Chapter 82
Belle
The image wavered, and the demon became a man again—almost familiar, even though all I could see was the dark outline of his form. For a second, it felt as if he were looking straight at me.
The demon spoke. I couldn’t hear his words, but I felt them rumbling through me: an accusation laced with pain, betrayal, and hate.
A curse.
He swept his hands wide, and trails of smoking magic crackled between them, like lightning in the clouds. A luminescent wave exploded outward and washed over us.
I stumbled back, and I was in the ruins once again, dim light filtering down on me. My skin had grown as cold as stone, and I staggered forward, my joints leaden. My heart raced as I tried to shake the feeling back into my limbs.
Had I just felt the demon’s curse?
My gut clenched. If his magic could affect me through the memories embedded in this place, what hope did we have?
The stone form of a young boy cowered beside me, his sightless eyes fixed on the spot where the demon had been.
My throat tightened. He was just a child. “I’m sorry.”
I turned, my gaze sweeping across the statues that surrounded me. “I’m so sorry.”
They hadn’t stood a chance.
I could almost hear the king’s voice echoing through time. You will not have her. He must have known there was nothing he could do, but he’d tried just the same. A last desperate stand. I circled him.
And then I came to her.
The bride knelt, hands folded in prayer, eyes cast down. I dropped to my knees before her, studying the stone features of her face. There was no anger or fear or even surprise. Simply brave determination, and a fervent prayer upon her lips.
I reached out and touched the cold stone of her fingers. “Who were you praying to?”
A long-forgotten god? The Fates themselves? What would it be like to have faith like that?
Her heartache rooted in my own chest, and a bead of moisture slipped down my cheek. Whatever she’d asked, her prayer hadn’t been enough. Her faith, unrewarded in the end.
The melancholy of this place weighed down on me, sapping my energy, but I refused to give up. I gently folded my hands around hers, an echo of her prayer. “Please, tell me how to stop the demon.”
I pushed my magic into her hands, trying to find purchase, but no response came. Perhaps this place had shown me all that it could.
“How do I break the curse?” I whispered, begging the gods, the Fates, anyone who would listen.
The woman remained lifeless stone, the sanctuary silent.
A hollowness swelled in my chest, and I leaned forward, pressing my forehead to hers. “I’m sorry I can’t save you, but there’s a chance I can save the man I love. I’m begging you, show me the way.”
I squeezed my eyes tight and pushed my magic into her, every reserve of strength I had, concentrating until my arms were shaking and my skin had become as cold as ice.
The wind howled and whistled outside. Then stone fingers clasped mine.
My breath caught as her hands moved, entwining with my own. Magic thundered through our connection, flowing into me like a spring of power—a churning tide of emotion. Fury. Rage. Despair. Everything I’d felt since I’d entered the castle. An endless well of misery.
And beneath it all, a single flickering spark: a woman’s hope. A long-forgotten prayer whispered on the wind.
Save us.
My eyes flew open.
She looked back at me with a sightless stone gaze. Her head slowly turned, and her arm rose until she was pointing toward a small door at the side of the sanctuary.
The way. The truth.
Suddenly, she was still again—stone as she’d always been, and loss tightened my chest.
Then the high priest moved, twisting as he pointed to the same door. A man’s whisper. No time left.
Then a woman’s voice. He’s already here. He’s seen you. He’s coming.
My hands shook. “Thank you.”
I rushed forward, and the door flew open in front of me, unbidden. In the hall beyond, a stone sentry slowly raised his hand, pointing to the dimly lit corridor beyond. Magic pulsed under my skin, though I had no idea whether it belonged to me, the queen, or the castle.
I ran, my footsteps clapping against the stone. I rounded the corner at the end of the hall, and beyond, a pair of petrified servants raised their hands, pointing down a stairwell at the next intersection. Hope and fear pulled me down the steps.
Gods, I wished Valen was here, at my back.
