Page 30 of Heirs of the Cursed (A Curse for Two Souls #1)

29

Dawnfall

Darcia didn’t know how long she stood in front of the forest. Saying goodbye to Gion had been like tearing out her heart from her chest.

In another time, she would have wanted to be alone, dealing with her worst thoughts and emotions because she didn’t want to feel like a burden to anyone. But at that moment, Alasdair stayed, holding her tightly and stroking her hair in silence.

Her father was gone. Her stepbrother hated her. She couldn’t find her friends, or Caeli.

And Darcia was all alone.

By the time she stepped away, her throat was so dry that she almost choked on her own cough and her head hurt with the tears she’d refused to shed.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

No, she wasn’t.

But she would be.

Darcia’s lungs burned despite her desperate gasps for air. Her eyes grew so heavy she wanted nothing more than to rest her head on Alasdair’s shoulder and drift into days of sleep. But a sudden, unfamiliar scent made her eyes snap open in terror.

It smelled of coal, charred wood and ashes. Darcia looked up toward the forest, where the distant circus tents stood like a tide of red.

Fire .

“No . . .” Darcia muttered before taking a step forward.

“Don’t,” he stopped her with a hand on her wrist. It wasn’t a hard, painful grip like the one she was used to at Conrad’s hands, but gentle and insistent.

“Are we going to have this argument again?” she growled at him.

“I’m not going to follow you to a certain death.”

“Well, then leave! You have no business here.”

Alasdair took a step back, as if Darcia’s words had hurt him.

“If you go to that circus and die, no one will know you’re gone.”

Darcia’s chest heaved with anger and sadness. If she went and died, she’d become a forgotten and nameless grave for no one to mourn. But that didn’t matter to her, not when her world was breaking apart.

“Let the goddesses decide my destiny.”

Before Alasdair could respond, Darcia’s gaze locked onto the burning tent, the flames ravenous in their advance. With a final, defiant pull from his grip, she surged forward, moving toward the inferno to save her people—even if it meant sacrificing herself.

The heat was suffocating. The smoke had choked off all the air and the treetops burned uncontrollably, as the fire devoured everything in its path, turning Darcia’s home into a heap of rubble and ashes. Her chest ached with each breath, and she coughed violently against the fabric she’d torn from her cloak to protect her nose and mouth.

Darcia darted toward the fire while surveying her surroundings. The crackling of flames against wood drowned out her hearing, silencing the distant screams that echoed through Dawnfall.

She checked the circus’ tents, one by one. The scorching raffias seared her hands, yet she didn’t care. She had to make sure that no one was there before the fire consumed it all.

Still, there were no children, women and men, crippled, dwarves, or animals.

She was all alone.

Her body trembled violently with hope but also fear.

If they aren’t here, they are . . . She was unable to finish the thought.

No. Her family—the people she had grown up with—wasn’t dead. The goddesses couldn’t be so cruel.

The only place that remained intact was the main tent, where the magic of her illusions had shone in every one of her spectacles.

A shiver of death crawled up her spine, forcing her to take a few unconscious steps back until she was dangerously close to the flames. There was nothing she could do, nothing she could save.

But all at once, Darcia heard an agonizing scream, followed by the crack of a whip against the purest, softest skin. She’d recognize that voice anywhere, even in the darkest places.

For she knew who it belonged to.

Caeli .

Darcia ran faster than she ever had before. Her lungs burned from the smoke and the fire blurred her surroundings, yet she kept moving forward. There was nothing that would make her leave the circus without her, not even the destruction that fell upon her.

“Caeli!” she shrieked, above the crackling of the devouring fire, her eyes looking for her in despair. “Caeli!”

There was no response.

And so Darcia pushed the raffia away from the tent and stepped into the darkness only to be greeted once again by the light of a thousand fires.

Her mind swirled over many thoughts that clouded her judgment, her ability to focus. Darcia pushed them all down as she noticed that the tent was completely empty. The dressing rooms were gone, as were their garments and the animal cages . . . She inspected the place with growing suspicion, a troubling thought creeping into her mind—that someone might have known this would happen.

Had it been the army?

Had Harg fulfilled his promise?

Darcia would never forgive herself if that was the case, because she’d trusted him. The soldiers had an important mission to achieve, and even though Harg was known to be the most feared general in all of Laivalon, she couldn’t bear the idea of him being capable of something so brutal.

After all, the Blood Moon Circus was Conrad’s property. Why would the general push his luck and anger him, knowing that he was the only connection they had with the faceless man who was helping them?

Her breath hitched and faded into the void.

Darcia wandered without knowing where to go. The tent was large, with many treacherous wooden beams that could fall over her and burn her to death.

“Caeli?” she called out to her with hot tears in her eyes, coughing several times before trying again. “Caeli!”

She searched and searched, feeling the crackling of the fire and the heat getting closer . . . But to no avail.

Perhaps she’d imagined it. Perhaps fear had driven her to that point of hysteria, where she was unable to differentiate her imagination from reality. Her own magic, a summoner of illusions, could have been tricking its master. Although she tried to convince herself of that, there was no going back until she was certain.

There was only one place left to search: the stage.

The shadows clung to Darcia as if they were part of her. Her power created a barrier around her, making it difficult to advance. But the orders were clear: she wasn’t to stop. She had to keep walking.

