6. CHAPTER 6
Sorin
It felt as if it were only yesterday the mage had cursed me, when in reality it had been over a century. The curse wasn’t terrible at first.
For years…I felt nothing at all.
I was convinced the mage was mistaken—or perhaps a charlatan.
Maybe she had only meant to scare me. But as the years bled away, the curse made itself known.
At first, it was a fleeting pain, gone as quickly as it appeared.
I was training with Rensford and the army, chalking it up to sparring injuries I had forgotten about in the heat of our drills.
Sometimes it was days or even weeks between when I would feel the surge up my side.
Over time, the pain became permanent.
Insistent.
It had now been seventeen years that pain was my constant companion. Each and every day brought with it a new torture, and I relished those years when the pain was so brief it could be entirely forgotten.
These last few years the curse had taken root within me, slithering into my blood and darkening my veins. The wound on my side never healed. It was open and raw, gaping. The healer was able to keep it dressed, and there were tonics to help with the pain and to decrease the effects.
But the curse only worsened.
Day by day…it worsened.
It had begun to spread down my arm. It wouldn’t be long now until I couldn’t hide it beneath my clothing. I was growing weak while it sapped my strength.
I had been a young boy of sixteen the one and only time I entered the Witchwood.
Mother had warned me never to cross the Veil of Shadows.
That the barren forest where mages resided was no place for a prince.
She warned me that the mountains that stood between Gothryn and the Witchwood were there for good reason.
To protect us from the evil that bloomed among the wood.
Yorrick had insisted we check it out for ourselves, and Ren and I had agreed.
I had just come into maturity, my shifter wings newly fledged—but strong.
I hadn’t realized how little control I had over them.
We hadn’t found anything at first, suggesting maybe the sinister tales of the Witchwood were simply fables meant to scare us and keep us out of the neighboring kingdom, Sylvaris.
They had already allied with Myros across the sea rather than tie their allegiances to the dragon King Mavros at that point. But that was over a century ago, and they had long since severed ties. Father had been bloodthirsty and unforgiving in his earlier reign, and alienated Sylvaris as a result.
They were a kingdom of peace, and we were…not.
We had decided there was nothing to find among the thin, white-barked forest and had only just decided to turn back. Ren wasn’t a dragon shifter like Yorrick and me, so we had hiked over the pass in the Veil of Shadows and planned to hike our way back, too.
It had grown late in the day, the sun setting over the realm with a beautiful tangerine sky that faded into the horizon and spilled ribbons of gold through the trees. We had been tracing our steps through the snow—back toward the mountain pass—when we lost our way.
We had meandered into the yard of a mage living in the Witchwood. My mother might have been human, but she knew the lore of the creatures that dwelled in this realm. She had told me stories of the mages that lingered there, practicing blood magic and curses.
Dark magic.
Forbidden not only in our kingdom, but on the entire western continent.
The tiny cabin was ramshackle. The thatched roof was worn and sagging. There was no smoke escaping the chimney despite the chill in the air, and thus we determined it must be empty. We ducked inside for only a few minutes to get warm.
At least, that was my only intention.
The small kitchen was outfitted with beakers and test tubes, all of them labeled with the different tonics and potions the mage had been curating.
Yorrick stuck two of the bottles in the breast pocket of his tunic.
Ren and I had exchanged a wary glance, deciding we had best be on our way.
As Yorrick reached for the old, creaking door, it burst inward.
The mage was enraged; her straggly white hair falling in thick, matted clusters against the sides of her face.
Her eyes were a milky white which sent a chill down my spine.
Yorrick pushed her aside, diving for the door.
He had barely made it past the threshold when she turned, reaching to grasp me or Rensford as we passed.
Ren managed to kick her feet out from under her.
Despite her appearance, despite her age, she was back on her feet in the blink of an eye.
She possessed speed that would rival that of the fae.
Ren was safely on the other side of the door, chasing after Yorrick with a string of curses. My foot caught on the doorjamb, sending me sprawling across the snow-coated front yard. I turned back, scrambling to my feet as she descended upon me.
