Aelthiriel's POV
I thought I had forgotten that night, I thought I had buried that memory, but a brief close of my eyes again, and I was back at the palace, running through the moonlit corridors, back at the night when everything went wrong.
Each throw of my legs towards father's scream of pain felt like I was lugging mountains with me. Every breath tasted like iron and magic, choking me.
"Father," I screamed, but my voice came out wrong—thin and distorted.
I reached the throne room too late. I always reached it too late.
Father was on his knees before the throne. His long hair, once braided with moonstones, hung loose and dull, one hand clawing weakly at his chest, while the other stretched toward me, with fingers trembling.
Queen Briana stood by his side, chuckling darkly, and admiring what she'd done.
I'd always warned him this might happen, that Briana was pure evil. How I wished he'd listen, then he wouldn't be dying before me.
"Father!" I screamed again, running into the throne room, clutching my chest, as sorrow clustered around my heart, cutting painfully through.
"Seize her." Queen Briana, my stepmother, barked.
Instantly, soldiers stepped out of the shadows. I tried to duck, but they were too fast for me, and were enhanced with her magic. They caught my arms and locked them behind me, forcing me to a standstill.
The witch, tall, graceful, wrapped in silk as black as her heart, strolled forward.
A dark, evil smile curved her lips as she tipped a crystal vial upside down. The last drop fell, dark and shimmering, onto the floor.
"You really shouldn't have come, Princess Aelthiriel. I had been meaning to save you for later, and now, since you have witnessed this, then I have to finish you off too."
I struggled against the guard's hold, raising my chin high with defiance. "You can't kill me, witch," I yelled at her. "I am still a princess, I—"
Father turned his head. His weak, trembling eyes find me. "She has control of the army. Just run, Aelthiriel. Run," he mouthed, voice hollowed by the pain crowding him from within.
He clutched his chest so hard, like he wanted to pull out his heart.
Queen Briana raised both of her hands, whispering something under her breath, fast and rough. Gradually, power surged through the room.
The witch. She was casting a spell. I shoved myself against the guards, struggling. "Let me go!" I screamed, yelled, barked. Still, they wouldn't let me go.
The torches in the hall extinguished all at once, swallowed by darkness, and cold magic slammed into my chest, knocking the breath from my lungs.
I fell to my knees, the guards dropping me fast like I was hot iron, as shadows peeled themselves off the walls and coiled around my limbs like living chains.
"No, Aelthiriel. No!" Father cried out, voice hollow and broken.
I lunged for him, but the shadows tightened, dragging me backward. They crawled up my skin, seeping into my veins, hollowing me out. I felt myself thinning—becoming less than flesh, less than breath.
I screamed, clawing at the stone to escape, yelling and cursing. I was still screaming when my eyes snapped open, and I woke up, choking on air.
The cave ceiling swam into view, pale daylight stabbing through cracks in the stone.
I squinted away from it.
My heart hammered as though it were trying to tear free of my ribs, my chest heaving.
I had been dreaming again. The same dream, the same memory, repeating itself all over again in my head, no matter how hard I tried to forget it.
It was a month since it happened, yet whenever I sleep, I am reminded of the night I lost my father to that witch Briana, and my body to her curse…
"You must have had a nightmare." A voice muttered beside me.
I started and reached for a sword, though I had none. I stopped and relaxed, recognizing the voice. It was the wizard from last night.
"You need to work on your nerves," he commented. No grudge in his voice, but a little amusement.
I said nothing to that. With the sunlight, I began to feel it, before I even saw it, my shadow-body condensing, morphing back into skin, pain stitching itself back into my flesh and bone.
My breath returned in a rush so sharp it made me choke. I gasped and rolled onto my side. I was solid again.
The pain followed immediately, and I bit back a cry, fingers curling into the dirt as sensation flooded me. My side burned. My head throbbed. Blood loss made the world tilt and sway.
He knelt beside me, face turned slightly away from the cave entrance, hood drawn low. His eyes were closed. Not squinting. Closed, as if opening them would hurt.
Was he hiding his eyes from me? If so, why would he?
I shook off the questions. It was none of my business anyway.
"Morning," I rasped.
"Don't speak," he replied. "You'll need the strength."
His hands were careful as he peeled back the torn fabric at my side. I hissed despite myself.
"Sorry," he muttered. And then, quieter, "This is going to hurt."
"I've survived worse," I said.
That earned me a huff of breath that might have been a laugh.
He worked methodically, fingers steady, movements practiced. He cleaned the wound with water that smelled faintly of herbs.
I watched him through half-lidded eyes.
He never once looked at me. He really was hiding his eyes from me?
Which was odd, I remembered seeing his face last night. He wasn't ugly. He was perhaps one of the most handsome men I have seen in my life, not the flashy kind of handsome, but the gentler, softer kind.
