Page 19 of Cursed (Court of Isles #1)

Chapter 19

Before I could even inhale a breath, I realized Atlas was right. The Furies had executed their trap flawlessly. They had correctly anticipated Atlas’s move—that he’d try to draw them away from us—and they’d guessed that Silas would follow his injured brother into the clouds with me in tow.

Silas hadn’t even fully materialized from the Phase before the Furies shot out knotty black ropes to secure his limbs. His skin reddened at the contact, burning where it touched the evil magic. The sky serpents circled us, around and around and around, faster and faster until a blur of blackness cut off our view of anything else.

Atlas lay on a hard, white surface. My feet were on it too; it was like the Titan had turned the clouds around us to marble.

“How lovely.” One of the awful Furies spoke as the serpents slowed in their circling. “You’ve brought your mate with you, Silas. I can smell the bond.”

Silas looked at me, a faint sense of curiosity on his face .

“But what are you, pretty girl?” One of the Furies glided toward me. She had a long nose, bent like a crooked river. Her hair was stringy and black, like it’d been dipped in a vat of oil. She took a sniff as she neared me, looking at me with such intensity it was like she could see right through me. “What is that scent?”

I stood stock still, taking in my surroundings as the three Furies dismounted from their sky serpents onto the marbled surface to further examine the mystery that was me. The platform extended around us like a big disc of calcified clouds.

“How is it possible that I don’t recognize your scent?” The Fury’s eyebrows coiled in confusion, then in frustration, like the fact that I was perplexing to her was annoying. “Sister, come see for yourself.”

All three Furies stood on their platforms. Their sky serpents circled the white dais in the sky, creating a moving belt like a venomous version of Saturn’s rings. The monsters’ tongues flicked out, their horns bent at angles, their eyes waiting for the word from their masters to move, to consume, to destroy.

“She’d be delicious, whatever she is,” the second Fury said. “Her soul seems delectable.”

“So pure.” The third Fury licked her lips, like I was an appetizer. Or maybe a dessert, after they slaughtered Atlas and Silas. “The Darkest King has done well for us, sisters. ”

“He’s been most generous with his sacrifices,” the second Fury agreed. “What do you say, Megaera? Shall we proceed?”

“She keeps her soul for now,” the first Fury—Megaera—commanded. She stroked a long, rotten nail beneath my chin. “At least until we figure out what she is.”

The other Furies looked disappointed. Instead, they turned their attention to Atlas with newfound hope. The Titan lay on his side, bound by black ropes, his eyes closed. His skin was gray and ashy and sickly. He didn’t have much strength left.

Silas was also bound, but in an upright position. Evil magic wound its way around his wrists, ankles, neck, and waist. There was hardly an inch of him free from those thick black ropes that seemed to shimmer with poisoned scales, an extension of the sky serpents themselves.

Anything less, and Silas would have been able to free himself. But this magic was something else. Straight from the underworld, so wicked even Silas was powerless against it.

“Do you smell that?” The second Fury, this one with a button-nose, scooted to Silas. She was short and stumpy next to Megaera’s tall and wiry form. “It’s him . She smells like Silas.”

“I don’t understand how that is possible.” Megaera frowned. “Only true mating bonds cause a smell to translate between two different creatures, and as far as we know, very few creatures take true mates in this day and age.”

“Smell for yourself, Sister,” the second fury persisted, looking so confident that even Megaera paused. “I’ve always had a nose for souls.”

That was enough to convince the first Fury, and Megaera strode toward Silas. A long sniff, this one less hungry. Slow, careful, curious. Then a second inhale, like Megaera couldn’t believe the first.

“Either they’re mated…” Megaera stepped back from Silas, sizing him up like a puzzle. “Or he’s protecting her somehow, and his protection has washed her with his scent.”

I sucked in a breath. Was there actually a mating bond between us? Or was it something else?

“Let’s find out.” Megaera smiled that terrible smile. She had yellowed teeth and a slender, slightly-pointed tongue, as if she’d taken on the characteristics of the sky serpent she rode. “Let’s play a game, shall we?”

“No!” I screamed, even as Megaera extended her pointer finger.

The dirty-black nail flicked out. It was long, sharper like a switchblade. Megaera moved it toward Silas’s chest. She hesitated, just for a moment, as her finger made an indention on Silas’s shirt .

Then she stroked. Within seconds, Silas’s shirt was in tatters, completely stripped from his body. He was bare from the waist up, a thin trickle of blood at the point where the Fury’s finger had pressed into his chest.

“Let her go,” Megaera said to Silas. “Or you will die for it.”

