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Fear clutched my heart like a metal-spiked glove. A single bite from a Cursed One was a death sentence. A single bite and your life was over. Because that bite made you Cursed too.

CHAPTER6

THE CURSED ONES

There were two of them, people so cursed, so far gone, that they weren’t even people anymore. They were monsters.

The Cursed Ones were afflicted with something that no one understood, something magical, something that turned them into zombie-like inhuman things driven by a single desire: to spread the Curse to anyone and everyone on this planet.

Their red eyes—devoid of humanity, full of hunger—shone out from across the open field like demonic lighthouses. Their skin was deathly pale, so pale that their veins stood out like thick black tattoos on a colorless canvas. Hair drooped from their heads in sweaty, knotted tendrils. Their clothes were torn and ripped, their feet bare. Their shoes hadn’t survived their transformation into Cursed Ones.

People grew bigger when they were infected with the Curse. Bigger, taller, wider. Their muscles bulged, their strength surged. One of the Cursed Ones demonstrated that enhanced strength now when it grabbed a small tree by the trunk and ripped it out of the ground, like it was nothing more than a wispy weed. Then it threw that tree across the clearing at me.

The tree landed at my feet. Had I been standing a few steps closer to the Cursed One, the trunk would have crushed me. Luckily, the Cursed One had terrible aim. They were both still so far away. And yet I’d never before been this close to one of them.

“They are attracted to the Spirit Tree,” the invisible stranger told me. “That’s why they’ve come here.”

“Why are the Cursed Ones attracted to it?” I asked.

“They are drawn to Dreamweaver magic. I’d be happy to tell you more, but right now we have a bit of a situation.”

He was right. The Cursed Ones were here. In the Forbidden Zone. I glanced down at Dante and Nevada sleeping under the Spirit Tree. The Blending hadn’t begun yet. They were still human. Which meant they were still vulnerable to the Cursed Ones’ bite.

My throat clenched up, even as my mind sped into overdrive.

Where had the Cursed Ones come from? They weren’t supposed to be here at all. This was supposed to be a safe space.

“The Cursed Ones are coming. Please, help me keep them away,” I pleaded with the invisible stranger. “If they make it to the Spirit Tree, they’ll curse my brother and my friend.”

“They will certainly try,” the invisible stranger answered. “Which is why we’re going to stop them before they ever get the chance.”

After that big show of throwing a tree at me, the Cursed Ones seemed to have lost interest in my existence. One was moving toward Dante, the other toward Nevada.

Then both of them suddenly dropped to their knees, clutching their heads. Their bodies convulsed like they were in excruciating pain, but I didn’t see any wounds anywhere on their bodies.

“How did you hurt them?” I asked the invisible stranger as I planted myself between the howling Cursed Ones and the people I loved.

“I didn’t hurt them. They only think they’re in pain, but that pain is all in their heads.”

“Will this spell…kill them?”

“No, it will only slow them down for a time. But the Cursed Ones are very resilient to pain—and they adapt quickly.”

Sure enough, they were already rising to their feet. And they didn’t look happy to see me. They must have thought I was the one who’d bewitched them. As one, they opened their mouths, rolled back their shoulders, and let out a bone-chilling chorus of roars. They lumbered toward Nevada and Dante, picking up speed with every step.

“Stop!” I charged toward them, cutting them off.

And that’s when the weirdest thing happened.

The Cursed Ones stopped moving.

Fell silent.

Blinked.

And then they turned around to run the other way, away from me. Away from the Spirit Tree.

“How did you scare them away?”