be here that he hasn't shown me already—not until he leads me to the far left corner and presses gently on the edge of one of the ornate shelves. It springs free of the wall, opening up to a room I've never seen before, a hidden hole in the wall that is covered from floor to ceiling in loose papers, scrolls, and half-open books. There's a wooden desk in the center completely hidden beneath scribbled notes. There's a map hanging on the wall, highlighted and spotted with places I don't recognize. And as I step closer, there's one word written over and over again, shouting out at me.