Chapter 43
?ROWAN
Rowan rushed down the halls, dragging his claws along the wallpaper as he went. He pushed open one of the back doors and slid into the gardens. He didn’t know if he had it in himself to be damned for eternity, but if he didn’t, that meant losing Pae.
Snow began to fall from the night sky, the snowflakes illuminating in the enchanted candlelight from the candles that hung throughout the garden.
He moved beside the stone wall, ivy climbing across it.
It slithered back, away from him. A soft, white dusting covered the ground, and he left ghostly footprints in his wake.
He moved toward a set of stairs that led to a twisted tree, absent of leaves, the only reason for it still surviving being Rowan’s will.
He wanted to tear it apart, dig his claws into the bark.
He paused, glancing around, remembering the look on Georgia’s face as his hand tightened on her throat. How she paled and begged him for mercy.
Rowan knew then that he truly was a monster. Not just a Grim Fae with a morally gray compass, but evil in its most potent form. So strong that life fled from him, the only things he could keep alive were those forced by his magic or tied to him by a bond of fate.
Down beside the tree, across the cracked stone, Georgia had laid, blood pooling from her mouth. He remembered how his face fell, his heart feeling unlike his own, and storming away. All that swarmed his thoughts was his brother Laurus.
He had second guessed his ability to sabotage himself, his purgatory not just chaining him, but the other Stoneborne residing here.
The Stoneborne who had suffered terrible fates from members of the Alder Court.
Rowan never thought he’d hesitate when it came to ending this curse.
If anything, it was more than just fulfilling a curse, but proving he didn’t need another person, a soul that attached itself to him like a leech. That Laurus couldn’t break him.
But now, he began to second guess. Which would make him more evil: allowing his mate to die in his stead or cursing all those around to suffer him to pass?
And he wouldn’t truly make Paeonia happy, not really. He knew she’d stay with him regardless, her values demanding it, but it wouldn’t be long until he hurt her again, and that was if he could manage to get her to forgive him for tricking her into this bargain.
He hadn’t realized he wandered to one of the mausoleums for an ancient Alder Court noble.
His hatred grew for the court, wishing to knock it down.
Snow began to thicken on the roof of the mausoleum, the small inlet beside the bridge shifting with white lilies.
He watched the stars in its reflection, the dark urges overtaking him.
Slowly, the stars disappeared, and Rowan’s brow narrowed.
A scraping sound echoed in the cold night, the door to the mausoleum opening.
Rowan watched in horror as a male silhouette clad in dark armor, a cloak cast over his head, shielding his face in shadows, stepped out.
A waft of darkness extinguished the candles, a humming sound reverberating off the cobblestone.
The figure pushed his hood off to reveal dark blonde hair and an all-too-familiar face.
Laurus.
His brother appraised him with disgust plain on his features at his feral appearance—unable to use proper glamour. “You’re looking well,” his authoritative voice spoke, pooling around Rowan.
Rowan snarled.
“Now, now,” Laurus spoke unveraciously, “I didn’t mean to upset you.” Laurus took a step down from the mausoleum, the dark sigils on his chest plate that of a darkening sun.
“You took your vows for the wrong cause,” Rowan spat.
“And what do you know about causes?”
Rowan readied his stance as if his brother might lunge at him, but he simply descended the steps, taking in his surroundings.
He raised his brows once in mockery. “Taking care of the place, I see.”
“Why are you here?” Rowan demanded, his heart rate ticking up.
Laurus turned his once shiny blue eyes, now dull with rage, on Rowan. “Let us not play this game of back and forth. Do not act like you do not know the reason for my visit.”
“You haven’t visited me in over a hundred and fifty years.”
Laurus raised a hand. “And yet, I visit you now. Hm. I wonder why that could be.”
“You could have been righteous. You could have been the cleric the court needed. And yet, here you stand, still in agony after all these years.”
Shadows whirled in a storm, pushing Rowan back so he fell against the bridge’s railing.
“You are the reason!” he shouted. “Do not speak to me about righteousness. As if my loss is some petty misunderstanding. You have no idea what it felt like. What it still feels like.”
His eyes flared red like the orbs were truly on fire. Rowan held himself up, but Laurus’ shadows pushed back, refusing to let him stand fully.
“You will soon know my pain. Know what it is like to have a mate taken from you. To know what breaking that bond feels like.”
Another wave hit Rowan, and it pushed him closer to the edge. He fought against it until his brother finally released him, Rowan collapsing.
Laurus seethed, seemingly more upset when Rowan didn’t speak than when he did. He paced before him, his long cloak flapping like he had an army of bats trailing him. “Why her?” Laurus asked, his tone mellowed momentarily, the serene before calamity.
