Page 60 of Cursed Evermore
instant Arielle performed the spell to extract her spirit from her body. The air had thickened, coated in a cold that didn’t come from wind. It clung to our skin, sank into our bones, and stayed there like a warning.
The plan was to give Arielle two hours tops before going in to get her, which meant one of us had to die.
“I’m not going to kill you.” I kept my gaze on Arielle.
I was just as worried about her as Bastian was, and more. If anything happened to her, it would be my fault. More blood on my hands from someone I cared about.
“I have no qualms in killing you,friend. Not if anything happens to her.” He made it sound like killing me was as easy as strolling through the woods on a cool summer’s day. “Just be sure you fight me like a Fae. With your fist and Galdrlore. Not those devil powers you have.”
I tore my eyes away from Arielle’s still form and levelled Bastian a hard stare. He was serious as fuck and speaking to me without the respect of rank or title.
“I wouldn’t fight you.” I tilted my chin and glared at him. “Maybe I’d let you kill me.”
Bastian seethed, shaking his head. “You fucking asshole.Youshouldn’t have agreed to this.”
He snapped his gaze to Elariya and glared at her, baring his canines like a rabid dog. Apart from Arielle, Bastian was the onlyone I’d allowed to see Elariya in thisvulnerablestate. Alaric and Garrick didn’t even know what she looked like.
“We should have just leftyour magein soul sleep until we crossed the Veil.” He pointed the dagger at her.
I didn’t like the way he saidyour mage, nor the way he pointed that dagger, but I held my tongue. The less I said and did right now, the better.
“Risking Arielle’s life was not worth this.” He wasn’t wrong, but Bastian had the tendency to overreact when it came to Arielle. Whereas I trusted her to grow in her powers and abilities.
She would be the royal advisor of the kingdom someday if I became king. Suppressing her powers would only hinder her growth.
There was danger in everything, but I knew she wouldn’t have suggested the idea if she wasn’t confident it would work without harming her. Then again, Arielle always pushed the limits, dancing way too close to danger for anyone’s liking.
In this instance my judgment had been clouded because of Elariya. I wanted intel about the ring, but I also wanted her unharmed. If Arielle found out what happened to the ring, her idea would be successful in gaining both.
“She’s always pulling fucking shit like this, and you keep letting her, Wolfe,” Bastian continued.
This was the part where I’d tell him to stop acting like her father and admit how he really felt about her. But we were long past the time for jokes.
I hadn’t made one since the curse, and I wasn’t starting now.
“Wolfe, fucking answer me.” Bastian balled his hand into a tight fist. “How can you just sit there?”
“I’m not justsitting here.” I kept my voice firm, my face unreadable. “If I thought she wouldn’t make it back, I wouldn’t have agreed to let her go.”
“Wolfe, it’s the ghost roads. They’re dangerous.Nothingis certain there.”
As children, we were warned to never walk those roads. And if you had to, you were never to speak on them, lest a wandering soul mistake your voice for its own and follow it home, then wreak havoc in your life.
On top of that, no one who walked the ghost roads came back unchanged. They say it’s where forgotten souls whispered in voices no one remembered and where time folded in on itself like a dying star. Madness would come for you. That’s why staying longer than necessary left you open to attack.
“She’s my advisor. I have to trust her,” I said with a certainty I didn’t feel, maybe for my own ears. “You should, too.”
“I do trust her,” Bastian muttered, then clenched his jaw and locked his gaze on Arielle again. His features softened, worry overtaking his sneer. “But I can still be pissed at you for puttingmy magein danger.”
My mage.
Those words weren’t lost on me. Said with less venom than when he’d called Elariya mine, the warrior was showing the cinch in his armor.
Arielle would have loved to hear those words herself, but Bastian only spoke so freely because she couldn’t hear him.
The truth was, we were all overprotective when it came to Arielle. We grew up together. Or rather, she grew up with us.
She was a seedling beside us, who were centuries old. And she’d already survived more than most with the traumatic loss of her family.