I emerged from the stairwell into a subterranean passage. There were no statues here, but a row of extinguished torches flared to life, guiding me onward. A door flew open ahead, revealing a dark room.
Suddenly, I knew exactly where I was—the floor beneath the abandoned entrance hall. The hidden wing had fallen to ruins above, but here, it remained. Gregoire and I had gone up, when we should have searched below.
I fetched a torch from the hall to get a better look at the dusty room.
It was empty, save for a single iron door.
I stepped closer, and the light of the torch brightened.
I held it forward, and as the castle’s magic raced through me, the torch in my hand flared to an almost blinding light.
Whatever I was searching for, it was behind the door.
Open.
A lock clicked, and the door shook, but it didn’t swing free.
I pushed my magic into the door as I tugged on the handle, and a wave of misery came roaring back into me. I stumbled back as nausea hit me. It was the signature of the demon’s magic, the same malice and despair that hung over the whole castle, concentrated into a point.
The demon had been right here. He’d locked the door. The hair on my neck prickled, and my fingers reached for Valen’s hand, but I was alone.
I studied the door. Why lock it? Was it all part of the demon’s game? Was he dangling the truth just out of reach to watch us grasp desperately at it?
The hell with him and his games.
I’d been given the power to defeat him, and I was going to start playing by my rules. He wanted to lock the door? Fine.
I slapped my hand against the wall beside it, funneling power into the stones themselves. “Let me through.”
Frost formed over the surface of the masonry as my magic poured into it. The wall groaned, and seams of mortar crumbled. I stepped back as the courses of stone began to shift, curling outward like a fist forced open, revealing the darkness of a room beyond.
A slow grin spread across my lips. “I bet you didn’t see that one coming, asshole.”
Dust swirled in the torchlight, and I covered my mouth with my sleeve until it slowly settled, then holding the torch aloft, I stepped into the stale air.
I swung the torch slowly, illuminating piles upon piles of… junk. Abandoned dressers. A disassembled four-post bed. A brass candelabrum missing one of its three arms. An empty birdcage. A thousand forgotten and discarded things from centuries past.
Mounds and mounds of it, all covered with a heavy blanket of dust and cobwebs. It would take days to search through all this.
Cursing, I propped the torch upright in a chipped vase, then reached over the top of a well-worn writing table and grasped a broken candelabrum.
I lit its two stumpy candles from the torch and moved deeper into the room, maneuvering between stacks of bundled goods and old, warped chests.
What was I even looking for?
Magic prickled across my fingertips, and the candles in the candelabrum flared, their flames bending toward the far end of the room, as if pulled by a current.
I clambered over toppled crates and furniture, and its candles flared again when I reached a row of cloth-wrapped paintings stacked upright against each other.
My pulse quickened. “Which one is it?”
I touched each painting until the flames arced upward at the second to last one. I placed my new friend atop an old dresser for light, then pulled the painting free and unwrapped it.
I set the faded painting on top of a box.
The varnish had yellowed and paint flakes had fallen away, while a black mold had spread over the top, yet there was no doubt about what I was looking at: a portrait of the king and his bride.
Someone had sliced through the canvas, leaving a ragged diagonal gash, splitting the two of them apart.
I pushed the flap of canvas back into place so I could see the scene as it had once been.
The mysterious woman knelt before the young king, her face resolute and bright with hope. Courtiers and attendants followed in her train. Foremost was an old man with a crown, who stood at her side, hand raised in a sign of peace. Her father?
The young king smiled down at her from the dais, his expression aglow with adoration and his hand thrust forward to take hers. A single figure stood beside him, withdrawn into the shadow, his face lost to time.
My mouth went dry.
This was what I was meant to see. This painting held the answer. Fingers trembling, I touched the canvas, letting my magic flow into it. “Show me what you once were.”
My vision flickered as a chill skated over my skin, and the painting changed. Color flooded back to the pigment, and the stains retreated.
Stroke by stroke, the face of a shadowed figure emerged—and with it, crushing despair.