Page 8

Chapter Eight

C eryn woke alone in Vael’Zhur’s bed, the first light of dawn still only a blush on the horizon. The sheets beside her were already cool. The emptiness where his massive body had lain felt too deliberate to be chance. She blinked against the heaviness in her eyes, the ache in her limbs. She had meant to slip away in the dark, to vanish without goodbye. But grief had wrapped around her like a shroud, pulling her into sleep before she had the chance.

He had known. Somehow, he had known. And he had spared her the final cruelty of watching her leave.

A neatly folded set of clothes waited for her on the chair—a pair of soft woolen trousers, a linen tunic, and a dark wool cloak she recognized from the cold mornings in the tower. A quiet, wordless offering. Her throat tightened.

She dressed quickly, the fabric brushing over skin still tender from the night before, from the memory of his hands, his mouth, his voice tangled with hers in the dark. Each movement felt weighted, like dragging herself through water. But she forced herself into motion, her heart already pounding with what must be done.

She crept through the corridor in silence, her feet finding familiar patterns in the worn stones. The scent of the orchard tugged at her even now—sweet and wild, steeped in magic and memory. But first, she needed something to carry the fruit. She turned toward the kitchens, hoping to find a sack or satchel, anything that might serve.

She paused at the threshold.

On the worn wooden table at the center of the room sat a large burlap sack, filled and waiting. Beside it, gleaming dully in the firelight, lay the bone-handled dagger.

And beside both, silent and still, stood Vael’Zhur.

He didn’t speak at first. His golden eyes met hers, unreadable in their depth, his face carved from something colder than stone. Yet sorrow pooled beneath the surface, like stormwater behind cracked glass.

Her blood chilled.

“What is this?” she whispered.

“Your payment to Aldaric,” he said quietly. “Do not return for more. I will not give it to you again. But this should secure your mother and sister… if he honors his word.”

Her breath caught. “And if he doesn’t?”

“You already know he will not.”

The truth hung in the space between them like a blade. Heavy. Inevitable.

“I have to try,” she said. Her voice trembled, but not with fear—with desperation. “I have to do something. You could come with me. Help me free them.”

He shook his head slowly, the movement filled with sorrow and finality. “I cannot. You know this. I am bound to the orchard, to the curse. If I leave, I risk losing myself. I risk becoming what the warlord wants me to be—a beast without thought or will. I could kill them, Ceryn. I could kill you.”

She clenched her fists, frustration burning behind her eyes. “You’ve resisted it this long. You’ve fought it. I’ve seen you. I believe in you. I love you. Isn’t that what breaks the curse? Isn’t love supposed to be enough?”

His expression crumpled—just slightly. A crack in the armor. “Love is rarely enough, little thief,” he murmured. “It was a dream. A beautiful one. But still a dream.”

He gestured to the sack. “Go. Free your family. Live the life you fought for. And forget me. Forget this place. Be happy.”

Her heart twisted painfully. “And you? What happens to you?”

He looked away, his jaw tight. “That no longer matters.”

“It matters to me.”

At that, he looked back. His eyes were impossibly soft. Wounded. “Then stay.”

She stood frozen in the doorway, her hands trembling at her sides. Her heart screamed yes. But duty… love… they warred inside her.

“I can’t,” she whispered.

He nodded once, a sharp, broken motion. He turned to the rising sun bleeding through the treetops. “Then go,” he said, his voice low and rough. “Go before I change my mind.”

She lingered a moment longer, caught in the doorway like a soul between worlds. Then she moved, crossing the room and lifting the sack to her shoulder. The dagger remained where it lay.

“I will come back,” she said quietly, her voice trembling. “Once I free them, I will return.”

He turned then, slowly—too slowly—and the look on his face stole the breath from her lungs.

Fury. Pain. Despair.

“Never return,” he snarled, his voice no longer man, no longer lover. “If you come back, I will kill you. And all who come with you.”

She stumbled backward, the force of his rage like a blow. Her heart thudded painfully against her ribs, tears rising fast. She turned and ran, the sack heavy across her shoulder, the weight of her choices even heavier.

Behind her, his roar echoed through the stone halls, chasing her down the corridor like a warning—and a farewell.

She didn’t stop.

