Page 16 of Cursed (Court of Isles #1)

Chapter 16

Silas whisked us away from Wisteria Cottage. We Phased to the northernmost point on the East side of The Isle. Our destination was on a rocky cliff high above the water, an outcropping with jagged edges that sliced into the waters around us like a serrated knife.

We regained our footing whilst overlooking the crystal-clear expanse of lake. Wind pulled through my hair with angry strokes. Waves lapped hundreds of feet below us in protest.

“It’s like the island knows,” I whispered, raising my hands, letting the breeze peck at me like uneasy fowl. “It knows we’re about to betray it.”

Silas cocked his head toward me, looking truly startled. “You can feel that?”

“You can’t?” It made me uneasy, like I’d said something I shouldn’t have.

“I think the island is a living thing. I think it has an energy and a heartbeat of its own. It makes sense that it may have a sense of awareness. ”

Silas hadn’t answered my question. He had, however, affirmed that maybe I wasn’t totally nuts for feeling that way.

“To break the wards, we’ll need to Phase to the bottom of the lake.” Silas looked into the sunshine, squinting so little creases appeared at the side of his eyes. I’d say he looked like a sailor at the helm, but really, he looked more like a pirate.

Silas looked at ease here, perched hundreds of feet in the air, balanced on the precipice of a sheer drop without a concern for his safety. His impressive body was perfectly still, his muscles flexed, eyes studying the horizon.

He looked at one with the island. Silas understood these lands, and they understood him. He was, at his core, an islander—no matter how much he argued otherwise.

“You’re Fae too,” I said. “You belong to this court. Your roots are deep here, even if you don’t want to admit it.”

For the longest time, I thought maybe Silas hadn’t heard me. I waited, about to repeat myself, when he finally turned his head a few degrees.

“ We belong here.”

Then he raised a hand to the Comm device that was attached to his wrist. It was the island version of a walkie-talkie.

“We’re ready,” Silas said into it .

The device crackled, and then Ranger X’s voice came through the speaker. “Boat’s all set.” A beat, and then, “Good luck, you two.”

“Boat?” I asked.

“I asked Ranger X to send a boat out to the perimeter,” he said. “The salt crystals are located at the bottom of the lake, so we’ll have to Phase underwater to access them. I want an easy location to Phase to and from that’s not on the mainland. It’ll be impossible to say where the curse will attack once we begin.”

I nodded. “You mentioned the crystals might be protected by force?”

“I suspect that hiding the curse in plain sight was their best line of defense. They wove the curse into our very own protective wards. It wouldn’t make sense to have a physical layer of protection on top of that—it would be noticeable, and it would defeat the purpose of being discreet.”

“What do you think will happen when we destroy the first crystal?”

“There are seven total, according to the ancient maps,” Silas said. “They’re laid out in a circle around the island. Picture them as anchors to a spider web of protective netting over us. A parachute of magical protection, tied down to the crystals.”

“Do you think we’ll only need to break one of the crystals to disconnect the curse? ”

“I doubt it. If I had set the curse, I’d use everything available. Each of those salt crystals is powerful enough on its own to act as a generator.”

“Are you telling me that if we break one crystal, the power source will just shift to another? You’re saying there are six backup generators—and we have to destroy them all?”

“I can’t say anything for sure, but that’s what I would have done.”

“Do you know how to break the wards?” I asked. “I know you fix and patch them all the time, but this feels different.”

“It is different. The wards I put up are modern magicks,” he said. “The wards we’ll be breaking are centuries old. They date back to the days of the Fae Queens.”

“Will you be able to break them?” My throat felt dry. “If it’s so different?”

“No, I don’t think I’ll be able to break them.”

“Silas! Why wouldn’t you tell me that before we set this plan in motion?”

“I won’t be able to break them, but you might.”

“Why me?”

“Take out your dagger.”

I slipped the dagger out of its sheath on my travel belt and handed it over.

“Do you see this?” Silas gestured toward the cerulean gems on my dagger, the inlaid stones that looked eerily similar to the ones on my circlet ring. “These stones are the same ones that represented the Court of Isles thousands of years ago. A blue to match its waters .”

“It’s just like my ring,” I said. “I never knew where it came from. Do you think…”

“Do I think your ring could have been passed down from your actual parents—from your Fae mother and father?” Silas’s eyes leveled on me. “Absolutely. I think it might be one way they’ve been protecting you, even after they’ve been gone for so long.”

