Chapter 56 #2
He twirled her around in a dance, tipping her back. “Where I once lived, there is hardly any sunlight. The mountain peaks rise high and the clouds are too thick to let any light reach us.”
She arched a brow playfully. “How peculiar. Tell me more about this strange land with no sun.”
“Hmm…” Rune held her closer as they swayed, his heart beating against hers. “My people live to revel. We drink. We dance.” His nose brushed her cheek, mouth hovering over hers. “And when we love, we love fiercely.”
Alora’s pulse fluttered. “Is that so?”
He nodded in all seriousness, smiling against her lips. “And it turns us into complete, utter fools.”
She laughed as he spun her around.
The stars shone above as Rune tipped her back. “Though it is said, we will only know love when we find the heart meant to love us back.”
Her breath caught as his mouth drew close again, hovering there.
“And have you?” she whispered.
“Perhaps.” Rune whispered back. “Do you choose me, Alora Lark or Argyle?”
She looked up at him, radiant and free and knew she had chosen him many nights before this.
“Yes,” Alora breathed and their lips met in a soft kiss.
The night bore witness as they wed beneath the starlit trees. Their bodies joined among flowers, on a bed of moss, and something older than either of them shifted in the earth as if binding them eternally.
“You bring life,” Rune murmured in the dark, voice raw, “even to me.”
The words were magic, for light flickered in his dark eyes as a spell had sealed over them both.
They had a beautiful marriage, but Alora always woke alone every morning. She’d hope that would change over time, but her husband always had a reason to leave.
After five months of the same, a part of her began to worry Rune was hiding something.
What if… what if he had another he visited during the day?
The startling thought made Alora slice her finger while in the middle of making dinner.
She yelped, blood flowing free. Droplets spilled on the floor and the atmosphere hummed. Wind rattled the window, making the cottage shake. Then vivid crimson flowers bloomed at her feet.
Alora stared at the spindly red petals, her heart drumming with shock.
Did she do that?
Thornbearer warned half breeds should never use their magic. Let alone spill their blood. It could curse anyone who touched it.
“Songbird?” Rune called from the front door as he came in. “Are you all right? I smell blood.”
“I’m fine.” Alora quickly tossed a rag over the strange flowers and stepped on them. She pinched her skirts to stanch the bleeding.
He came into the kitchen, his brow furrowing at the bloodied knife. “What—”
“Why must you leave me every day?” she snapped, both out of frustration and nerves. “Have you taken another bride beyond these woods?”
Rune chuckled. “Oh, my fretful little bird.”
He took a seat at their table and drew her onto his lap. Her unease melted away as he gently ran his fingers through her golden-brown hair.
“I am working to unravel the Sleeping Curse, of course. Besides hunting, most of my day is spent among the streets of Argyle, searching for clues on the sleeping dead. It is a tricky spell and I admit, far more advanced than I expected. But I’m close to breaking it.”
Guilt settled in her stomach for doubting him.
“Oh, the night of the Blood Moon, it will end,” he pressed a kiss to her cheek.
Alora’s heart swelled with relief. It would be the perfect gift for her birthday.
The total lunar eclipse was coming soon. Then she could come out of hiding, for her people would be free and Calveron’s hold would slip.
“Can it really be broken?” she asked.
“If you could make this rotten thing in my chest beat again,” Rune murmured against her neck. Her body warmed as he slid a hand up her thigh. “Anything can be possible.”
Sleep came for her deeply that night.
Alora dreamed of walking through the forest, singing beneath the moonlight. Moss glimmered faintly on silver bark, soft wind gently rustling the leaves.
But then silence abruptly fell.
The trees stilled.
The wind no longer stirred. Even the clouds were frozen above her, blotting out the moon. And suddenly, she was no longer alone.
“There you are.”
Alora jumped, her heart jolting.
“Hello?” she called, though her voice muffled, swallowed before it reached the trees.
“I have been waiting for you.”
She froze. The voice did not come from behind her. It came from within the forest itself. From the roots. From the dark beneath the soil.
Trembling, she forced herself to turn around slowly. But nothing was there. No man. No beast. Only shadow gathered between the trees, deeper than the night around it.
Her pulse thundered. “Who are you?”
The shadows shifted, drawing closer.
“You know who I am”, the voice murmured. “You have always known… daughter.”
Her throat tightened. “That’s not possible. I have a father.”
