Page 17 of A Cursed Bite (Bound to the Enduar #1)

VANN

Nearly two days after Arlet woke up…

I t’s as if the world around me has tilted.

I am unbalanced.

It’s too quiet, too dark.

Few know the truth of what happened in Arlet’s house, and even fewer are speaking of it. No one else remains in the council section except Liana and me.

All the other houses are dark.

We have one day left to fix her, and I am useless. Daniel is still missing.

There is still no enemy to slaughter yet. What good is a warrior against magic? I am not a great reader, nor do I know how to consult the stones of fates. Even Endu has been silent during the last two days.

I did not attend any of the mating ceremonies, nor did I go with Liana and Estela to speak with Diego’s family. A hollow feeling opens in my chest, but I push it away. Instead, I shirk sleep and other responsibilities to head to the only place that I feel like I can breathe. Liana’s dwelling.

To Arlet’s side.

The Wise Woman and I have cultivated a friendship over the years, helping to run Enduvida. She is the one person who indulges my joy of painting.

I like the way she toils to ensure the old customs are actively practiced. One of those traditions is the Seer Cards, or obsidian shards, sharp enough to split flesh. Their edges bleed fate, speaking of futures yet to unfold. When used, Liana can see images in her mind, just as she does with the Fuegorra. I’ve already given her several decks, but she continues to ask for more.

Estela also performs the ritual from time to time. It’s a pleasing idea, but I have never partaken. I don’t need someone to tell me that my future is dark.

As I climb the steps to Liana’s home, brushing past the glowing lumikap mushrooms and towering crystals, I have a harder and harder time breathing. One foot after the other, I tell myself.

I’ll feel better once I see Arlet—once I know she’s alive and safe. And then I can paint until sleep taps on the windows of my mind.

I knock twice against the door.

It doesn’t take long for the door to swing open.

Liana stands there, her silver curls half-loose and her robe threaded with starburst crystals. She looks less like the Wise Woman and more like a woman exhausted from too many questions and insufficient answers.

“Extra informal tonight, are we?” I raise an eyebrow, nodding to her hair. It is a custom that only mated pairs or lovers see each other with their hair unbound. A tradition that grows looser and looser with each passing month. I don’t like it.

I frown at the sight and she narrows her eyes. “Oh, keep your mouth shut. Elaborate hairstyles give me headaches. I’m old. Let me live.”

I huff a laugh, lifting the bundle of brushes in my hand.

She exhales through her nose. “You came to… paint.”

I nod.

She mutters something in Old Enduar and steps aside. “Stubborn youngling.”

I enter. The moment the door closes behind me, the pressure I felt walking through the city falls away. Liana’s home is filled with glyphs and wards to keep Arlet in. The outside world is completely silent here.

“Arlet has stirred once or twice, but I always put her back to sleep to be cautious. Her curse has shown no signs of activating,” Liana says, leading me through the hall.

I frown. “Any progress in removing the mark?”

Liana shakes her head. "I've tried everything. The Fuegorra does not speak to me. The seeing cards are jumbled, and my mind conjures no pictures. I’ve consulted every text I could find, searching for an answer. I bathed her in blessed oil, chanted, prayed, even sang the old songs meant to cleanse the afflicted. And when I used the cleansing stone..." She turns to face me fully. "It came back clear. As pure as a newborn’s aura."

Something icy slips down my spine.

I don’t like that answer, but Liana sounds exhausted. She was a thorough woman. She doesn’t skip steps, and she is probably exhausted. “When was the last time you slept?”

Liana levels me with a sharp look before turning back down the hall. Crystals are stacked from floor to ceiling, their songs vibrating through the air like a million whispered voices, a harmony that’s usually calm, peaceful.

Now, it’s urgent.

“Stressed?” I ask.

“You are not here for me.” She scoffs. “Come. I’ll show you the redhead you pretend to ignore.”

As we walk down the hallway, I relax. Liana and I were not friends until after the Great War, but she had filled the line of feminine guidance lacking in my life. Our friendship was treasured, despite our relationship being crisp to the outside spectator.

She brings me past the dining room teeming with scrolls and crystals, and then, to the back of her dwelling where she opens a door. Sound pours out into the hallway.

I step inside.

Dark-colored crystals—obsidian, black tourmaline, smoky quartz, hematite, and onyx—line the room in a circular arch. Each one hums, their deep vibrations working in tandem to help ward off dark magic.

In the middle lies Arlet. She is still dressed in a new nightgown, and a blanket is pulled up to her waist. Her skin looks thin, blue veins snaking beneath the surface, luminescent under the soft light. Her hair is brushed and braided to the side, strands of auburn woven like delicate threads of silk.

The sight clenches something in my chest.

I glance back toward the exit, as if considering leaving.

Instead, I move forward.

When I finally reach her, my hand extends, resting atop one of her delicate feet.

She doesn’t stir, and a part of me is disappointed.

A year ago, I nearly died after being bitten by a vaimpír. For some reason, she had been there to take care of me—memories of her are threaded into my fevered dreams like a song stuck in my head.

