Ryatt
I slide my sword back into its scabbard down my spine and look around the crystalline main wing of the archives in Veiled Valley. My body thrums from the enormous use of power it took to get here. Getting back to Ella is going to be painful, for sure, but if I’m right in my assumptions, Arthur is going to know how to help us.
The little man in question blinks up at me from behind cracked, circular spectacles that are so thick they make his beady eyes look like tea saucers.
“Good evening,” I breathe, and it’s an effort. My vision goes slightly fuzzy as I brace myself on the doorframe to the crystal atrium, the lights of Veiled Valley glimmering in the distance.
“It’s three in the morning.”
“Not where I just came from,” I say. “Do you have whiskey by chance?”
But footsteps nearby catch my attention, and within a second, I’m face to face with Westfall.
Great.
“What are you doing here, Commander?”
Westfall looks me up and down, his dark brows arched.
Arthur, Veiled Valley’s tiny historian, gets lost, sensing the tension between us. He mumbles something about finding the whiskey I asked for and is gone before I can even blink.
“We weren’t anticipating your presence tonight, Your Highness.”
“I’m here to speak to Arthur.” I eye my father skeptically. “Again, what are you doing here so late at night?”
“Lady Amanda has tasked me with keeping her entertained, which means I spend most of my evenings after she’s gone to bed looking for new books that might pique her interest.” He motions to the stack of books on a table behind them. Romance, historical fiction, the works.
“I see.”
We stare at each other for a moment.
He rolls his lower lip between his teeth, then adds, “I am planning on leaving Veiled Valley tomorrow with a small group of warriors as planned to intercept you in the Wastes.”
“Plans have changed.”
If he’s surprised, he doesn’t show it. His glacier blue eyes stay locked on mine as Arthur scurries back into the dusty atrium carrying a bottle of fine whiskey. “I have a glass somewhere.”
“Don’t bother.” I snatch the bottle from his crooked fingers and wrench the cork off with my teeth, drinking deeply while still keeping my gaze locked on Westfall. “We have a serious problem.”
“What is it now?” Westfall sighs, leaning his hip on the table.
I take another pull of the whiskey, loving the way it burns down my throat and reignites my senses. “Ella is cursed, and she’s dying.”
“What?” Westfall eyes blaze. “When–”
“When she was taken by Kane, and he cut out her mark. Petra fed him the curse, and he used the mask to bring the spell to life.”
“What spell, exactly?” Arthur pipes up, adjusting his glasses like that’ll do a damn thing to help enhance his vision. He moves like the wind to a towering bookshelf and begins to climb a ladder.
I explain what I can, what I know. It’s something deep, something that lives under her skin and is after her heart. Her powers keep it from spreading.
“So, it’s likely ancient then, from a time when the Firestone and Shadowsynger gifts were more populous,” Arthur says to himself as he climbs several more rings. If he falls from this height, he will die in an instant.
Westfall looks furious as he says, “It’s been months since she was in Kane’s presence.”
“I know.”
“How long have you known?”
“Thirty fucking minutes,” I sneer, letting my fury show clearly behind my eyes. “Do you think I would have wasted this much time if I’d known earlier?”
A thudding sound makes my stomach hollow out, and I turn, expecting to find Arthur’s skull crushed from a fall, but it’s only a massive leather bound book smeared with oily dust.
“Not that one,” he says, then begins to hum to himself as he climbs toward the fucking ceiling.
“Gods above,” I growl. “Listen, Westfall. Sister Giselle of Moonrise, are you familiar with her?”
“Yes, she is one of their senior healers.”
“She was the one who confirmed the curse. Can she be trusted?”
“Of course. She is likely the best healer the coven has produced in the past two generations.”
“She told Ella about a witch who resides in the Wastes, likely near the Alabaster Mountains. This witch is supposedly a master in ancient curses. Do you know anyone from the Moonrise coven who has a mastery in that subject.”
“Your mother did.”
My nostrils flare. “Well, that doesn’t fucking help us at all, does it?”
Westfall narrows his eyes at me. He might be my father, but he’s also my Commander and under my rule. I’ll drop him in an instant if necessary.
“We’d have to check with the mystics to be sure,” he growls. “To find out if there was anyone else with such mastery. Ancient curses are something that’s only taught to the most gifted of the healers, a class Giselle herself didn’t fall into even with her skillset.”
“Why is that?”
“It’s dark magic, that’s why,” Arthur shouts from several stories above our heads. “A mastery in curses requires practicing such curses, which has been long banned in the coven. Only a few chosen souls ever get to learn such a subject and would be under strict supervision.”
“We don’t have time to go to the coven and ask around,” I grind out.
“Found it.” Another thud makes me flinch, but I glance at Arthur to find him carefully climbing down each rung of the seemingly endless ladder. It’ll take him ages to reach the ground at this rate, so I finally tear my murderous gaze from Westfall and stalk toward the heavy book now splayed open at the base of the ladder.
