I shake my head, out of answers.
He leans forward. “I’ll tell you why: the curse makes us fall in love.”
Chapter 12
I rear back.
“W-what?”
I take a step back. “We’re—we’re falling in love?” A strange sort of horror descends on me at the possibility. I’ve never been in love. That’s what this is?
He leans against the wall and slides down it. Running his hands through his hair again, he nods. “It’s all a part of the curse.”
“But I haven’t noticed it.” When I breathe in a curse, I feel it, I read it. I would’ve known if that was a part of it …
“That’s because it’s still in me, and it’s still affecting us.”
I stare down at him in shock.
“This … this has happened before?” I ask. Because the way he’s talking, it sounds as though he knows exactly how this is all going to play out.
He nods, staring down at his human hands. “Many times.”
Why does my stomach twist at that?
“It always ends the same,” he continues, and I hear ageless heartbreak in his voice. “That’s the curse: to fall in love only to kill the object of it.”
Could it be possible?
Of course it could. Wasn’t that what I was tasting every time I breathed the curse in? Sweetness and rot. Love and death. I just hadn’t connected the dots.
Suddenly, my knees feel weak. I reach for the hallway wall and lower myself next to Asterion.
Most of the time, curses aren’t personal. It’s a job, and nothing more. The most personal it gets is being hand-delivered to the Minotaur when I botch an extraction, and even that didn’t feel personal. Just really friggin’ frustrating.
But this, this feels personal. My heart is involved. As is his, if what he tells me is true. To fall in love only to murder your lover. I suppress a shiver. No wonder he’s so anguished. No wonder he’s been trying to keep his distance. Everyone he’s cared for he’s eventually killed against his own wishes.
Next to me, he sighs, then looks over at my hand that’s closest to him.
“May I?” he asks, indicating to it.
I give a nod or a shrug. I’m still getting over the fact that I have feelings for him, and he has feelings for me, and the whole thing has been rigged by some stupid curse set in motion lifetimes ago.
He takes my hand, running his thumb over my knuckles. “A long, long time ago, when I was just shy of twenty, I got involved with a much older Meta.”
I glance over at him, not sure where he’s going with this.
Asterion’s eyes are distant. “She was a renowned sorceress feared for her power. That should’ve been warning enough for me to stay away, but when I caught beautiful, wicked Circe’s attention, I fell prey to her allure. She was an ancient, even then, kept alive and youthful through magic no one understood. And she had picked me to be with her.
“Being her confidante and her lover, it was a rush. She was up then she was down, hot then cold. I was transfixed by everything about her. And she was so powerful, so very powerful. She held that over me, always. Several years went by, and what had once made her so alluring eventually made me resent her. And it only got worse.
“Over time, she became more controlling, more demanding and cruel. She felt me pulling away and she hated it. The horrible truth of it all is that she was an evil woman, but somewhere along the way, she realized she loved me. She loved me, and I did not love her back. And the more she exerted her power over me to keep me close, the more I pulled away.
“I think at that point, the end was inevitable, but I didn’t try to end things right away. By then I knew to fear her as everyone else did, Circe the Savage. I knew what she could do to me if I displeased her. I hoped instead that she’d eventually lose interest in me and cast me aside as she had all the men that came before me. And she might’ve too, but everything changed when I met Ilsa.”
Lost in his memory as he is, Asterion gives a small smile. “Ilsa gave me the courage I lacked.” His smile vanishes. “I found that I had to end things with Circe, that I couldn’t waste my life away enslaved to her. But when I tried to break things off, she refused, banishing me to her house, keeping me as her prisoner and hexing me from telling anyone the truth.”
Asterion sucks in his lower lip. “I suppose both Circe and I were more desperate than ever. She to keep me, and me to be free of her. We were at an impasse.
He rubs his eyes. “Poor Ilsa, poor, sharp-witted Ilsa who saw too much and understood too much. She knew my history with Circe and my plight, and she was working with—of all things—a curse catcher,” Asterion pauses to give me a soft look, “to release me from Circe’s control.”
His gaze grows distant, his expression sorrowful. “Ilsa snuck into Circe’s home to see me. She stayed too long …”
Asterion glances down at his hands. “Circe caught me with the girl, and she recognized what passed between Ilsa and me for what it was.” He takes a deep breath. “Love. Something that for all Circe’s terrible power, she couldn’t force from me. And it drove her mad with jealousy.”
He drops his head to his hands. “Even with all I’d known about Circe, I hadn’t truly understood the depth of her perverseness. Not until that moment when she cursed me.”
He swallows. “She cursed me right in front of Ilsa. Never to die, never to age, and to only know love long enough to snuff it out. In that moment, I changed into the Minotaur, with all of his violent cravings. And when I saw Ilsa … the curse’s bloodlust overtook me—”
His voice breaks. “Later, I—I remember holding Ilsa’s broken body in my arms. Nothing,” his voice drops, hushed, “nothing can compare to the horror of that. To kill the very reason you rise each day …
“It didn’t matter that I later got my revenge on Circe,” he continues. “I was a murderer, a monster.
