Chapter 9
Belladonna
I gasped awake, my lungs burning as if I'd been drowning, not sleeping.
The stone floor beneath me was cold and unyielding.
Real in a way the nightmare never managed to be.
My fingers scraped against ancient dust, my body aching with wounds both remembered and real.
I'd escaped. But as my vision cleared, I saw Aurora beside me, her body present but her eyes closed, her mind still caught in that endless dark. The victory turned to ash in my mouth.
"Aurora," I whispered, my voice scraping against my throat.
The air in Vaelora Manor felt heavy with age and magic, but it wasn't the suffocating pressure of the nightmare.
This was real… the weight of a hundred years of abandonment, the scent of decay and forgotten things.
Motes of dust danced in thin streams of moonlight filtering through broken windows.
My body remembered this place even as my mind struggled to separate reality from the nightmare's illusions.
Every breath sent daggers through my ribs.
I touched my side gingerly, feeling the sticky warmth of blood—not the phantom pain of the nightmare, but actual wounds.
I'd carried them back with me, somehow. The rules had never been clear.
The nightmare and reality… they weren't separate things anymore. Not for us.
Aurora lay perfectly still beside me, golden hair spilling across the stone like liquid light.
Her chest rose and fell in a slow, hypnotic rhythm…
alive, but not awake. Not really here. My hands trembled as I reached for her, fingers brushing against her cheek.
Her skin was cool, bloodless, perfect as a porcelain doll.
"Aurora, please," I said, louder this time. I shook her shoulder, gently at first, then harder. "Wake up."
But she didn't stir. I'd thought she'd followed me out, but her mind… her consciousness, her soul, whatever you wanted to call it… remained trapped. I remembered the Sorceress's last words to me, that smile that wasn't a smile, more a wound carved into her face.
"Did you think I would let you have her, Belladonna? Did you think I would let her go so easily? You may escape, but she is mine. She has always been mine. And will forever remain mine."
A cold, suffocating realization settled into my bones.
The Sorceress had known. She had planned for this from the beginning.
The nightmare had released me only to make her torment worse—to watch me return to freedom while leaving Aurora behind.
To make her feel the failure of coming so close and still losing me.
"No," I breathed, shaking my head. "No, this isn't over."
I gathered Aurora's limp form into my arms, cradling her against my chest. Her head lolled against my shoulder, her breath ghosting against my neck in a cruel mimicry of intimacy.
She looked so peaceful. So empty. Not the Aurora who had fought beside me, who had chosen me, who had defied a century of pain and manipulation to help me escape.
Fury built beneath my skin, sharper than anything I had ever felt before. It wasn't the hot, quick anger I was used to. The kind that flared and died. This was something colder, deeper, more dangerous. Something that felt like it could sustain me through whatever came next.
"She let me go," I said to Aurora's unhearing ears, "but she made a mistake."
I shifted, laying Aurora gently back on the bed. My entire body protested the movement, pain lancing through my side. I'd lost blood, too much, probably. My vision swam, the moonlight blurring into streaks across my eyes. I blinked hard, forcing myself to focus.
The bond between us hadn't broken. I could still feel it… a thin, golden thread connecting us across whatever chasm separated us now. The blood bond. It had defied the nightmare itself, had given us a connection the Sorceress couldn't sever. It was still there, still humming between us, even now.
Maybe it was enough. Maybe I could use it one more time.
I leaned over Aurora, studying her face.
In the moonlight, she looked almost like she had when I'd first found her—the sleeping beauty, untouched by time or pain.
But I knew better now. I knew the monster and the woman both, knew the century of suffering that had shaped her into something both terrible and wonderful.
She wasn't a princess waiting to be saved.
She was a queen who had fought for her freedom.
And now I would fight for hers.
My heart pounded as I braced myself on one arm, hovering over her. If the nightmare had bound her through magic, then perhaps… perhaps I could bind her back to me. The blood bond had been forged through a kiss; maybe it could be completed the same way.
This wasn't a curse-breaking fairytale. This wasn't some desperate, foolish hope based on stories. This was something deeper, something tied to the magic that had connected us from the beginning. A promise I refused to break.
"Come back to me," I whispered, lowering my face to hers.
