Cursed: Briar Rose's Story - Kaylin Lee Page 0,41

movement made my burns crack with such pain I could barely breathe. What had just happened?

“She’s awake! He did it.”

I looked around, skin aflame with every motion. I wore a silver dress with a skirt so long, it pooled on the ground beneath the bed. Three Sentinels beside the bed fought glowing, silver vines that whipped around me like a many-headed snake. Between dodges, they pulled at my dress, ripping it free from the bed in frantic pulls. Corbin and Eugene, I recognized. And Tavar.

The dark ballroom was lit up by a mass of writhing vines, each one with a black-uniformed Sentinel in its grip. Some groaned in pain, but most were limp and silent, the rise and fall of their breathing the only indication that they were still alive.

A long, blonde braid caught my eye. “Mom?” My lips formed the words, but no sound came from my throat.

She was unconscious at the edge of the ballroom, a huge vine wrapped around her legs and upper body like a snake. Dad was asleep beside her, one hand on the vine that dug into her, the other on his own, like the curse had taken him as he fought to free them both.

“Got it.” Eugene sliced the vine closest to me just as Corbin pulled the last of my dress free from the bed.

“Grab her,” said Corbin. “We need to run, and it doesn’t look like she can even move.”

The ballroom went sideways. My skin burned as Tavar hefted me into a tight, crossways hold and turned from the bed.

“Side door.” Corbin’s whisper chilled my skin. “Mage coming in.”

“Get them!” The cry was unmistakably Elektra’s.

There was a blast to our left as Tavar sprinted toward the broken ballroom wall. Another curse.

“Go on ahead.” Corbin’s voice came from behind me. “I’ll follow.”

The dark, cold world continued to shake and burn as Tavar barreled toward the edge of the crater, clutching me in his arms.

Elektra screamed—not in rage this time. Pain.

“You hit her!” Eugene laughed incredulously.

“That felt good,” Corbin said, panting as he sprinted alongside us.

“Go ahead, run!” Elektra’s scream followed us out as we raced across the crater to the edge with the tunnel. “It doesn’t matter, Briar Rose! We’ve already won!”

At the wall, Tavar rolled me to his back and crawled through the tunnel at record speed as I clung to his shoulders, every brush of the rocky tunnel wall agony on my skin.

“Tav,” I tried to say, but the scars in my throat and mouth garbled the word.

“Hold on,” he whispered. “Almost there.”

Darkness seeped into my vision despite the bit of moonlight that lit the end of the tunnel. Sleep called to me, an escape from the pain. It seemed like the burns were spreading. How was that possible?

Eternal sleep—had the curse’s power to keep me immobilized also kept Elektra’s torture from fully killing me?

The sudden feel of hard, cold ground beneath my back jolted me out of the encroaching darkness.

“She’s dying!”

“Oh, sis, I’m here, I’m here.”

I opened my eyes—fully, at last. It was still dark, but I could make out Alba’s features as she hovered over me, her hands brushing my forehead and cheeks.

I felt a burn spread across my cheek, then another on my chest.

“It’s getting worse as we speak. I can see the burns spreading!” Alba’s voice shook. “Didn’t you break her curse?”

“I did,” Tavar said bleakly. “But I think it was keeping her alive.”

Chapter 20

Warm, golden magic poured out of Alba’s hands and spread across my skin, soothing the burns immediately. “Hold on, sis,” she whispered urgently. “Hold on, because I’m going to fix everything.”

Alba’s magic felt warm, comforting. I felt it reach for me even as a tide of pain sucked me away.

“She has burns and cuts everywhere, inside and out,” I heard her say, the sound of her voice like a distant, gentle whisper. Magic poured through me. “Those monsters—”

“—you can fix her, can’t you? It’s not too—” Tavar’s voice was different. Not soft or comforting. Insistent, painful. Alba’s voice made me want to curl up and sleep, but Tavar’s frustration hurt, filling me with a painful mix of shame, longing, and regret.

The healing magic rushed faster through my body. “Hush,” Alba said. “I have to hurry, before—”

Darkness swept me along, tugging, urging, reminding me of when the curse had reached its fulfillment in the ballroom. I waited for the curse to smirk, to jab, to chase me into sleep, but there was nothing—only the echoing memory of the mocking laughter I’d lived with