I hear soft steps rustling over the wooden floor as they are coming closer. I want to close my eyes, pretend I’m still asleep,but hearing that voice, a soft pull reverberates through the painful edges of my heart. When her face comes into view, I wish I had closed them. Those long, red strands of hair, those golden eyes… I meet her gaze, my cheeks burn a bright red, but it’s the coldness that leaks from those golden orbs that makes the hairs on my neck prick up. I shrink back into the bed, and it makes me want to disappear.
“How’s the pain?” she asks.
I swallow before I answer. “Bearable,” I say, my voice hoarse.
“I can put you back to sleep if you want.”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly as I say it.”
Her responses are short and irritated.
“Why am I here?” I ask.
I sit up again, the room spins slightly, but I manage to stay straight.
“Is this your place?” I continue.
“Yes.” A pause, then a deep sigh. Caria walks to the small kitchen and leans against the counter. She crosses her arms as she stares me down.
“Your sister figured that your chances of survival would be best if you stayed near me. She survived because Emrys pulled her through; their love was what made her live, allowing her to climb back to the surface to be with him. Anyway, she was convinced I was your true love, so I said yes.”
My heart beats a little faster as she says the words. I still feel an emptiness inside me, but seeing Caria, something else begins to bloom as well.
“You were an asshole to deal with, though, constantly screaming at me, trying to commit suicide, and I didn’t have the energy to tell you ‘no’ lovingly, or to say that I love you, so instead, I cast a sleeping spell on you. Every few days, I’d wakeyou up, the moment the ugliness of that foul curse that resides within you still reared its head, I would put you back to sleep.”
I don’t miss the fact that she explicitly mentions she didn’t have the patience for me, or that she didn't tell me she loves me. Her words leave a bitter taste in my mouth, one I want to wash away as fast as possible.
“Can I have a drink?”
She spins around, turns on the faucet, and I listen as water sloshes against glass. She places the glass in front of me and steps back again. I take a quiet sip, and Caria watches me like a hawk, as if she expects me to jump up at any moment and try to attack her. Then it dawns on me that since the moment I awoke, I haven’t had one violent thought, not when Caria spoke of my sister, nor about Caria herself. A smile spreads across my face, and I hear myself sheepishly laugh.
Caria’s eyes snap to mine. “What’s so funny?”
“The thoughts… I am finally free… Jodelle… What happened to her?”
Saying her name intensifies the hurt I feel in my chest and I hunch over. Caria steps toward me, cautiously laying a hand on my shoulder.
“Are you… okay?”
“My chest hurts, that’s all.”
“It's the last remnants of the curse… That’s what you’re experiencing.”
I immediately hear the ice in her tone again, the moment she realizes that I still carry it. All I want is for her to hold me, rock me softly, to tell me everything will be alright. But I also know I don’t have the right to ask her for that after everything I’ve put her through. I glance up at her.
“Jodelle is dead, Fynn. Your mother killed her. At least someone in your family can think straight,” she huffs.
“My mother did what?”
A burning sensation starts to spread across my skin, like a thousand tiny pin pricks assaulting my flesh. My lips curl up as I do my best not to let out a blood-curdling scream, as I don’t want to scare off Caria, but she notices it immediately.
I bite my tongue, preventing myself from lashing out at her. She narrows her eyes at me, then her lips begin to move, and she starts to mutter.
I immediately get up, and shadows wrap around me instantly in a constricting motion.
“Don’t move,” Caria hisses.
