Shadow Cursed by May Sage Page 0,6

I know I can’t. I have to understand.

A child has made it from the realm of Stars to our sanctuary. It’s not unheard of. Our patrols outside our gates have indicated that the self-appointed queen of Tenebris, the usurper, rules with an iron fist, sequestering the folk to their homes inside gated villages and cities, patrolled by her army of human swine. They’re quick to draw their iron swords and turn them on the innocent, the weak. Those who hope, those who dare, try to run away and make their way to us—we’re the last of the true courts.

Few manage to escape. Rude, crude, and weak as humans can be, they have the weapons and the manpower to run down an untrained fae. Iron-tipped arrows. Explosives. Horses they ride to death and then replace without blinking.

The child shouldn’t have made it. She was smart; she took the road through the marshes, and the humans don’t tend to patrol the swamps as much as the other paths leading to Whitecroft. However, she probably hadn’t had any clue how to hide her tracks, and naturally, the humans had cornered her.

That should have been the end for her. We should have found her broken, defiled body on our next patrol, left to be eaten by worms and fiends. But the girl was saved. Somehow, she was aided by that purple-haired pixie specter.

I have no explanation, no farfetched theory. I have nothing but confusion, rage, fear, and worst of all, hope.

A specter able to hold a blade? I can’t make sense of it. The guards I sent out after hearing the girl's tale found five human soldiers whose blood fertilized the earth. Each of their throats had been slit. The implication is staggering. Confusing. Terrifying.

Something happened, and the answer lies behind these doors.

Ideas swarm around my mind, each wilder than the next. I need to understand. If I don’t know what’s going on, I’m going to succumb to the depth of the madness that threatens to pull me under.

I push the doors.

The room, bathed in darkness, comes to life before my eyes. A green fire starts to roar on the adjoining wall, allowing my eyes to take in every detail.

I don’t move or breathe for several moments. Then I force myself to walk in.

This chamber has changed too. The heavy, large four-poster bed made of oak is new. Next to it, there’s a round, three-foot-tall table, upon which a vase full of fresh flowers provides the only semblance of decoration, and an armchair. There’s nothing else at all in the room.

It looks like a tomb.

In a way, it is.

I let my eyes slide to the bed last.

She’s on top of the bed, wrapped in layers of silk. Her skin looks pallid. Seeing the wild cascade of waves around her, I tighten my fist. The long locks are half white.

From the tips to the middle, her hair is dark purple, but the rest has returned to a luminous silver-gray. I’ve always known her like this. The color of her hair has been a fascination of mine. She’s beautiful, unique, and delicate beyond measure.

But now that I know what it means, those strands of silver terrify me.

The dark blood violet is the color of the strength of her bloodline. As it has half faded to silver-white, it means she’s lost energy. Lost power.

I should have expected it—it’s been ten years. But seeing it makes me realize our days are numbered. In ten years, half her energy is gone. In another ten, she may be entirely taken by her own curse.

I try to distract myself, closing my eyes. When I do, I see nothing but her, as she used to be in our school days. Remote, indifferent to all, especially me. Proud. She used to tie her hair in complicated knots that completely hid its color. I loved her hair. It was striking, and looked so soft. I’ve always wanted to touch it.

I want to turn back. I have to turn back. I should never have come here in the first place.

Instead, I take one step, and then another, until I stand right next to her.

Curled up on the bed next to her, there’s a bundle of black fur I mistake for a throw until it breathes, its chest rising and falling. I blink, watching the creature raise its head and set its fiery eyes on me.

A wyrfox. I’ve never seen one this tame—or this close.

The way it looks at me suggests that if I made one