17. Chapter 17
Yareli stumbled out of the cave with blood running down her arm.
She collapsed. Her only options—two nearly impossible tasks—mocked her, cackling in the Curse Eater’s voice.
She registered August talking to her, but no sound reached her.
A moment later, his magic swept over her like a warm sunny day, gentle like the soft touch of a lover.
It was nothing like Tuom’s had been—dark and angry.
In contrast, August’s magic was familiar, like home.
She peered at him—a stranger to her current self—and was overwhelmed with a surge of gratefulness. Weird, intense attraction aside, he was a good friend. Her voice was soft when she shared the truth.
“August, I don’t think I can go home.”
He finished healing her and helped her up before asking, “What did the Curse Eater say?”
Unable to utter the words that felt like damnation, she shook her head and headed to her tent, seeking solitude.
She ran through the facts: The political balance in Izmari was hanging by a thread; no matter how much he deserved it, killing Tuom was out of the question.
For now. It made her furious and despondent.
Yareli wanted to kill him before she returned home.
However, as a potential catalyst to civil war, she wasn’t sure she should anymore. At least not now.
That left her with his blood. Since he wouldn’t willingly give it, she would have to use force. Drugging him was the best option. However, the logistics of slipping him a drug were too complex to make any sort of sense to her.
She bit her lip as helplessness stirred once more. There would be no crying until she was alone. She opened the flap of her tent, but she was stopped by August’s hand on her arm.
“Yareli.”
His gentle tone shook her resolve, and she thought of throwing her arms around him and letting her tears run free, but shame held her captive.
She didn’t want August to see the truth—that Tuom had broken her, violated her very soul by enslaving her to him; that even though she had escaped, he still haunted her every step. She removed his hand.
“Later,” she said.
Later, after she had finished crying and falling apart at the seams. She shut herself in her tent.
After a few hours, Yareli emerged from her seclusion, rubbing her swollen eyes.
She was no closer to a solution, but she had a tighter rein over her emotions.
August stood from the campfire and brought her a cup of water.
She took it, gulping down the much-needed liquid.
Thanking him, she sat by the fire. She wouldn’t avoid it any longer, wouldn’t allow herself to fall deeper into the spirals of despair.
She tucked her knees close to her chest, focusing on the solution instead of the nature of the curse inflicted on her.
It felt horrible, shameful, and once uttered, it would be irrevocably true.
If she rejected her reality, if she snuffed it, prevented it from taking its first breath, she could move forward, or so she hoped.
“There are two ways to break the curse. The first: kill Tuom.”
The words settled in the air like a chilling mist, dousing everything with bleakness. She glanced at August, who sat on the log next to her, sporting not a perturbed expression as she had expected, but a thoughtful one instead.
“It won't be easy murdering a First General, but it’s doable.”
Yareli blinked. It was a grand undertaking, one with strong consequences.
“You would kill him?”
“I would kill him regardless of whether it broke the curse or not.”
She stayed silent, ruminating on the concept of murder once again.
She had never thought of taking another’s life, but something had changed.
It changed the moment she had taken Bri’s dagger in her hands—when her rage, borne of hurt and pain, had shaken free of its bondage, nestling deep in her in a steady slumber and occasionally rumbling to remind her of its existence.
Yareli wanted to drive her blade into his heart until his life spluttered into nothingness.
Admitting it out loud still seemed wrong, like she would reveal her corruption to the world, but hearing August declare he would kill him reassured her it wasn’t a moral failing on her part—Tuom deserved death.
“Me too,” she whispered, pressing her legs closer to her.
August looked at her, the conviction clear on his face. “He deserves far more than death.”
She nodded. The relief she felt at his acceptance was brief, overshadowed by shame. Her mom would tell her to forgive and move on. Holding on to coraje would make her sick and bring about bad karma, but Yareli’s wrath argued this was an exception.
“What’s the second option?” August prompted.
“Bring the Curse Eater a vial of Tuom’s blood.”
“I suppose that might be the quickest way to break the curse. It would have the least repercussions if done correctly,” he muttered, rubbing his chin.
