Page 37

Walls of the Cursed

The next day came and went, as did the third and fourth days.

Rollant had taught her how to chop firewood, tend to the garden, and defend herself.

He made her practice every morning, though he never let his resolve waver as it had on the first day.

He’d nearly come close to kissing her that time, almost wrapping her in an embrace and letting her succumb to the sorceress’ curse.

Night fell once more, and once again, he wished élise good night after tending to the faded bruises on her back.

He stoked the fire before sitting on the sofa and slipping off his boots.

Her trust in him was fragile, too precious to shatter with the truth.

Yet, the memory of standing so close, her breath mingling with his, and her hands on his chest and belly, made him ache to tell her everything—to let her see the man he once was and the immortal monster he feared he had become.

He lay down, closed his eyes, and thought of Amée’s rose in the dresser drawer in the bedroom.

From memory, he stroked Amée’s aged, blurry face as he pulled her close, hoping the sorceress had lied.

But Amée gasped for air, and the life slid from her eyes.

Her silver hair cascaded over her shoulder, loosely woven into a braid.

A silk green dress clung to her frail frame.

His lips lowered to hers, and after forty years, he kissed his beloved. The corners of her mouth turned up before her soul left her body.

“God be with you,” he whispered and closed her eyelids. He buried his head into her chest and wept. He had brought the curse upon himself. He had no one to blame but himself. A lifetime away, not able to go home, and never to hold Amée until she asked to be let go of this life in his arms.

The day he buried his wife was the day he vowed he would never love again. He didn’t deserve love—a penance for murdering Arnoul in cold, vengeful blood.

After six hundred years, he had kept his vow.

No woman had tempted him. No woman had pulled on his heart.

Cateline had wanted nothing to do with him after he had killed her mother.

It didn’t matter to Cateline that she was already sick and dying.

He had continuously monitored her and his lineage, ensuring they were safe.

But all of his descendants were among the first to perish with the black plague that had swept across the lands.

He loved his last living granddaughter, ten generations gone.

Ninette was her name. She had been orphaned at seven years old, so he took her in only for her to run into his arms and perish.

He had cursed the sorceress, for he could love no one in any form.

Tears ran down his cheeks, remembering the hazy visage of his last heir, running to him with a smile on her face and her subsequent lifeless eyes beneath his same chocolate curls.

In a moment of neglect, he became the unwitting bearer of cursed love’s fatal blade.

The curse lived and held him captive. He was alone—no blood relation left in the world—only an oath to the French crown.

The world became cold and numb. There were days he thought about killing the king and ending his oath, but he knew the sorceress would not simply let him die an easy death, nor allow him to see his family with the Lord.

Her dark magic kept him from plunging the blade.

But élise had seized his stoic heart and compelled it to beat with life again.

Despite the hardships and traumas, she had not lost the fire and vitality of life—something Rollant once possessed.

She had awakened something in him that he believed was dead long ago.

She was unlike anyone he had met in six centuries.

Her resilience shone brightly, a flame undimmed by the storms of her life.

That fire, reminiscent of his own before Arnoul, drew him to her against his will.

Amée was his anchor in the tempest, and élise was fire—filled with a passion for justice cradled within a sharp mind.

Rollant shifted on the too-small sofa, the coarse fabric scratching his cheek.

The fire crackled in the hearth, a steady reminder of the life that moved around him even as he lay still.

Its warmth was a poor substitute for the chill leaching onto his bones.

The faint scent of ash lingered in the air, mixing with the leather of his boots lying nearby.

He clenched his jaw against the tightening in his chest, staring at the bedroom door.

“I will not love her,” he whispered, shifting on the sofa to stare at the ceiling.

Yet he could not doubt his deepening connection with her.

But life was nothing without death to make it sweet and vibrant.

He threw his arm over his eyes and relaxed on the sofa.

“Each day comes and goes just like the next,” he told himself.

“Protect the king and the king after. That is your oath. Do no more, for there is nothing more.”

