7. Bella

The clock in front of me didn”t move. The ticking hands were frozen to what I presumed to be the moment the castle had been cursed—right on the hour the cuckoo bird would come out to sing its hourly song. The bird sat mockingly on its extended perch as it waited to go back inside the clock. It had waited for a very long time.

I”d long since passed the area of the castle that was the most unkempt. Here, in the further reaches of the enormous keep, the layer of dust and grime became thicker. The curtains and art darkened and tattered over time, yet they were still pristine under the dirt.

Hours later, hours I”d spent exploring the castle and hiding as the anger passed and mortification took over, no one had come for me. Either because they thought I was a raving mad woman, or they just didn”t care what I did, I didn”t know.

Soon after, I found myself deep in the bowels of the keep. I was lost, and night was encroaching. There were many odd things about this castle.

Piles of old furniture scattered throughout, some stacked with blankets and coverings folded on top as if to keep them safe, others in things like chairs and beds. The castle seemed endless. Even the Vampire Court”s castle had not been this large.

It had been the paintings and stained-glass windows that had stopped me in my tracks in awe. They were paintings of dragons and people, royalty. Generations of families shared similar features with crowns on their heads, and in the background were always dragons—dragons soaring in the sky or nestled close by, dragons that lit the landscape up with fire and others with ice.

I stood there wondering if the royal family had their own dragon, similar to what witches had in a familiar. Dragon shifters had once been part of the sun goddess”s creatures, but they had long since gone out of existence. Long before these paintings had been done. So perhaps they had the last dragons that soared the skies and had bound the dragons to them.

Shifters were all created by the sun goddess when she gave her creatures a mortal form. Not all creatures chose to take a mortal form, but the ones that did soon became the shifters that now populated the two clans. Even the wolves were once Sun”s creation, but the wolves” strong pull toward the full moon led them to the moon goddess.

I watched the paned glass windows tell the story of how the moon goddess had taken the wolves from the sun goddess, and how they’d gone to war. Two celestial sisters fighting over their creations like children.

In one glass pane, a beautiful bird made of fire flew through the sky. As I stared at the firebird, the phoenix stretched its beautiful orange and red wings out fiercely like it was dying to touch the sun. I felt my heart race and my breath still as I stared at it. I reached out, ready to stand on tiptoe and touch it. Only it was too high up for my short stature. The more I stared at it, the more drawn to it I felt. Something about the bird called to me. Something that seemed to niggle in the back of my skull, like a familiarity I couldn”t even begin to understand.

Finally, I tore my gaze from the beautiful bird and studied the two celestials, depicted with pale hair similar to mine. Both were as different as day and night, yet they were two sides of the same coin. Both were in a war against the other, with mortals and supernatural creatures caught in the middle of the destruction wrought by their hatred for each other.

I snorted as I studied the story depicted. It showed more dragons as they fought in a raging battle with the other side. The creatures of the night and those of the day in an epic battle that would devastate the lands, leaving both sides decimated.

In the following stained-glass window, the vibrant colors of crimson, emerald, and gold, just to name a few, portrayed the aftermath. The land burned around a beautiful moonlight-haired woman, clearly depicted as the sun goddess, as the celestial halo shone around her head. She was on her knees among a river of blood. Her face captured a sorrow so deep my breath caught in my throat.

My eyes fixed on one pane—a goddess damning a ruined kingdom. Ominous words flowed beneath:

”When crimson stains the silver moon, the end shall come. Only the sacrifice of the cursed beloved will renew what was undone.”

A cryptic prophecy seemed to hover in the air, but I pushed the thought away. I had to unravel the castle”s mysteries, no matter the cost. I reached out to touch the goddess”s image only to snatch my hand back, fearful that she would step right out and unleash her rage on me. She would see me as one of the demons who had helped destroy her and her creations, though I was a product of one of her vampires.

I needed to understand this castle and these people if I was ever going to escape and find a place far away from here, the village, and my father. Maybe I could find a job in the human village to the north.

My memories flooded me as I remembered cowering in the dark while a woman just as beautiful and tall had passed me, unleashing her anger on my uncle”s court. The same pale hair that seemed to glow floated behind her. A shiver ran up my back, and I swallowed hard, pushing down the sinking feeling that everything was more connected than I cared to acknowledge.

I knew the story, or at least the one the victorious Vampire Court told. Moon clan”s creatures were made for death and destruction, rising victorious from the ashes. Because they were made from curses and dark magic, they cursed the kingdom to be forgotten, and it had been. I thought about the story Nan would tell me, but it was so long ago, and the details were fuzzy.

I shook my head, trying to force the memory of the story to the surface, only to become frustrated. I moved on, shaking my head.

A young girl was following, with crimson hair and a grimace on her face as she stood almost defiantly in the face of a new figure. The moon goddess with her long pale hair blowing in the wind and a heart in her hand. A viscous smile twisted her lips up in cruelty. It was then I saw the girl was bleeding from the spot her heart would be.

The next scene was that of war, a much bloodier and vicious one at the end of the scene. It showed the moon goddess on her knees, holding a different girl. Destruction was all around her. Yet, she seemed oblivious because her attention was on the young girl with midnight hair and pale skin in her arms. On the moon goddess”s face was vengeance.

I moved on, studying the images. One showed a castle much like this one, tangled in thorns. Above, a lone red dragon stood guard. Too few lived here now—Lore, Alastair, Alysha, and her son. I wondered again if the dragon confined them within these walls.

I found myself thrust into a memory from so long ago that rained down upon me as the wails of burning vampires in agony from engulfing flames had seared my ears. Smoke and the smell of sickly burnt meat and flames had burned my nose as I coughed and searched through the devastation, calling out for my Nan. She had been close to me, but then there had been destruction everywhere I had turned.

As the smoke had cleared, I’d seen the carnage. The palace had been in ruins. A fire had swept through whatever structures remained like a vengeful god, as if it had been seeking out life to snuff out with a mind of its own.

I’d heard the screams. Nan was nowhere, and I had been scared. So I’d run. I had run until I was out of the palace and the flames and then I’d hid. Just as I’d seen her, she’d had an ethereal glow and long moonlight hair. Her skin was pale, a cream, and so powerful. It was as if she had brought the might of the moon with her as she’d moved closer to the palace, a wicked grin on her lips.

”Let”s see them break a curse after true death.” She’d cackled in a way that had my hands pressed against my ears in pain. It had been the last thing I’d seen before I’d passed out and then woke up to the utter destruction of the palace.

Nothing and no one had been left alive. All that had remained were ruins and a burnt-out shell, and the lingering wrath of the moon goddess remained.

I found myself in the present as that one memory, long forgotten, resurfaced, leaving me feeling weak and more confused. It had been the moon goddess, Nyx, all along that had destroyed the Vampire Court.

What had happened that would cause her to turn on her own creatures?

Why had I been brought here? To break the curse? To defeat the dragon? Fear slithered down my spine. The only way to break the curse would be to slay the dragon.