The moment our lips met, something cracked through me, sharp and electric, like lightning striking bone. The air rippled around us, the very fabric of reality shuddering. For a terrifying moment, I thought I had made a mistake… that I had been too late, or that the Sorceress's magic was too strong.
But then, a sharp inhale beneath me. A flicker of movement against my mouth. A tremor running through the body beneath my hands.
Aurora gasped against my lips, her body jerking upward as if pulled by invisible strings. Her fingers suddenly gripped my arm, nails digging into my flesh with a vise-like hold. I pulled back just enough to see her face.
Icy blue eyes snapped open, wide and startled.
Alive. Something broken and ragged escaped my throat, caught between a sob and a laugh.
I didn't care about the pain anymore, didn't care about anything except the fact that she was here, she was back.
I pulled her into me, crushing her against my chest as if I could keep her from slipping away again by force of will alone.
"You came back," she whispered, her voice barely more than air against my neck.
I tightened my hold, my forehead pressing against hers. Nothing would stop me from finding her. "I told you," I murmured. "I wasn't leaving without you."
Aurora clung to me, her fingers digging into my back, her breath coming in shallow, uneven gasps. She was shaking, or maybe I was. Maybe we both were trembling with the realization of what we'd done, what we'd escaped, and what still lay ahead.
"I thought—" She swallowed hard, her words halting. "When I felt you slip away, I thought it was over. I thought she had won."
"Never," I said, the word hard and sharp between us.
I held her tighter, feeling the warmth returning to her skin, the life flowing back into her.
The nightmare was behind us, but the battle wasn't over.
The Sorceress had let me go, but she had never expected me to drag Aurora back with me.
She had underestimated what the blood bond could do, what we could do together.
Slowly, carefully, Aurora pulled back, her eyes searching my face. Her gaze dropped to my side, where blood had soaked through my shirt.
"You're hurt," she said, her voice stronger now.
I shook my head. "It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me." Her fingers brushed against the wound, gentle but firm. "We need to tend to this."
"Later," I said. "First, we need to get somewhere safe. She'll know you're gone. She'll come for you."
Fear flickered across Aurora's face, but it was quickly replaced by something harder, colder. A century of nightmare had taught her how to wear masks; I watched as she donned one now, slipping into the regal calm that had both terrified and fascinated me from the beginning.
"Yes," Aurora agreed. "She will."
I helped her to her feet, steadying her as she swayed slightly.
The bond between us thrummed, stronger now, more complete.
I could feel her heartbeat echoing my own, could sense the edges of her thoughts brushing against mine.
The magic that connected us had deepened, cementing itself into something permanent.
"Can you walk?" I asked.
Aurora took a testing step, then another. "Yes," she said. "I'm stronger than I look, Belladonna."
Despite everything, I smiled. "I know."
We moved slowly through the abandoned halls of Vaelora Manor, past crumbling walls and rotting furnishings.
The moonlight cast everything in silver and shadow, transforming the decay into something almost beautiful.
Aurora's hand remained firmly in mine, our fingers interlaced, neither of us willing to break the contact.
"She never thought I would leave," Aurora said suddenly, her voice quiet in the stillness. "She believed I was hers completely. That I wouldn't want to escape."
I glanced at her. "But you did."
"Because of you." She squeezed my hand. "You changed everything. You made me remember what it was to want something for myself."
We paused at a broken window, looking out at the tangled garden beyond. The real world seemed both strange and familiar after so long in the nightmare. The colors were duller, the edges sharper, but there was a solidity to everything that grounded me.
"She's going to come for us," I said, not a question.
Aurora nodded. "Yes. The nightmare was her creation, her domain. She will not forgive its breaking."
I pulled away just enough to meet her gaze, determination settling deep in my bones. "She's going to pay for what she did to you."
For the first time, Aurora didn't flinch away from the idea of revenge. Instead, her eyes hardened, glacial blue turned to ice.
"Yes," she agreed. "She will."
The Sorceress thought she had won. Thought the game was over, the pieces returned to their proper places. She was wrong. She had created a nightmare to imprison a princess. What emerged was a queen ready for war, and a hunter who would never stop fighting.
The battle wasn't over. It was just beginning.