Page 17 of The Cursed

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WILLOW

Istrained forward, reaching into the darkness before me and searching for something that I could not see. Nothing except the black of pure night existed; the light behind me was something resembling a faded memory.

I drew in a deep breath as that light flickered, drawing my eyes to the vines that slithered along the floor to reach me. So close, and yet so far, I knew they wouldn't touch me prior to my plunging myself into the darkness of death.

It was void of all life, a barren landscape of dry dirt and ash beneath my feet. The hairs rose on my arm as I took a single step forward, driven by the rattling of the bones around my neck. They sought out whatever awaited in that obscurity, letting it call them home.

The darkness whispered my name, the sounds so much more clear than they'd ever been before.

I took a step closer, as far as my elbow dipping into the ice of the dark. A thorough look through the darkness confirmed the hazy images of women standing in a line for me to see. Twelve women stood before me, starting at the left. The woman there wore clothing that was old-fashioned enough I knew who she must have been.

Charlotte's daughter.

She looked so much like her mother, and the absence of the First Witch weighed heavy on my heart as I skimmed along the line. My aunt stood at the very end, her hand extended to welcome me home. "Come, Willow," she said, her expression solemn as I faltered.

"I'm not ready," I said, shaking my head. I wasn't ready for death to engulf me, to become another one of the Hecate witches linked by bones.

Our line would die with me.

As much as I'd thought I wanted that when I'd awoken from my brief death, I remembered the chill of that darkness on my skin. I remembered the emptiness inside me that came with knowing I'd failed.

"You will never be ready," she said, smiling sadly. "Do not allow him to make you into something you are not." The faintest image of a murky path flashed behind her, the blurry form of green hedges drawing me closer like a trap.

Pausing, I considered her words and the strangeness that I felt in my body with every move I made. I was too quick, too strong, tooeverythingto be the same as I once was.

As much as it terrified me, I also knew the one thing that mattered more than anything.

I'd come here to find Gray's weakness. I'd come here to find the bones and use them to Unmake the Vessels and get justice for my aunt. I'd thought the Covenant was responsible for her death, but they weren't.

My mission to Unmake the Vessels and avenge her were one and the same, and Gray had made a fatal mistake.

He'd given me His weakness.

I would make him live to regret it.

I woke with a start, my arm straining toward the ceiling as I let it fall to my side. Goosebumps dotted my skin, the physical remnant of the vision lingering to tell me it was real. The Hecate line had always blurred the lines between life and death, between what was real and what was onlyseen.

I sat slowly, wrapping my arms around my stomach and finding a simple silk black nightgown. Gray must have changed me when he returned me to his room, and I forced myself not to feel violated by the knowledge. It was nothing he hadn't seen and touched only an hour before, anyway.

The disconnect from my flesh felt strange, as if I suddenly realized that my body was only that. Even if my soul had been separated from my form for a time, I'd still have beenmein the period I'd had without it. My body was just a Vessel, all the same as Lucifer's.

Was Hell the opposite of that dark place filled with cold and nothingness? Was it heat that burned his skin for every moment of his existence, a void filled with Hellfyre?

I shook off the thought, tossing back the covers and sliding my legs over the edge of the bed. I forced myself to move slowly, attempting to move in the way I thought I had before. It seemed painfully slow, like it took everything in me to ignore how much time I wasted.

I made my way to the bathroom, reaching into the shower to turn on the water. Tearing off the nightgown Gray had dressed me in, I watched it fall to the floor as I stepped into the shower. The water felt too warm on my skin in contrast to the cold of that hollow darkness. I let it wash over me, bringing me back from the brink of someplace I didn't want to go just yet.

Once the Vessels were gone and the Coven was righted to the traditions that never should have petered out, I would wander into that darkness and accept my fate.

In doing so, I would free the ancestors who were trapped there, offering their power to the bones that powered me. They couldn't truly move on until our line had fulfilled its destiny, and I felt that in my soul as the bones seemed to cool against my collarbone.

I held them against me, feeling the whisper of their desire for peace within me. I would give it to them when our work was done and Charlotte's wrongs had been righted.

Finishing with my shower, I strode into the cool air of the bathroom and dried off before dressing. I couldn't bear to pick up the forest green uniform that marked me as a Green, not when I felt so fragmented from that girl. The Green magic still pulsed within me, yet I felt disloyal to it when it warred with the black magic.

Rummaging through Gray’s drawers for something to wear, I was shocked when I opened one to find my clothes from my room. Every piece that he’d arranged to be brought to me when I first came to Crystal Hollow sat in his drawers, as if I’d moved in with the man who considered himself my husband.

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