His voice is full of so much sorrow, so much pain. I reach out, placing my hand on his forearm. "I wasn't afraid of you."
He shakes his head, finally looking up at me. "It's okay. I don't blame you." He laughs softly, under his breath, in a sad sort of way. "I would have been afraid of me too. Who wouldn't be afraid of the prince who couldn't feel love, who would one day inherit magic that would steal everyone's emotions away, who would become king of such an unhappy place? I almost left after I heard you say those things. I told myself I would leave you alone, that I wouldn't bother you anymore. But right as I was turning away, your mother pushed your hair back from your face."
I suck in a breath because suddenly I remember. "She told me not to judge you for magic that isn’t even yours yet. She told me to give you a chance." My gut clenches tight. "She said maybe if you knew the toll of the magic I would one day inherit, you wouldn’t want to spend time with me either."
"I know your curse," Asher confesses.
I thought those words would terrify me, but for some strange reason they don’t. It's almost a relief to hear that someone else knows my secret. That someone else knows the full truth of who I am and what my magic is, yet still came here to comfort me, to talk to me, to help me.
Unfortunately, words aren’t enough to save me now.
"Then you know it can never be broken," I murmur. "So in the time I have left, I might as well use my magic to keep the people I love alive."
"There was a time I thought my curse could never be broken. But it was."
I snort. It’s a nasty sort of sound, bitter and harsh, but I can’t help it. "Well, not all of us are lucky enough to have a curse like yours, Asher. Some curses need more than a kiss and a happily ever after. Some curses are made to stick."
He flinches.
But now that I've started I can’t stop. "If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them." My voice is acid, sarcastic and cruel. "How can I break the curse of time? How can I make myself live longer when the magic is slowly killing me? Have you found some cure for death that I don’t know about? Some spell for immortality? Anything?"
I take a breath.
He remains silent.
The smile normally spreading across his face is nowhere to be seen.
"That's what I thought, Asher." The fight is starting to ebb. The sting of my own truths are painful even to me. "No one can help me. Not you. Not Jade. Not my father. Not even Cole. Love isn't enough to save me. I'm on my own. Just me and my curse, alone the way I've always been. So don't tell me how to use my magic in the little bit of time I have left. I don’t need a lecture."
"You're right," he says gently.
That kind, caring sound steals what little fight I had left. My shoulders slump, dragged down by the hopelessness coursing through me.
"I'm right?"
He takes my hand. "I know you haven't told Cole about your curse. If you had, he would be doing everything he could to make sure you stopped using your magic. At least, that's what I would do if you were Jade, or if I were Cole. But we're not. We may be engaged." He winks at me, and it's enough to make me smile. "But we're not in love. And I thought maybe that's what you needed. Just a friend. Someone to talk to. Someone who isn’t quite so invested, who can listen to what you have to say without taking it too personally."
I let his words sink in, not sure if I should be offended or pleased. "So you're saying you came all the way here just to tell me that you don’t love me and you aren't that invested in whether I live or die?"
He nods, open and honest. "Exactly."
I stare at him.
How can he say that with a straight face?
Is he joking?
Is he—
But then I notice his lips twitch.
Suddenly, I understand why Jade always has the urge to punch him.
"Asher!" I shake his hand away, annoyed.
"Okay, okay," he jumps in before I can say anything else and grins. "Maybe that's not entirely true. But I wanted you to be honest with yourself, to be honest with me, and I wanted you to know that I'm here for you if you need me. You don’t need to keep so much to yourself. You can talk to me about the magic, about the curse, and I won’t say anything to anyone, not even Jade."
Part of me wants to thank him, but another part doesn’t want to let him off the hook quite so easily. The latter wins out. "So, basically, you came here with the sole purpose of making me angry enough to tell you the truth, all the while knowing you have no idea how to actually solve any of my problems."
He frowns for a moment. "Maybe." And then his face brightens, pale skin suddenly as luminescent as the moon. "But," he retorts triumphantly. "There was a time in my life when I was exactly where you are now. I thought my curse could never be broken. I thought sacrificing myself was the only solution. And if Jade had never come along, I'd be dead right now. Not alive and in love and living my happily ever after, as you called it. So, the moral of the story is don’t give up. Not yet. Because there's an answer somewhere, we just need to find it."
I nod.
But I don't believe him. Not really.
Asher is optimism personified. And right now, I feel like the storm cloud brewing in the distance, ready to rain down on all that positivity and push the sunshine away.
So I change the subject to something I had been thinking about before, a possible solution to one of my many problems. "Do you really want to help me?"
"Yes," Asher says, this time serious.
"Then I need you and Jade to leave."
He raises an eyebrow. "Harsh."
I clench my fist, resisting the urge to smack him again. "Not like that." I sigh, glancing back down toward my father. As though sensing my gaze, he begins to writhe beneath the blankets, shivering from the cold yet sweating from the heat. My hand reaches for his cheek immediately, trying to comfort him, yet knowing it won’t help. "I'm not an idiot," I confess. And for once, Asher holds back his witty commentary. "I know my magic isn’t enough to save my father's life. I know it's useless to keep trying the same herbal remedies over and over again, and to think somehow, maybe next time, it might work. But I can't just sit back and watch him die. He's my father. I love him. I have to try. I can't give up on him."
