Chapter Twenty-Three
Twenty-Three
Aharrowing darkness, unlike anything else I have encountered, curled my toes in icy heat. At the edge of the bed they festered, flinging itself to the high top of the canopy and entrapping its prey with deadly force.
I did not dare to open my eyes to the dark gnashing its teeth, whispering in my ear, daring me to look.
I curled at the head of the bed, shielding my feet from the intruder’s coldness, patting down the duvet to form it as armor.
It had to be a dream—it was a dream.
Any moment, Silas would whisper sweet words or chastise me for such absurdity in having a fear of the dark. The shadowy darkness did not speak, nor did it avert its gaze from where I slept. I didn’t need to crack an eyelid to know they were there.
Tall, lanky wisps licked at my ankles, scraping talons onto the duvet. “Valeria . . . Valeria,” it hissed. “Come play, sweet Valeria. Let me carve out your insides . . . she’ll be happy. Oh so happy.”
I sprang from the bed, ducking into the corner of the nearby wall, toppling over the nightstand.
Compared to the shadows from the forest, the figure was not fully formed.
It was feathery and similar to the ghosts.
It shifted its form from a wolf to a tall lanky man, garish and enigmatic, it reminded me of what I had envisioned Death to be like.
Nothing more than a shapeless being with a hunger for life stuck in the precipice of the world.
The shadow circled me closely, corralling deeper into the corner, snapping its jaw and hissing my name.
“Just a bite, Valeria. Ah, Valeria.”
The balcony drapes flapped soundlessly, the cold wind blowing sparkling flakes under a budding moon. The room was washed in silver, drowning out the solid hold the shadow had on the ethereal plane.
I grabbed for the knife, scattered upon the floor beside the discarded ashes and the vial. Hands shaking, I pointed the blade at the shadow, prepared to fight.
Prepared to die.
The shadow was fading back to wherever or whoever had sent it.
I stepped forward, and my body screamed to run from the danger, but I couldn’t run. Not when there was a storm on the horizon.
The shadow did not lunge nor react. It remained out of reach, hungrily circling for an opening to take a bite where it can. The mass grew eyes, dotting its body in grotesque hideousness, all flickered between the knife and the ring—Silas’s ring.
I touched the ring. A soft sense of his protection warmed my conviction as the scarlet jewels twinkled under the light. “I am not afraid. Tell your master I am alive, and I will fight to save Silas even if it costs me my life.”
The words were heavy, aloft even, but with the ring upon my finger and the budding in my chest—it was becoming difficult to ignore what I had to face.
I was linked to Silas, and he was linked to me. The danger would only keep coming if I remained ignorant to this fact.
It reared on its hind legs, standing taller than a black bear. From its grotesque jaws, it howled a bloodcurdling scream into the night. Inky blobs flew from its body, circling the ceiling and joining the blackness.
The shadow was gone, and I was alone to the soft darkness enchanted by the waxing moon.
The knife clattered to the floor.
Smoke rose from my lips, rubbing at my arms as I stalked to the balcony window. The faint breeze rustled the curtains, showing a most beautiful sight of the garden and of the man sitting among the frost-covered roses.
Silas sat on the stone bench, head bent upwards to the moon in stilled silence, watching the night past him by.
Loneliness and solitude rested upon his shoulders, trapped in a conversation between the ghosts he harbors and the night that sees all his sins.
The pale moon kept a tormented man company in solace.
Without another thought, I grabbed a robe, threw it over my shoulders, and joined Silas.
The December air chilled me to the bones, and I shivered as the night winds danced among petals in the sacred place.
Down the path of stones in the back of the castle and past hedges of wilting roses, Silas dared not glance as I settled beside him.
Bitter cold pressed in from the bench, but I do not let that show.
“Tell me, what are you doing out here?”
Silas’s eyebrow quirked, and a dry laugh escaped from pale rose lips. “And why are you awake?”
I smoothed out the robe, the satin gliding across skin smooth as butter, doing little to stave off the cold biting at exposed flesh. I leaned forward, meeting his gaze. “You are deflecting my original question.”
Silas shook his head. “I can see that I am not getting rid of you anytime soon.” He closed his eyes, perhaps picturing intrigue playing across his lids as a silver screen does. His mouth twitched, parting softly as waves crashing the shore, only to remain quiet.
