Page 299 of Cursed Evermore

Arielle shook her head. “There’s a lot about Wolfe’s family that we don’t speak of. But that’s a mystery to me. It may very well have something to do with how she died.”

“Was it the blight?”

A faraway look entered her eyes, and I knew there was more to the story that no one had said. “It was mostly the blight, but there’s more. More that isn’t mine to tell.”

“I should know, Arielle.”

“I couldn’t agree more. But I don’t have the right to tell you. Not this time,” she murmured, squeezing my hand. “Wolfe will tell you when he returns. I know he will.”

“That’s if he comes back. And if he ever speaks to me again.”

She surprised me with a smile. “He won’t blame you for this. I know he won’t. There’s not a lot you could do to him to make him mad at you.”

“This may be it, Arielle. The thing that makes him that mad at me. How can you be speaking to a ghost and not know? You’re supposed to feel something. My lack of magic made me that stupid.”

She sat up straighter. “In Bastian’s brief from Wolfe, he said you destroyed the rebels by aging them. I don’t know how you managed it, but that’s a high-level skill. So, stop saying you lack magic, Elariya. At this rate, you’ll outrank me before long.”

A chill raced through my veins. I held her gaze, knowing she wasn’t flattering me. She was stating fact.

“As for Zyrra…” she continued, her voice dipping. “I don’t think she was a ghost.”

My heart stuttered, then dropped hard. “What do you mean? She’s… dead.”

“Yes, but from what we’ve been told so far, she doesn’t sound like a normal ghost. As you said, you’d know you were speaking to one. You’d feel it. And there’s something else… the blight that infected her devours the soul. To be a ghost, you need a soul.”

Her words settled like a boulder in my chest. “So, what was she?”

“I don’t know, Elariya. There are strange forces at work here. Things not even I understand. All we can do is wait and see what time reveals.”

Prickles erupted across my skin, each one a warning.

Gods above. Everything was growing more confusing by the second.

And time…

Time was still my greatest enemy.

Chapter 60

Wolfe

“The Last Whisper of Silver”

Bolts of lightning split the heavy darkness above me, crackling through the dense fog that coiled around the peak of Mount Luuienaire. From within the hollow crown of the mountain, the storm's fury reverberated through the stone, each strike rattling the cavern as if the mountain itself were alive and raging with me.

Below, silver fires flickered like molten rivers. Not lava, something older. A gift from the gods. A blessing and a curse.

I hunched against the jagged rocks of the crater, my skeletal form barely distinguishable from the shadows clinging to the mountainside. This was the longest I'd ever lingered in Deathwalker form. I could hardly feel my Fae essence. It dwindled in the dark corners of my soul like the last rays of sun before night.

I was too close to the edge—of the mountain and of myself. One slip, one breath too long in this form, and I would vanish into the abyss, no different than my mother.

This was where she'd stood, where she'd taken her final breath before leaping into the consuming fires. Sixty-five years ago.

And this... this was where I found myself five months after her death, holding the lifeless body of my sister.

Memories of my mother and sister burned brighter than the lightning above my head, searing themselves into me.

My mother never told me what she was going to do. But she told Zyrra.Only Zyrra. Because Mother intended for her to have the rejuvenation potion.