She couldn’t stop.

Tears blinded her, but she kept running, as if distance might dull the sound of her heart breaking.

* * *

V ael’Zhur watched her leave from the turret, his massive hands braced against the cold stone as the distant figure of Ceryn moved toward the trees. Already, madness curled around the edges of his mind like fog creeping over a battlefield—insidious, relentless. The clarity she’d given him was slipping. Her scent still lingered on his skin, but her warmth was already fading from his bed. From his life.

A small, aching part of him had hoped—believed—she might turn. That she would stop, spin on her heel, run back to him. That she would choose him over duty, over blood. Over her family.

But he had asked too much.

She had to know, didn’t she? That they were already lost to her. Aldaric lacked all sense of mercy. There was no honor in him, no humanity. He would hold Ceryn’s family hostage only long enough to make her suffer. Long enough to let her believe she had a chance. Then he would kill them, precisely when the blade would cut deepest.

And still, Vael’Zhur had let her go.

“You let her go,” Elodia said softly behind him, her voice as calm and ancient as the wind brushing the spires. She stood to his right, ever watchful, ever unshaken.

“I did,” he replied, though the words scraped his throat raw.

“With silverfruit.” No accusation in her tone. Just truth, spoken plainly. “Was it a test?”

“No.” He exhaled slowly. “Though it really was.”

Below, Ceryn hesitated at the edge of the forest. She glanced back, and his heart stalled. For a breathless moment, he thought—hoped—she would turn. That some sliver of feeling would pull her back to him.

But then she slipped beneath the trees, swallowed by shadow. And he exhaled, the sound hollow in his chest.

That was it, then. She had chosen. And, like everyone else in his long and cursed life, she had not chosen him.

Why would she? He had nothing to offer her but ruin. A crumbling castle bound to blood and magic, haunted by the dead. A tattered beast, cursed and breaking, with a name she had nearly saved but could never truly restore. He couldn’t even blame her. He wouldn't want her to stay—not really. She deserved more. Light. Life. Freedom.

He turned from the window, shoulders heavy with the weight of heartbreak and failure. She had been his last hope. The final chance to unravel the name that shackled him. To remember the man he once was. The name Auren had meant something when she spoke it. Now, it would fade into history with the rest of him.

The curse had already begun to reclaim him, inch by inch. Soon, even his memories would belong to the beast. The line between man and monster blurred more with every breath. His thoughts splintered. His control slipped.

He looked at Elodia.

She stood with a few of the castle’s other ghostly attendants—those who had lingered long after their deaths, bound to duty, to him. Their faces shimmered in the half-light, more emotion in their spectral eyes than many of the living had ever shown him.

He straightened, summoning what dignity he had left.

“I release you all from your servitude,” he said, his voice echoing through the tower, low and resonant. “You are free. Be at peace, my friends. You have served me well. I thank you for your honorable service.”

The words caught in his throat, and still he pushed through them.

These spirits had chosen loyalty over rest, had remained to help him when their lord passed the orchard into his hands. Now, there was nothing left to protect. Nothing but a battlefield waiting to bloom with blood.

Elodia’s eyes did not leave his. “What of you, my lord?”

The question hung in the air like frost.

He gave a bitter smile. “I will be along soon enough.”

The madness was coiling tighter now. His thoughts became a thrum of rage. His vision narrowed, darkening at the edges until the world reduced to movement, threat, blood. It took everything in him not to tear apart the stone beneath his claws. Soon, Aldaric would come. And then… he would no longer need to resist.

The curse welcomed him like an old friend. It would have its due.

He could feel it now—hunger blooming in his chest, heat rolling under his skin, muscle and bone shifting beneath the weight of ancient magic. The orchard pulsed in the distance, echoing the throb of his dying humanity. The beast no longer slumbered. It was awake. It was waiting.

His jaw clenched. His chest expanded with a final breath.

He threw back his head and let loose a roar that shook the stones beneath his feet, splitting the silence like a blade through flesh. The sound of it echoed through the castle and into the trees beyond, into the sky, into the roots of the orchard that had claimed him.

The transformation tore through him. Claws extended. Fangs bared. The fire in his blood consumed the last fragments of Auren.

The curse had won.

The end was nigh.