Rowan regained his foothold, his claws itching to dig into something, his primal instincts overtaking him, the reminder that he was in danger overbearing. He adjusted his stance so he resembled a wolf ready to pounce on its prey.
Laurus sauntered closer, clearly not thinking his brother posed any real threat. Rowan sent a wall of vines and roots to sprout before Laurus, all intermingling and crumbling through the ground. He quickly slid into the shadows of the gardens, Laurus’ loud bark of laughter making him wince.
A crackle echoed like a whip through the air, a flash of light as Laurus burnt his makeshift wall down. Little stars of ash fluttered and flickered in the night.
Rowan crept around the bushes, passing through the garden he had centuries to become familiar with.
Laurus spun, searching for Rowan, speaking into the night.
“Why her?” he asked again. When Rowan didn’t answer, spotting his brother’s face only through the break in the wall he stood behind, he burst out with fury, fire pooling in his mouth. “WHY HER?”
Rowan summoned roots that clawed their way from the ground and wrapped around Laurus’ legs to hold him in place in fear he might burn the entire garden down. Snowflakes sizzled on his skin, and his eyes were blazed in wild fury.
“It could have been anyone,” Laurus growled. “Why. Her.” The calmness in his voice sent shivers up Rowan’s spine.
He slowly came out from behind a wall of rose bushes, snow settling on his horns.
He stood taller than Laurus, but that did little to help him now.
Not when his curse was still lingering. Curses were a tedious thing.
All the weight lay with the caster, and Rowan could feel Laurus holding onto the last threads of the curse, letting it linger before it slipped away as Rowan’s powers were still subdued.
“I didn’t want it to be her,” Rowan said flatly, words that he should have told him all those years ago, but never managed. The act had been too inexcusable, too sinful, to admit what he had done.
Laurus laughed maniacally. “You’ve always been jealous. Always wanted what I had. Normal glamour. Father’s belief.” He gestured skyward. “To be enlightened by the gods.”
“You might be a cleric, but you are no gift from the gods.” Rowan closed the distance between them.
His brother’s face became clearer, the once perfect skin, golden and free of flaws, now scarred and broken.
His hair held streaks of black through it.
His armor gunmetal instead of the silver of the clerics.
He had been corrupted. The hate, the sorrow, the pain, had all rotted his blood.
“Laurus,” Rowan said in a gentler lilt, “I know it means nothing now, but I promise you, I never wanted it to be her.”
“Then, why?”
Rowan was taken aback by the sheer pain in Laurus’ voice, the way it cracked and dwindled.
“You know her father made a bargain with me. The Alder Court was already crumbling as the Gleam and Grim fought, and he wanted power. He wanted to take father’s place as lord of the court.
And I promised him I’d grant him the secrets I hear in exchange for political influence. ”
“All for a say in the court’s matters?”
Rowan shook his head. “You don’t know what it was like to have to stand back and watch you and father command the court. You were never strong enough to stand up to him. You saw the way he egged on the Gleam’s rebellion.
“But her father broke the bargain. He began to exchange the secrets with the Oak Court. Our deal, something irreplaceable that binds your power to this realm. He thought it some heirloom, or even his deed to his home, but when Georgia appeared in front of me that night as I sought out her father, the clock ticking, I had no choice.”
“You always have a choice.”
“I—” Rowan’s voice clipped. “I didn’t have a choice,” he tried to say again, but with little conviction.
Laurus’ jaw clenched as he studied his brother. “You’re going to watch me gut her,” he said lowly.
Laurus’ words settled over him like he was being drowned.
“Father is dead,” Rowan said quietly, testing the chill air with his hot breath.
Laurus shook his head. “I do not care of Father’s status.”
“So, that is truly it? You care only for my penance. You dream of watching me suffer, your life bearing nothing else. Have you yet to find peace?”
Laurus grinned wickedly, and Rowan’s vines went aflame, smoldering to ash, freeing Laurus’ feet in one swift movement.
He closed his eyes. “You fool.” Laurus summoned magic to his fingertips, seeking and searching just as Rowan did with the thicket of trees.
He was using the curse, the last remnants of it, to find Paeonia’s location.
If only Rowan hadn’t performed the blood bond with her, she wouldn’t be attached to this curse.
She wouldn’t be so easy for Laurus to find.
Laurus smiled, his powers wrapping around Rowan slowly, the licks of it burning his violet skin, his teeth bared as he snarled. Rowan had no choice as he watched helplessly as his brother moved for the castle.
“It’s me you seek to hurt,” Rowan called. “Do not harm her. Take me. Do whatever it is you want to me.”
Laurus paused his ascent. “I will hurt you. Just as you’ve hurt me. Just as you took everything from me. That is the only equitable punishment.”