When I awoke, half-mad, she was at my side.

She shouldn’t have been. But she was.

And now—I am here. My, how easily I let my thoughts stray from Adra around her.

“You took longer than expected to visit again.” Her tone is wry, but I catch the flicker of uncertainty in her expression. Then she tilts her head, studying me. “I wanted to consult the Fuegorra one last time. If it still refuses to give me answers, we will need to have a new sort of conversation. Will you watch your woman?”

I narrow my eyes. “I have no allegiance to her, other than the fact that we serve in the royal court together.”

Liana hums, unconvinced but too tired to argue.

“It’s all right,” she says, arranging one of the dark crystals at Arlet’s bedside. She hums a few notes under her breath, shifting the placement of an obsidian shard. Each stone responds, glowing faintly as the entire arch shimmers with a soft hum, colors shifting in waves of violet and gold.

“No one should bother you while I am gone,” she says.

The rainbow light dances along Arlet’s cheekbones, highlighting the soft curve of her jaw .

If my heart were still inside my chest—if I were a man whole and unbroken—it would be cracking in half right now.

I exhale, steadying myself, then say, “Travel safe. I’ll stay with her.”

Liana gives me a long, knowing look before nodding. She gestures toward a plush chair in the corner, one stuffed thick enough to nearly pass as a bed.

“Try not to haunt the bedside too much,” she says dryly, then disappears down the hall, her robe trailing behind her in a whisper of silk and crystal.

“Don’t forget to put your hair up!” I call.

Liana cackles.

I lower myself into the chair, letting my body sink into the fabric, but I keep my eyes on Arlet.

A stack of the obsidian future reading cards sits on the table beside me. I smirk, barely, acknowledging the small act of anticipation. Liana knows me too well. She sees the things I refuse to acknowledge, even to myself.

For a long moment, I don’t move. I let my mind wander, something I rarely allow. To live in the past is to suffer.

I know that.

And yet… I see my life before.

The home I built with Adra, the warmth of her presence. She was always there.

I remember coming back from the military academy, exhausted and half-starved, only to find a meal waiting. She had learned my preferences and memorized them. And I had done the same for her—listening, watching, giving. We made a language without words—crafted an instinctual love.

It had been so easy, and it had been enough.

Now? Every person in Enduvida has sacrificed something. Why should my happiness be any different?

My life was once beautiful beyond measure.

That should be enough.

And yet…

My eyes betray me .

They shift to the red-haired woman lying on the inclined table, red hair braided neatly over one shoulder, chest rising and falling in steady rhythm.

I tell myself I am only looking. Only studying. But I notice too much.

Freckles scatter in faint trails across her, the bluish-cream tone of her cheekbones. But my eyes follow the darker spots—on her collarbone, her shoulders, her hands.

The urge to connect and trace them like constellations is overwhelming. Would I find a pattern? A hidden map of her soul?

Suddenly, Arlet’s eyelids twitch. It’s a small movement, barely perceptible, but I feel it like a jolt of electricity through my veins.

I sit forward. Liana had wanted her to stay sleeping. But she’s been lying there for so long. Maybe if she woke, I could find out something helpful to Liana.

There is nothing about Arlet I can’t handle.

“Arlet?” I try, my voice quieter than I mean it to be.

She doesn’t move.

I want her to wake up.

I want her to see the power she’s had over me since the moment we met, and watch as it soothes her soul.

“Firelocks,” I say next, testing her, wondering if irritation would bring her back faster.

Her eyelids flutter again.

A small victory.

I bite my lip, uncertain. I have never been one for comforting words or touches.

You already touched her and nothing happened...

But my skin made no contact with hers.

Instinct moves me. I reach forward.

I cup her cheek, fingers hovering before they touch warm, fragile skin, and hold my breath.

Her head tilts into my touch, her eyelids fluttering like the delicate wings of a moth. Something hot and territorial floods through me, pouring over my skull like molten gold.

It submerges me wholly, drowning me in something old and instinctual—a feeling that I have no name for. Even now, in this fragile state, she knows me.

And physically, I am not cold for the first time in half a century.

My thumb brushes over the dusting of freckles, and I let my pointer finger trace one of the fine lines near her eye—the kind that lingers permanently from a lifetime of smiling. I like it. I like that it exists. That she has lived enough, felt enough, to have these faint traces of joy etched into her skin.

Suddenly, her eyes snap open.

I jerk my hand away, startled.

The flicker of hurt across her features nearly destroys me. What an unwelcome sight I must be.

She yanks at her bindings, her body tensing, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Then—her face twists and a broken sob rips from her throat.

“No. Please. Please. Remove the ropes.”

The panic in her voice slices through me. I don’t know what to do. I can’t fathom what is going through her mind, can’t bear the way she pleads.

Just moments ago, I was sure I was the one person who could help her—that my presence, my hands, could offer her some kind of peace.

Now? Now I’m the one tightening the ropes around her wrists and drowning her in a nightmare.

