Page 171 of Cursed Evermore

She shook her head and intensified her gaze like she was the one who saw throughmenow. And I couldn't breathe under it. “Don't lie to me.”

“Elariya—”

“Don't, Wolfe. Don'tyoulie to me.”

Me.Me specifically. She didn’t wantmeto lie to her.

She stood taller, spine straight, eyes blazing like she was daring me to see her more clearly than I ever had. I did.

I saw her. Saw her desire, her fight, her inner strength, her desperation to survive. And I was still going to protect her. Even if it meant protecting her from myself and the creatures who were a part of me.

I grabbed her arm and pulled her flush against my chest. “Stay away from the caves, Ziyka.”

“That makes no sense. This involves me, too. I'm the one who's cursed here. Not you.”

I almost smiled. If only she knew I was cursed with death. I wondered if she'd still be fascinated with me, or still look at me as if I were something worth saving.

“Stayawayfrom the caves.” I sharpened my tone so she'd understand how serious I was.

“Wolfe?” Arielle's voice came from behind me.

She and Garrick rushed up to us, looking worried.

“Take her,” I ordered Arielle, releasing Elariya. Then I phased, disappearing into the air before anyone could ask me any more questions I didn't have answers for.

Through the Void, I felt Elariya's gaze burning into me, begging me to come back. But returning to her, or any of them, when I had no idea what to do would be foolish. They would all have to wait. Especially her.

I arrived at the cave's entrance, where ragged limestone teeth framed a mouth that swallowed the daylight. Twisted vines hung like shrouds across the opening, their leaves blackened by perpetual shadow. The stone was slick with moisture that wept, creating rivulets that glimmered in the sunlight.

Like always, the air that breathed from the cave's depths carried the scent of earth and the whisper of wind moving through its passages, whirring with dead voices from the past.

I scanned over the entrance, checking if there was anything here to see. Not that I knew what I was looking for, but magic worked by sensation. Sometimes you'd know what you sought by how you felt when you saw it, touched it, or smelled it.

There was nothing out here, so I ventured inside.

Darkness pressed against me like tar, thick and suffocating, as I walked down the narrow passage where the walls wept continuously, their surface smooth in places where centuries of water had carved them into something unique.

The passage opened into the biggest chamber, where Pyrion, my bonded wyvern, stretched her massive frame across the cavern floor, her deep crimson scales the color of dying embers.

When she saw me, her serpentine neck curved gracefully as she lifted her head and stared back at me with molten amber eyes. Eyes that had seen kingdoms rise and fall, and wars fought, lost, and won for a thousand years.

Pyrion had been my dragon since I was sixteen. My father raised her for me. She and her twin brother, Hedion, were selected to be our familiars by my grandfather.

They were the last of the Ochia bloodline. Dragons born of Aetherflame.

At nearly thirty feet from her snout to the venomous barb of her tail, she was magnificent and deadly in equal measure. She'd been my oldest companion, my greatest weapon, and the only creature alive who truly understood the darkness that lived in my soul.

Pyrion stood and bowed when I got closer, acknowledging me as her rider but more so her king. She'd started bowing to me automatically when Father died.

At first, grief weighed on my heart because it was a constant reminder that my father was gone. Then, as time went by and the curse took root in my bones, I felt inadequate.

The dragons knew I was cursed. But as the wraith in me grew, I feared they'd stop seeing me as their king. I was still hoping that day wouldn't come.

I bowed to her, too. Steam curled from her nostrils with each breath, and when she unfurled her wings, the world seemed to shrink beneath their shadow.

Each wing stretched nearly forty feet from her body. The membrane between the elongated bones spurred a deep burgundy that darkened to black at the edges, like old blood dried on sand. The leather was scarred and weathered, silver lines that told stories of the battles we'd fought in the skies.

Hedion appeared on the cliff above us and roared. He was slightly smaller than Pyrion, but just as ruthless and vicious. He bowed, too, and I responded in kind.