“I found it in a box with my name on it in the attic,” I said. “My mother didn’t know where it was from. She’s tried to get rid of it over and over again, but inexplicably, I keep finding it.”

Silas grunted in a way that told me he understood. That I wasn’t crazy. That maybe, this meant something.

“You belong here,” he finally said. “You’ve always belonged here; you just didn’t know it until now.”

That single sentence summed up my whole life in a few syllables. The way I’d felt my whole childhood and well into adulthood was that I had belonged somewhere, just not New York.

I’d always suspected my destiny hadn’t arrived yet. I’d felt uneasy and different, and I often experienced a longing for something more. Something bigger and better, somewhere I could just be myself.

Try telling that to my parents .

I glanced down at my ring. Sunlight glinted off those azure gems, almost as if there was water beneath the hard surface. Like my very ring was happy to be home where it belonged, just like me.

“The dagger might be able to break the wards,” Silas said. “That very weapon belonged to the previous Fae Queen.”

“A Fae Queen?” I just about dropped the sparkling blade. “How did you acquire it? Why did you give it to me?”

“The dagger is of no use to me,” Silas said. “Only a full-blooded Fae can wield it effectively. To me, it is a knife like any other. To you, it’s an extension of your power and heritage. The dagger has touched ancient magic. It’s happy in your hand and, I suspect, will come alive when you need it most.”

The dagger suddenly felt hot to the touch. Or maybe my palms were just clammy.

“The salt crystals are fixed to the bottom of the lake,” Silas continued. “We’ll get to the boat, then sail to the other side of the ward’s barrier. I think it’ll be best if we approach it from the outside. The stray magic will naturally head toward The Isle once it has been released, so we want to be opposite its path.”

“Makes sense.”

“I’ll Phase you down once you’re ready. I’ll be able to create a sphere of air around us to give you space to work, but it’s heavy magic, and I won’t be able to hold it for long. You will have to move quickly.”

“What if I can’t do it?”

“We’ll figure it out together. I’ll be by your side every step of the way.” Silas put his fingers at my chin, tilted my head up. “You’ll never be alone again, Alessia.”

I shuddered at his touch, at his words. How alone I’d felt for so long. How reassuring it was to hear his words, even if it wasn’t a promise he could realistically make.

“I’m ready,” I told him. “Let’s go.”

Silas took my hand, and the familiar whiz of Phasing propelled us through time and space until I felt a rocking motion beneath my feet. The illusion of sky meeting the water’s surface had me off balance; it was hard to tell where the sky ended and the lake began. It was a brilliant swatch of blue in every direction.

We’d Phased onto a small rowboat. The Isle was in the distance behind us. I could see the cliffside where we’d been standing and surveying this very spot, a pinprick in the distance. In the opposite direction was nothing but miles and miles of blue water.

“Funny,” I said. “I never expected the Great Lakes to look so tropical.”

“That’s an illusion.” Silas sat, and I followed suit. He began rowing straight at the wall of blue. “It’s meant to look like paradise continues onward forever and ever, but it doesn’t. It comes to an end. ”

“As does every good thing,” I muttered.

Silas gave a wry smile. “You’ll see what I mean soon enough. Hold on tight.”

I wasn’t sure why I needed to hold on, but I did as he suggested, and a second later I felt like I’d been popped out of a toaster. As if my body had been propelled forward and my stomach had been left behind.

I gripped the sides of the boat and let my insides settle. Once I managed to look up, there was no island in sight. No sparkling blue waters. No magic anywhere in sight.

Surrounding us now were dark blue waters that looked frigid and dangerous. The breeze was nippy and impersonal, and the sun hid behind a thick wall of gray clouds. I could see a boat in the distance, which made me do a double take.

“Are those humans?” I asked. “On that boat?”

Silas gave a faint smile. “Yes. It’s why we took an old rowboat. No technology to get picked up on, just in case we’re spotted. Welcome to the real world.”

“The real world sucks,” I said. “I prefer the enchanted one.”

“You and me both.”

We sat, rocking in the waves as Silas stopped rowing, breathing in time with one another. My heart beat a distracting pitter patter in my chest .

“Once we start, there is no stopping this,” Silas warned. “We don’t know how fast things will move once we break the first crystal.”

“Do you think this is the right decision?”

Silas tilted that beautiful face toward the nonexistent sunshine. “I think it’s the only one.”

