20. Bella

Weeks passed, and I stayed away from Lore. The veil he had lifted from my eyes showed me the truth of what had been hidden in magic. Yet, the next day, I saw only furniture again, but the images didn”t leave me when I closed my eyes. I saw them as I walked the castle grounds, searching once again for a way out. I realized now that no matter how much I said I was going to kill Lore, I couldn”t.

If it hadn”t been for Alysha, Billy, and Alastair, I”d have gone mad as the time passed with little changes from day to day. Billy would join me on my walks in the morning as I tested different areas of the wall. I finally got into the guard tower, where I found myself face to face with a huge and sharp thorn. The doors remained glued together. Nothing happened when I used a weapon, such as an ax. No chips in the wood, not a change.

Apparently, the only destruction was caused by the enchanted objects within the castle.

”You”re holding the ax wrong. Not that it will change anything on the door,” Alastair”s deep voice noted from behind me. ”I have a better idea for you and that ax.”

I stopped my swing to stare at him. ”What?” I asked, hoping he had a better way to break down the door. ”Alastair, I need to understand what happened.”

”We need wood.” He shrugged, ignoring my last words. His eyes crinkled up at the sides as he smiled warmly.

”Why did zombies attack?” I asked again. ”Why are there people stuck as furniture?” I asked, planting my feet in the dirt. ”I need answers.”

”I assume Nyx is getting restless that the curse hasn”t consumed Lore yet.” Alastair swung the axe from hand to hand as if this was a typical day, answering with a simple solution. ”It”s been a while, but sometimes she likes to send zombies during Lore”s one night off as a dragon to remind him of who cursed him.” He paused, testing the weight of the axe as his eyes met mine, and a somberness darkened them, ”She doesn”t, for one second, want him not to know even an ounce of suffering. Maybe she senses there is a change.” He shrugged. ”Would you mind helping me out? I seem to have misplaced my other ax.”

I knew from the look on his face of a stern, unyielding wall he would say no more.

I wanted to snort and say that was highly unlikely, but I felt the need for company if I was honest with myself. I had long since tired of staring into the empty spaces, waiting for Lore to appear, yet not having the guts to go to the library to find him.

The shame and guilt of chopping a person to pieces in front of him still haunted my every waking and sleeping moment. The screams of the dead pulled me from my sleep in a cold sweat some nights. The other nights, I was haunted by my father”s sharp hand and harsh words.

Soon, we stood near a stump where several logs lay ready to be split as wood. I debated how the wood could be here when all the trees were so far away past the wall, but I remembered what Alysha said—every day, the day started over. The land was replenished and replaced with what was needed.

I followed Alastair and picked up the axes. He placed the wood down, ready to be split.

I lost myself in the motion and the task as my mind calmed. Soon, the motion of the ax began to echo in my mind. With every hit, I saw the horrific scene again—only this time, I was hacking away at the person—the man who had seen his end.

Anger surged through me, and I hit the wood harder and faster as flashes of the scene ripped through my mind. My breaths became heavier, and my heart was pounding so hard I was sure it would pound right out of my chest.

They had kept this from me, kept me in the dark, and, as a result, I now had blood on my hands.

With a scream, I dropped the ax as it connected with the wood and fell to my knees, sobbing into my hands.

Alastair stood silently watching for a long moment before he sighed and stepped forward, dropping a comforting hand onto my shoulder. ”I know you must blame us, and you have a right to. This place, the curse… there are things we are bound to that we cannot do or say.”

”I need to know more about the curse.” I sniffled and then wiped my eyes as I took deep gulping breaths to slow my pounding heart and the way it ached at the pain I”d unknowingly caused. It was another reason I knew I was never meant to be a vampire. The idea of taking a life and living off the pain of another sickened me. I”d live and die as a mortal with the sun on my face daily. Now I had blood on my hands. Innocent blood.

The irony was the fact I thought I could kill Lore. How I”d planned it when I was looking for a reason to vilify him and justify a reason to. Yet, I couldn”t. I felt the sobs threaten to erupt once again, and I swallowed them down, rose, and dusted off my legs.

”Where is he?” I demanded.

I found Lore in the armory, sharpening a sword. After weeks of avoiding him, he was purposeful in his movements. When my foot hit the room”s stone, his ears seemed to almost perk up, and his head tilted ever so slightly my way. Even from a distance, I could have sworn I”d seen his nostrils flare.

I stood in the doorway, unsure if I should turn around and leave him be or do as I had planned to and demand answers that weren”t in the journal. Scouring the castle had left me with questions that remained unanswered, and I was tired of being left in the dark. It seemed odd that whenever I turned around, it was here in the armory that I found him as if lost in thought or returning to a familiar place.