Silas clasped his hands together, the silver moonlight kissing the crown of his head with loose strands aglow in heavenly darkness. Gold cast to the crimson roses, jaw hardening, before turning back to me.
I sighed, “Do you at least want to know why I am out here in the bitterly cold?”
No response.
I drummed my fingers against the stone bench. “A shadow snuck into my room and attacked me, the frightful thing that it was. It was weak, fading into nothing before hurling itself out the window.” I continued on with a smirk.
Silas’s eyes widened. “It was here! Are you sure?”
I nodded. “Yes, and I am quite positive.”
Silas ran a hand through his hair, snagging his fingers among pale moonlight. “Then, it has already begun.”
I cocked my head. “Silas, what are you not telling me?”
I truly took him in and noticed faint scratches, red and swollen on his neck and arms. As if something with long claws raked against him. He was not wearing his white mask, his silvery hair instead covered enough of the scars to hide them from view.
“Do you see the roses?” His body shifted toward me. His hands grabbed mine with such tenderness I shivered, not from the cold but from each stroke of his thumb upon my palms. Silas gave a breathless sigh. “They have been wilting, decaying, and soon, they will die.”
“As flowers do.”
“Not these ones. Never these.” Silas squeezed my hand, brows furrowing. “The castle, the roses, even the mists that prevent you from leaving this seclusion are all tied to me, and I am running out of time.”
The fog crept up to the gates, letting us know that there was nowhere out of its wispy grasp. “Silas, if this is about the other night, I—”
“No, no. I wished—I wished that I was explaining myself better.” Silas stood, his hands still folded with mine. “Perhaps if I showed you, it would all make sense.”
I rose to my feet. “Then, show me.”
Silas guided me through the warping maze, the sweet heady scent of the roses becoming stronger the further we went. Petals scattered the snow-covered path, a small trail for us to follow with only the moon to provide us with light from the encroaching darkness.
We entered out from the winding hedges to an open area. My eyes took a moment to adjust to the expanse of the space as Silas slipped from my grasp. He kneeled at a stone marker, saying words in ancient tongue before placing two fingers to his lips, kissing softly and setting it onto the gray stone.
Red roses shifted to white silver, flowers suckling in the budding moonlight.
The grounds were cast in a sickly glow with the buds illuminating the enclosed alcove.
Long strings of vines wrapped around stone, seizing all it can from the lone bench sitting among painted glass to the statue that loomed.
The statue was of a woman, her face round and poignant, smiling down at anyone who sat below her for a blessing.
The statue, draped in Greco-Roman finery, was sculpted with sensual care.
A single breast poked out from underneath carved flowing fabric, her long white hair cascading over the growth.
Nestled in it was a crescent crown glittering against glass.
Her head was bowed in reverence to the lovers.
“They called this a moon garden, perhaps in honor of the moon goddess.” Silas stepped toward the bench, fingers tracing long-forgotten grooves. “This is the place in which I had been happy and it is the same place that has caused me such despair.”
I gasped as both Silas and the black-haired boy approached me, a crown of silver upon dark curls. His blue eyes gleamed brightly, whispering sweet nothings to ears that will no longer hear his voice after that night.
“Your curse,” I started, gaze fixed to the lone tombstone. I bent down to touch the fine carved words, Vi et animo. “Tell me, the vision with the woman and the men, the night I found you trying to kill yourself—it’s all connected to your curse.”
The gorgeous scene had been looked after. Not a vine touched the white marker, nor was there a speck of dirt.
“It began with her death, and it ended with my torment. I try not to remember, but my name binds the curse, or so I was told.” Silas slumped onto the bench, the painted glass from windows reflecting onto him in a beautiful array of colors.
It was just as it had been many moons ago.
“The woman you say you saw, she had been my betrothed when I had been a prince. Our countries had been at odds for many years, and both our parents agreed a political marriage was necessary to ease rising tensions. I had been a fool then. I wished for nothing more than the endless hunts and to be locked up in my study, learning about the world that I was not able to freely see. I often hide in the garden to get away from most of the courts and my parents’ attempt to secure a match for me.
” His lips tugged into a tight smile, gaze lifted.
“It was here I found her, sitting here staring at the roses. I came to find out that a rival for the throne had played a nasty prank on her, so she had come for a little solace. She was the beginning to my end.”