Yareli stared at him, astounded. He acted as if neither option would pose a significant problem.
It seemed ridiculous how murder could be such a trivial thing.
She tittered, then laughed, and soon she couldn’t stop.
The looming, dark cloud over her was lifted.
There was nothing August couldn’t do, nothing he wouldn’t do to get her home.
With him, she might make it back. When she finally stopped guffawing, she smiled at him.
“Thank you.”
He met her eyes, and her heart thudded in response.
The greens and browns of his eyes swirled in the campfire’s light, reminding Yareli of her favorite caramel green apple lollipop.
It had a sticky caramel that took forever to lick off to reveal her favorite part—the sour, green apple.
She shuddered at the thought of him baring himself to her and imagined running her tongue along his chest, wondering if he’d taste sweet.
When he spoke, the words ran across her skin, leaving an electric current in their wake.
“I will get you home.”
His plump lips glistened in the light, drawing her attention to their soft curves.
Desire overpowered logic, and she cupped his cheek with her palm.
Soft, warm. He was so unlike the icy shell she had ascribed to him a few days ago.
August froze. His breaths, however, gave him away.
Rapid and short, they mirrored her own. She leaned toward him until their foreheads were close enough to brush.
“Tell me,” she said. “Tell me why I feel like this.”
His hot breath skimmed across her lips. “Like what?”
“Like, kissing you is the only answer.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes.”
Yareli waited—an agonizing feat considering the rush in her veins and her incessant need. It shouted at her to close the distance and suckle on his plump, pink bottom lip. But she waited. She wanted him to take the final step. She closed her eyes.
The whisper of a touch against her lips.
A groan.
Shuffling.
Cool air met her palm, and she opened her eyes.
“I can’t,” August said, running his hand through his hair. “Not while your memories are missing.”
Yareli protested. “They’re not missing.”
He raised an eyebrow at her.
“Okay, they’re messed up a little, but I remember you.
I know this is what I would have wanted before!
” The words flew from her mouth without much thought, and she felt a little foolish saying it when she, in fact, did not know if it was true.
What she did know, however, was that she wanted to kiss him now.
August’s eyebrows scrunched downward, giving him a pained expression.
“I know what I saw yesterday.”
She clamped her mouth shut, looking away, and saying, “Leo and I aren’t anything. He’s hot one moment, and cold the next. I’m free to do as I want.”
He looked unconvinced, unmovable like the mountain they were standing on. She stood up, pointing her chin at him.
“Fine. I’ll remember first. You can’t run from me then, August.”
His lips curled up. It was the first smile she had seen on him since they were reunited, but it was the kind of smile born of pain—the one people sported at funerals.
“I won’t run away.”
“Good,” she replied. Then, she stomped to her tent, not caring that she was acting childish.
Her cheeks burned. So he had seen her with Leo.
She groaned; having boy troubles in a magical land had probably not been on her checklist, but she was here now, and she’d be damned if she didn’t get kissed once.
The following morning, Yareli woke up cranky, flipping the bird to the Curse Eater’s lair as they passed it.
The Curse Eater had enjoyed her torment.
Now that she had confronted it and survived, she was no longer frightened.
She stuck her tongue out for good measure.
August waited for her by the trailhead, his lean figure striking in the morning sun.
With his dark hiking pants that accentuated his slim waist, he looked jaw-droppingly delectable. Too bad she couldn’t have a taste.
He watched her approach, and an image flashed through her mind.
He had waited for her before, except that time he had worn a smile—a happy one.
His eyes had been bright in the morning sun, and his hair had been pulled back in a ponytail.
She closed her eyes; the loss was a pang in her chest. He was right; there were important things she needed to remember before she acted on impulse.
She set her shoulders back and nodded at him to begin the descent.
No one was around when Yareli and August arrived at the cabin. She rubbed her throat, coaxing away the nausea, and looked around the living room.
“Where’d they go?” she asked.
August handed her backpack to her. “Erick is gathering more herbs for you. Bri has been dispatched to watch the Earth Court’s movements, but I’m not sure about Leo. Regardless, I’ve let Leo and Erick know we’ve arrived.”
“No one told me about Bri.”