Page 31 of Soul Bound (Cursed Descent (MistHallow Academy) #2)

31

MATILDA

Pain lances through my skull as a wave of Bronwen’s memories crashes over me. Slamming back to the bed, I curl into a ball, pressing my palms against my temples as millennia of knowledge flood my consciousness. I pass out and awaken multiple times as the guys scramble to help me. But I’m beyond help.

At least from them.

“Morrigan,” I grit out.

Seconds, minutes pass as I’m overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information. It feels like my brain is about to short-circuit.

“I’m here,” Morrigan’s voice is soothing, calm and comforting in the heat of this overload. I’d bet my bag of contraband jewels that Big B is here as well. “Focus on one memory at a time, Matilda,” she instructs, her cool hand on my forehead. “Don’t try to process everything at once.” I nod, gritting my teeth as I attempt to sift through the chaos in my mind.

One memory rises to the surface, clear and sharp: A circle of Druids, all male except for Bronwen, standing around an altar. Their voices rise in a chant that makes my bones ache even in memory. Bronwen watches, separate, different. The only female... “Wait,” I gasp, grabbing Morrigan’s wrist, sitting up as the room spins maniacally around me. “The female Druids… they weren’t just rare, they were created. The male Druids made them. Made us.” The revelation makes me nauseous. “Female Druids were vessels, crafted to channel and contain raw power in ways the men couldn’t. They were test subjects. But something went wrong with Bronwen,” I continue as the memory unfolds. “She over-achieved what they expected of her. She was too strong, too wilful for them. They wanted to tame her. She refused to be just a guinea pig.” The memory shifts, showing Bronwen’s rebellion and her attempt to seize control of the Praxian magick for herself but not to be some crazed megalomaniac. “She didn’t want to be erased. She just wanted to live to be everything the males were and more.”

“Ugh,” Morrigan spits out, her voice so icy, frost forms all around her. “Typical. Males have been oppressing women since the dawn of time.”

“This is the dawn of time,” Blackthorn mutters from behind me, confirming my assumption that he was here.

“She felt the male Druids had betrayed her, and they got scared of her power. She had real power. Not just what she was bestowed by them but power from the earth. Praxian magick.”

“So how did it end up in this mess?” Luc asks from where he is standing near the desk.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“If the Praxian chose her to wield it, what went wrong? Why has it been fighting her all this time?”

I shake my head.

“The memories are in there somewhere,” Morrigan says, having chilled out a little and strokes my hair.

“I can’t reach them,” I whisper. “It’s too much.”

She nods. “It will come to you when you’re ready.”

Another memory surfaces, this one sharper, clearer than the others. A ritual circle in the underground chamber. Bronwen is stripped naked and tied to the altar. I retch as her memories of being defiled and used on that altar flood through me. I leap up, pulling away from Morrigan as I crash through the bathroom door and make it to the toilet just in time to throw up the last thing I ate.

Draven is behind me in seconds, holding my hair back as I empty my stomach and possibly the lining into the toilet bowl. He reaches out and hands me some toilet paper to wipe my mouth before flushing the toilet. Vex is close by, holding out a bottle of water. I take a hesitant sip as I rise, and Draven lets go of my hair.

“Do we even want to know what you saw?” Luc asks in a low tone.

“They raped her. Repeatedly, on the altar, to try to breed her. To try to create a female child from her. She was pregnant multiple times.”

“Let me guess,” Vex croaks, his voice hoarse. “All males.”

I nod. “Until…”

“She had a girl. The first female Druid born into it,” Morrigan says, leaning in the doorway with her arms tightly crossed.

“Yes,” I confirm, taking another sip of water. “But they took her and locked up Bronwen. Raised her to be everything Bronwen wasn’t: compliant, obedient. A perfect vessel. “ My stomach heaves again, but there’s nothing left to bring up. “That’s when Bronwen really lost it. When she realised what they were going to do to her daughter.”

“What they did to her,” Draven says, his face as pale as the white porcelain of the sink he’s leaning heavily on.

“Fucking hell,” Blackthorn mutters.

If this weren’t so disturbing and disgusting, I would laugh at his expletive.

“Can we back up a sec?” Luc asks seriously.

I nod, giving him time to get out what he wants to say.

“All of this took time, years, obviously. Are we now saying that the Praxian was uncursed all that time?”

“Yes,” I reply. “It was feral, wild. The male Druids couldn’t handle it, and that is why they created the females as test subjects. To see if one came along that could handle it.”

“Bronwen.”

Nodding, I stop suddenly as a fresh wave of memories hits me, and I grip the edge of the sink, practically pushing Draven out of the way. The ritual chamber again, but different this time. “Bronwen’s daughter, grown now, strapped to the same altar where she was conceived. The male Druids looming over her. Bronwen, trapped in a cage of pure magick, going feral… The curse! Shit. Shit!”

“What?” Blackthorn asks, the only one of the group still able to speak after hearing these horrors.

I look up into his eyes and blink. “We’ve got this all wrong. Everything we’ve been told or assumed was a lie.”

“Meaning?” Vex asks, carefully approaching me in the cramped bathroom and laying his hand gently over mine. I yank it back, locking eyes with Morrigan. Hers are hard, disgusted, enraged. All of the things you would expect a goddess, former or not, to be after hearing all of this. A shimmer of power is circling her, and I daren’t look away. I daren’t breathe in case she loses it and annihilates us all in this tiny space. “Tilly?”

I force my gaze to Vex’s. He doesn’t look hurt I pulled away, only concerned. “Meaning, Bronwen threw the curse at the male Druids. But it backfired.”