Chapter 26 #2
The water glowed, pulsing, woven with bioluminescent light.
The lanterns undulated beneath the surface, revealing for the first time the bottom of the lake.
There, in the darkness, stretched the vast roots of the ancient tree, velveted in moss.
On its submerged branches, tiny blossoms glimmered, blooming in golden light.
“It looks like a hidden world.”
I beat my wings, carrying us higher. “Once, it took the light of hundreds of faeries to awaken nature and make it exhale this luminescence. But tonight, it happened with so little.”
For a moment, my gaze was lost in the depths.
The light beneath the lake did not fade as quickly as in the past years.
It lingered. It resisted. As if something down there was waking.
Then, the water quivered. The surface rippled, tore apart, a shadow rising from the depths.
The lanterns parted in its wake, forming a luminous tide. Something emerged.
A Spirit immense, colossal as some ancient creature lurking here for centuries. It had fled the light, but tonight, it had been driven from its den.
Lempicka reached out a trembling hand. I bared my fangs to stop her, but it was too late. Her fingers brushed the black shadow. The Spirit dissolved at once, bursting into a cloud of iridescent moths.
I lost balance briefly, my flight wavering before it steadied.
Other Spirits rose from the lake. Slender silhouettes drifting toward the shore like forgotten phantoms. Around them, the lake still pulsed, as if it breathed.
I felt its call. That kind of beauty… The kind that tempts you to fall, to be swallowed whole, to vanish into it. But I climbed higher, piercing through a veil of mist, wings beating. I landed on one of the rooftops, releasing Lempicka carefully before returning to my human form.
“This is my perch. Or so Yeun calls it.”
Lempicka sat on the turret’s edge, the wind tugging at strands of her pink hair. She swung her legs absently over the void, a dreamy smile on her lips.
“Don’t lean too close to the edge,” I muttered, sitting beside her.
“Why?” she teased. “I know you’d catch me.”
“Don’t be so sure of yourself.”
She arched a brow and leaned slightly forward, just enough to test my patience. I closed my fingers over hers and yanked her sharply back against my chest. I kept her hand captive, lowering my head near hers.
“You’re right. Now stop tempting fate.”
She laughed, nestling her head into the hollow of my shoulder. My fingers left hers to grip the stone ledge, a crack splitting beneath my hand.
“I didn’t expect to feel so at peace here.” She traced invisible patterns in the air. “I was thinking… Maybe staying here wouldn’t be so terrible? Once my curse is broken, I mean.”
Her words struck me like a falling star. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” She swallowed, her voice weakening as she turned toward me. “I think I’d like to stay. With all of you. With you.”
The world tilted beneath me. I opened my mouth, but no sound came.
“The truth is, I’m afraid of breaking my curse,” she went on, shoulders tense. “Afraid that if I become human again, I’ll lose all this. Afraid of losing you. I want to find a way to save you. Together.”
An invisible weight crushed my chest. She was smiling, already imagining all the moments we might share during nights like this one.
How she would sell her pastries in town, and become my personal confectioner.
She wanted me. The thought pierced me through.
No. She didn’t understand. She couldn’t understand.
Monstrous. Selfish. Unworthy, the voice hissed. You only know how to kill. You’d bring her nothing but suffering.
I could not love her as she deserved.
“Why?” My voice snapped sharper, colder than I intended. But the crushing weight in my chest left no room for softness.
She flinched, her smile faltering.
“You have the whole world waiting for you,” I said, my eyes narrowing. “Dreams to chase, places to discover. You shouldn’t waste them here. Have you forgotten our bargain? I must die. And you must live.”
None of my spells had broken her curse because the power had always been in her hands. She kept herself imprisoned. Her own heart chained her here.
“Is it so unthinkable that I want to stay with you?” Her voice broke, her hands clenching into fists.
The weight in my chest threatened to crush me entirely. She deserved everything. And I… I was nothing but sucremort. It had to be a farce. A last desperate attempt to save me. She would have sacrificed everything to save anyone.
The mist thickened, slowly swallowing the space between us.
“What I’m trying to say…” She coughed, searching for breath. “I think I have feelings for you. I tried to fight it, but… I can’t hide them anymore. And I think you…”
I rose abruptly. “You only feel that because you’re cursed.”
“No! I know what I feel for you!”
“Sorry. But it isn’t mutual.”
I had said it.
She could have my eternity. But I could not have hers.
I was not cruel enough for that.
I had to die. End what should never have begun. Stop Zelda. And most of all, protect her. Even if that meant protecting her from myself.
“I could never make the elixir to kill you,” she whispered, her voice trembling as a tear slid down her cheek. “Please, Arawn… Don’t abandon me too.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
I hurled myself into the mist before she could convince me to stay.
My skin prickled as my antlers began to form, then stopped, incomplete. Pain seared through me, brutal and merciless. The poison of my own curse crawled higher than my hands, violet veins streaking up my arm to my neck.
My magic, once an extension of my will, rebelled against me.
I fell.
The void opened to swallow me. My wings refused to spread. My antlers shattered against the trees. My claws found no hold. I fell. Broken. Unrecognizable.
And for the first time, my magic did not answer.