I'd seen his eyes too, a pair of amber gold that had shone bright in the moonlight last night. So why would he keep them from me now?
His head stayed angled downward, face shadowed beneath his hood.
When the light shifted and the sun climbed higher and poured into the cave, he turned further away with a heavy grunt, jaw tightening, shoulders rigid. He was in pain.
"Your eyes," I whispered before I could stop myself. Curiosity winning.
He stilled.
For a moment, I thought he would snap at me. Instead, he exhaled slowly, controlled. "Sunlight burns them," he said flatly. "Don't worry about it."
That was… not reassuring.
"You're blind," I said.
"As I said, don't worry about it," his voice grew a notch now. A hint that he doesn't want to go further on the subject.
I refused to push further. It was a curse. Of course it was. Just like I was damned to be a shadow in the night, he was damned to be blind in the day.
In this world, curses were as common as air itself. You just need to offend someone powerful enough to afflict you with it, someone like your stepmother.
I forced back the memories rolling down my mind.
I swallowed, lifting my head to him again. "You waited."
His hands paused over my skin. "What?"
"You waited until morning to treat me," I said quietly. "Even though they might have found us again."
"Yes," he muttered, voice drawling from boredom.
Other than my father, I had never had anyone fight for me and help me.
"Thank you," I said.
He snorted. "You should tell that to my shitty conscience, left to the rational part of me, you'd have been another number in the afterlife."
He finished tying the cloth and leaned back on his heels. "You'll live. Don't bleed on anything important for the next few days."
I smiled faintly. "I'll try."
I'd hoped to lighten the mood. But he didn't seem the fun type. Instead, what I got was silence. It settled thick and awkward between us.
He rose abruptly. "I believe you should be able to fend for urself now. My job here is done. As soon as the sun is down, I am leaving." He said.
"But can—"
He didn't let me even speak. He turned around, marching away.
He moved in quite a hurry and stumbled over his pack, kicking it off into the air.
The content scattered over the cave floor, some with a tiny but noisy clatter.
He grunted, grinding the whole of his jaw.
He bent low, feeling the soil for his things and pushing them into his pouch.
His belongings were sparse. Functional. No sentimental clutter. He was a man prepared to run at any moment, just like I was.
Was he being chased as well...
I stiffened when I saw it.
A folded piece of treated parchment, marked with sigils I recognized instantly.
My breath paused as I sat up slowly for a better view.
I wasn't wrong. It really was the parchment bearing ancient wayfinding runes. And written in old elven script.
I kicked it from the soil with my foot, and I snatched it in the air. I opened it, hands shaking terribly.
It was really the map I had been searching for for weeks now. The map I had returned to Letharian to find, and instead, only drew the assassins to my location.
My heart pounded, my eyes running over the parchment. I traced the Ashveil Expanse on the map eagerly until I arrived at its center. The Aetherwell forest, where the moonlight crystal was hidden. The one relic rumored to unravel layered curses without killing the bearer. The same artifact I had been running toward for weeks now, the same artifact that can save me from this curse.
"You shouldn't give that back," he growled. He snatched it from my hands, folded it, and it ended back in his pack.
I swallowed the lump in my throat, forcing my voice steady. "You're going to the Aetherwell," I asked.
"Maybe." He answered.
"So am I," I said. "Perhaps I can come with you."
"No," he said immediately.
I pushed myself upright despite the pain, grinding my teeth hard against each other. "That map—"
"Is mine."
"The moonlight crystal can cure me, too. I know you probably need it for your curse, but we can share it."
Silence.
Then, coldly. "I don't remember telling you I was cursed," he said, his jaw clenched tight, the rest of his face still hidden beneath his hood for me to glimpse the irritation in his face. I felt it in his voice. "Nor did I mention anything about a moonlight artifact."
"But that's what you must need the map for."
"What if it is?"
"I also need it. I can come with you."
I hated the way my voice shook, hated the way I needed him, but I would do anything to get out of this miserable curse.
He strolled away into the dark corners of the cave. "I am sorry, miss. But I don't do partners."
I tried to stand up, but the pain in my abdomen drilled warning shots through me, and I was forced back to the ground.
"I'm not asking to slow you down. I can—"
"You would," he said. "You're injured. Cursed, and hunted."
"So are you," I shot back. I was sure about the hunted part, though. But a lone wizard like him ought to be. Wizards worked in guilds.
My words seemed to strike something. He turned slightly, enough for me to see the tension in his jaw and the tight clench of his hands.
"I survive alone," he said. "That's how I stay alive. You are not coming with me. At sundown, we part ways."
The tone of his voice made it clear. That was final. Final. Crushing all my hope.
He threw his head against the wall, turning completely from me, and he pretended to sleep.