"I know," Asher whispers. "When you love someone, it's impossible to let go. Even when they don't deserve it."
"But he does deserve it," I urge. My eyes start to sting as I look into my father's hollow expression, into those lids that still haven’t opened. What I wouldn't give to just speak to him again, to say these words and know he's heard them. "He loves me so much. He's done so much to keep me safe. And I never appreciated it. I never appreciated him. All he ever wanted was to be able to see me grow old, to see me free of the curse. And if I can’t give him that, I want to at least let him know that I'm happy, that I'll be all right. All I want is a little more time together."
"What can I do?"
I turn to Asher. "My father won't survive another trip through the mountains. If he's still like this by the time we have to leave, he'll die before the bombs even go off. And if my magic isn’t enough to save him, then there's only one other thing that might. Medicine. Earthly medicine. We still have twelve days before the general is supposed to attack. That's enough time for you to get back to the base, to steal antibiotics from the supply room, and to give them to one of the wolves to bring back here to me."
"You could come with us," Asher says, but his heart isn’t in it.
I smile at him. "You know I can't."
And he does. He understands. Asher may have come here to save me, but he can’t force me to leave. To abandon my father. To abandon Cole.
So he stands because we both know the conversation is over. "I'll go tell the others there's been a change of plans."
"Thanks."
But before he leaves, he looks over his shoulder. There's something simmering beneath those indigo eyes that I don’t understand, something that reads my thoughts even better than I can.
"I meant what I said before," Asher says softly. "Don’t do anything rash. Those faerie priestesses put curses on the magic because they wanted them to be broken, because they wanted the magic to be freed. So there has to be a way. Don't give up hope."
I smile at him.
But I don’t say anything.
And he mistakes my expression for agreement.
It's not.
It's appreciation.
It's gratitude.
Only when he leaves, does it fade.
My memory flashes back to the story Cole told me. What Asher said was sweet and kind, but also naïve. Not every curse was meant to be a happy ending in disguise. The faeries had just watched their entire world fall apart. They had just watched humans greedily thieve magic from all ends of the planet. They were helpless. All the creatures they were supposed to protect disappeared. Everything they loved vanished.
No.
I don’t think they were feeling as benevolent as Asher thinks when they put those curses on our bloodlines.
My mind whirls back to the story of the mad king, the one with the power to control the weather but the curse of losing his mind, the one who murdered his entire family because of the faerie's spell.
Not all curses were meant to be broken.
Some were just meant to hurt.
Some were just meant to convince us that magic wasn't worth the pain of life, that dying was the only escape, that sometimes sacrifice is the only way out.
My father moans.
I lean over him. "I'm here," I murmur. "I'm right here."
But in the back of my mind, a new idea lingers.
One I'm not sure I'm brave enough to face.
Asher and Jade leave the next day, taking two of the wolves with them. Cole and I stand at the door for a long time, watching them slowly disappear into the distance. With every step they take, my mind wanders closer and closer to the conversation with Asher, to the idea he brought to life in the back edge of my mind, the one I know he never meant to put there. If I'm being honest with myself, it’s been there for a while. Lingering in the background, waiting for me to finally find the courage to face it.
But now isn’t that time.
Not yet.
Not when there is still so much left to do.
"I actually think I might miss them," Cole murmurs, pulling me closer against his chest. His hands are clasped in front of my waist, and I fold my fingers around them, leaning my head back and closing my eyes, just breathing this moment in. "Then again," he continues softly, placing his lips at the base of my neck and sending a shiver right through me. "I think we do just fine on our own."
"Mhmm," I sigh, unable to speak as he trails light kisses along my skin.
"So," he whispers, breath tickling the sensitive spot below my ear. He continues to nibble, fluttering my nerves, making my heartbeat run wild. "That whole engagement thing is over, right?"
"Oh, I don't know," I comment lightly, grinning.
He growls softly.
"I think—" I pause, gasping as his tongue flicks against my skin, burning so hot I think I might just melt to the ground.
"What was that?"
"I said…" The words come out airy and barely audible, so I clear my throat as Cole laughs softly into my ear. "Oh, never mind."
I surrender, spinning his arms so we face each other and reaching my hands over his broad shoulders. Those gray eyes sparkle with blue highlights, and a self-satisfied smirk dances along Cole's lips. But there's something sensitive in his expression too, something honest and unsure. So I lift my fingers, playing with the hairs at the base of his neck in a way that makes him tremble, and with my other hand, I lightly trace those scars across his temple. When I touch them, he doesn't flinch the way he once did. He doesn’t freeze up and close himself off. Instead, his mask falls, revealing the lonely man hiding beneath the bravado, the one I want more than anything to save.
"The engagement is most definitely off," I whisper.