“Shortly thereafter, I tried to end my life, but life would not leave me. And so the years toiled on, until I thought I might be able to move past Ilsa’s death. And then the curse struck again.
“I was mindless with rage. I’d tear through streets, destroying everything and everyone in my path. Eventually I was locked up, but my rage hadn’t abated. Not until someone somewhere had the bright idea of giving me a sacrifice. The woman was little older than you, and in a matter of minutes the anger lifted. It took only days for the curse to ensnare us both. That was when the rage came back.
“In mere weeks, the sacrifice was dead.”
Asterion’s face grows even more troubled. “I don’t even remember her name.” His voice breaks. “I loved her and I killed her, but I cannot recall even her name. It’s wrong, so wrong.” He’s shaking his head.
“Endless amounts of time passed, and a cycle began to form. Grief would come, and when it faded, the rage would set in. Eventually the rage too would abate—if only for a short while—to make room for an unnatural sort of love that grew too fast. And then that too would be snuffed out by the curse. And the cycle would repeat.”
He rubs his face. “If only my mind could break. That would make this all better. But the curse took that small concession from me too.”
The immortality Asterion had up until a few days ago would prevent his mind—as well as his body—from permanently breaking.
“I’ve had to live with my atrocities for countless years. However, somewhere along the way I found that if I fought my feelings, I could buy myself and the sacrifice a little more time.”
He finally looks over at me. “I don’t want you to die, Skylar.” His voice breaks. “More than anything, I don’t want that. And that is why I keep my distance and why you must let me.
“Because the more you let me in, the sooner I will come after you.”
That night, for the first time in ov
er a week, I hear Asterion roar. It pulls me straight from sleep and shakes the metal walls of my room.
I sit up in bed, rubbing my eyes.
Another bellow follows the first, and then I hear a crash in the distance. Those shouts no longer are the cries of a beast, and that makes them all the more terrible. I can practically picture Asterion, his knuckles bloody from beating the walls of his prison, his neck corded from the strain of yelling.
My heart hammers in my chest.
This might be happening because of the kiss.
The worst part of all of is that a part of me wants to find him and soothe him. I press the palms of my hands into my eyes, trying to ignore my stupid heart.
If only Asterion sounded angry. But no, his cries sound like he’s in pain, such pain.
I’m falling in love with him.
My stomach flips at the thought.
It shouldn’t feel this painful, should it?
He was right earlier when he called it unnatural. It’s too fast, like the curse is propelling us towards our fates, and damnit, it shouldn’t still be this effective. I’ve removed most of the curse, after all.
But perhaps not the most important parts. Asterion still seems concerned about hurting me, and judging by the sound of his cries, he still has reason to. And I’m still emotionally invested.
And now I have to accept the possibility that until I remove the curse for good, our situation is only going to get worse.
Chapter 13
It’s not the smell of breakfast that wakes me the next day, but rather the lack of it. I don’t know when I eventually fell asleep the night before, or how long I slept, but the hungry cramping of my stomach is what propels me out of bed.
I search the halls up and down, searching for the doomed soul I can’t seem to stay away from. My eyes linger on some of the walls where the plaster is almost completely gone, exposing metal framing beneath.
I suppress a shiver at the sight. I know he’s no longer that strong. I removed the inhuman strength he was cursed with nearly a week ago. But still, seeing such visceral evidence of his rage has me second-guessing my decision to hunt him down. I might not be the one doing the hunting.
I’ve never made it to the middle of the labyrinth, mostly because I know exactly what I’ll find in the heart of this place. Namely Asterion. But now a strange sort of terror has me seeking him out.
I don’t call out to him, and I don’t know why. Maybe some primal part of me fears that the curse has him in its grips. I still have enough self-preservation to not want to die.
But Asterion isn’t lying in wait for me.
When I eventually make it to the middle of the labyrinth, I know I’ve made it to his room.
It’s a cyclone of debris. Sitting right in the middle of it all, his head in his hands, is Asterion.
He doesn’t look up right away, and I don’t rush to his side like I thought I would. Being here in the heart of his labyrinth, seeing his demolished walls and smashed furniture, and him sitting right in the middle of it like he’s the heart of the storm, it’s too vulnerable, too raw. I feel like I’ve walked into his mind and peered into places I shouldn’t. And he doesn’t have the will or the fight to kick me out.
“You didn’t make me breakfast,” I explain.
He lifts his head. His red-rimmed eyes are bloodshot. He clears his throat. “I’m sorry. It-it got the better of me.”
Asterion doesn’t need to elaborate on what it he’s referring to. The curse might as well be a third person in the room, pushing us together while it tears him apart.
Tentatively, I walk over to him and crouch at his feet. He glances away.
The curse has only two strongholds left, one on Asterion’s mind and one on his heart.
