Page 88 of The Guardian's Curse

Though he had hoped for pleasant dreams of Shoshanna, he was plagued with nightmares. She cursed his name as her beautiful brown skin turned to gray stone. Diamond tears glittered on her stone cheeks as she silently pleaded, her final cries echoing in his ears for eternity.

When he woke, he shot out of bed and listened for Shoshanna. The house was quiet, but his hackles were raised when he caught the scent of blood and smoke. He hurtled up the stairs and found it quiet and undisturbed.

Shoshanna lay on the couch in the living room, her bare feet propped up and a damp washcloth on her brow. There was blood on her shirt, and he caught the scent of the pungent tea Ruby had brought days earlier.

Anger prickled through him as he stormed to Lucia’s alcove, where the smell of smoke was stronger. The neat containers he’d weighed and labeled were empty. White chalk lines surrounded the rippling stone hem of Lucia’s dress. The intricate design seemed to match what he’d seen Shoshanna drawing over the last few days. At various points in the diagram were piles of ash, some colored and some pitch black. And there was blood on the floor, with tiny droplets that trailed toward Shoshanna’s room.

He shook his head. This had to stop, or she would burst her own brain before the curse took hold. Moving quietly, he rolled up the drawings, then carefully placed all her reagents and tools back in their box. Fueled by desperation and a bit of anger, he managed to clean the whole mess up in fifteen minutes and hide it downstairs in his armory.

When he was ready, he strode into the living room and knelt next to her. He gently touched her brow, fearful that she would not wake. But her eyes fluttered open. “Hi there,” she murmured.

“Hello,” he said coolly. “Shoshanna, I told you not to keep working on this.”

She sighed and sat up. Pain creased her eyes, but she glared at him. The gentle waking was over, just like that. “And I told you that you are not an authority over me.” She pushed past him and stormed into Lucia’s alcove, then froze. “Where are my things?”

“I got rid of them,” he said.

Her jaw dropped as she whirled to glare at him. Her brown eyes were a pale café au lait color thanks to the curse. He would be surprised if she could see more than a black shadow where he stood. “You did what?”

“If you will not listen to reason, then I will make you,” he said.

“I know what I’m doing,” she said. “Give me back my things.”

“No,” he said calmly.

“Alistair!” she protested. Then she brushed past him, headed for the hall that led down to his bedroom. “Did you hide it down there?” Pain stabbed through his chest as he watched her veer to the side and bump into the wall.

“I’m not going to tell you,” he said. “I will not stand by while you kill yourself for this.”

“And I told you yesterday that I have to,” she said. “Would you rather stand by while I turn to stone?”

“Call your witch friends,” he said. “Ask for help.”

“They can’t help. Ruby said Auntie K is working on something. Even if she can help, it’ll be too late,” she said. “I just need to finish. I broke Lucia’s curse, and I know how to do it for you and me now.”

“What are you talking about? Because I can actually see, and Lucia is still the same cold stone she has been for a century,” he snapped.

Her face fell. “Maybe it takes a while. I know it worked.”

“No, it didn’t,” he said sharply. “Who are you to think that you could outsmart someone like Armina? Do you think you are the only clever witch to try such a thing? Many have tried and failed.”

“Why are you being this way?” she said. The anguish on her face broke something open in him. It was the look that Paris had given him when Alistair rejected him.

“Because you didn’t have to suffer this!” he roared. “I warned you. I should have never touched you. And now you are ruined. And because you will not listen to reason, you will force me to watch you die or turn to stone.”

“Only you could take this and make it about yourself,” she said, her voice cracking. “You’ve known me for less than a month, but you think you know better than me what I’m capable of, and it’s so damned small. Meanwhile you can’t even show me your face. You are a coward, Alistair, but I am not.”

She could have staked him in the heart and hurt him less. The pain was made worse by the realization that she was right. “Shoshanna,” he said quietly.

“You’re not going to talk me down,” she said. “I am so much more than you believe I am. I am capable of breaking this curse. And I am capable of loving you just as you are, even if you are incapable of believing in me. Now where the hell are my things?”

He was silent, struck dumb by her harsh rebuke.

“Fine,” she said, returning toward her room. Using her hands to find the walls, she crept down the hall. “I’ve spent so much time on it, I can still see it in my mind. You’re not going to stop me.”

“Like hell I’m not,” he said. “If I have to lock you up, I will.” She ducked into her room and slammed the door, but he pounded his fist against it. “Shoshanna, don’t make me do this.” He didn’t know what he was going to do, but he sure as hell wasn’t letting her do another spell that would probably kill her.

A burst of heat surged from the door, and he cringed away, shielding his eyes as a bright sigil flared yellow-white in the center of the doorway. Sunlight. His clothing protected him, but it was blinding.

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