Page 38 of The Cursed

“Never forgive yourself,” I said, moving forward to cup her face and gaze down at her. “What if the balance demanded Ash take your mother’s place?”

She blanched, shaking her head furiously as her nostrils flared. “What is the point in having this power if I can’t FUCKING USE IT?!” she screamed. She buried her face in her hands, sliding them into her hair in frustration.

“The point of having it,” I said, shoving my hands into my pockets to keep from reaching out to touch her, “is that you care enough not to abuse it.” I smiled sadly. She would need my comfort in the quiet of our room later, when she could break without other eyes to watch her.

For now, she needed my strength.

Anyone else, and I never would have believed that they would go through life without ever disrupting the balance for selfish gain. But Willow would never want to play God with people’s lives.

“It’s okay,” Loralai said, stepping up beside Willow finally. She didn’t show any signs of her hatred for me, revealing nothing of remembering I’d been the one to take her life. She just stared at her niece, willing her to understand. She took her hand in hers, guiding her to the treeline. I knew what waited in those woods, the crypt that many remained unaware of. “Lay us to rest. Give us peace, finally.”

Loralai was the only one to go with Willow into those woods, respecting the sanctity of the Hecate crypt. It may not have held the bones that acted as the conduit of power, but it housed the bones that couldn’t be contained in that pouch most Hecate witches carried at their sides.

I watched her disappear with her aunt, knowing that she needed to discover this on her own. I could feel the emotion surging off her even if I couldn’t see it, knowing what Loralai asked of her. What she guided her through when I couldn’t.

The Coven watched, looking at one another with somber expressions as Willow did the work that they could not. She laid the last of the Hecate bones to rest properly, taking what had been denied to Loralai. She’d been the first witch to be denied her burial rights, done quietly when the Coven remained ignorant of what was happening.

It was only fair that she was the first to find peace.

Willow stumbled out of the woods with a terse expression on her face, her lips pressed tight. She cradled the bone of a finger in her hand, wrapping her own fingers around it before she slipped it into the chain of bones dangling around her waist. Her aunt’s bone found the place it belonged, settling against her hip as her wet gaze met mine.

“Witchling,” I said from across the cemetery, taking a step toward her.

She turned away from me, moving to the center and calling out to the whites. Those who belonged to those houses stepped forward, allowing Willow to guide them to the crystal cliffs beside the ocean. She made her way toward the rocky path down the hillside, the line of white witches following behind her. Their flowing white dresses made them look like ghosts, and even if they were corporeal, they might as well have been as they followed wordlessly. Willow stood on the cliff's edge, watching with the wind in her hair as those witches robed in white had draped themselves over the crystals.

The moon played off the reflective light, casting a dazzling array of colors through the night and off their white gowns. When the youngest of the witches draped her body over a purple crystal, laying her back upon it with her dress draping toward the ground, Willow raised her hands toward them.

Her eyes caught mine, and I watched from the top of the cliff, a single tear accompanying the tremble of her lips as she closed her eyes.

Her lips parted.

Willow drew in a deep breath, trapping it in her lungs as she pulled life back into herself. Her skin glowed as she pulled it in, shimmering with golden light. The witches returned to their natural state on the crystals without the magic she’d given.

Flesh melted from bones, the scent of decay filling the air. It slipped over the crystals, spreading the blood and essence of magic back to the very Source they drew from.

Willow swallowed, her features twisting in concentration before she finally dared to release her magic completely.

Her eyes opened slowly, looking at the carnage of the dead she’d dared to hope she could save. She turned her back on them, her face a blank mask of strength as she ascended the cliff.

She’d gone with a group of four at her side, Although, as I was gradually coming to realize was standard for Willow, she always returned alone.

CHAPTER 21

GRAY

Willow didn’t break.

She didn’t bend.

She didn’t show any signs of emotion as she set to work, laying the witches to rest as she had intended to do in the first place.

She laid the Purples beneath the stars, watching as their magic left their bodies and returned to the source in the sky.

She lay the Greens within the cemetery, buried in holes without a casket to keep them from the very earth that they would return to.

She let the wind wash over the Grays, turning them to dust and scattering them through the air.

She watched the Blues enter the tide, returning them to death so the water could speed the decay process.

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