Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
THE CURSE
As luck would have it, Elias was not in his quarters, nor was he in the courtyard garden. His absence forced her to search the estate with bare feet and determination, and after hours had passed in the dark corridors, Sylvi came to the conclusion that Elias had gone away.
She found the kitchens hadn’t been used in quite some time.
Years, even. Since she’d only eaten from the fruit bearing trees since she arrived, there was a good chance he had gone to hunt.
With the land dead, the animals would be further out.
It might be some time yet before he returned home, if that was in fact what he’d gone to do.
She pursed her lips. If the kitchens hadn’t been used in so long, did Elias even need to cook his meat anymore? An important question, if he allowed her to stay.
Deciding that the question of Elias’s meals would have to wait until his return, Sylvi returned to the courtyard.
The moon hung low and full. Something akin to magic tickled her skin beneath it, teasing her closer and closer, until she settled on the ground beside some lilacs. The soft scent brushed her nose and she inhaled deeply.
If the land of Espa Brus was well and truly cursed, how could this courtyard be so beautiful?
Sylvi ran her fingers along the loose ground, the soil still damp from an afternoon shower.
If the curse on the land flowed through Elias, and he said he could not kill any part of her, could she grow something here?
Something new? The idea had manifested the longer she thought on Elias’s confession.
If the curse was directly tied to Elias’s magic, it stood to reason that he would allow her to sow the earth with hers.
Unless it was some subconscious decision, or he didn’t have any control over the cursed magic once it was in the land.
Lip between her teeth, she sighed. The only way to find out was to try.
Perhaps she should try now.
With a deep breath filling her lungs, Sylvi dug her fingers into the dirt. The same dark magic she’d felt in the forest lived here, thrived even, and her magic shrank from it.
“Stop being so fickle,” she told herself. She’d bribed her magic before, back when she lived in the castle. It tended to listen, if she were kind enough. “The magic? It’s only Elias. He would never harm us.”
Her next push went further down her fingers, and the one after that even more so. A soft hum rumbled in her throat as she worked, desperate to know. To try.
When her magic finally listened, the earth sang too.
Elias’s magic, heavy and forbidding, bowed to her as she expanded through the soil. Her eyes widened, matching the now frantic pound of her heart. The further her magic tunneled, the realization that Elias spoke true became more apparent.
Not only would he not kill any part of her, but he would allow her to go anywhere she pleased.
A soft gasp shook her throat as something soft pressed along her legs.
Grass, strong and thick, sprouted along the courtyard ground, surrounding her body in a living blanket.
She withdrew her hand from the dirt and stood, eager to allow the spread as she sent magic through the soles of her bare feet.
The grassy patch expanded, stretching toward the lilacs and the west wall of ivy.
She laughed.
And laughed and laughed.
When her heart grew light and her body swayed, she withdrew her magic. Unsteady and giddy, she tried to steady herself on the grass, dancing on weak legs.
Until she hit something quite solid.
Sylvi tilted her head back, finding Elias there. How long had she been in the courtyard garden?
Had he been watching her?
Capricious and delightfully merry, she leaned back, allowing him to catch her mid-fall. “Hello, Elias.” She cocked her head, and her hair tumbled over her shoulder. “Did you notice the grass?”
I did.
“It’s lovely, don’t you think?” It wasn’t until that moment that she realized some flecks of red on his cheek. Blood-colored flecks. Her body and mind, still alight with glee, did not register the seriousness of such a sight. “Did you go hunting?”
In a manner of speaking.
“Did you find your quarry?”
His head is outside the gate.
“Oh.” She pursed her lips and allowed Elias to set her to her feet. Suddenly worried, she gripped his arm tight. “Was it Viggo?”
Elias nodded. He foolishly approached my land. I removed him from your life.
Her heart leapt at this. A part of her felt terrible for her undisguised joy, but a larger portion remembered Viggo’s rough, forceful hands and lips.
She scowled, wishing she was back under the heady elation of her accomplishment instead of remembering Viggo.
“He was a loathsome man. The continent is better for his demise.”
Are you better for it?
“What a question. Of course I am.” Catching the question within his question, Sylvi decided to get to the key part of her quandary from earlier that evening.
She had no idea how long she had spent healing the courtyard, but her realization from before remained…
and perhaps became more important in the wake of her feat in the garden.
Sylvi tugged on Elias’s hand, coaxing him to sit beside her in the grass. He made no effort to fight her, bending easily to her whims if only to make her happy. “You truly meant what you said. Your magic didn’t fight mine at all.”
