Chapter 3
Belladonna
The ground lurched beneath me, a violent shift that sent my stomach rolling.
I'd hunted nightmares before, tracked them through the darkest corners of consciousness, but I'd never been trapped inside one.
This place—Aurora's place—trembled like something massive had just awakened beneath its surface.
My body locked tight, muscles seizing as if anticipating a blow.
Every instinct screamed for me to move, to run, to find the thread that would unravel this place, except there was nowhere to go.
The world stretched infinitely in all directions, warping at the edges like ink bleeding into water, a trap disguised as a landscape.
The sky above—if you could call that churning darkness a sky—pulsed with veins of silver light that cracked and reformed with each tremor.
I blinked hard, trying to clear my vision, but the nightmare clung to my senses like oil.
Across from me, Aurora remained untouched, serene.
Her blonde hair fell in perfect waves despite the chaos surrounding us, not a strand out of place.
Her dress flowed around her ankles, utterly still while everything else quivered and changed.
Her blue eyes flickered in the dim light like she was the only thing in this cursed place that was real.
She wasn't afraid, wasn't worried… she was waiting. And worse, she was enjoying this.
I'd spent years hunting the supernatural, tracking creatures that shouldn't exist, collecting stories of those who claimed to have seen Aurora Vaelora, the sleeping beauty, the cursed queen.
But the stories hadn't prepared me for this, for her.
The air around her hummed with power that made my teeth ache and my skin tighten.
Aurora extended her hand, her fingers curling slightly, expectant. There was no urgency in the gesture, no demand—just patience, as if she already knew what I would do. As if my choices had been made before I'd even stepped into her realm.
My throat dried. I'd studied every account of those who'd tried to wake her, who'd believed the old fairy tale about true love's kiss. None had returned. None had lived to tell what happened when Aurora's eyes opened.
And that was exactly why I couldn't take her hand. Whatever had happened to the ones before me would happen to me too, if I wasn't careful.
But some traitorous part of me still wondered what it would feel like to touch something so devastatingly powerful and so heartbreakingly alone at the same time.
I swallowed hard, feeling the weight of her gaze on me like a physical thing. This close, I could see the fine lines around her eyes, not from age but from something deeper. Pain, maybe. Or fury.
Instead of reaching for her, I took a sharp step back. "Not a chance."
My voice sounded too loud, too real in a place where nothing else was.
The nightmare responded instantly. The twisted trees that had lined what I'd thought was a path groaned, bark splitting with sounds like breaking bones.
They cracked apart as if something inside them was trying to crawl free, stretching upward until they weren't trees at all but towering black marble pillars that stretched into a swirling abyss above.
I stumbled, the uneven ground beneath me shifting, rearranging itself like a living thing. What had been dirt became smooth obsidian, reflecting fractured versions of my face—dozens of me, all wrong, all slightly distorted.
The nightmare didn't like me refusing her.
I had to grab one of the pillars to stay upright, instantly regretting it when the surface felt warm and wet beneath my palm, like touching the inside of a mouth. I jerked back with a hiss.
"Shit," I spat, wiping my hand against my jacket, my skin crawling.
I clenched my jaw as Aurora exhaled a soft laugh, the sound rich with amusement.
"You're fighting a place that isn't bound by rules," she mused, watching me like I was the best entertainment she'd had in years. "It doesn't obey the laws of physics or reason. It's not meant to."
She moved closer, though I couldn't see her take a step. One moment she was there, the next she was nearer, the scent of lilies and something sharper, something metallic, washing over me.
"Then I'll find a way out," I snapped, forcing my stance to steady even as the ground beneath me continued to shift in slow, nauseating waves. "Every spell has a loophole. Every prison has a key."
But even as I said it, the pillars twisted, folding in on themselves like paper, the darkness between them thickening. Every direction I looked, the exit seemed just out of reach, a distortion that bent when I tried to focus on it. This wasn't just a cage—it was a maze, one that bent to her will.
Aurora tilted her head, considering me, eyes sharp with interest, like she was waiting to see how long it would take me to break. Her beauty was the worst part, not because it was distracting, but because it was deliberate. A weapon honed over a century of isolation.
"So confident," she said, her voice like honey poured over gravel. "They all were, at first."
A whisper slid against my ear, wet and cold, not words but a sensation, like something unseen had just breathed against my neck. My stomach lurched, a fresh spike of unease creeping down my spine. When I turned, there was nothing there, only endless pillars and darkness.
I drew my dagger, useless as it was, needing something to ground me.
The silver blade caught what little light existed in this place, reflecting it back in sharp, painful flashes.
I'd been told silver could harm any supernatural creature, but Aurora wasn't just supernatural. She was something else entirely.
Aurora's lips curved, slow and knowing, as if my frustration delighted her. "You don't have to fight it," she murmured, her voice smooth, like a secret curling around my throat. "The more you resist, the harder it pulls. The deeper you sink."
I turned sharply, meeting her gaze, anger flickering hot beneath my skin. She was toying with me, drawing out the inevitable. I wasn't the first hunter to find her, wasn't the first to think I could end the curse. But I needed to be the first to survive it.
"Then what do you suggest?" I bit out, grip tightening on my dagger.
Aurora smiled, and before I could move, she closed the distance between us in a single step.
Her fingers barely grazed my wrist, but heat licked up my arm like a brand, like something waking inside my skin.
It wasn't pain. It was worse. It was pleasure, sharp and sudden, a jolt that made my breath catch.