I have no containers nearby, but that doesn’t stop me from taking his face in my hands and closing my eyes.
“Skylar …” I distantly hear him say, disapproval thick in his voice. I know he’s remembering the last time I did this without a sealable vessel at hand.
I shake my head, keeping my eyes closed. “Let me help you.”
My magic quickly finds the curse, the vine-like tentacles of it burrowed in the folds of his brain. I swallow down my nausea. I avoided removing this section for a reason. Asterion’s mind has been built on and around the curse. Taking it out means taking bits of him out along with it.
I pause. “Asterion, this part of the curse … there’s some risk to removing it. It could … change you.”
Perhaps he will lose his memory of it—that sometimes happens. Perhaps it’ll be some other aspect of his personality. Of all the organs, the mind is the most mysterious to me.
“Let’s do this at another time.” He’s almost begging, and I know he just wants me as far from him as possible right now. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
And even amongst his own turmoil, the man worries for my safety.
“It’s not me I’m worried about,” I say, opening my eyes to stare into his.
The sight of him, with his olive skin and those dark, bloodshot eyes, makes me want to hold him close.
“I’m better dead then cursed,” he says. “If you trust being around me right now … then do what you must.”
I frown at his words because, stars above, how vehemently I disagree with him. The last thing I want is him dead. But it’s precisely his life—and his quality of life—that makes me tighten my hold and release my power.
Immediately my magic flows from me to Asterion. I lead it towards his skull, where the curse has hidden itself deep in the crevices of his mind. Ever so deftly, it slides into the folds of Asterion’s brain, wrapping around the spindly arms of the curse.
Almost instantly the curse fights back, the arms of it bucking against my magic’s hold, trying to shake it off. I nearly release Asterion then and there. This curse feels … alive. And it’s not giving up its hold.
I flood him with power, wrapping layer after layer around the squirming curse until it’s essentially suffocated under my hold. Even then, as I begin the painstaking task of lifting the curse one section at a time, it fights back.
I hear Asterion groan. I forgot to mention that he might develop the mother of all headaches.
Vaguely, I recognize that I’m beginning to sweat. My concentration and power have never been taxed like this. As soon as I lift a complete section of the curse, I breathe it in.
I nearly choke on the little bastard. I can feel it moving through my system, trying to settle inside me when my magic won’t let it. But my magic itself is taxed enough as it is.
There are two more large sections of the curse nestled in Asterion’s mind, and I know once I extract them, I’m going to be a goner for a while. So I work on them simultaneously, even as I feel a fever rising inside me.
I can’t say whether removing the last two sections of the curse takes minutes or hours, only that by the time I breathe it in, my entire body is trembling from the effort.
And then the curse enters me. It reverberates through me like the tolling of a bell as it searches for a place to settle. And with the chime, I see the faces of all the victims that haunt Asterion, and I see their deaths.
I’ve taken some of his memories, just as I feared. And yet, and yet these particular memories are the worst ones, the ones the curse refused to let him forget.
Perhaps now he’ll know a little peace.
The curse lashes through me, spinning like a wheel. My head pounds even as I grow faint.
My hands slip from Asterion’s face.
“Skylar? Skylar …”
The world fades away.
I wake, again and again. The world is on fire … or maybe I am.
Burning, burning.
Something cool touches my forehead.
??
?Skylar …”
I force my eyelids open, only to see a beautiful man staring down at me, his face a mask of worry. And then he fades away.
At some point, the heat sizzling beneath my skin begins to fade. I drink a little water someone holds to my mouth.
I begin to realize that I’m sick. Very sick. And then I remember I took in a curse, one that was so strong it felt alive. No wonder I’m so sick. It makes the normal curses I imbibe seem like child’s play.
I wake and sleep, wake and sleep. Sometimes Asterion is the one to wake me, when he brings me food, the entire time looking deeply troubled. And sometimes I wake to his cries, deep in the distance.
I don’t know how many days and nights go by before I finally rouse myself for good. I drag my aching body to the shower, washing off who knows how many days of sickness. I dress quickly, and when I step out, Asterion waits for me in what’s become my room, his towering frame dwarfing the space.
For a moment, the two of us stare across at each other.
“How are you feeling?” he finally asks.
That seems to break the spell. “Much better,” I say, stepping out of the connected bathroom and into the bedroom. “How long was I sick?”
His face grows grim. “A week.”
A week?
Shit.
I can tell there are so many other things he wants to say. I can see him holding the words back, but it’s all there in his eyes. He wants me to stop curing him, but he doesn’t want the curse to win. Not when we’re this close to removing the last of it.
“My memories … some of them are gone,” he says, looking at me in confusion. “All those deaths—I know so many people died, but now I can’t remember how.”
I swallow, then nod. “I think that was part of the curse—keeping those memories intact.”
I can still hear echoes of those tolling bells from the last bit of the curse I imbibed and remember how it spun like a wheel when it entered me. I didn’t understand at the time what it meant, but I do now.