He pushed élise from his mind and tried to remember Amée’s last smile as she died, as if to remind himself why he would not kiss élise, hold her, or be a part of her life after eight more days in Charonne.

He stole forty years from Amée. She did not find love with another because she had made a marriage vow to him.

She was involuntarily celibate and raised Cateline on her own.

No, he did not deserve love. He did not deserve happiness.

He did not deserve joy. Because if he loved and was loved in return, they could never be together in any sense of the word.

He would not steal another life that could have been happy with someone else.

He would help élise, but he would not, could not love her, and each day with her made him long for death—a mortal life—but he knew she too would pass, and he would not.

His body turned slack before he wiped his tears and turned on the sofa, facing away from the fire, away from élise. He did not deserve either’s warmth. He focused on the dark, unyielding shadows dancing on the wall, chasing each other into the long night.

By the light of each day, her laughter chipped away at his resolve.

Its sound was so pure in its timbre. He’d imagine a life where his curse was lifted, and he could spin her into his arms and lay passion upon her lips while holding her tight.

But night always brought clarity. The curse. The vow. The pain.

He had to leave her.

He would leave her.

The same decision followed each night after debating the time spent in sunlight.

The memories of the day were pushed away but lingered stubbornly in the back of his mind.

He retreated beneath the steel armor he had placed around his heart.

Yet, as his thoughts drifted to the woman asleep beyond the door, he feared the steel might soon crack.

* * *

Rollant awoke to a rapid knock and the smell of warm bread. The knock came again, forcing him to sit up as élise handed him a cup of tea.

“You always look fresh, Rollant,” she whispered, tousling his hair as if her fingers could command his unruly curls. “I’m jealous.” She glanced toward the entryway. “There is someone at the door.”

He sipped his tea and stood up, adjusting his pants and stepping into his boots. “It is the neighbor family,” he said with the minty tea refreshing his breath and memory.

“Ah, yes,” she said. “I’ll warm more bread. I had forgotten they were coming.”

Answering the door, he forced a smile at the family of five. They came bearing gifts. The two girls, about fifteen and thirteen, the son, twenty, and the parents stood on the porch.

“Good morning,” Rollant greeted them. “Please come in.” He eyed the father, hoping he would keep their exchange from a few days earlier a secret. “Jacq,” he said his name, and led them in.

Jacq hesitated at the doorway, his hand brushing the frame as though he needed the solid wood to steady himself.

“It’s strange,” he said quietly. “Being back in this old house. I was here with your father as a child and grew up thinking of this house as, well, a symbol of your family’s generosity.

Now that I’m standing here again with his son, once more in your favor, we are doubly blessed. ”

Rollant opened the door wider to let them in. “Take care of each other in these hard times, is all I ask,” he said with a pointed stare at Jacq.

Jacq nodded in unspoken agreement, stopping in the entryway as the rest of his family entered the main room. “My wife knows you are the landlord and of élise, but my children do not,” he whispered. “They only know she was beaten, and you found her and brought her here.”

“Good, they shouldn’t know I have asked you here to introduce Hugo to élise,” Rollant whispered while his gaze lingered on Hugo’s eager smile as he kissed élise’s hand. “Does your wife know of my intentions as well?”

“Yes,” Jacq said, “but I asked her to act without pretension.”

His gut twisted at élise’s gentle surprise with lifted eyebrows and parted-lipped smile.

He told himself it was for the better—for her sake.

She deserved happiness, companionship, and a life untouched by curses or eternal oaths.

But as Hugo’s blue eyes sparkled at élise, Rollant realized he was tearing out his own heart, piece by piece.

Jacq placed a gentle hand on Rollant’s shoulder. “You and your father, rest his soul, have been so kind to our family. Are you sure you want to go through with this introduction? I have just witnessed regret in your eyes.”

“Regret, yes. It gnaws at me, but it has to be this way. I cannot stay, and even if the introduction does not end in love over time, I ask you to still help her find her way here,” Rollant said as he caught élise’s glance, discernment brewing in her gaze.

“I hope Hugo can at least allow her to see a different future and be a friend when she has none.”