Her companion looked rather uncomfortable in the grass, but the blades didn’t wither away beneath him. His brow pinched, clearly confused by this phenomenon. She stroked his human hand. It was scarred, but large and strong, and she wondered how his palm would feel against her cheek.
I said I cannot kill you. Any part of you. That includes your magic, he said eventually.
“Is that why you killed your father?”
Elias’s demeanor shifted in the wake of her searching question, as if he were frozen in the mountain’s icy lakes. Eyes, red and wide and staring far away, back to the night everything changed, sent a pulse of grief straight to her heart.
His non-answer was, in fact, an answer.
“Your father threatened to kill me, didn’t he?” Sylvi needed no verification, but asked the obvious anyway. “I told him I loved you that night…before he died, you know. It was after he locked you away the night your arm shifted again. I tried to petition him to get you out of confinement.”
When Elias continued to say nothing, she turned to face him. His distant stare persisted, although one who stumbled upon them might think he gazed deeply at a potted apple tree.
My father made a deal with a forest demon when my mother fell pregnant.
He was losing the war with Vithia and he needed a miracle, Elias said, absently tracing the place where the scar on his neck used to be.
He slit my throat upon birth, gave the demon’s power a host, and the demon’s curse infected the Vithian army.
They fell in days. However, even after the war was won, I remained permanently changed.
Horror seeped into her. Iverr had slit his own son’s throat? “I don’t understand. Why would he threaten to kill me?”
The demon’s terms, Elias clarified. The curse would remain in Espa Brus until a sacrifice was made of one who loved me.
Cold swept up her spine and she shivered. Had her father known that would be her fate when he brought her to Castle Mourem?
The timing of the massacre made sense, considering the contents of the curse and her confession of love in the hours before. “Your father told you that he would kill me. That would be the sacrifice. I would be.”
In all her time knowing Elias, she had never known him to show emotion beyond anger. His father brought it out of him much like her magic did to flowers, and the other times he attempted complete indifference.
But now, for the first time in the years knowing him, shame turned down his mouth. His eyes, still very far away, would not meet hers, intently boring into the night. A beautiful, pleasing burn ignited in her chest, filling her from head to toe.
“Well, I am very clearly not dead.” She scooted closer on her knees and placed a hand to his cheek. “Look at the grass, Elias. It came back, and I am not dead.”
I do not understand the ways of demons.
“When I give to the earth, my magic becomes it. I am slowly giving myself to the plants…the ground…” She held his face between her palms, mouth slowly splitting into a grin.
“Remember what I told you the night we met? My mother made me start learning with beans and seeds for small plants because if I tried to do something larger, I could give too much. To break the curse, you need a sacrifice of one who loves you. Using my magic is a sacrifice, Elias. A slow one, but still a sacrifice.”
He glanced at her, albeit reluctantly. You might be able to fix the ground…the trees...but you cannot fix me. The curse will never truly break.
She sat back on her calves and gripped his arm with both hands. “Fix you? There is nothing to fix, you silly man.”
I am a monster.
“A monster? Not to me. I love every part of you. I have since we were thirteen.” She leaned in and gave him a look. “Your horns are also very handsome. I’d wondered for years what they would look like on you as a man.”
A deep flush overtook his face.
She laughed, and he blushed deeper. “Why are you so surprised?”
Because I am hideous. Half a man. And you are so beautiful, I cannot bear to look at you sometimes. You’re so bright in the dark.
“And you, my love, are grounding in the sun.” Sylvi put a hand to his cheek once more, pleased when the tension left his body.
“I could have married Viggo. He left me little choice in the matter.” Elias tensed beneath her palm, but Sylvi continued.
“But all I wanted, all I have ever wanted, was the first person who did not find me too burdensome. Too loud. Too much. All I wanted was you, so I ran on a whim and a hope. You are handsome, Elias.” She stroked his face, not missing how he leaned into her fingers.
“I wish you could see you as I see you.”
Sylvi paused, feeling both shy and unusually bold. She had kissed men before. In the years she’d mourned Elias, she tried to move on. But they were never right. Never him. Viggo had forced himself upon her, never more than a harsh kiss and a grope, but hardly a pleasant memory.
Now, she had Elias beside her, watching her like a parched man in the desert staring at an oasis. He’d listed closer, closer than he’d ever been, silently waiting for her to do something.
Deciding to lean more into bold, Sylvi rose up on her knees, meeting him eye to eye.
Then, accomplishing a feat she’d only dreamed of, she pressed her lips to his.