Page 19 of Only Flames Remain

“You who dares enter my hollow. You who dares steal from me!”

“I didn’t—” My voice quivered as I shook my head back and forth fervently.

“SILENCE! I know who you are, Sorin Blackwater. Prince of Blackwater. Heir to the dragon throne. Bastard son of King Mavros and the human Melantha Devoe.”

My blood ran cold in my veins.

I didn’t speak.

“I curse you, Sorin of Gothryn. I curse you to search for something that you will never find.” Her eyes stirred with cobalt magic, sparks sprouting from her fingertips. “I curse you with a wound that will never heal. It will sap your energy, steal your magic, your life.”

My heart thundered in my chest, my throat tight. “But I—it wasn’t me who stole—”

But her deep, otherworldly voice cut me off. “You have entered my hollow uninvited, and therefore you must be punished. You will search this world for your mate, and the curse will not lift until you find them. It will worsen year after year until it claims what rightfully belongs to it.” She cocked her head to the side with a menacing grin. “Fae live very, very long lives. You could live decades—centuries—before finding them. If you ever find them at all. Best of luck to you, Sorin of House Blackwater.”

Panic surged through me as I tried to find my feet. She raised her fists in the air and threw them down. Black smoke expelled from her palms, and I coughed at the sharp, acrid scent. The last thing I remember was her gaunt face, her lips peeled over rotting teeth. Her milky white eyes stared down at me with something I couldn’t read written within them.

Was that—humor?

I succumbed to the darkness.

I woke hours later with Yorrick and Ren shaking me awake. They had been trying to rouse me for several hours to no avail.

The sun had set, but we remained in the darkened Witchwood. The thin, white trees surrounded us with their eerie crimson leaves beneath the silver glow of the moon overhead. We had crossed the Veil of Shadows as quickly as we could, but it was nearly the next afternoon by the time we finally made it back to the Gothryn palace.

I had slipped inside beneath King Mavros’s watchful eye and never said anything to him about the incident. I had almost forgotten about it entirely by the time the first symptoms of the curse reared their ugly heads many years later.

I had been able to explain it away at first, unbelieving that it could be the curse come to fruition. Surely it would have enacted itself before now.

But when the mage had threatened that it could be centuries before I found my mate, she failed to mention that the curse would also be slow-acting.

Over time, it fed on me.

My flesh. My energy.

My power.

These last few years, as King Mavros grew weak, so did I.

Keeping this secret took every ounce of my remaining strength. Shifting into my full dragon form took monumental effort that I didn’t always possess. I would need to drown myself in the poisons from the healer, Azhar, to have the fortitude for common magic.

I was supposed to be the most powerful fae in the realm, and I was deteriorating with every breath. After the first century, I had lost all faith that I would ever find my mate. How would I even know? Mates weren’t commonplace among fae in Aeloria, especially the Vireth who were already cursed by the god Mordecai to begin with.

I was doubly cursed.

Cursed by the god of death and cursed by a dark mage.

I had pored over the ancient texts in the library, seeking information about mates; searching for any fragment of information that would help me find them sooner. Anything that would help me identify them once I had.

Would I feel different?

Would it be a magical surge within me that I couldn’t ignore?

I hadn’t the faintest clue. I never told my mother, Melantha, or King Mavros about it. I never told Yorrick about the curse. To this day, the only ones who knew of the curse were my best friend Rensford, my two brothers, and the healer to whom I had turned for help.

I had sworn him to secrecy and prayed to the old gods that he would never tell the king or queen. If Odessa found out…there was no telling what she might do to place her firstborn son on the throne.

I needed to keep up this charade for as long as possible.