Page 24 of Unraveled (A Kingdom of Beasts and Ruins #1)

There’s a flash of hurt behind Nera’s eyes, though she’s so quick to hide it she must be an expert.

“It’s only a matter of time until I don’t snap back to my old self after a blood moon, and with how things have been going for me, I probably only have one left.

Three more months.” She shrugs like she doesn’t care.

No one in this library believes her act.

“It doesn’t matter either way, Mia, the curse will take me either by making me mad or by turning me into stone until I won’t be able to move anymore, to eat—to live . ”

Horror settles in the pit of my stomach. I hate that she’s talking about fading into the curse like there isn’t a way out.

I glance back at the tapestry and take in the fine details woven together to create the beautiful masterpiece.

Naheli runs beside Ash. Every single star inside and around her body is stitched with silver thread.

I study Ash’s sword, which he swings at a man whose head is flying somewhere else.

Humans are running, screaming. It’s almost like I’m there, watching the Hunt unfold in front of me.

I clear my throat, hoping my voice doesn’t break with how overwhelmed I feel. It would be better to change the subject. “So, you’ve met him before? The king?”

Nera shakes her head. “No, not in person at least.” Her expression turns more severe, and she looks away, perhaps regretting telling me the truth. “But enough about me. Why are we here?”

“Ash and I made a deal yesterday,” I say, and lean back against the smooth leather backrest of the plush, burgundy chair.

“Oh?”

I shrug, keeping my hands busy with the small book. “I will help you break the curse, and if I do, he will set me free. I’m guessing that’s why I’m learning all about the Hunt and Ash has deemed it necessary that I read this strange diary.”

“Something like that...” he says, looking away from us, his jaw ticking. “I might have drunk too much whiskey and gone half mad to make this deal.”

“I see.” Nera’s brows arch, and I’m still amazed her face can be so expressive even though it’s all stone. It doesn’t even make a sound, but it feels like it should. “Well, this should be interesting. I’ll stay here and see what you two get up to.”

“Are you bored, dear sister?”

“If the curse doesn’t kill me, the monotony of every passing day in this place will.

” Her mouth tilts into a slow smile, and she lowers her body into a chair beside me.

The wood groans and bends. I hear a crack, but just as I expect Nera to fall to the ground, Ash waves a hand and gold magic shoots from his fingers, wrapping around the chair and preventing it from collapsing under her considerable weight.

“Please, stop destroying the little furniture we have left. Use your magic, Nera. It will help you maintain your sanity.”

“You know I can’t. Not anymore.”

“You’re just choosing not to because it’s difficult to accept the curse has dampened it and it’s not as it was.”

“You don’t know anything.” Nera’s nostrils flare ever so slightly, but a heartbeat later, a mask of indifference falls upon her face and the hurt is gone.

She turns to me, rolling her rear over the chair to push it to its limits.

“I admit, I’m curious how this will all pan out.

I guess no human has survived in our kingdom as long as you, Mia.

Not since the curse began. How are you planning on helping us? ”

“Well, this is all new to me, and frankly, I didn’t think this through when I made the deal with your brother last night.”

“Shocking,” Ash says, tapping his fingers on his chin. “You don’t seem like an impulsive person at all.”

I glare at him. “Well, I don’t have a lot of choices, and I don’t like to not be in control over my future. So, please tell me more, anything I can use to break this, for example: Who cursed you? A warlock, a sorcerer—an angry family member?”

There is always a fail-safe woven into the layers of a curse so it can be broken.

The laws of magic require balance. It must be the reason beasts come to Penumbra on every blood moon.

They usually try to take a human away, so perhaps one of us is destined to break it.

And here I am, in the perfect place at the perfect time.

Nera and Ash stop moving—stop breathing. They sit rigid in their chairs, stares burning a hole in my face. The intensity makes my skin crawl. Their lips remain shut tightly. Ash is pale, looking almost like his sister, another statue sitting in an ocean of books.