A soft chuckle answered her. Not mocking but patient. As if she were a foolish child with a wild imagination.
“Ah, the mortal man, who sent you away to hide what you are.” The shadows circled her.
“To bind what you hold. Yet you feel it, don’t you?
The power stirring beneath your skin. The wrongness of the world when you wake.
The way the night listens when you sing.
Those were not gifts from your mother, but from me. ”
Her fingers curled at her sides. The trees rattled, branches bowing under some unseen force.
“I’m dreaming,” she whispered.
The shadow deepened, and for a fleeting moment she thought she saw the suggestion of an eye within it. Not fully formed, but the impression of something watching her with endless focus.
“Dreams are doors. Some are meant to open.”
Her chest ached. “Why are you here?”
The answer came without hesitation.
“The time draws near for the power in your blood to wake.”
The words sent a shiver through her bones.
“I don’t understand.”
The ground trembled beneath her feet. A low hum filled the air, thrumming through her veins. At her feet, crimson flowers bloomed.
They pushed through the moss, their petals unfurling in slow, deliberate movements, glowing faintly as if lit from within. Blood-red. Luminous. Beautiful in a way that made her breath hitch.
A soft glow radiated from them, warm and alive.
“I’ve seen these before,” Alora whispered.
“The Blood Blooms will surface wherever you bleed, for they are the origin of your seed.”
She trembled at the eerie rhyme.
Her mother used to hear voices in the dark too… before she died.
Alora staggered back, fear crawled up her spine. “It’s only a dream,” she told herself. “Wake up. Wake up.”
“If you wish to wake, then prick your finger.”
A breeze stirred the lilies. Something glinted among them. A large, slender needle lay nestled in the flowers, its shaft dark and polished, the tip gleaming crimson as if already stained.
Alora’s breath caught. “A spindle?”
The forest went utterly still.
“It is a key. One that has waited a long time for your hand.”
“No.” She shook her head violently. “I won’t touch it.”
“You will,” the voice replied, echoing around her. “When the sky bleeds and the curse of your magic fully spreads, I will rise.”
Her vision blurred, her heart pounding. The trees warped. Shadows stretched and twisted, forming shapes too large, too wrong.
She spun in place, searching for escape. “Rune!”
The voice chuckled. “You call the damned for aid?”
Wings tore through the sky, a shape that made the atmosphere recoil in terror.
Her husband was horned and terrible, a creature of the night.
Words caught in her throat, tears welling.
“He is a demon. A thief who has seduced my daughter. The pretender who has taken my throne. Everything you know about him is a lie.”
Tears spilled down Alora’s cheeks and she shook her head. Even if it was all lies, she couldn’t accept it meant nothing.
“He loves me…”
“Demons cannot love and you waste yours on him.” The spindle rose on a bed of black mist before her. “Become who you are meant to be, or when the sky bleeds, he will burn.”
The moon above them darkened further, its surface rippling like liquid.
For a single, horrifying instant—
An eye opened within it.
Alora screamed.
She bolted upright in bed, ragged breath tearing from her lungs, heart hammering so hard she thought it might split her chest. The pale light of the moon spilled through the window, washing the room in silver calm.
She pressed a shaky palm to her sweaty brow.
It was nothing but a bad dream—
Her fingers brushed something cold on the mattress. She looked down and found the crimson spindle in the sheets. Alora tossed it away with a shriek.
Her chest heaved and her eyes filled with tears.
Had her whole life been a lie? The reason her father sent her away, Zinnia’s rules about magic and blood, now it all made sense.
When Rune returned at sundown, Alora said nothing of her nightmare.
She pretended not to see through the flaws in his glamor, or the shadow of his horns on the wall. She no longer questioned why he couldn’t walk in the light. The mask of perfect beauty was an illusion, but his gentleness and warmth did not change.
And Alora decided then she didn’t care.
She loved him anyway.
But the voice continued to haunt her dreams.
Vorak, he called himself, once she dared demand a name.
After that, twilight became her enemy. She fought sleep until her eyes burned, but exhaustion always dragged her under, and he was always there, patient as rot.
Sometimes a voice in the mirror. Sometimes a presence behind her eyes.
Always laughing when she begged it to stop.
“Why are you doing this to me!” she screamed.
He only laughed. “You carry my freedom in your veins. And I have waited an age for it.”
And she realized with a chilling certainty that what Vorak wanted was the power in her blood. Once he had it, he would no longer be contained to her dreams.