CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lucien walked beside me, our footsteps echoing softly down the corridor as we searched, again, for the place where his body might be hidden the following evening. I ignored the ache still pulsing through my muscles, the bruises throbbing around my throat…
We’d been searching for several hours with no real direction and once again, had come up empty-handed.
Where would my grandmother have hidden his body? The thought made my stomach twist into a sickening knot. Perhaps she didn’t hide it… perhaps she’d left that up to Serena. Bile rose in the back of my throat and I quickly shoved it down.
”What about a cellar?” I asked, trying to distract myself from the extreme guilt.
”I assume there is one,” Lucien agreed, shrugging as they continued to walk. “Though, I can’t exactly remember.”
Right. His memory .
I sighed as we turned another corner, stopping short. My breath caught in my throat. Lucien’s portrait stared down at us.
His eyes followed mine and landed on it, his expression tightened.
It was worse. The rot had climbed higher, the decay curling like smoke over his chest and up the side of his throat.
What was once a proud and regal painting had become a mockery.
His features were duller, lifeless, and even the gilded frame seemed to wilt.
I stepped closer, the oil paint cracked and peeled, and black, twisted veins of ruin spidered outward from the edges of his heart.
”I think it’s destroying you,” I sighed. “I’ve been thinking about it and I believe we are running out of time.”
Lucien was silent.
I turned to look at him, but he wasn’t looking at the painting anymore. He was watching me. The golden candlelight caught the hollows under his eyes, the faint pallor to his skin that I hadn't noticed until now.
”You feel it, don’t you?” I asked, softer now. “The curse is unraveling your portrait and taking you with it.”
He looked away and the silence was all the answer I needed.
”Lucien…”
”I didn’t want to worry you.”
I stepped closer to him, resting my hand on his arm. “You should have told me.”
”I wasn’t sure,” he admitted. “But yes I can feel it. I’m fading. My energy doesn’t last as long. It takes more to appear… to stay. Even our connection. Last night when you called for me, I barely heard it. I feel it slipping away piece by piece, like I’m being hollowed out.”
The ache in my chest tightened. This was my fault… again.
I looked back at the painting, the rot creeping higher and higher. The reflection of my failure inched toward me.
”We don’t have much time,” I said. “We need to find your body. We have to.”
He nodded slowly, but I saw the doubt in his eyes, the fear that he wouldn’t last long enough.
I took his hand in mine, squeezing gently.
His fingers were—cold. He hadn’t even had the strength to keep his corporeal form warm tonight.
I held his hand just a little tighter, desperate to share my own warmth.
His gaze locked with mine, a thousand unspoken words passing between us.
Then he squeezed my hand back, just barely.
I turned, pulling him along the hallway with me as I moved toward my bedchamber.
The sun would be rising soon and not only did Lucien need to rest, but I could feel my own body begin to wane.
Despite the urgent need to find his body and end the curse, neither of us would be any good without rest.
We slipped into my bedchamber just as the first weak light of dawn stretched its pale fingers through the windows. The sky beyond had turned the color of ash and rose, and the castle moaned softly with the weight of morning.
Lucien stood near the hearth, already fading at the edges—his form wavering like smoke.
Sunrise always took him. It pulled him back into that in-between state, that half-life the curse had sentenced him too, but this was the first time I’d ever actually been awake to see it. My heart lurched at the sight.
He looked at me, pinning me with those dark, serious eyes. “You won’t leave this room today,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. His voice had softened, but I heard the strain in it, the desperation he tried to keep buried. “Promise me, Mia.”
I nodded, stepping closer, resisting the urge to reach for him as he dimmed before my eyes. “I promise,” I whispered. “I’ll summon you as soon as night falls.”
He lingered for one last moment, as if wanting to say more… wanting to stay, then his form shimmered, thinned to mist, and vanished. The room was too quiet after that.
I stood there for a moment, staring at the space where he’d been, until the silence pressed too hard against my ribs. I turned away, and moved quickly, crossing to where my satchel lay hidden beneath the foot of the bed.
Sleep would have to wait.
With shaking hands, I pulled my grandmother’s book from its hiding place. The leather creaked faintly in my hands, and even though the room was still, I swore I felt the air shift—like something in the book had sensed my intent.
I sat on the edge of the bed and opened it, flipping past pages inked with necromantic sigils and protection wards… past Lucien’s curse, straight to one page that had caught my eye the other night.
Memory Unveiling Elixir
The words curled across the top in my grandmother’s handwriting—sharp, elegant, unwavering.
A chill threaded down my spine as I stared at it.
All necromancers had the ability to pull memories from spirits.
Occasionally, it helped us to help them move on and other times, a spirit could share a certain memory with us to help us see what they couldn’t—or were unwilling to explain.
Unfortunately, the one time I had tried with Lucien, his memories had been hidden away far too deep and Serena had pulled me into a hellish nightmare instead.
This elixir could be the answer that we’ve been looking for.
The ingredients were few but powerful. A lock of the subject’s hair, an object tied to their soul, a binding rune scrawled in ash, and a drop of a necromancer’s blood—my blood. Simple and yet… extremely dangerous .
If it worked, if I brewed it properly, I would be able to step inside of Lucien’s buried memories.
I could see what he had forgotten… and finally uncover the truth that he couldn’t give me.
I could, possibly, get all the answers I’d been so desperate for.
Not only about the curse, but whether Lucien had done something horrible to deserve the curse…
or my grandmother had used her powers for evil…
My fingers trembled with the thought and I quickly shoved it away.
