Chapter 10 #2
What if I’d seen it, taken it, and the curse robbed me of the memory?
Blessed Mother, should I tell her about my curse?
No. No. I couldn’t. Shouldn’t.
What if I had seen this ring? Telling her about the curse was as good as confessing guilt. I could be guilty and not remember, so I needed more information before I dug myself a deeper hole.
“What are we doing here?” I tried to keep my heart and mind steady enough to focus.
“This is where the ring was last seen. Whatever happened to it, happened here.”
“Here?”
“Five years ago.”
My lungs locked and I grabbed my chest. The timing hit me, striking every nerve in my body. “Five… years? Oh Gods.”
Arielle's eyes sharpened, studying my reaction with newfound interest. “Elariya, can you tell me what happened here?”
“My father disappeared.”
Something flickered across Arielle's face, recognition perhaps, or intrigue. She leaned forward slightly. “Will you show me?”
“Show you?”
“I need to see inside your mind.”
“How can you see inside my mind?” I panted.
“It’s a simple spell. I just need to touch your head. I promise I won’t hurt you, and you’ll see what I see, too.”
My breathing evened out to a slower pace and I stared at her, wondering if I could trust her. I’d trusted Wolfe and look what happened to me. What if something worse happened?
“Listen, I know you’re scared. But if you want to get out of here, you have to let me do this.” She spoke with certainty. “Right now, I’m the only voice of reason on your side. We’re both mages. Perhaps you can trust that.”
I stared at her, weighing my impossible options. Gods. Could I even call them options? Everything felt bad.
Either I stay here and suffer, or I trust her.
The problem with staying here was I didn’t even know where here was.
The problem with agreeing was the risk of her finding out about the curse.
That left me with the best bad choice.
“Okay. Look inside my head.”
Arielle came closer and raised a hand to my temple. Warm fingers pressed against my skin, but I trembled against the shiver that rolled down my spine.
“This won’t hurt,” she assured me, pressing her fingers deeper into my skin.
“What will happen?”
“Think of it as a replay of the events that took place here.”
My insides squeezed. I was going to see my father disappear again, relive it.
She muttered a spell and released me, looking about us for something to happen. I looked, too. Then the sound of a horse galloping through the woods filled the air. Even before we saw it, I knew exactly where to look.
I turned to my left just as my father and his horse came into view.
That memory—of seeing him, of that sound—had tormented me for five years.
But this was different. I was facing my father again only days after a reset, when the curse left the memory feeling like an open wound.
He was right over there, and the panic on his face was palpable. Father was riding hard, away from the thing chasing him.
“Father!” Emotions overwhelmed me and my heart soared. I made a move to rush toward him, but Arielle grabbed my arm.
“No, don’t. It’s only a memory. It’s not real, but you mustn’t disrupt it.” She tightened her grip on my arm before letting go again.
With my heart beating in my throat, I turned back to watch my father. Then I saw my past self on my horse riding toward him in the distance.
As soon as he called to me, the dark vortex appeared behind him like a maelstrom, massive, monstrous, horrific.
I heard and felt my past self scream for him, but he didn’t hear me.
Arielle kept an eye on my father. Then she gasped and waved a hand abruptly into the air. The mere movement froze the scene before us, even the spreading vortex.
“What did you do?” I gasped. “ What—”
“Shhh,” she cut me off, then made her way toward my father, who was frozen in time.
I followed, my gaze switching between Arielle and Father.
She rushed across the clearing toward him, her lips parting with another soft gasp as her eyes locked on his left hand, frozen mid-motion. There, on his finger, sat the very ring she’d asked me about.
She was right. The moment you saw it, you knew.
Silver, etched with runes and dragons coiled around the band. In the center, an oval gemstone—deep crimson—glinted like fire in the sunlight. Exactly as she’d described it.
“Blessed Mother,” Arielle whispered, echoing my own silent plea to the great mother, then she went very still, her bright blue eyes fixed on Father with an intensity that made my skin prickle. “It’s Halsilmêre, the Ring of the Kings.”
She moved her hands again in another gentle wave. The scene unfroze, but she slowed it down, drawing out the torturous memory.
The vortex stirred awake, ravenous and cruel, and swallowed my father whole before my past self could dismount my horse.
I watched myself race toward him, screaming for him. But then…
Through the swirl of malicious shadow, a spark of red surged out of the vortex and struck me in the head.
I dropped to the ground.
Just like that. I collapsed, motionless, and the vortex closed.
I stared at the version of me lying there, stunned.
That red spark. I’d never noticed it until now, but that was what had sent me to the ground and maybe…
Blessed Mother. Could that have been what gave me the curse?
I’d always thought I’d gotten too close to the vortex. But it wasn’t that.
Something had come out of it.
The memory faded before us as quickly as smoke. When Arielle turned to me, her eyes were wide with a knowledge that made my stomach drop.
She reached for me, her fingers brushing the side of my face.
“You’re cursed,” she whispered. It wasn’t a question. She knew. “Your memories are cursed.”
“Please tell me what’s happening?” I pleaded, desperation tearing at my insides.
Arielle searched my eyes with that knowing look in hers. Then she stepped back. “I have to go.” She started walking away.
“Wait. No. I need to get out of here.” I rushed after her. “You can’t just leave me.”
“Try not to worry.”
“How can you say that? What’s going to happen to me?”
She sped up. “Your father had the ring.”
“I don’t know how he got it.”
She turned, just once, her expression unreadable. But in her eyes there was pity. And that’s when I knew I was in deeper trouble than ever before.
Thief.
That’s what they kept calling me—the wraith and Wolfe.
Thief.
Arielle had seen my father wearing the ring with her own eyes. Wolfe’s ring.
No more questions needed to be asked. In her mind, my father had stolen it.
Which meant the blood in my veins wasn’t just tied to magic or a missing man.
It was tied to this crime. And now she knew it too.
“Arielle—” The word barely left my lips before she snapped a finger and vanished, dissolving into the air like vapor. “No, wait. Come back!”
I rushed to where she’d stood, but there was nothing.
Nothing but nothingness.
What was I going to do?