Silas licked his lips, looked her in the eye.

“She is my mate,” Silas grunted. “I will die before she does.”

In reply, Megaera pushed her finger further into Silas’s chest, piercing his skin. Silas’s jaw clenched, a look of extreme pain on his face as his head bowed forward deeply and his teeth clenched. His body didn’t move, didn’t buck, didn’t even flinch, but I could tell it took everything in him to remain still.

I trembled. Then Megaera began to drag down with that rotten nail.

A bloody red line parted Silas’s chest, blood dripping down his abs as black lines shot out from the point of her incision. She was dissecting him alive. Slaughtering the man I couldn’t help but love right before my eyes.

“Stop!” I fell to my knees in surrender. “I will do anything. Just stop. You want me? Let him go, and I’ll offer myself to you.”

“Alessia,” Silas gasped. “No. ”

I looked at him and just shook my head. I hoped he could read in my gaze that I knew—I knew we were fated to be together. I knew .

I looked at Megaera, the Fury who would destroy me. “I am Fae.”

Megaera blinked, her mangy hair twitching at the ends as she shook her head. The sky serpents slowed, a blip in their incessant circling. The second Fury burst into screeching laughter.

“A Fae!” she cried amid gales of laughter. “All true and royal Fae were killed off years ago. Anyone who claims to be Fae these days is either a liar or has a history so diluted it poses no threat to us.”

But Megaera wasn’t laughing like her sister. Matted black eyelashes pinched together as she squinted between me and Silas.

“Mates share a scent,” Megaera declared. “And it is the Fae species who most notably took mates. Silas has always been a mystery to us, a bastard. Could he be part Fae? Could she ?”

The second Fury stopped her laughter abruptly. “No. It simply cannot be.”

“I would agree it is impossible. And yet...” Megaera took another, deeper sniff, her whole body moving with it like she was consuming every detail of the bond between me and Silas. “The Darkest King has sent us here for a reason he did not say. Why would he care about destroying some inconsequential island in the middle of nowhere, if it were not a threat to his very existence?”

Then Megaera dug her nail into Silas with a determined sneer. I felt the pain this time; it cut through me as if her hands were inside my skin and not his.

I didn’t have the restraint, nor the experience of Silas, and I buckled further forward until my forehead hit the cool marble disc. Tears of fury and pain and hopelessness dripped from my cheeks onto the smooth white surface.

Ruby blood mixed with a poison-black liquid, pooling down from Silas onto the floor in a terrible tie-dye. The sky serpents accelerated around the platform as if the smell of blood and death invigorated them. They were ravenous.

“Fates be damned.” Megaera’s voice was an unpleasant hiss that slithered down my skin, as if she’d infiltrated my very body. “She’s telling the truth.”

“But, Sister, how can it be?” The second Fury repeated her arguments. “The Fae no longer exist. We can’t smell it on her.”

“Silas has been protecting her this entire time.” Megaera turned a look of unfettered anger at Silas. “You’ve been protecting her with your essence. You fool! ”

Then Megaera waved a hand before her as if wielding a wand, but instead of glittering magic, she sent forth a stream of black that hit Silas in the chest and made him finally, finally break his silence.

He cried out in pain, bent forward as his whole body seized, captive by the evil magic. He was dying. There was no way he could come back from a blow of this size. I could feel it in my soul.

We were bonded. I didn’t know how fated mates work, but I could feel the beginnings of a thin, tenuous link between us. That same link I’d accessed to pull him out of the gap in time in space when he’d been Ripped away from me. A link that meant if Silas died, a part of me would die with him.

I didn’t understand this link yet, or the attachment between us. I didn’t know how much of what we had between us was real, and what was fated to be. I only knew that I’d found my place and my person, only to have both torn away from me.

“Kill them all.” Megaera spoke with a terrifying swiftness.

There was no room for negotiation. No pause, no distraction, no hope. She flicked a hand, giving her sisters and their monstrous creatures free reign. There was nothing but malice in Megaera’s face as she glanced below us, the glimmer in her eyes a silent promise that as soon as our hearts stopped beating, she’d return to The Isle to finish the job there .

Her gruesome command echoed in the pit of my soul. I felt the second one of the sky serpents sank onyx fangs into Silas’s arm, even as he bellowed in pain, his head thrown back as they attacked. Atlas lay on the ground, forgotten, so far gone that even the sky serpents found little joy in feasting on him.

“No!” I pulled myself onto one knee and reached for the dagger strapped to my thigh. “You will not destroy my court or my mate. You have angered the wrong Fae.”

