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They likely believed this would be a just punishment. My Claiming arrived as they watched on with bellies full of revenge or pleasure. Feelings returned in tenfold to my family from those who already lost loved ones to the yearly sacrifice.
Except I would be the first to return, setting an end to the curse.
A woollen shawl had been draped over my shoulders and with it a welcomed warmth. “This will fight the chill.”
I thanked Lamiere with a gentle smile and hugged the itchy fabric close.
It was Mother’s idea to go dressed in very little. Exposing the glow of my skin beneath the full moon. To distract the creature upon my arrival. The trousers I wore were made from leather which made them ripple with each footfall up the levelled path towards the castle. The tunic did little to cover me. The sleeves were dramatic – a loose design that hid the nimble curve of my arms. The collar barely touched my neck as it was sizes bigger for me than it should have been. Exposing my neck purposefully. Mother’s choice.
If I needed to warm myself a simple call of flame would cease the cold that racked my bones. But I could not use my power. Not yet. Not with fear that the creature watched from the countless windows that speckled across the face of the castle. Each now alight with orange flames. Waiting for my arrival.It cannot know. Not until the final day, the final hour when I would break the curse. Only then would I reveal myself.
Darkmourn connected itself to the castle by a bridge of aged stone. Far below the chasms of jagged rock waited potential threats for those who drunkenly stumbled over the unprotected edge. Wind ripped across the bridge, whistling its deadly song as it did so. The brown locks of my hair danced beneath its force — not once did I lift a hand to stop it.
We walked in silence, bathed only in the screaming of wind and the chorus of nightly creatures that dared prowl this close to the castle’s boundary line. The place in which the curse began. Or ended, depending on where one stood. The tickle of gazes from Darkmourn faded the further we travelled towards the castle, giving way to another. The feeling was strange. A cold, burning of awareness that someone else watched on. An unseen witness.
I raised my stare towards the towering walls of the castle, looking out for his outline in the many windows. For any sign that he watched my arrival. It made distracting myself from the cold that muchharder.
Too focused on the feeling and silence, I hardly noticed the shuffle of footsteps slow to a stop.
“This is where we leave you,” Mother said, leaning in and pressing a kiss to each cheek, lips close to my ear. “Remember to conceal yourself. Be smart. Be cautious. And return our saviour.”
“I know what is required of me,” I said, teeth threatening to chatter as the cold spread throughout me. “Mother.” She stiffened as I held my voice firm, not whispering back as she did to me.
“Then you may go.” Her face remained frozen, lips pulled into a thin, white line. “Take up your position as this year’s Claiming.”
“I shall.”
Whereas the group that followed me here kept back, Lamiere hovered between both parties.
“I will send my thoughts as positive castings, Jak.” Lamiere’s silver locks billowed in the wind, her own cloak held around her. “When you return I promise to cook you your favourite soup.”
I moved towards her, feeling a sudden softening of my heart, and put a hand on the short woman’s shoulder. “With such promises you will make the following weeks painfully long.”
Lamiere snorted, wiping the bubble of snot that burst from her nose across the sleeve of her muddied shawl. “MaySheguide you.”
We both glanced to the moon as if it watched from above. “Do not miss me too terribly, Lamiere. I will return.”
There was something about the way she glanced away that told me that she did not believe me. That single moment sunk my heart into the pit of my belly.
“You should take your leave, Jak.” Mother distracted me from my moment of self-doubt. “Do not keep the creature waiting.”
* * *
The wallof shadow was visible only up close. I tilted my head, left and right, admiring the strange power that raced far up into the sky and far below the ground where the bridge met the castle’s boundary. Many had tried to break through, but never with success. It was a magic even Mother could not explain. Only the Claim could enter.
I raised a hand and pressed it against the membrane of dark magic. To the touch it was cold. But with a push, my fingers began to slip through it as though it was no more than the dark waters of a lake. My hand reached through first, followed by a foot.
Holding my breath, I proceeded through the strange barrier. Only when the sensation of nightly winter cut across me did I dare open my eyes. I made it.
I allowed myself a moment to catch my breath before walking ahead, not once looking back at Mother, Lamiere and the coven as they witnessed from the other side.
As I passed beneath the crumbling pillared archway, it seemed that the shadows beyond it thickened.
All my focus was on the haunting building before me. The years had not been kind on it. Although it was near impossible to ignore that this castle would have been a spectacle of beauty and architectural prowess long before the curse settled upon it.
A place of grandeur and wealth. Where the vines would have been more than brown corpses clinging to the weathered bricks of the building. The pillars that lined the elaborate walkway would have stood tall and proud. Even the walkway beneath my boots was sodden with weeds and cracks, overgrown to a point that the slabs beneath were close to impossible to see.
Noise in the thick shadows that devoured the overgrown gardens I walked within made me pick up speed. I dared look long enough to see what lurked within.