As she reached the curtain that separated the main floor from the stage, her magic pulled her back. The last attempt to protect that broken heart about to burst out of her chest. Darcia pushed it down and pulled the curtain aside, determined to face an inevitable fate.

The world stopped, or maybe her heart did.

Caeli was lying on the ground, motionless.

“Caeli!” she cried out.

Darcia closed the short distance between them, feeling the caress of the flames on the fabric of her dress as a warning of impending doom. A hiss of pain left her broken lips, but the one in her soul was too much to bear and numbed that of her body.

Once she reached her, she fell to her knees, against the dirty ground, until her knees became wet with something she couldn’t quite see. Through her blurred vision due to the tears, Darcia saw her girlfriend’s limp body and rolled her to the side to inspect the wound.

She reached a trembling hand to Caeli’s head and, as she brushed back her dark hair, her skin tainted with thick, red blood. Her body spasmed at the sight of it, but she didn’t let it stop her from looking for the source of the wound. She had to find it in order to close it before it was too late.

She had to find it in order to save her.

With a loud grunt that echoed through the tent, she grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her onto her lap.

“Caeli,” she called her between sobs. “Caeli, wake up!”

Her girlfriend’s sweet voice didn’t answer back. Darcia caressed her cheeks and traced that tiny, faded mark on the brink of her nose. For years, looking at her in such peace had been what made her feel most alive, but all she wanted in that moment was for her to open her eyes and smile to her.

Her words lingered in the circus, over and over again. Pleas for her to wake up, to move . . . To do something.

But Caeli wasn’t moving.

Sniffing her sobs away, Darcia lowered a hand toward her chest, that very place where she usually rested her head to listen to her steady heartbeats. The immediate touch of her skin made her sigh in agony, for it was cold and stiff—even against the flames that grew higher and stronger around them.

Darcia shook her head in denial as she waited for Caeli’s heart to respond to hers, yet she couldn’t hear her heartbeat. Looking back at her face, she realized her gaze was lost in the sky, terrified and in a silent prayer.

She lowered her face to hers, and their foreheads brushed against each other. The hot tears that rolled through her cheeks fell down to Caeli’s like raindrops of an unwanted farewell.

Because Darcia couldn’t—would never—accept that her love was dead.

Not her.

“Caeli, please look at me,” she implored in a painful whisper, shaking her gently. “Cally.”

Her fingers lowered to her throat, to find nothing at all.

Not a heartbeat.

Not a sigh.

Nothing .

Darcia screamed and felt her heart tear as reality set in. She embraced her softly, fearing that she could hurt her even more. For a moment, she forgot about the flames that devoured the tent and the screeching noises that alerted her of the soon fall of all that she had known and loved. There was no world she’d want to survive without her, and wherever she went, Darcia wanted to go with her . . .

Caeli, her love.

“ Please ,” she begged in tears. “Come back to me, Cally. I promise you that we’ll leave for good, so please come back.”

But there was no salvation for Caeli Ndyaie. She was gone, and part of Darcia had just died with her.

Darcia didn’t give up. She called out to her, to anyone, screaming for help. But nobody came to her aid. As she embraced her tighter, blood soaked her hands, her face and her clothes.

She cried out to the goddesses to bring her back to her. Because they hadn’t had enough time and Darcia wanted to make the most of it with her. She hadn’t been able to show her the world as she promised. She hadn’t been able to tell her enough times about how much she cared, how much she loved her.

“Don’t leave me,” Darcia cried, caressing her girlfriend’s limp face with trembling hands. “Please, don’t leave me.”

She should have agreed to the plan. They should have fled. She should have given everything of herself, should have been selfish and happy by her side. That was a bitter punishment, the fate that the Triad had sentenced her to.

With one last piercing scream, Darcia embraced Caeli. She clung to her, almost unable to breathe.

She wasn’t ready.

She wasn’t ready to let her go.

The smell of fire and ash rose, alerting Darcia of the danger ahead. She summoned all her strength and, after tearing off the braided bracelet that Caeli wore on her wrist to safeguard it in one of the pockets of her dress, she tried to lift her up. She wouldn’t let her burn there, alone and abandoned. She had to bury her, she had to tell her mother, she had to do something.

The weight of her body made her knees give way. The fire had already taken over the entrance of the tent. She had a couple of minutes at most to escape.

‘ Let her go ,’ her magic commanded.

“No!” she shouted. “I’m not going to leave her.”

‘ You won’t make it out alive. ’

“Shut up!”

Her magic had awakened, roaring like an enraged tiger. The power within her grew and grew, and overflowed her emotions and thoughts. The bitter taste of rage, the doughy taste of sadness, the sour taste of despair. An uncontrollable, insatiable black hole.

At her shattered soul, she began to lose control, but Darcia didn’t stop walking. She pushed all her anger into her muscles to hold Caeli’s body against her. Feeling her touch still slightly warm, the tears spilled out on their own.

Had she arrived earlier, perhaps she could have saved her, protected her. Still, it had been too late.

The fire continued to spread and Darcia prayed to the goddesses.

For them to take her instead.

To beg for a second chance . . .

As Darcia reached the circus’ main entrance, she sighed in relief. She looked up at the stars and the vast expanse of the forest, its outline flowing in the heat of the flames. The cool air finally filled her chest.

Just as she thought she’d escaped, a hard blow struck the back of her neck with brutal force.

Then darkness swallowed her whole.