“You can’t talk about who put the curse on you, can you? That’s why you’ve been showing me clues. Perhaps if I figure out who did it, I can break it?” I study their shocked expressions and rejoice in this little win. “I take it I’m close to the truth?”

“Oh, she is good,” Nera croons in delight. “Let’s keep her.”

I frown at the white beast and her delicate features. “I’m not a pet for you to keep.”

She sobers and nods, her previous mocking expression gone, replaced by something more serious that makes her look much older. “You’re right. And we both know that. Isn’t that true, Ash?”

“What’s that you’re trying to accomplish, Nera? Perhaps you should go before I lose my temper and put you back to sleep.”

I blink, confused. Not sure if I should be offended, curious, or both. It’s probably best to not ask questions or get hung up on whatever silent conversation they’re having in front of me. Who cares if they don’t like me? The feeling’s mutual. This is nothing but a transitional place for me.

“Why do the lunargyres come to Penumbra? The city is far, at least a week away. I’m sure there are other towns near the castle that also house humans.”

Not that I want the beasts to torment and kill those humans like they have so many of us.

“The citizens of Penumbra have made it so. They stole from me, and the lunargyres can sense traces of fae magic in the city. A connection that perhaps feels like home and ties us to Penumbra. So they flock there and take humans to bring to me.”

I nod, opening the grimoire he handed me and feeling little fibers of magic cling to the palm of my hand. A soft, but somehow fiery, greeting. “They kill most of the people they take, though. Have they ever succeeded at delivering a human here?”

The siblings trade a sad look before Nera speaks. “They are mindless beasts by the time they get there. No human can survive a feral lunargyre.”

But they keep coming for more, and the bloodshed won’t end until the curse is broken. I don’t have a lot of time to help Penumbra, nor Nera, who is more beast than fae.

I page through the book and smile as its magic grips at my fingers. I’ve never seen this language before, but the parchment greets me. The aura hovering over the pages is light red.

“What do you see?” Ash asks, and the surrounding silence is almost absolute.

I drag my finger over the elegant swirls that make words I can’t discern. “Just letters...”

His sigh sounds distinctly relieved, and the wood of Nera’s chair groans under her weight as she leans over the table.

Well, this was uneventful. I move to close the grimoire, but its magic whispers. It asks me with a deeper voice if I want to know its secrets; it holds knowledge of passages inside the castle. Not this castle, but one across the continents, where the nights are long and large lizards breathe fire.

My eyes widen and I slam the grimoire closed, pushing it toward Ash while perspiration accumulates on my temples.

“What—what did you read?”

“I can’t read it.” I shake my head “Can lizards breathe fire?”

Nera gasps and presses her hand over her lips.

Ash pulls the book back. “ When did you learn to speak the languages of the fae? ”

I stare at him as panic rushes through my body, because he isn’t speaking the common human tongue.

I stand up so fast my chair tumbles to the ground.

But I need some distance from them. The way words sound out of his lips is wrong.

His inflection goes high and low, while the sounds form elegant, strange phrases. Words I shouldn’t understand, but I do.

My skin tightens, and I want to get out of here and hide somewhere I can think over the seemingly insignificant details of my experiences to figure out what this could mean.

He stands fast and rounds the table toward me. His scent chases away every rational thought I have. “Mia?”

I jump at the sound of my name on his lips. Gods, I hate that I like it. Monster is much safer.

“I-I don’t know when... how...” I try to see through the confusion clouding my thoughts, but everything is muddy. A shiver runs down my spine, and my heart pounds faster. I can’t say anything coherent, so I glance at the tome on the table and the strange letters it contains.

Nera leans forward, her eyes wide as her face shifts with a mixture of horror and hope. Hope for what?

“Well, your understanding of our language explains how you’re able to cast enchantments from the stolen texts. It explains what you truly are, Monster.”

“And what’s that?”

“Not human. Whoever made you believe that lied to you. You have fae blood.”