”Where were you when the curse took effect? There was obviously a ball going on. Were you not dancing with the others?” I demanded as I stepped forward, tilting my head up. I could feel my hands bunching into the tunic at my side, but I forced them to flex as I waited.

”I was here,” he said gruffly, as if he hadn”t spoken in the weeks that I”d avoided him, as if he too was punishing himself.

”Why didn”t you tell me?” I pleaded, my fingers squeezing tightly into fists as I felt my nails digging into my palms.

Lore opened his mouth as if to speak, his gaze colliding with mine. So much was spoken in one look. So much anguish, so much pain. ”The less you know, the safer you are.”

”They know.” I thrust my arm out toward the doorway. ”Why not me?” My body rigidified as I prepared to bury my heels into the stone beneath my feet. I would have my answers.

Suddenly, Lore stood and advanced on me as I stepped back. Another fresh anger ripped through me, and he caged me with his anger. Only the rage began to simmer as I looked into his gaze, the blue flashing between crimson. ”You were never meant to come. Never meant to be real.” He searched my face as if sketching it to memory. A tender hand reached out and brushed a wayward white strand from my face. ”Your hair is like moonlight,” he breathed before pain flashed across his features, gone within a second, making me think that perhaps I had imagined it.

”Tell me,” I pleaded, my voice soft and vulnerable.

”To break the curse, I would have to make a sacrifice I”m not willing to make. Not now, not ever.” He stared into my eyes with an intensity I didn”t understand. His gaze turned crimson, and my dragon stared back at me. ”We”ve waited for you for a very long time.”

A terrible understanding washed over me. The prophecy I”d read—Lore must sacrifice his true love to break the curse. He refused to pay such a price, even for his kingdom. Confusion seemed my constant companion because he would never find this love. I surely wasn”t it, no matter what his dragon believed. I couldn”t be.

I shook my head, confused. ”You—you hate me. Lore hates me.”

He moved closer, his eyes intense and laser-focused as he leaned toward me. His hands went out to caress my face as I felt my traitorous body arching into his touch, turning my face into it. When I realized what I was doing, I snapped my head back, which was a mistake as it brought our lips only a breath apart. He trailed his lips lightly over mine, soft and gentle, before he pulled back.

”He doesn”t hate you; he fears you. Dragons… we know what is ours in an instant, but men, mortals, are harder. Lore”s still catching up.” His deep voice rumbled before his crimson eyes faded back to blue.

”Do you know when he will take over? Are you both connected together again?” I asked.

”No, we are still disconnected but in all the years in the castle he”s never been able to show himself in my mortal body until you came.” Lore leaned forward to breathe me in, making me arch my back. He pushed off the wall and stepped back.

I realized he had taken my anger from me, distracting me. I refused to be distracted. I planted my hands on my hips and glared, forcing my thundering heart to calm down and thoughts to quickly scream at me to kiss him.

”So you know that your dragon claimed me, right?”

”I suspected as much.” Lore nodded, ran his hands through his dark auburn hair, and a deep sigh escaped him.

”What was that with the undead the other night?” I demanded. Again, I grabbed hold of my anger, refusing to leave this alone and just trust him. ”Why do they attack, and why are all those people suspended there? Are you the only one that can see them that way?”

Horror hit me as I remembered the broken porcelain pieces on the throne before entering the ballroom. He had stared at that throne with anguish so great I had felt it coming off him in waves. Was he forced to look upon his parents every day, stuck in between the state of life and death?

”Goddess,” I breathed as the realization hit me. ”This curse; it”s to torture you. It”s all meant for you to suffer.”

His anguished-filled eyes met mine again. ”You will suffer too if you don”t find a way to leave.”

I straightened my spine. ”The attacks?” I demanded in a firm voice, refusing to fall into fear and anxiety. ”Why?”

”There haven”t been any attacks like that in centuries. I suspect the curse is close to an end.” I watched as Lore sat, but his words were sad and despondent, as if the end wasn”t good. It was as if he feared it as much as he desperately wanted it.

”Will they attack again?”

He nodded. ”Most likely.”

”Train me as you promised and tell me as much as you can about the curse as you can.” I walked toward the swords, hesitating momentarily in the flash of memory of the last time I”d held a sword.

”I am sorry for that…” He trailed off, watching me. Seeing far too much. ”I shouldn”t have shown you.”

”They say ignorance is bliss, and I”m one to agree, but if you hadn”t, I wouldn”t understand the gravity of the curse. That your entire kingdom is frozen in time, hidden from all the world but you.”

I paused as I forced my hand to clasp around the sword and pulled it free. A thick silence seemed to stretch out between us as I studied the sword, forcing myself to accept the memory of the blood and gore and what I”d done and to let it go.

All I could do now was try to make up for it and make amends for my ignorance. ”I refuse to live in the dark.”