I took the dagger then, and I plunged it against the platform in the sky. Instantly, the marbled clouds cracked down the middle with a thundering boom that could certainly be heard from the island below.

In a mere second, we were falling—all of us. The Furies shrieked, calling for their sky serpents to catch them in mid-air. The creatures tangled around one another, losing precious seconds as they lunged for their masters.

I closed my eyes, my dagger already tucked back in its sheath. A blink later, and I was at Silas’s side. Another blink, and I had my other hand on Atlas’s withered form.

Silas blew his bindings to bits. With the Furies and their creatures distracted, he’d been able to shatter the ropes holding him hostage. His blood leaked into the air as we free fell.

I closed my eyes, and I listened to myself. I felt for those gaps in space and time, the ones I’d noticed when Silas had Phased me with him. I tugged on thin strands of magic I could not see but could feel. The next thing I knew, all three of us crashed to a hard surface.

The abrupt landing knocked the wind out of me, but as I opened my eyes, I knew we were alive. All three of us. Maybe not for long, but for now.

“You Phased.” Silas’s voice held pride in its weak lilt. “You’re incredible, Alessia.”

“This is not the end, Silas.” I squeezed his hand. “If you die, I die. I’m not ready to die.”

“I had no idea the Furies themselves would be sent.” Apology laced Silas’s words. “I expected too much from you too soon. I’m so sorry I brought you into this. If I could take it all back, I would.”

“I wouldn’t.” Tears sparked in my eyes, dripped down my face which was wet with blood—from me or Silas, I didn’t know. “I wouldn’t give any of this up. Even if we die today.”

Silas closed his eyes, and I could feel him fading. He’d given everything to protect me, and it was my turn to give what I had left. If it wasn’t enough, then it wasn’t enough. But I wouldn’t know if I didn’t try.

I stood, realizing the three of us had landed on the Upper Bridge that linked the East and West sides of the island together. To the West sat The Forest and all its darkness, its cursed sections curling in blackness. To the right was sunlight and emptiness .

I heard a voice then, a small voice radiating from the East side of The Isle.

“They’re coming!” Millie shouted from the East side of the bridge, looking out of breath, like she’d sprinted here. “The Furies are coming for you.”

“How’d you—” I looked to Millie, then to Silas. “How’d you find us?”

“I tracked Silas,” she explained, her eyes widening at the condition of her employer as she climbed the bridge to meet us in the middle.

“Silas said there were only two options to defeat this curse,” I murmured from my crouch beside Silas. “The only remaining option is the return of a Fae Queen.”

“That’s impossible,” Millie said. “The Fae are wiped out.”

“Maybe it’s not as impossible as we thought.” I faced Millie. “What if I told you I’m Fae? I am, Millie, somehow, I am. I’ll explain the details later. What if I can access the former Queen’s ancient power to save her lands?”

Even as I said it, the hopelessness rolled off my tongue. I looked down the river that split The Isle in half and saw the Furies bearing down on us. Megaera in the front, her sisters slightly behind her in a V formation as their serpents rushed toward us. Their massive, pronged tails flicked up water behind them like a trail of death.

Megaera’s face was a mask of malice as they approached. No hesitation, no fear, no room for error.

“She’s going to kill us all,” I whispered to Millie. “Unless I can figure out how to use the Queen’s magic.”

Millie reached over and squeezed my hand. It was nothing but a show of solidarity. There were no words to express any last thoughts. I was only grateful that in this moment, I had no room for fear. Such an immense love for this land and the people who belonged to it overflowed through my veins, leaving no room for sorrow.

I refused to die filled with fear. I would choose to die filled with love.

“Doc,” Millie said quietly, urgently. “Your ring.”

“What?”

“Your ring!” Millie turned my hand around to display my fingers prominently.

Indeed, my ring was glowing. The cerulean crystals blazed in a dazzle of light, as if the magic encapsulated in those gemstones was trying to escape.

“May I?” Even as Millie spoke, she pulled the ring from my finger.

Magic burst from the tiny diadem in Millie’s hands like a mesmerizing display of the northern lights. Power that had been contained in my ring for possibly centuries was finally free.

Millie placed the ring in my palm. Before my eyes, the thin band morphed and distorted like it was hot metal. The circlet expanded and grew until the tiny ring that had fit perfectly on my finger for so many years turned into a true crown.

A glittering, simple circlet with azure gems inlaid on its spires. Gems that matched the waters of this court. A crown that could lay across the head of a queen. A Fae Queen.

The Queen of Isles.

