Chapter 2

ORINA

I was awake. Finally awake after what felt like weeks, and to what? To Ezekiel ordering an execution. After my frantic flight down the steps earlier, I didn’t have the energy to get out of my bed.

How had I gotten back to my room?

Ezekiel…

I remembered him bracing me to stop me from falling. The look of horror on his face. Horror that I’d caught him sentencing an innocent to death.

A hollow ache filled my chest.

After all the time we’d spent together in our dream vista. After all the things he’d said…

How could I have been so stupid as to believe him?

Was it just another game to him? Playing with my emotions? Softening me to make me forget the atrocities he’d committed?

I was a fool.

A soft knock on the door pulled me out of my thoughts. “Who is it?”

“Hemlock.”

“And Ordell.”

I sat up in bed and wiped at my wet eyes.“Come in.”

They slipped into the room like shadowy messengers and closed the door behind them.

Ordell hovered at the foot of my bed, hands in his jogger pockets, shoulders hunched as if he wanted to make himself smaller, while Hemlock crossed to the lamp and turned it up, dispelling some of the shadows that crawled across my room.

“How are you?” Ordell asked.

“I’m not sure. I’m awake, so I’m healed but…What was Ezekiel doing? Why order that woman killed?”

“Did you get a look at her?” Hemlock asked.

I’d caught a glimpse of dark hair, but that was all. “Not really. Why?”

“It’s her,” Ordell said. “The woman who always comes.”

His word landed like a fist to my solar plexus, leaving me momentarily breathless.

She was here.

The woman who could save him. The one we thought had died. The one who was supposed to help him find his humanity and heal him. She was here, so…That was a good thing. I should be relieved. Happy even. We all should, so why was panic clawing at my insides, and why were they looking at me as if they were delivering bad news?

Because…Because…Her being here meant that I was no longer needed.

“Orina?” Ordell rounded the bed and sat by my hip. “We’re so grateful for everything you’ve done, but?—”

“You want me to back off. I get it.” Damn, my mouth was dry. “You need her to do her thing and break the curse. But he just ordered her to be killed. You heard that? And I…I stopped him because…because he listens to me. We have a connection. I’ve built a connection. I can help him. I know I can.”

What was I doing? I’d never wanted this responsibility. I could walk away now if I wanted. Why was I fighting to stay? Why did the thought of leaving tear a pit inside my chest?

“Orina, she’s the only person that can help him. That can save him,” Ordell said.

“Then why did you ask me to try? Why did you push me toward him, hmmm ?”

Ordell pressed his lips together and looked across at Hemlock.

Hemlock crossed the room, grabbed my dresser chair, and carried it over. He leaned forward, forearms braced on his thighs, and looked me in the eyes. “We asked you to try because…because we thought you were her.”

They’d thought I was Ezekiel’s curse breaker, but I wasn’t. I was just his watcher.

Unimportant now that they had who they truly needed, and now…now they wanted me gone.

“She’s a woman from our past reborn over and over,” Ordell said. “Her name was Arabella. She was nanny to Ezekiel’s children after his wife Mary passed. Although his union with Mary hadn’t been a love match, he’d cared for her, and her loss left him bereft. Arabella filled the void with sunshine and laughter. She was sweet and generous with a wicked sense of humor when she allowed. She brought life to our home and to Ezekiel. He spent hours in her company, watching her with the children or planting herbs in the garden. He’d draw her incessantly.”

The woman in the sketches had been Arabella. “He fell in love with her, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” Hemlock said. “As did we all.”

I stared at him dumbfounded. “You all loved her?”

“We did, but we agreed that none would approach her. That we would keep her for as long as we were able and be happy for her once she found a match.”

“We knew we couldn’t all have her,” Ordell said. “And it would cause dissention if she chose one of us while the other two pined.”

“But Arabella never found love,” Hemlock said, his tone bitter. “She was killed by Loviator.”

What? “How?”

“When Loviator took Ezekiel, Arabella tried to stop her. The brave, stupid girl grabbed hold of him just as he was pulled into the void. We lost them both that day. When we finally succeeded in pulling Ezekiel out, Arabella was dead. Something Loviator delighted in telling us.”