The instant the words are out, a smile passes over his lips, spreading an inner light to his entire face. Joy. Just pure, unadulterated bliss. The sort I know he won’t be able to contain because he's a beast, and that's my favorite thing about him. He's wild and untamed and free. He's powerful and fierce, filled with raw, untapped energy. And when he feels, he does it with everything he has. He doesn't know how to hold back.
Which is why I'm not at all surprised when his hands grip my waist, and my feet suddenly fly off the ground. I'm giggling because his happiness is so infectious that it wraps me up in a glow so bright there's no escaping it. I'm bundled in him and his joy, free for a moment from all the weight that holds me down, because Cole is strong enough to lift me and spin me and make all those burdens fly away.
The moment ends too soon.
My toes barely touch the floor, but already, the weight of the world drags me back down to reality. Cole's stormy eyes are still lit with lightning fire, but my roots have buried deep. I'm grounded.
One by one, the burdens all come back.
My father.
My magic.
My curse.
The faerie woman.
The bombs.
The ticking clock, winding down, reminding me that time is still running out whether I want it to or not.
"Come on," I say with a sigh, stepping back. "There's a lot we have to do."
Cole doesn't let go. His fingers tighten around my waist, as though he wants to hold on to this brief reprieve for a little while longer. But we both know the moment has passed. With a deep exhale, he loosens his grip and runs his hands through his already disheveled black hair.
"Eleven days," he snarls, but I know the frustration he's releasing isn’t directed at me. "Where do we even begin?"
I don't know how to answer him. The sheer amount of work is staggering. Not only do we need to figure out the bare basics, how to bring food, how to bring shelter, how to move everyone to the new location he and Jade scouted out. We also need to figure out how to move my father, if it's safe to move the faerie woman, what to do with all of the research we've been reading about the magic. Every time I think of one solution, another question pops up, another obstacle to face.
"I guess we just," I pause, shrugging. "I don’t know. Take it one step at a time."
And that's exactly what we do.
One task at a time.
One solution at a time.
One, then the next, then another.
On the first day, we focus on food. For hours, we stand in the greenhouse, plucking tomatoes off vines, digging herbs from the ground, pulling potatoes from the dirt. Anything and everything we can get our hands on is packed away into baskets. And as soon as one section is cleared, I use my magic to grow more, repeating the process over and over again until I'm so exhausted I can't even stand. Cole catches me before I fall, angry when he realizes how much of a toll I allowed the power to take. Even as I protest, he carries me up to my room, bundling me beneath the blankets on my bed and telling me to rest.
The next day, I'm ready to work again, but when I reach the kitchen, I find the greenhouse and all the gardens within have been torn apart. Cole doesn’t say anything, he just leads me away to another room, giving me another problem to solve. Shelter. For Cole, for his people, living in the mountains will be second nature. Wolves and bears don't need cover from the cold, they don't need food, they don't need cloaks or fires or warmth. I'm the weak link. So we spend the afternoon and the evening bundling up blankets and warm clothes, a makeshift tent for me to sleep beneath, and dry sticks for fires. Every time I glance at Cole, his brows are pulled together, and worry lines are etched across his face. I know what he's thinking, I'm thinking it too.
How long can I really last in the wilderness?
How long will we be able to stay together?
How long before I'm forced to go back home?
Neither of us mentions anything as dawn springs on the third day. Instead, we turn our focus to the research. The
sun crosses the sky before we've even been able to make a dent sorting through the papers and books, figuring out what needs to be saved and what we can afford to lose in the bombs. On the fourth day, we finally pack everything we need into baskets. On the fifth, we choose a few of our favorite books from the library and add them to the supplies. My heart aches when I stand in the center of so much intellectual wealth, knowing in a few days, countless volumes will be buried beneath rock, perhaps never to be seen again.
When the sixth day begins, Cole is already gone from the bed we’ve started to share. I miss his warmth, the weight of his arms around me, how safe and secure he makes me feel. But today, he's taking the first group of shifters to the new spot in the mountains, and I know he won’t be home until tomorrow. So I spend the day leaning over my father, trying not to panic, trying to soothe any pain I can. And when it becomes too tough, I take a break to walk around the castle, grabbing a few things I can’t bear to let the bombs destroy. Some of the glamorous dresses from my armoire, ones I know aren’t practical but need to be saved. I take the painting down in Cole's room, the one over the fireplace. He's never told me it depicts him with his parents, but I just know it does, and I know he would be heartbroken to lose it. And then I ask the snow leopard to take me to his parents' room, the place I soon realize is where I first found Cole in the form of the wolf, howling at the moon, so alone. His mother's combs still rest on her dressing table. His father's coats still hang in the closet. I take whatever I can fit and put it with all of the other supplies piled on sleds to be dragged through the snow toward our new home.
Cole returns the next day with a few of the wolves, and then they lead the rest of his people toward the mountain. By the evening of the eighth day, Cole and I are alone in an empty castle, in an empty kingdom. Just the two of us and the two people we don’t know how to move.
Withering Rose (Once Upon a Curse Book 2) Page 17