I pick it up and fight the urge to rip it in half. “It’s written in the old tongue, Arthur!”
“Well, it’s a good thing I am older than the old tongue, Your Highness. Once I’m down, I’ll try to find the spell–”
“I’m looking for the cure!”
Westfall clears his throat.
“What, Westfall?”
“How is she?” His tone softens so significantly I find it hard to catch my breath. There’s real concern in his eyes, and it does something unexpected to my body as I turn to fully face him.
Maybe for the first time, I find it hard to keep my true feelings hidden. Maybe he sees that fear and despair in my eyes because he shakes his head, pursing his lips, and exhales deeply as his eyes begin to shine. “I am sorry, Ryatt.”
“Don’t. I haven’t given up hope. I need to have hope.” I hate the way my voice cracks. I hate the way my body jerks around the tightening in my chest. I am a fucking Alpha. I am a king. I can find a cure for my mate before it’s too late.
I have to.
I think of Ella’s family who are completely in the dark about this situation. I can’t contact Isaac for another two weeks at least. Does their world have access to cures for something like this?
Would she agree to go if they did?
I don’t realize I have my eyes closed and I’m struggling to breathe until I feel Westfall’s hand resting on my shoulder. “Keep yourself together.”
I shake my head and shrug him off and stand there dumbly, waiting for Arthur to finally reach the ground.
It takes him ten minutes, but the small, gnarled man eventually takes the book from me and sets to work. I slouch in a worn out leather armchair and pinch the bottle of whiskey between my knees and wait for what seems like an eternity.
I feel sleep creeping in–making the edges of my vision blurry.
“A curse capable of severing a mate bond, yes. This is what I’m looking for.”
I blink and find Arthur poring over the book with Westfall leaning over him to scan the pages. Can Westfall read the ancient tongue? I doubt it. But, I also wouldn’t be surprised, given that everything I ever knew about him was wrong.
“The curse could have been any number of these, I’m afraid. It’s impossible to pinpoint it without knowing exactly what Kane would have said while he cut away her mark. A witch trained in alchemy and ancient curses–”
I cut Arthur off. “We don’t have that kind of time. We can’t risk going back to the coven and wasting time in the event they don’t have anyone there that’s trained in such magic,” I growl.
Arthur furrows his brows as he looks back down at the page. “This is, in its raw form, a curse of the Moon Goddess herself, wielded by the magic of a witch…. In this case, Kane and his stolen magic. Long, long ago, back when the gods and goddesses still walked among us, the mate bond was a gift meant solely for the followers of the Moon Goddess herself. It was her gift to her worshippers. Finding their soulmate. But gifts can be taken away. Hence, the only ways to break a fated mate bond are by rejection or death. Or a curse, if the Goddess so intended. It may have been used as a punishment in that case. Or if someone was deemed unworthy of the bond after the fact…”
“But if a witch casts the curse?” Westfall urges. “What does it say about that?”
Arthur purses his lips into a thin line and continues to scan the weathered page in front of him. “Nothing because I doubt it’s ever been done before. Did Kane use the mask to cast this spell on her?”
“Yes,” I breathe, my heart shattering.
It’s Westfall who speaks next. “Cressendra used to make ointment out of diamond and moonstone to…to help ease the pain and ward off the worst of the symptoms of those slaves that fell victim to Kane’s magical experiments in the prison.”
I look up at him. I haven’t heard my mother’s name spoken in years.
He continues, “I don’t know where she got the ingredients for it, but I remember how she used to make it. I could recreate the potion if I can find black diamond dust and ground moonstone.”
“I’m sure the apothecary would know where to find that,” Arthur murmurs.
I’m still focused on Westfall. His eyes… he looks heartbroken. Just broken in general. I wonder if he’s said her name in the years that followed her death.
For a moment, I feel for him. For a single space of a breath I understand what it must have been like to watch his mate be tortured repeatedly and not be able to do anything about it. For a moment, I understand the pain he must have endured knowing he’d spend a life separated from his mate.
“Something like that would certainly buy her more time. The black diamond dust eats away at curses, you see, but it’s very hard to find–”
I cut Arthur off again. “Find it. I don’t care what it takes. Find it.”
I toss the nearly empty bottle of whiskey across the room and snap my fingers at Westfall.
“You are not going to survive another jump, not if you came all the way from—”
“I have to get back to her. You will bring me that potion–or ointment, or whatever it is–”
“Stay the night at least,” he urges. “I can find it here in Veiled Valley, I’m sure.”
I eye him skeptically. But, the alchemist at the apothecary is known to carry obscure ingredients from far off lands and never obeyed my orders to stop smuggling in goods during the ongoing wars. His insolence may work in our favor.
“We can leave at daybreak,” Westfall continues. “Amanda would love to see you. Your people here would love–”
“Fine.” I move away from him and walk on unsteady feet out of the Archives and into the humid night air.