“She almost broke free with Ezekiel,” Hemlock said.

“Arabella?”

“No, Loviator,” Ordell clarified. “The bitch almost got out of her prison, but a great power intervened to stop her.” He paused and took a breath. “The white wings.”

I stared at him, stunned. “ My white wings?”

“One and the same,” Ordell said. “Three of them descended to force her back into her prison. There was a battle of power, light against dark, but the damage we’d done to the fabric of her prison meant that even if they put her back into her box, they couldn’t guarantee she’d stay behind the walls. They’d have to fight constantly to hold her there, and Loviator too would get no reprieve, and so they came to an understanding. They agreed upon a curse to decide both her fate and that of this world.”

“Ezekiel’s curse?”

“Yes. He was to forget his past and be a slave to bloodlust so that he might lose his humanity. They decided on seven hundred years. Seven centuries for him to find himself again. To find his humanity, and if he failed, then Loviator would be free.

“He would be truly immortal. Unable to die. Unable to find peace until the curse ended. But any battle between light and dark needs a compass. Arabella was that compass. Murdered by Loviator, her soul infected with darkness, she remained in limbo. She was chosen to decide Ezekiel’s fate, and thus the fate of us all.”

The white wings were involved. They’d helped forge this curse? It was a lot to take in, and Arabella…a woman reborn was the key. “Okay, so Arabella is born again and again and somehow finds her way here?”

“Yes. She’s drawn here. They meet, and then…then we hope. Every time we hope.”

Seven opportunities to save Ezekiel. Seven chances. “And she failed every time?”

They exchanged glances, and it was Hemlock that spoke. “Yes. We’ve been forced to kill her every time.”

“What the hell?”

“You see, there’s more to the curse,” Ordell said. “One last wicked term placed there by Loviator.” He sighed. “Ezekiel is truly immortal and cannot be killed by any means except by the hands of Arabella. In her hands, even a dinner knife carefully aimed would be lethal to Ezekiel. And if he dies, then…well it’s an instant game over. Loviator goes free, no need to wait for the seven centuries to be up. No need to gamble on him finding his humanity.”

“But why would Arabella kill him? She loved him. I don’t understand.”

Ordell sighed. “Remember the darkness I mentioned that kept her in Limbo?” I nodded. “That’s Loviator’s touch. Her influence. It manifests each time as a violent hatred that builds over time. So far, it has always overcome Arabella, building faster than love can flower. Each time she’s been too weak to fight it, so each time we’ve had to end her. To start the cycle again.”

They had to kill her. The woman they’d loved once. Over and over. “I’m so sorry you had to do that.” Hemlock blinked in surprise, but Ordell merely smiled wearily, watching me and waiting until… “You thought I was her, which means…you were prepared to kill me.”

“Yes,” Hemlock said. “I would have done it.”

“O-kay…”

But I wasn’t the key. This woman Ariella was. Arabella reborn, she was back again. Another chance to save Ezekiel because she was connected to him. The woman he’d loved all those centuries ago. The woman who’d given her life to try and save him from Loviator.

If we were going to stop the evil goddess from breaking free, then I needed to do everything I could to help this incarnation of Arabella.

“What can I do to help?”

“Leave,” Hemlock said bluntly, and my stomach twisted.

Ordell shot him a glare, and when he spoke to me, his tone was soft. “If you want to help, you’ll have to leave Branwood and give Ariella time to get close to Ezekiel.”

Of course, that made sense. They needed space to grow close, so why did it feel like I was losing something? “I’ll leave in a few hours. I can go straight to the office. I mean, there’s so much to do. The cold ones…I need to help the chapter track them.”

“Ordell…” Hemlock gave him a pointed look.

Annoyance flared in my chest. “What is it now? Just tell me.”

“I told you that Loviator’s gift allowed me to communicate with beasts and commune with nature,” Ordell said. “But with time my ability grew, allowing me to dream into being new beasts. The cold ones were my first creation. At one time they belonged to me.” He sighed. “I created them.”