I tried to release my wings, but they would not come.
Early in the change, it took immense focus to bring them forth.
I hadn’t had enough practice at it. I was too frightened, too foolish to have them at the ready.
As I rose to my feet to dash after Yorrick and Ren, the animalistic voice that haunted my nightmares rang out across the clearing.
“You who dares enter my hollow. You who dares steal from me!”
“I didn’t—” My voice quivered as I shook my head back and forth fervently.
“SILENCE! I know who you are, Sorin Blackwater. Prince of Blackwater. Heir to the dragon throne. Bastard son of King Mavros and the human Melantha Devoe.”
My blood ran cold in my veins.
I didn’t speak.
“I curse you, Sorin of Gothryn. I curse you to search for something that you will never find.” Her eyes stirred with cobalt magic, sparks sprouting from her fingertips. “I curse you with a wound that will never heal. It will sap your energy, steal your magic, your life.”
My heart thundered in my chest, my throat tight. “But I—it wasn’t me who stole—”
But her deep, otherworldly voice cut me off.
“You have entered my hollow uninvited, and therefore you must be punished. You will search this world for your mate, and the curse will not lift until you find them. It will worsen year after year until it claims what rightfully belongs to it.” She cocked her head to the side with a menacing grin.
“Fae live very, very long lives. You could live decades—centuries—before finding them. If you ever find them at all. Best of luck to you, Sorin of House Blackwater.”
Panic surged through me as I tried to find my feet.
She raised her fists in the air and threw them down.
Black smoke expelled from her palms, and I coughed at the sharp, acrid scent.
The last thing I remember was her gaunt face, her lips peeled over rotting teeth.
Her milky white eyes stared down at me with something I couldn’t read written within them.
Was that—humor?
I succumbed to the darkness.
I woke hours later with Yorrick and Ren shaking me awake. They had been trying to rouse me for several hours to no avail.
The sun had set, but we remained in the darkened Witchwood.
The thin, white trees surrounded us with their eerie crimson leaves beneath the silver glow of the moon overhead.
We had crossed the Veil of Shadows as quickly as we could, but it was nearly the next afternoon by the time we finally made it back to the Gothryn palace.
I had slipped inside beneath King Mavros’s watchful eye and never said anything to him about the incident. I had almost forgotten about it entirely by the time the first symptoms of the curse reared their ugly heads many years later.
I had been able to explain it away at first, unbelieving that it could be the curse come to fruition. Surely it would have enacted itself before now.
But when the mage had threatened that it could be centuries before I found my mate, she failed to mention that the curse would also be slow-acting.
Over time, it fed on me.
My flesh. My energy.
My power.
These last few years, as King Mavros grew weak, so did I.
Keeping this secret took every ounce of my remaining strength. Shifting into my full dragon form took monumental effort that I didn’t always possess. I would need to drown myself in the poisons from the healer, Azhar, to have the fortitude for common magic.
I was supposed to be the most powerful fae in the realm, and I was deteriorating with every breath.
After the first century, I had lost all faith that I would ever find my mate.
How would I even know? Mates weren’t commonplace among fae in Aeloria, especially the Vireth who were already cursed by the god Mordecai to begin with.
I was doubly cursed.
Cursed by the god of death and cursed by a dark mage.
I had pored over the ancient texts in the library, seeking information about mates; searching for any fragment of information that would help me find them sooner. Anything that would help me identify them once I had.
Would I feel different?
Would it be a magical surge within me that I couldn’t ignore?
I hadn’t the faintest clue. I never told my mother, Melantha, or King Mavros about it. I never told Yorrick about the curse. To this day, the only ones who knew of the curse were my best friend Rensford, my two brothers, and the healer to whom I had turned for help.
I had sworn him to secrecy and prayed to the old gods that he would never tell the king or queen. If Odessa found out…there was no telling what she might do to place her firstborn son on the throne.
I needed to keep up this charade for as long as possible.
I approached the door to the healer’s personal chambers, knowing he would likely have retired for the night long ago.