His jaw tightens and one of the glowing orbs flickers slightly. ‘Elva, I …’
‘Tell me,’ I whisper again. ‘Please.’
He gets to his feet and moves to the edge of the observatory, as if he can outrun the question. I follow him.
We stand there, face-to-face.
There’s a long, tense, painful pause. Then Hal seems to deflate, as though someone has stuck a pin in his chest.
‘It’s not what you think,’ he begins. ‘I’m not suffering from some common affliction. This is no virus or disease.’
I frown. ‘Then what?’
‘I’m not ill,’ he says quietly, looking away.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I … I’m …’
‘What?’ I plead. ‘You’re what?’
He takes a deep breath. ‘Cursed.’
The word is barbed and jagged. It hooks into me, burrowing deep, reverberating over and over inside my head.
Cursed.
Cursed.
Cursed.
For a moment my mind turns blank. An empty, echoing chamber. And then, all of a sudden, a flash of light, a finger-snap, and everything begins to slot into place.
Caius Castellion. The statue garden. The story.
Noble, handsome Emmeric was born into a powerful family.
I stare at Hal as if seeing him for the first time. He holds my gaze, a thousand different emotions dancing across his face.
Irabella was a rare beauty, with hair like cornsilk and eyes as bright as jewels. But she was also penniless, a mere servant.
Emmeric and Irabella – that’s what Ingra teasingly called my secret lover and me. It was her little joke. Rich boy, poor girl, divided by circumstance, united by love. Yet never oncedid I imagine our resemblance to these characters extended beyond that. But now, I understand. The old man wasn’t talking nonsense. He was trying to tell me something.
Because Emmeric wascursed.
‘It was a … a Mage.’ Hal grimaces, then shoots me an apologetic glance. ‘I believe it was her act of revenge for what my grandfather did during the War of the Empires.’
He was cursed by a vengeful witch who blamed his family for her people’s ruin.
‘The curse fell on the first-born sons of House Castellion. The Light Wielders. It was my grandfather’s punishment – that the Maker’s gift would die along with his line.’
In destroying their legacy, she took away their dominion.
‘In some ways what happened to my father was a kindness. He was dying anyway, growing weaker every day.’ Hal closes his eyes. ‘I … I can’t stop it, Elva. The opium seems to slow it down, numb the pain, but I’m only delaying the inevitable.’
Irabella was forced to watch her love sicken and die, knowing there was nothing she could do to stop it.
No.No.
