Page 1 of WitchCurse
PROLOGUE
Nick
We knew the end was coming. Kiran told me to add as many books as I could to the bond between us, burning them into our shared memory, but also weakening him. I’d only taken the ones I thought most important, leaving things like the histories of royal lineages. I didn’t care who had fucked whom to get what prince or princess to be used as pawns. Most of the high fae were dead, or in the human realm, where we would be if I could open a door between worlds like Sebastian could.
The castle was little more than a single room these days, held up by Kiran’s waning strength and a child who had become a lure for the maddened remains of Underhill. Attacks came daily. Kiran could only do so much to hide our presence as the ghostly remains of Underhill sought to feast.
Before the last of the exterior had fallen, I’d been lost for a while. Going outside tobreathebut finding myself screaming into the void, madness darkening everything within me as anger raged, seeking an option other than our inevitable death. I had lived a long time in Underhill. Some might have called it a good life, a long life, and welcomed death. Only I’d never had the chance to make some dreams reality. Mostly the ones that involved my bondmate and me, since the moment he bound me, he began to fade.
Liam spent every waking moment studying and practicing magic, trying to open a door to free us, but without the link to his mate, he hit wall after wall. I suspected the only thing keeping him sane was the child, living magic shaped into a tiny being.
Kiran had been the one to teach the babe to hide the power, which kept us safe, but as the child grew, sometimes the power raged like a beacon to the collapsing world around us. Kiran could not teach them how to open a door between worlds. He thought he might have once accidentally ripped a hole in the veil when he’d been young, but did not know how he’d done it, if it could be repeated, if it was something he’d done at all, or was simply misremembering from his long life.
Liam suspected that time had sped up in our world compared to the mortal realm, meaning that Sebastian wasn’t even awake in the other world yet. Their bond was stretched and sort of muted, as he said it did sometimes with unnatural sleep. Which sounded ominous. Had Sebastian been injured? And if so, how badly? Would he awake in time for us to escape, or sleep through the final collapse of Underhill? I tried not to dwell on the rising anxiety, though it rolled off everyone in waves. All except Kiran.
It was rare to see Kiran sitting in his chair, doing more than staring into the distance. Today the child, Ari, sat on his lap, snuggled tightly to my bondmate, as if he feared Kiran would take his last breath. It was a terror we shared, though I could feel Kiran’s strength. He’d burn himself out completely, waiting until the end. He had joked more than once that he should go devour some of Underhill’s remaining monsters to regain a nibble of strength. Even those were little more than a shadow of a memory now. Sometimes the ground would shake, but there would be nothing outside. And if Kiran took the last dredges of Underhill?
That would be a disaster.
Both because that was the little remains of this world holding around us, and each time Kiran fed on the fae, he further deteriorated. The blight, as Liam and I identified it, expanding as Underhill died. Would he survive its final collapse? How long could anyone feed on madness and remain whole? Which meant Kiran went hungry.
That sensation was a well of growing terror inside him. An actual churning abyss of heavy darkness, with a dozen wards and barriers within Kiran’s mind, keeping it confined. He knew it was there, likely felt it like daggers every moment of every day, but said nothing. Only sat with Ari on his lap, rocking the babe.
Liam had been frantic all morning. The walls were closing in. He could feel his bond with Sebastian opening, Sebastian finally waking in the other world, where time passed much slower. Liam thought he could use Sebastian’s kitsune magic to open a door between worlds. We would have one chance, and would have to move fast. I didn’t know what to expect, but we couldn’t carry anything but ourselves across the veil, and everything in this small dwelling was part of Kiran’s power. Anything left behind would be more of his strength lost.
Do you have a plan to gather the little that remains before we step through the doorway?I asked him, mind to mind, not wanting to scare anyone. The few remaining fae kept to the opposite side of the space as though fearing Kiran would eat them, even though he’d gone years touching none of them, no matter how much it weakened him and shrank our sanctuary.
It took him a moment to respond, his movements and thoughts slow, head turning my way, as though the question confused him. I crossed the room, picked up Ari, giving the child a kiss and a hug, then a little shove toward the opposite side of the room. “Go find papa.”
Ari hesitated, eyes glowing with power. “It’s almost time. Daddy is waking. I can feel him.”
“That’s why you need to go to your papa.”
The child didn’t move for another minute, focused on Kiran. “Uncle Kiran...”
Kiran gave the babe a slight but exhausted smile. “Listen to Uncle Nick. He’s strong and will keep you safe.”
Ari clenched tiny hands into fists and floundered as though trying to find words to say, but looked up at me instead. I patted the child on the head. “It’s okay. Go find papa. Get ready. Your daddy needs papa, right?”
Ari’s eyes filled with tears, but they flung themselves away toward the group gathering, and where Liam paced, a half dozen books spread open at his feet.
“Making babies cry,” Kiran grumbled, turning his gaze from the group and back to the wall. I had bundled him in every blanket we had left, many of them made by Liam or Ari’s magic, but it wasn’t enough. Human methods to a fae problem. His death couldn’t be prevented with fabric or heat. I wasn’t certain feeding him a dozen high court fae would help anymore. Not with the entire world closing down around our ears.
“Nick,” I heard Liam call, felt the shift in magic, and glanced back to see the door forming, the fae racing to line up for freedom. Kiran didn’t move.
I set my jaw in a firm line, the walls around us getting smaller by the moment. Without the rest of them, we’d have maybe a few more weeks, stuck in a room with barely the space to breathe. Not that Kiran was living a life, existing maybe, like a zombie, scarcely breathing for fear of taking an ounce more of magic than was necessary. I sat down at Kiran’s feet and put my head in his lap to rest. The door opened, and the fae rushed through. I hoped it went to the right place, though I could feel it like an old familiar ache in my bones. Whatever lay on the other side of that door was part of my past; it was okay to leave it there.
Kiran gasped, “Nick, you can’t.”
But there was absolutely no point in me going through that door. We were bound. Without him, I would die. It might not be right away, might even be long and slow, but it didn’t matter. He was my life. Had been for over two centuries. “I am not going through that door without you.”
“You’ll die here.”
“I’ll die either place I go. I’d rather be with you. Please come with me.”
“I’m a curse to everyone.”
He wasn’t. The fae used him in any way they could, draining energy and life from him until all that remained was this withering shell. “Then let them go.” I could feel Liam’s rising anxiety. He was holding the door, Ari’s hand grasped in his, but he said nothing, letting us make that decision.
