Page 71 of Necromance
For a while, we simply stared at one another, unsure what to say. It was as if all the secrets that Serena had revealed in that ballroom gathered between us, suffocating the void.
I opened my mouth to speak, the words sticking in my throat. I didn’t know where to begin. I tried again, but Lucien released me just slightly, enough to hold up his hand.
”Let me start,” he said quietly, his voice laced with uncertainty and perhaps… guilt.
”I do have my memories back,” he began, unable to meet my eyes. “I can remember my life before the curse, I remember Serena. I remember being cursed…” He paused, running a hand through his hair with a sigh. “I also know how to break the curse… because your grandmother told me.”
I sucked in a shaky breath, my pulse thrumming wildly. Anger, confusion… guilt settled in the pit of my stomach threatening to consume me. This whole time, Lucien had known about my grandmother’s involvement and he’d known how to break the curse. The realization swept over me like a wave of anger. I felt betrayed. I felt hurt that he had kept the truth from me, but beneath that was… relief. That’s what I felt. Relief that my secret was out, that he already knew.
”Tell me everything,” I said slowly, barely containing the emotions warring to come out.
Lucien closed his eyes as if searching for a long hidden memory, and then he reached out and took my hands in his. “Let me show you.”
I blinked, feeling my magic stir between us. A tinge of unease ran down my spine. The last time I tried to go into Lucien’s memories, it had been a disaster, tainted by the curse and Serena’s influence. I tensed and sensing my apprehension, Lucien gently squeezed my hands between his and gave me a reassuring smile. “It’s alright. She can’t hurt you in here.”
I nodded, but still my pulse quickened as I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, urging more of my magic forward.
The memory came slowly as if fading backwards from darkness to a hazy vision that materialized from the shadows.
We were in the void. The cold, silent space Lucien had been hurled into after the curse took hold.
I stood off to the side, an unseen spectator to the memory. Lucien stood in the middle of the darkness, his face etched in worry… in fear. I could feel it as if it were my own, the overwhelming panic gripping him.
Then she came.
She stepped out of the blackness like a ghost stitched together with silver threads. Her hair was streaked with gray, her eyes sharp and rimmed with guilt. My grandmother.
My throat tightened and tears filled my eyes as I watched the vision unfold.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly, her voice barely a breath. “I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to curse you.”
I had no choice,” she’d continued. “Serena was going to take my granddaughter from me. She’s all I have.”
Her hands trembled as she knelt before Lucien, her eyes pleading with his. “I came to tell you that I twisted the curse though. I made it too complicated for her to control. I bound you, but not to her… to someone else.”
She reached into her cloak and pulled out a locket. My locket.
”I tied your curse to your true love. My granddaughter. She’ll be drawn to you, one day. She’ll see through the shadows, past the curse, and she will love you.”
A single tear slipped down her cheek then. “You can never tell her. That is the key to the curse. It must be a selfless love. This locket holds a piece of her soul and if she freely gives it to you, it will bring you to life.”
She stood, touching the locket to Lucien’s chest. It glowed faintlyas soon as it touched him. “True love,” she said quietly through tears. “True love always breaks the curse.”
”I am truly sorry for what I did to you, but this is my atonement. Mia will find you.” With those final words, she pulled the locket away, the glow suddenly dimming, and placed it back into her cloak pocket. She cupped Lucien’s cheek then, giving him a tearful smile before turning to leave the void.
”Wait!” He called after her. She glanced back at him, waiting.
He swallowed, as if trying desperately to find the words. Stepping forward, he searched her face. “Mia? How do you know your granddaughter is my true love?”
She smiled and this time, it reached her eyes, leaving faint creases at the edges. “Your fates have always been tied together. Every life has a path and you and her walk the same path, only at the wrong time. I simply helped fate along.”
He stared at her a moment longer before nodding and stepping back. “Then I forgive you.”
The vision faded away and I opened my eyes, staring up at Lucien’s unreadable expression through a fog of tears. Keeping my hands in one of his, he reached up with the other and gently brushed away a tear from my cheek. His sweet touch only made the tears fall harder. I didn’t just cry for him, or for finally knowing how to breakhis curse, but because I’d been right about my grandmother. She wasn’t cruel or evil. She hadn’t betrayed me… She’d only done what she had to do to protect me. The realization suddenly turned to lead in my stomach.
”I’m so sorry,” I whispered, my voice trembling with emotion. “You’re cursed because of me.”
Lucien caressed my cheek, his lips twitching at the corners. “Mia,” he breathed softly. “I would endure a thousand curses just for one precious moment with you. Just to look at you, to touch you, to hear your laugh, see your smile, I would have waited an eternity cursed to this place with a smile on my face.”