“How will I know what to do once we reach the wards?” I asked. “I have the dagger, but I don’t know how to access the magic within it.”

“You’ve used your magic before,” Silas said. “How did you know what to do?”

“Intuition.”

“Intuition and belief ,” Silas corrected. “That’s the only thing that will work from here on out.”

“Silas, if I’m not successful, I want you to Phase back to the island and help evacuate everyone else. Leave me behind if necessary.” I expelled a breath, attempting to get across how deadly serious I was. “I’d rather you save as many people as possible if I…if I’m in trouble.”

Silas’s eyes darkened, like he was absorbing the clouds around us. The sky grew murky and uneasy. The water turned an inky black.

Silas reached for me, rocking the boat as he pressed a hard, forceful kiss to my lips. When we parted, he frowned.

“That’s not an option.” Silas glanced down. “I’m afraid it’s time. ”

I stood beside this man with a heavy heart. I gripped the dagger in one hand and Silas’s fingers with the other. The gems on my dagger seemed duller now that we’d left the confines of The Isle’s magic, as did the ones on my ring. Like they’d lost part of their spirit when they left the bounds of the court to which they belonged. Just like me.

“If you need a break and can’t communicate, squeeze my arm, and I’ll take you back to the surface,” Silas said. “However, once you break the first crystal, there is no stopping. If it’s as I suspect, and the other six crystals are all tied to the curse, we will need to move from one to the next until we’ve destroyed all seven.”

“I understand.” I closed my eyes, exhaled. “I’m ready.”

Then the tremor started behind my belly button, except this time when we emerged on the other end of the Phase, my ears were filled with the sound of silence.

My feet were on sand, and it took me a moment to fling my arms wide and get my balance. Silas was no longer next to me. The second I looked up, I saw why.

His arms were extended, his face showing only a hint of strain as he held an entire Great Lake’s worth of water away from me. We were encased in a small sphere as he’d promised, giving me the air to breathe and the space to move that I would need to separate this curse from its power source .

I could see the water fighting and surging to return to its natural state, railing against the barrier Silas had constructed with his magic. The heavy waters strove to fill this empty pocket at its depths. Silas was the only thing holding it back. It suddenly made a lot of sense why I needed to hurry.

I took the dagger, moved to the center of the sphere, and knelt. I quickly uncovered something in the sand and began to dig around it, brushing away rock and seaweed and sand. Finally, I exposed the top half of something that resembled a crystal ball.

It looked like electricity bounced through the precious glass sphere—captured magic, desperate to get out. The spells zipped erratically like tiny, frenetic electric eels.

I picked up the dagger, looked to Silas, and then I drove the blade down against the top of the glass. The tip of the blade glanced off and embedded itself into nearby sand without making a dent. A zap of magic shot from the sphere, as if it could tell it was being attacked. The blast sent me flying into Silas.

The full weight of my person crashed into him, and in Silas’s shock, his hands slipped. He lost his perfectly braced pose, and the spell holding the lake water at bay was broken.

Water crashed over us in a fury, pulling us under, swirling me upside down, inside out—blackness swallowing us from every direction. I inhaled a mouthful of water.

I swiped for my dagger, missed. I couldn’t breathe. My lungs were filling with salt water. I was drowning, this was it—I hadn’t managed to break even one crystal.

Then strong arms wrapped around my chest. A tremble, a tug, and then I was on my knees. In the rowboat, vomiting up water. My whole body shook. My vision was blurry, and I saw stars.

“Silas!” I cried, and he was there next to me, holding the hair out of my face while I wheezed in air.

“It’s okay, Alessia. It’s okay.” Silas clutched a fistful of my hair while his words whispered against my neck. “We’ll try again.”

“I lost the dagger,” I told him.

“No, you didn’t.”

“I did,” I said. “I couldn’t grab it in time.”

Even as I finished my sentence, my voice trailed off. There, on the bottom of the rowboat, glittered three cerulean gems embedded in a familiar handle. My dagger had been returned to me.

I stood, dripping wet. I pulled my hair back from my head, tied it in a tight bun. Every part of me was drenched. I turned to Silas.

“Again,” I told him.

Silas took my hand, looked with approval down at me, and then Phased us back under without another word. He launched another sphere of air to protect me while I worked.

