Page 54 of Heir to a Curse

Chapter 21

When next I woke the sun was bright overhead, making me think it was midday. But did that even work the same here? Xiang was awake and sitting near me on the rock, looking through a handful of books. I marveled at him again. Thankfully he was no longer the boy of my memories, but a man who seemed to be stuck in time.

My stomach grumbled. He looked up.

“Hey,” I said. “Don’t suppose you have something to eat in this jungle?” I waved at the giant trees around us, with the beetles and caterpillars as large of as my head decorating branches wider around than I was. I really hoped we didn’t have to eat the bugs.

“I can take you home,” Xiang offered. “Or make you tea.”

“There’s no food here?” How did he survive without food?

He shook his head. “Does not sustain.” He pointed to the trees and things. “Could eat it all and still hunger.”

I sat up and gaped at him. “You’re kidding?”

He tilted his head, not understanding, I thought.

“So you can’t eat anything here?” I clarified.

“Can eat,” he patted his stomach. “But not feel like eating.”

Well fuck. I blinked at him. “Can you eat when you’re in my world?”

He nodded, his cheeks turning a bit pink. “Sometimes I take…”

I recalled briefly my sandwich disappearing faster than I recalled eating it. Xiang perhaps. “But you said you stay away. For days or weeks? You just sit here and starve?” The idea was horrific. I had thought this place a bit of a scary paradise, monsters outside the gates, sure, but endless starvation?

“Years. Sometimes decades,” Xiang said. “I used to track time.” He waved a hand in the air. “Not important anymore. Hunger cannot kill me. Will not end all of this.”

“Did you know that at first?” How long did it take him, hiding behind his wards here, to discover that he couldn’t even starve to death?

He shrugged. “Tea? Or home?”

What a choice. But if he could go years without food, I could last a few hours. “Tea,” I said.

He nodded and set the books aside. I offered to take them from him and carry them while we made our way back inside. Among his piles of unusual finds, he had several canisters of tea. I wondered if he’d taken them from the real world. He held out a few for me to smell, and I chose one that had the scent of pineapple. While he prepared the tea, I wandered the small space, looking around at the piles of things. The old furniture seemed to be cut up, as though to use it for firewood. There was a small center ring that seemed used for that, though I had no idea how the smoke would get out. The fabrics looked to be everything from reclaimed curtains to outfits from eras probably long past. The books were much the same. Some scrolls with what appeared to be Chinese characters on them, to actual books in a dozen languages. It took walking through the sections to realize it was less a hoard of objects, and more a collection of things to help him survive.

“Does it get cold here?” I asked him, pointing to the fire pit.

He nodded. “Very cold. Long time.”

I recalled the ice palace from my dreams. How much of this place mimicked that? Long winters of nothing but archaic ways to keep warm. This place was looking more and more horrific. “What about the water? Does it freeze over in the winter?”

He nodded. “Waterfall freezes.”

My gut twisted and flip-flopped. There were apparently a lot of reasons my other selves had never stayed. Hunger and cold seemed unable to kill Xiang, but did that mean I would be immune here as well? Alive and suffering, but still unable to die from normal human means. No wonder he was so thin.

He moved around the blankets on his bed, creating a small sitting area with a tiny table to set the tea. “Tea?” He inquired.

I made my way over, taking a seat opposite him and letting him pour me a cup. The flavor was good, warm and slightly sweet. I sipped and told myself to think of it as fasting. That was a popular health thing now. Not starving yourself, fasting. I could fast for a few hours. My gaze fell on Xiang who sipped his tea as well, looking at peace, despite the growing list of concerns I was having. But he’d been here decades, centuries even.

“I always find my way back to you?” I asked him. “The other mes, I mean.”

He nodded. “Yes, happens. I can feel you on the other side.” He glanced away. “I should stay away.”

“Brings a new idea to fated mates,” I grumbled, thinking of all the romance novels I’d read in my life. The tales of instant love, drawn together through endless struggles, didn’t seem as romantic when faced with a curse like this. “You probably wish you never had to see me again.”

Xiang raised a brow in my direction.