Chapter 49
THALRIC
Something is wrong with Aurora.
Protective instincts surge through me as I spread my wings and take flight. The cold air feels heavy with warning as I race to the castle.
I drop from the sky, landing hard on the balcony outside her room. My claws scrape the stone as I lunge toward the doors.
My nostrils flare as I catch her scent hits of honeysuckle and lavender, but it’s threaded with something else. Something wrong. A faint metallic tang that makes my heart seize.
My gaze sweeps the room. The bed is empty. The fire is cold.
Panic claws through my chest. I can sense she is somewhere nearby. Her presence feels faint, flickering, like a candle guttering in the wind.
The corridor reeks of wrongness—magic thick as rot, humming against my skin.
And then I see her.
Aurora drifts down the hall toward the northern tower, hair unbound, silk nightrobe whispering across the stones. Moonlight glides over her, turning her skin pale as glass.
My heart stops. Her eyes are open but vacant, her face serene, emptied of thought.
“Aurora!”
My talons gouge the floor as I lunge forward, wings flaring wide. “Stop! Wait!”
Her hand rises, reaching toward a gleam in the half-light. A spindle. Its tip glints like a fang.
Terror claws at my chest. “No!” My roar shakes the walls—but I’m too far.
Light flares—green and cruel—as the needle kisses her finger.
She gasps once, soft as a sigh, then folds to the ground.
I catch her before her head strikes stone, cradling her against my chest. “Auri,” I rasp, brushing the hair from her face. Her lashes flutter once, then still. Her skin is cool, her lips parted, breath shallow. “No, no, no… please.”
Relief breaks through my panic when I notice the slight rise and fall of her chest. Her pulse is faint, fragile, but it’s there. “You’re alive,” I breathe, half-sob, half-prayer.
I press my forehead to hers, tears burning my eyes as green light still flickers along the cursed wheel. The hum of Malvara’s magic crawls over my skin, cold and wrong.
“I failed you,” I whisper, voice cracking. “But I swear to the gods, I’ll find a way to wake you. I’ll tear kingdoms apart if I must.”
Then the air shifts.
“You did,” a sinister voice slithers through the darkness.
I freeze. The room smells of smoke and decay. “Show yourself!”
Laughter slithers from the corners—high, cold, wrong. Shadows gather, pooling thick and alive. Two green eyes blink within the dark, bright as serpent scales.
“You failed her, Thalric.”
The sound slices through me. My wings flare, talons raking stone. “Face me, witch!”
The shadow ripples, forming the outline of a woman—too thin, too sharp, beauty stretched cruel and brittle. “You cannot touch me,” Malvara croons, voice honeyed and foul. “I’m not truly there. Your princess will die.”
A snarl rips from my chest. “Maribel’s magic will save her. Your curse can be broken.”
Her laughter scrapes the walls. “Maribel was wrong.” The glow of her eyes burns hotter, greener. “Your princess is already dying, my dear Gargoyle. When the sun sets on the seventh day, you will lose her forever.”
Helpless rage crashes through me. “Why are you doing this?”
Malvara tilts her head, lips curving. “How do you think I stay young and beautiful?” she murmurs. “A life for a life. The bargain I made with her father means hers is mine.”
“Then take me instead,” I offer. “Take my life for hers.”
“Nice try,” she replies mockingly. “But it won’t be that easy. You think I don’t know what you’re doing?”
Anger churns deep within. “I don’t have time for these games, witch. I’m offering you an exchange.”
“A selfless one,” she points out. “One that has the power to undo a dark bargain.”
I go still as I realize what she just said, and rage fills me anew. “I’m not trying to defeat you. I’m surrendering, Goblin,” I grit through my fangs. “Take me and release her from your spell.”
“No.”
“Let her go, or I’ll—” My words cut off in a rush of wind as the dark smoke folds in on itself and then fades away.
Panic ripples through me as I gaze down at Auri. “Aurora, wake up.” Gathering her in my arms, I search her face for any signs she can hear me. But her lips don’t move. Her eyes don’t flutter open.
The girl with laughter as bright as the sun now lies motionless in my arms, her warmth fading with every second that passes.
Desperate, I cup her cheek. “Auri, please. Wake up. I’ll take you anywhere. We’ll go back to Oakvale, like you wanted… to our cave.” Tears blur my vision. “Just, please, open your eyes. Please.”
I watch for any sign that she’s heard me, but there’s only the steady, shallow rhythm of her breathing.
The storm continues to rage outside as I press my face into her hair, clutching her tight against me as if I can keep her soul tethered through sheer will alone.
My chest heaves with each ragged breath, my claws scoring the stone beneath us as grief tears through me.
She is so still in my arms, and all I can think is that the last words I spoke to her were painful. She offered me her heart, and I shattered it in return.
Raw pain tears through me, and I can barely breathe. Tilting my head back, I lift my gaze to the heavens and roar my anguish to the gods. “No!”
Cradling her to my chest, I gaze down at her still form. “I will find a way to save you, my Auri.” A tear slips down my cheek. “I swear it to the old gods and the new.”
Somewhere beneath the curse, her heartbeat still answers mine.