Millie shivered as she surveyed it. Goosebumps streaked her arms as she stared at the crown in my palms. Then she turned those huge eyes on me before falling to her knees.

“You have returned.” Millie’s voice hitched. “My Queen.”

My mouth was dry, speechless. I couldn’t comprehend. The Furies were bearing down on us, seconds away from encircling us with their hatred. Seconds before we were all due to die.

“It cannot be,” I whispered.

“Fates,” Silas said. “It is you.”

Silas pulled himself, bloodied and weak, toward me. He took the crown from my hands. I offered it willingly.

The man I loved raised the crown. My fated mate, my other half—placed the coveted piece of jewelry gently on my head. Then he, too, knelt before me.

“My Queen.” Reverence lined his words .

The screeches of the Furies bore down on us. A terrible soundtrack behind a wonderous discovery.

“Do not ever kneel before me,” I told Silas and Millie. “Please.”

I pulled Silas to his feet. Millie rose beside him. The three of us faced the Furies as they circled around us.

“ Die! ” Megaera shouted. “Kill her first, and the rest will fall.”

“You will not kill me,” I said. “These are my lands, and you are not welcome here.”

“No.” Megaera’s eyes widened as she slowed her sky serpent, as if deciding to backtrack. “It cannot be.”

“You will not destroy my people.” I unsheathed my dagger. “I have returned to my court.”

Then I pressed my dagger to the wooden boards between my feet. The bridge that linked darkness and light. The divide between east and west sides of the island. I felt the power begin to radiate from the crown through my body, down my blade, across the bridge—and into the lands that had been sucked dry and left parched, devoid of its queen’s magic for so, so long.

My crown sparkled and danced on my head, radiating light in every direction. The gems in my crown matched the gems in my dagger—a blade that had belonged to my ancestors, the Fae Queens whose duty it had been to protect these lands long before it had become mine .

As the magic soared from me, gaining momentum, I grew more intent in my focus. Color burst out over the lands, like The Isle was a canvas being painted with strokes of light and hope and energy. This island was finally being restored to its former glory, returning a lively sheen to a land that had grown dull and forlorn.

The screeches of the Furies grew louder and more furious in direct proportion to my growing power. They shielded their eyes, as if my magic was painful to witness, as if the sheer presence of it drove them away from this court.

Megaera coiled backward on her sky serpent. She leapt from his back, landing on the bridge next to me even as the floorboards trembled beneath our feet. Her hands were outstretched, thick black magic oozing from her like a cloud as she marched toward me.

I closed my eyes, pressed the dagger deeper into the wood. I connected not only on a surface level with these lands, but to its very core. I breathed in unison with the salty air that meant the island was once again under the protection of its queen. I listened to the whispers of my enchanted waters. I moved to the heartbeat of every creature to roam these lands.

As Megaera clasped her hands around my throat, I knew this was it. My last chance.

My eyes flashed open. Millie and Silas were on the ground, unconscious from this swarm of black magic enshrouding Megaera. Her sky serpent had taken them out. Silas was already so weak it hadn’t taken much.

“You will die,” Megaera spat. “ Now. ”

I didn’t see Megaera, even as I watched her approach. I was too busy focusing on my connection to Fae magic. I expelled every inch of power within myself to save my people. I painted the island in safety and prosperity. I infused the islanders with my magic, offering them hope and stability and pieces of my power.

I felt the weight of my duties as Fae Queen settling onto my shoulders, but instead of a burden, the knowledge draped over me with a sense of lightness and purpose, an unfathomable sort of love that knew no bounds.

“Your hate has no place on my lands.” My words were raspy. Megaera’s hands tightened on my throat, her magic trying to break me from the outside. If only she understood the strength I had from within, she would flee. “You and your sisters will kneel before my throne.”

With that, I thrust the dagger at Megaera. The wooden floorboards began to crumble around us as I plunged my blade into her shoulder. The bridge split in two, leaving a yawning chasm between the two sides.

Megaera fell into the water below. Silas, Millie, and Atlas’s bodies were on the East side of the bridge as it separated further. I was on the West.

The river, seconds ago a serene and peaceful trickle, now hissed and bubbled and smoked—hot as lava as it swallowed the Fury whole. Her sky serpent was next, pulled downward as if by a swirling vacuum beneath us.

Her sisters and their terrible serpents fled with bloodcurdling cries, but they didn’t get far. One splash, then another. Both serpents and sisters crashed into the boiling river below. They did not resurface.

As the rest of the bridge began to collapse, I looked over toward Millie and Silas and Atlas. The boiling waters below us settled back to a cool stream, a pleasant flow with no signs it had just ingested the Furies and their monsters.