It’s a feeling that finds the severed heart in my chest—locked in a box, beating somewhere far away—and rips it in half all over again.

I need to fix this. I need to do something.

Frantically, my eyes search for the amethyst crystal they used in the throne room, desperate to put her back into the numb embrace of sleep. Anything would be better than this. Anything.

She cries again, and I abandon my search.

“Sh, sh,” I start to say.

“Vann, I’m begging you,” she sobs. “Please, just… loosen the ropes. I can’t bear it,” she pants, looking up at me with those fear-struck eyes. “Take me to the prison. I don't want to hurt anyone else. Please. ”

It kills me to see her like this. Not fierce nor fiery, but lost and small. I know it’s dangerous. I know. But I tell myself I’ll put her back to sleep after.

“I’m here, Firelocks. I will loosen them,” I murmur, crossing to the foot of the table bed and pulling on the ties. "Ald'kar finthira, A’delor imduri."

You are not alone. I will not abandon you.

Her body eases, shoulders slumping as the sobs quiet into silent streams of tears sliding down her cheeks. I reach up to loosen her right hand.

“Gracias, mi cielo,” she whispers.

I pause, frowning. “What does that mean?”

She sniffs, regaining some of her spirit, and then—without missing a beat—she smirks weakly. “It means: thank you for not being an asshole for once.”

I arch a brow, but say nothing.

Some part of her is still her. That should be a relief.

One by one, I move around the table, loosening the knots at her wrists and ankles, watching as she relaxes. The ropes leave behind faint red imprints, and I clench my jaw against the irrational urge to run my fingers over them, to erase the damage.

Then, standing by her head, I murmur, playing her game and use my language again. I speak pretty words into the air, even if she doesn’t realize it, I want her to be at ease, “Grath’ardorien morflamara.”

Do not worry, my flame.

She blinks, eyes flicking toward me. “What does that mean?”

I smirk, lowering my voice as I think of her laughter. That was what she needed. “I’m cursing your bloodline.”

She frowns, and I realize my insensitivity. Again. I’m so fucking careless with my words.

“That was a joke.”

“You’re lucky I can’t shove you into that wall right now,” she says weakly.

“I’d consider it foreplay.”

She scowls, but there’s no heat behind it .

“What the hell is wrong with you? This is not the time for jokes,” she bites out, voice cracking.

“Arlet,” I start. There was too much tenderness in my voice. All of this was a betrayal to Adra’s memory, and yet, I couldn’t stop. Not after I saw her tears. “I have endured through more battles than you have endured human years. If there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that there is always time to make a situation lighter. No one believes you are a monster—least of all me.”

“Why?” she croaks. “I knew something was wrong, yet dragged my feet to seek help. If I had…”

Ah yes . Regret. I understand this emotion well.

“You sensed something was wrong, but you didn’t know what. Did you think you would kill someone?” I ask.

She bites her lip. “I didn’t want to be around children. I was… cautious. But no, I didn’t believe myself capable of this.”

A hollow smile tugs at my lips.

“I didn’t think so. We tell ourselves that being good means always making the right choices—but that’s fucking exhausting. We are all going to make mistakes. Maybe some of the blame is yours, but you didn’t choose to kill that man.”

I hold her gaze, steady. “You can claw at the past, Firelocks, but it won’t change. What matters is what you do now.”

For the first time in many months, my eyes burn. Why did this make me feel like, for just a few seconds, I had a heart?

It was a cruel thing to do to Adra, who must be watching me care for another woman from the afterlife in Vidalena.

She deserved better than me, but I owe Arlet a debt.

“I need to put you back to sleep,” I say, my voice gentler this time. “But you can rest easy knowing you are watched.”

Her jaw clenches, and for a moment, I think she’ll fight me.

“I don’t want to go to sleep again, Vann.”

The way she says my name makes me pause. I reach down to the only binding I didn’t loosen—the one securing her hand with scarred fingers. As I had done in the salt room, I hook our weakest fingers together.

“I promise to take care of you.”

Her eyes fill with tears and her lower lip wobbles. “All right.”

I don’t move my hand as I press the amethyst against her temple, watching as she inhales sharply. Her lips part, and for the briefest second, I see something raw in how she looks at me.

“Thank you,” she breathes, the words barely a whisper. “For being here.”

I ignore what those words do to me. Instead, I focus on humming a soft tune, letting the melody connect with the crystal.

“Don’t leave,” she says just before her eyes flutter closed. The strain marring her face eases as she rests fully against the table bed.

I stand there, frozen.

Of course I would stay. I wish I could promise her this would be the last time she’d have to fall asleep in fear.

Instead, I let go of her finger and sit back down. I pick up a covered paint pot from beside my brushes, along with one of the obsidian cards. Before applying the paint, I reach for a bottle of alcohol to clean the surface and ensure adhesion.

I inhale deeply, letting the scent of oils and minerals fill my lungs, grounding me.

“This will be all right in time,” I murmur into the open air, my voice quiet. I’m not sure who I’m saying it to. Her… or myself.