I jerked back, but it was too late—the nightmare cracked, splitting apart, dragging me under like a tidal wave. The marble, the abyss, the pillars—they shattered, replaced in an instant by something far worse.
I crashed onto smooth, cold stone, the air knocked from my lungs. The scent of candle smoke hung thick in the air, smothering, too sweet. My dagger clattered to the floor, sliding away into shadow. I pushed myself up, disoriented, the world spinning in ways that made my vision blur.
A mirror stood before me, massive, ornate, its frame twisted gold that looked like hands frozen in torment.
And in it, a reflection… not me. My breath caught as my reflection smiled, but I hadn't moved.
My own eyes stared back at me, hollow, unblinking, something wrong in the way my mouth stretched at an angle it shouldn't.
The reflection raised its hand to the mirror's surface, pressing against it from the inside. The glass rippled like water. My mouth went dry, terror locking my joints as the reflection's fingers began to push through.
I swallowed, nausea rolling through my gut as dread clawed at my ribs. My limbs felt distant, disconnected, like I was floating slightly outside my body. The nightmare wasn't just shifting places anymore. It was showing me something. Something it shouldn't have been able to reach.
Behind me, Aurora remained still, watching, waiting. I could feel her presence like a weight on my back, a pressure in the air.
"Stop it," I whispered, but my voice sounded far away, lost in the thick air of this new nightmare. "Get out of my head."
The reflection's smile widened, teeth too sharp, too numerous. It pushed harder against the glass, a shoulder now emerging, something twisted and wrong about the angle of its bones.
I forced my gaze away from the mirror, from the mockery of myself, and turned to Aurora. Her face was calm, composed, but something in her eyes had changed—a curiosity, an intensity that hadn't been there before.
"You're not showing me your past," I murmured, voice rough, the words like dust in my mouth. "You're showing me mine."
The moment I said it, the reflection in the mirror froze.
The room seemed to hold its breath, the air going still, heavy with anticipation.
I looked down at myself, my dagger in my hand dripping with blood…
blood that dripped from the now sliced open scars of my arms, jagged cuts through the tattoos.
"Very good," Aurora said softly, her voice different now… less taunting, more measured. "Most don't realize that so quickly."
Aurora's blue eyes flickered, and for the first time since stepping into this place, her amusement dimmed. The mask slipped, just for a moment, revealing something raw underneath, something that looked almost like respect.
She was testing me, pushing me, trying to scare me into running before she had to tell me the truth. The same way she'd tested everyone who'd tried to wake her.
I clenched my fist, my blood slicking the hilt of my dagger. I'd come here to end the curse, to free the village that lived in fear of Vaelora Manor. But the stories weren't adding up. The curse wasn't what I'd been told.
"This isn't just a curse," I whispered, the realization hitting me like a weight to the chest. "It's feeding off you. You're not just its victim… you're its power source."
Aurora's expression didn't change, but something shifted in the nightmare. The mirror fractured, a thin crack splitting down the middle, the world around us pulsing like a second heartbeat. I could feel her surprise, a ripple in the fabric of the nightmare itself.
"The stories said a Sorceress cursed you for your beauty, condemned you to sleep for eternity," I continued, the pieces fitting together in my mind. "But that's not it, is it? The kiss was never meant to wake you. It was meant to keep you asleep."
The cracks in the mirror spread, spider-webbing across its surface. My reflection was gone now, replaced by fractured images of a garden, a castle, a figure in shadows with hands outstretched.
"The Sorceress never meant for anyone to take you away," I said, the realization hitting like a weight to the chest. "She wanted you trapped here. She wanted you to suffer."
Aurora exhaled, and this time, there was no amusement in her voice. "She wanted me to be hers," she corrected, quiet, careful, and far too steady. "And when I refused, she made sure no one else could have me, either."
The ground trembled beneath us, the nightmare screaming in protest as something unseen cracked wide open. Around us, the air itself seemed to tear, a sound like fabric ripping echoing through the chamber. The weight pressing against my chest lifted, just enough for me to take a real breath.
Aurora turned toward me fully now, something unreadable flickering behind her blue gaze. She was letting me see it… the truth buried beneath the sharp edges of her smile, beneath the amusement she wielded like a weapon.
"You're different from the others," she said, her voice lower, almost gentle. "They came to rescue a princess. To claim a prize. You came to understand the curse."
She took a step closer, and this time I didn't back away.
The mirror behind me shattered completely, glass dissolving into mist that swirled around our ankles.
In its place, the wall bore a painting. Aurora in her sleeping state, surrounded by thorns and darkness, a Sorceress with hands cupped around her face like she was something precious to be hoarded.
"The curse was meant to keep me weak," Aurora said, her gaze steady on mine. "A sleeping beauty waiting for rescue. But a century is a long time to dream. A long time to learn the architecture of nightmares."
She wasn't just trapped in the nightmare. She was becoming something else entirely. Something born from the curse, but no longer bound by it.
I felt it then—a shift in the air, a change in pressure that made my ears pop. The room around us began to dissolve, the edges blurring, reality reasserting itself. Aurora was letting me go. For now.
"You should leave before the door closes," she said, a faint smile touching her lips. "But I think you'll be back. You want answers more than you want to put a silver blade through my heart."
She was right, damn her. I'd come here to end a curse, to kill a monster. Instead, I'd found something far more complex—a woman trapped between victim and villain, and a curse that had become a source of power rather than imprisonment.
I didn't know what Aurora had become after a century in the nightmare. But I knew I couldn't stop until I understood. Even if it meant risking never being able to return to the reality I came from.