I knelt, held the dagger in my hands, and waited. For what, I wasn’t sure. Inspiration? The solution? I tried to believe, but I wasn’t sure what to believe in. I believed that I belonged here, but that wasn’t enough.

This time, I took the tip of the blade, set it on top of the magic ball. I sawed, slowly, thinking maybe it was more of a finesse situation than a brute-force one.

The blast built up slowly this time. As if the magic had taken every slice of the blade against it personally. Once the crystal had suffered enough, the protective spells shot me backwards, knocking me into blackness.

Silas was ready this time. He grabbed me and Phased me to the surface, where I once again heaved up the water I’d ingested—less this time, since I’d known to keep my mouth shut. My dagger waited for me at the bottom of the rowboat.

“Again,” I told Silas, the second I pulled myself shakily to my feet.

Another Phase, another blast.

Another Phase, another blast.

“Catch your breath,” Silas said after my fourth try. “It won’t work if you’re exhausted.”

I shook my head. “Again.”

Again.

Again .

Again.

It was my 9 th attempt when I felt it. The weakness creeping into my muscles, the doubt seeping into my brain. We’d Phased in and out over and over again, and I could tell it was wearing on Silas too, both physically and mentally.

He looked tired and exhausted, though he tried not to let it show. He was patient and kind, but I could see the hope slipping from his gaze.

“I don’t know what to believe in,” I said. “The card you gave me said to believe , and I thought I did that. It’s not working.”

“It did work.” Silas considered. “But you’ve gotten new information since then. Maybe that’s the difference.”

“New information?”

“You’ve always felt at home on this island,” Silas said. “But now you know you belong here as Fae. You belong to this court—the one that created these crystals. You must believe you’re worthy of wielding true Fae magic. You need to be confident in your bloodline, accepting of the great power inside of you.”

I stood, my legs barely able to hold the weight of the rest of my skeleton upright.

“Again,” I gasped.

Silas gave a pained nod. This time, he kissed the top of my head as he tucked me against his body, and we Phased. Still locked in an embrace, he transported us to the bottom of thousands and thousands and thousands of gallons of water, and then he turned back and held it all up for me.

This time I knelt, and I rested the dagger across my knees like a sacrifice instead of a weapon. I faced the magically encased sphere with a new reverence, realizing this had been touched by my alleged ancestors. I rested my hands on it. I let my ring click-clack against the surface of the globe, as if likeness might sense likeness.

“You have served for centuries to protect this island and your people,” I whispered, as if the strands of magic could understand. “You’ve done your job. I am here now, a true Fae; I will take over these duties. The only way to save The Court of Isles now is to let go so I can help rebuild what’s been lost.”

I waited, thinking I should feel ridiculous, and yet I didn’t feel ridiculous at all. I’d run out of every other sensical option. I was desperate. Exhausted. I wanted this not for myself, but for the others, and maybe that was the difference. After all, that was the very reason the Fae Queen had set these wards in the first place: to keep her lands and people safe.

“We’re going to have to go,” Silas said. “The spell’s breaking, and I can’t hold it any longer.”

A dazzling light shone through the sphere. Silas leaned into his spell, straining with all his might to keep the water away. Blinding white light reflected off his irises as shock and awe settled on his face. The crystal ball looked calmer, the ribbons of magic inside slowing as if I’d spoken a secret password in an ancient tongue.

The glass sphere lit up, the whole thing glowing, as a slit opened in the center.

“The dagger,” Silas rasped. “The dagger, Alessia!”

I scrambled to my feet, pulled the dagger from my lap, and lined the tip up with the opening. I inserted it, sliding the blade into the crevice. It was a perfect fit.

I locked eyes with Silas, knowing this might very well be the beginning of the end.

He gave a nod. I turned the dagger, a lethal key.

A faint click sounded. Then without warning, the glass globe shattered into a million pieces. Silas lunged for me as magic whipped around me—evil magic. Curse magic. Magic woven like strands of a witch’s hair and tipped by poison.

The evil curse licked at my body, leaving my skin stinging and my throat hoarse. I must have been screaming from the intensity of it all, but I couldn’t register sensation. I was overwhelmed with crushing fear and excruciating pain.

A tug, warm hands on me, and then we were back on the boat.

I looked at Silas, who looked horrified as he studied me. I was bleeding from head to toe and exhausted. I looked like a terror, I was certain of it.

I pulled myself to my feet, my jaw set as I faced Silas.

“Again.”