He huffed. “We’re connected, remember?”
“But—”
“You’re welcome for the insight,” he added.
I grabbed the balcony before I keeled over. “I don’t understand.”
Oh, man. I was going to pass out. Cursed? Someone cursed me to do what? I couldn’t put the pieces together.
I glanced down at the blade, sparkling in my hand. “Do you know what this is?”
He laughed. Pain seared in my skull, the world unsteady around me.
“Don’t fucking laugh at me!” I roared.
More laughter. “Temper, temper.” He waggled a finger, splintering my patience.
The ground quaked harder, a roar shaking the palace’s foundations.
“Caer?” I said. “Caer.” I started to sing.
“Blood melody,” Aidan stopped me. “A joining of hearts. True love to be undone. The Knife of Fractured Rapture is a lost relic, an ancient fable of doomed love.”
“Fable?”
“Yes. Passed down amongst certain generations of mer. Nothing more than a story, one that isn’t very popular.” He bared his teeth in a grin.
“I don’t?—”
“It isn’t just a myth, but a true story of cursed lovers, the dagger a cruel weapon forged to take revenge on a traitorous lover. I won’t explain the full details of the tale now.” A mighty chortle thundered from his mouth. “But I think this means you were always destined to kill the vampire king.”
My headache brought me down with slam after slam of agony, my heart about to rip out of my chest. “I don’t…I don’t understand.”
Aidan groaned with exasperation. “Someone has cursed you to find your true love and kill them. In doing so, they’ve made you their puppet, unkillable. That’s why the blade doesn’t harm Silvanus yet, meaning he’s probably safe for now, too, and that your weapon won’t hurt him until you embrace your feelings. Then goodbye to both of you.” He shrugged. “Whatever their reasons, they either hate both of you or one of you. And it means you’re going to have to murder Silvanus soon, or I’ll have to figure out how to break this curse.”
No way. Just no fucking way. I couldn’t wrestle with this, the revelation an endless smackdown.
Cursed to kill my true love? Silvanus? By whom? Why? It didn’t make sense.
I don’t love him…
Nausea grabbed me in a vicious whirlwind. I fell forward on all fours, retching.
Silvanus is my true love…
He couldn’t be. He shouldn’t be.
But he just declared his?—
“No,” I rasped before retching again.
This story couldn’t be real.
Caer. I had to speak with Caer. Maybe she’d heard these words, too.
I vomited over the balcony floor, too dizzy, too consumed by this shit to do much else. How could I think? How could I get to my feet with the constant slam, slam, slam inside my head?
Silvanus…