As with all magic, it came with a cost. The spell demanded that I surrender my mind and body entirely for however long the magic lasted. I would be completely lost inside someone else’s past, unguarded, defenseless… and worst still…
I dragged my fingers down the page, stopping at the final note.
” Side effects include: disorientation, emotional dissonance, and physical arousal.”
I groaned at the last part. She couldn’t have left out the ingredient for that? My skin heated at the thought.
Swallowing hard, I stared into the fireplace.
I hadn’t told Lucien about the potion. I knew exactly how he would react—he’d pace and brood and argue until I gave up the idea entirely.
He’d rake his hand through his hair and tell me how much he didn’t like it…
but we were running out of time. The curse was ea ting him alive and if this helped, if it gave me even a glimpse of how to break the curse or find his body, then I was going to do it.
I closed the book gently, my hands resting on the worn cover.
”I’m sorry, Lucien.” I offered to the stillness. “But I have to know.”
I sat there staring out the window, waiting until the sun had fully risen, until the castle had settled into its usual daylight stillness. Then, I slipped to my bedchamber door, moving carefully, quietly, as if Lucien’s shadow still lingered, watching me from some unseen corner.
I reached into my pocket, making sure the strands of his hair, already tucked into a silk pouch, were still there. I had slipped them from his coat collar earlier that evening under the guise of brushing imaginary lint from his shoulder. He hadn’t noticed, or if he had, he hadn’t said a word.
I was just thankful that Lucien’s corporeal form even had loose strands to begin with. Hopefully, it would be enough…
The rest of the ingredients—aside from my blood, of course— wouldn’t be so easy.
I eased the door open, wincing as the ancient hinges creaked.
The hall beyond was empty, thick with dust motes swirling in the sunlight.
I moved quickly, hugging the wall, my slippers nearly silent against the stone.
Every turn of the corridors felt like betrayal, every step like a promise breaking apart in my hands.
The first stop was the old scullery. The soot-stained hearth had long gone cold, but inside the half-cracked stone oven, I found the charred remains of an old log…
exactly what I needed for the ash. I wasn’t sure how old the ash had to be, but I figured something like the ash from the old stone oven—something original to the castle—might work better than the newer ashes from my bedchamber.
Perhaps it would hold some form of Lucien’s memories.
Next was the reliquary.
I descended the narrow servant’s stairs and turned down a corridor line with weather-warped portraits.
At the very end, a door barely clung to its rusted hinges.
I pushed it open slowly, and cold hit me like a slap.
Shelves of relics and forgotten tokens lined the walls—trinkets, broken candlesticks, cracked jars, and other lost mementos that belonged to the castle.
The place reeked of dried herbs and faint decay.
I lit a sconce from my candle and found what I was looking for—an old silver pendant tarnished with age, the chain broken.
I’d found it on my very first excursion through the castle and knew it had belonged to Lucien.
I could feel the hum in my palm—the same hum I felt when I was near him.
It was still tied to him, still carrying a morsel of his soul.
Every spirit had them, things that would be connected to them forever and as a necromancer, one of my many gifts was being able to find the items.
Perfect.
The last ingredient… I hesitated. My blood.
I withdrew my dagger from my satchel, the blade thin and ritual-sharp. I didn’t flinch as I drew it across the tip of my index finger, watching the bead of crimson rise. I pulled a small vial out of my bag then squeezed my finger, watching the blood trickle inside down the glass.
With everything gathered, I made my way back to my chamber, closing the door behind me with trembling hands.
My small desk near the hearth had already become something of a makeshift altar—scattered bones, herbs, bundles of sage of dried rose hips.
I cleared a space and set the items down reverently.
The book waited for me, open to the page I could now recite by heart.
I began the incantation, drawing the binding rune in ash with precise strokes.
I placed a silver bowl I’d borrowed from the kitchen in the center, careful not to disturb the ashes.
Then, I added a few strands of Lucien’s hair, the pendant, and finally three drops of my blood into the bowl.
The mixture immediately hissed faintly, reacting to the energy and my softly spoken spell.
The air grew heavier, pressing in around me, thick and charged.
The items in the bowl melted and molded together, glowing a faint violet color as they liquified.
The potion shimmered as if lit from within and it smelled deliciously sweet like florals with just the hint of something darker—smoke perhaps, or maybe regret.
My heart pounded.
The potion glowed like moonlight caught in a tidepool, swirling violet and gold. I breathed in the heady scent of it, letting the sweet and smoky smell linger in the back of my throat. It was beautiful… and dangerous. I could feel it humming with a soft power, tugging at me, luring me to taste it.
But I didn’t drink it. Not yet anyway.
My hands trembled slightly as I reached for a small glass vial that I kept tucked away in my satchel.
I poured the potion carefully, watching the glowing liquid slide into the container with an unnatural smoothness, like thick oil, though it looked like liquid light.
The moment the last drop slipped in, the glow dimmed, curling in on itself like a heartbeat slowing.
I sealed the top with wax and wrapped the vial in soft cloth before tucking it deep beneath the lining of my bag.
Guilt curled around my insides. Once again, I’d lied to Lucien.
He had trusted me, asked only that I summon him before I leave my room and I had promised.
But this… this could be the key. If the potion worked, if I could see what had been taken from his mind, then I might finally be able to un derstand the curse.
Understand why my grandmother’s book was here.
Why the curse had her signature in the margins…
why it felt like the darkness in this castle knew me…
I sat back on the bed now, biting my lip. I knew the answer to that last question, but I wasn’t quite ready to admit it.