Page 60 of Heir to a Curse

Chapter 23

Iwoke in the morning feeling the worst hangover I’d ever had. My head still throbbed, though Xiang was ready with tea. He helped me outside, and I understood then, that the water wasn’t sustaining me. What little I could pee, was enough to tell me that my remaining time here was short. Either I went home or I would possibly die of dehydration.

He helped me to the pool, and the cool water actually soothed away a lot of the aches, though I was shocked when I stared into my reflection in the water, and found myself looking older, face a bit more sculpted from hunger and dehydration, and a long white streak decorating my hairline. I touched it as though it would feel different. At forty-five I’d been expecting more gray to begin to descend soon, however this wasn’t the distinguished sprinkling I had predicted, but more like the stripe of a skunk. A good inch thick, starting at my brow and expanding across the right side of my head. Like someone had run a narrow paintbrush over my head.

Xiang hesitated to touch me; his eyes downcast. I reached for him, wrapped my arms around him. We stood that way in the pool for a while. I was hoping the water would chase the headache away, but I suspected part of that was dehydration.

His fingers gently ran over my face, like he was afraid to touch the white wash of my hair. But I grabbed his hand and tugged it up until I could place it in my hair. “It’s fine,” I promised him. “Just hair.”

He touched his own, white as snow, and I realized why at that moment. Drained life. It was why in the dreams, each time he’d renewed the wards, his hair had begun to fade in color, adding streaks of white until now it was colorless. I wrapped a fist in his hair, still enamored by the silky feel of it, and tugged him against me. My heart felt full of lead pellets.

“I can’t stay,” I told him.

“No,” he agreed.

“You can’t come to my world? Stay with me?”

“They follow,” he said. “Break your stuff,” he reminded me.

But it was only material things. I couldn’t imagine those things loose on the world, and wondered if they would be contained to the estate? Maybe if I sent everyone away and let it just become a haunted estate, he could exist outside this torturous world?

“How long does it take to happen? For them to follow?”

He shrugged and looked at the sky. I understood. It wasn’t like he had a watch or anything here to work from. Did time even work the same here? And then he’d have to come back here, renew the wards and pray they didn’t get in. Xiang pulled away, sliding to the water’s edge to retrieve his robe. “You must return. Need food. I will walk you back.” He went inside, leaving me standing in the water feeling helpless to do anything.

“Fuck!” I screamed into the empty garden, like venting my frustration could change things.

Xiang returned fully dressed and carrying my clothing. In the bright light of the morning, the sound of the water moving around us, and his hair glistening in the sunlight, he was amazing. I had to take a moment to sort through the weight of emotion on my chest at the thought again of leaving him. I adored everything about him, his strength, unbreakable despite the tortures of his existence, his willingness to keep moving, and the way he tried to protect me. I would miss his intensity when he made tea, and the soothing melody of his music. I would miss the sound of his voice, and even the mishmash of memories that scattered in my mind every time I looked at him. Of course he was beautiful, grace personified, but compared to the steel of his will, which burned with an intense flare, it was just dressing.

It was so unfair. I’d lived my entire life thinking romantic love wasn’t meant to be. At least not for me. But this. This was beyond what I’d ever hoped for. He was my heart, he lived there, as if only having him in my arms made everything make sense. Even though nothing really changed. It was more a sense of not being alone, and trusting someone completely. Startling, that thought, as I thought I trusted others, but it wasn’t the same. When I looked at Xiang, I felt everything all tied up into a weight of emotion I hadn’t thought possible.

“Come?” He asked, holding out my things.

I stepped on to the shore, accepting the stack of clothes and a strip of fabric to dry myself with. As I dressed, I couldn’t help the fall of tears. They blurred my vision as I sniffed back the full onslaught. A similar feeling to taking that video call with Sofia, when she’d told me they were moving her to hospice. Hope stripped away. A march toward doom. The grinding pain of helplessness.

Xiang ran his fingers over my cheeks, wiping at the tears, his expression sad but resolved. He would bring me home and return to his endless torture because that’s what he did. It’s what we both did. Finding each other in every generation and me failing him every time.

I burst into sobs, unable to hold it back and wrapped my arms tight around him. He sank into my embrace, letting me cry into his shoulder as I whispered over and over, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

I’d never been a pretty crier. The few times in my life I’d had occasion to let it out, was beyond ugly. I’d been lucky enough to grow up not having to hear that boys didn’t cry from anything other than the media. Sofia had encouraged me to let out emotion rather than holding it in. So, bad breakups, screwups in life, setbacks in the job… when those things happened, I vented the emotion a healthy way, sometimes with shouted swearing, other times with tears. I wished they helped more.

Xiang pressed kisses into my hair, then drew me up, taking my hand. He gave me a smile that warmed something in my stomach, and tugged me toward the door back to his space.

I hesitated at the idea of him opening the main door again. It meant the wards would need to be renewed. But he didn’t pause, simply pressed his hand to the door and then opened it to the many paths through broken buildings. As we passed through them this time, I could tell the damage wasn’t the effect of storms or even time. There were claw marks in the sides of buildings, chunks broken out that almost looked like teeth had taken a large bite, and trails etched into the walkways like something huge and heavy had come through. Areas of buildings, debris, and walkways appeared scorched, either by fire or perhaps some type of acid, parts of it crumbling and black, others so stained with something that looked like dried blood, I had to work hard not to stop and examine it. I didn’t want to think about other lifetimes and if Xiang had lost battles to the monsters before. Did his blood stain these walkways? And how much more would he have to endure? All over what? Being cursed for something he couldn’t change?

My heart raced, and I gripped his hand, swallowing hard to keep from losing it again at the idea that someday soon, one of those things would get him. He could survive hunger, probably dehydration, extreme isolation and loneliness, but the monsters, eventually they’d kill him. What then? Would that also be an endless loop? They’d kill him and he’d wake up alive, and have to do it all over again? Or would it send him to some other hell?

How was any of this fair?

“Do you know how to break the curse?” I asked him. Though if he told me, wouldn’t he have told me in the past?

He shrugged. “Perhaps if family forgives me?”

“But you didn’t do anything wrong.”

He shrugged again, and I understood. The family didn’t see it that way, and they had cursed him.

“Sofia named me family, what if I forgive you?”