Then the water rippled again, but this time it was a graceful parting—as if a set of unseen hands were pulling two curtains of water back to reveal a treasure beneath. Slowly, an alabaster dome appeared with a spire on top. This spire was inlaid with cerulean diamonds that matched my dagger and my crown.

The four of us fell from the bridge as it splintered into pieces. We didn’t fall far; we fell only to the bone-white platform that had started to rise from the water. Smooth marble rested beneath our feet, so white it appeared crafted from seashells and clouds.

We continued to rise, higher and higher, as more of the structure revealed itself. Eventually, the bridge was a distant memory. In its place had appeared a castle.

There was a thunk as the structure slid its way home, like the final piece of a puzzle fitting perfectly into place. Where before a rickety wooden bridge had spanned the gap between the two halves of the island, now the lands were linked by a dazzling castle.

The castle stood in all its pristine whiteness overlooking the northernmost tip of the island. The water rerouted around it, creating a moat with one white bridge looping to the right side of the island, another to the left.

When I looked behind me, there waited a throne white as clouds. The top fanned out in a seashell shape, its edges inlaid with those cerulean gems I was coming to recognize as the symbol of The Isle. My symbol.

A symbol that had been there all along, my whole life, but only now made sense.

I took a step forward and let my hand brush against the smooth railing of the balcony, feeling a tremor at the impact. A word appeared in my mind and resonated with me.

Home.

I had found my way home.

With tears in my eyes, I turned to Silas. He had slumped against the front of the throne. Now that the Furies and their beasts were gone, it was as if the rest of his energy had left him. He only allowed himself to collapse when he was certain everyone around him was safe.

I knelt before my mate, before my throne, and I summoned the ancient Fae magic that could fix him. I could feel the healing powers reverberating through my veins. I felt carbonated, bubbly and zipping with a sense of purpose and energy. As if my whole life, a most precious resource had been withheld from me: magic.

Now that it had clicked into place, I couldn’t get enough of it. I basked in the thrum of belonging. I reveled in the enchanting lilt of Fae powers. I settled into a role I’d always wanted, a role that would allow me to help others, just not in the way I’d imagined.

This time, I did not need a potion from the Mixologist. I did not need instructions or confidence. I had everything I needed within me, and I drew from that ancient source as my fingertips sparked with energy and my palms glowed a silvery white light.

The magic I funneled to heal Silas did not come from me, but instead from the island I was meant to serve and protect. It originated from the salt air brushing across my skin. From the pollen dancing in the air. From the belief of the islanders in their long-lost queen.

I sewed together Silas’s wounds. I banished the evil from his body, from this island. Once Silas was put together, I moved over to Atlas.

It took longer to heal him. He was so powerful and so far gone that I feared even the strength I’d inherited as a queen wouldn’t be enough. But that fear only lasted for a moment.

I knew I had it in me to save him. These were my lands, and I would not allow this man to die. Atlas had been willing to give his life for my island, and I’d be willing to give him everything I had to bring him back.

When Atlas’s eyes flicked open, his lips quirked into a smile.

“You figured it out, Doc.” Atlas struggled into a sitting position. Then he bowed his head, never losing that levity that was such a part of him. “Or shall I say, My Queen.”

“Get up,” I told him.

“You idiot,” Millie finally managed, looking at Atlas with incredulity.

“Well, this has been fun,” Atlas said, “but it’s time for me to get back to Olympus.”

Silas merely nodded at his brother. What could words possibly say after all of this?

“This won’t be the last you’ll see of me.” Atlas bowed. By the time he righted himself, he was gone.

I made my way to the railing of the castle, awe settling over me. Standing front and center on the balcony, my throne behind me and my lands in front of me, I watched as everything righted in my world.

The blackness of The Forest’s curled leaves and dead foliage began to crumble and vanish in small puffs of smoke that drifted harmlessly away in the breeze. The waters around The Isle were slowly turning from the dark and murky blues natural to Lake Superior, to the majestic cerulean of my enchanted lands. The clouds above parted, allowing sparkling rays of sunshine to twinkle down on the green grasses and sugar-sand shores.

“The manufactured wards are no longer necessary.” Silas’s voice was low and filled with admiration as he moved to stand behind me. “The queen has returned. Your castle has risen. And I will be forever in your service.”

“Silas.” I turned to face him. “With all due respect. Stop talking.”

His eyes flickered in confusion.

I rose onto my tiptoes and kissed him on the lips.

“I am not your queen,” I told him. “I’m your mate.”

THE END