Page 82 of The Curse and the Silver Rose

Amelie bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood. As much as she wanted to go straight to the castle, she could not ignore the threat to the village. Oskar and his children were in peril.

“I will go to the castle,” she said to her brothers. “Both of you go down to the village and gather everyone you can find. Evacuate them to safety, then join me at the castle.”

“Not a chance,” replied Marcel. “We are not leaving you.”

“At least let one of us go with you,” said Raphael.

Before he had even finished speaking, Amelie shook her head. “I have the Heartstone, and access to the potions. I will be alright.” She prayed the stone would help her in some way. “Please, get everyone to safety and then reunite with me. Avoid a fight with her at all costs. Do you understand?”

To prevent further protestations, Amelie touched Trésor with her heels. The horse galloped toward the castle, as if understanding everything, including her rider’s urgency. Amelie glanced back at her brothers. To her relief, they were directing their horses toward the village.

She hoped the Dark One was at the castle instead of the village, because Marcel had never avoided a fight in his life. That was the real reason she did not want him and Raphael separated. As her brothers disappeared from view, Amelie had an awful feeling it was the last time she would ever see them.

The castle gates were wide open. An eery silence and chilly mist filled the estate. With every step, Trésor’s hooves made a sound on the pebble driveway like bones breaking. Inside the grounds, the stationary black cloud blotted out the sun entirely.

Amelie dismounted at the drawbridge, which lay over the murky water of the moat. The doors to the keep were ajar, showing only darkness within. As foreboding as the castle had seemed on the first day she arrived, it was now positively crypt-like.

She kissed Trésor on the nose. “Leave at the first sign of trouble,” she whispered, despite no trace of another being. “I beg of you.” Amelie would not be able to bear for this pure, faithful creature to be hurt. “You have already saved me once. You owe me nothing.”

Trésor merely blinked at her. The horse seemed as calm as ever, which did soothe Amelie a tiny amount. She left the palomino at the end of the drawbridge, golden and luminous against the grey fog.

Before entering the castle, Amelie double-checked the silver rose and the clamshell in her satchel, which she slung over her shoulder for easy reach.

“Please be alive,” she said under her breath as she crossed the drawbridge into the castle. “Please, Davron, be alive.”

Around every corner, she braced herself to run into the Dark One. Scanning each gallery and room as she went, she hurried along the corridors. The candles in the sconces did not light up as she passed. The only light inside the castle was the weak daylight that struggled through the high windows.

Dust covered every surface, in stark contrast to the polished perfection of the castle when she lived here. As her feet and cloak left a trail in the dust on the floor, she became acutely aware there were no other footprints or trails. No one had been through here in some time, and the sheer amount of dust was far more than what should have accumulated in a week. It was as if the castle had sat abandoned for a decade.

The silence was so complete that Amelie could hear her heart beating. She frowned, realizing that none of the clocks populating the castle were ticking loudly, as they usually would. When she passed the next one, she saw the hands had stopped, the pendulum suspended midair on a swing. Magic was most certainly afoot. Only, it was not the same enchantments as before. This was something dread and lifeless and wicked.

As Amelie approached the Great Hall, the enormity of her task began to dawn on her. If Davron was imprisoned or silenced or hidden, it could take hours to search the castle to find him. Even then, she was not privy to all its secrets and concealed rooms.

She stood in the doorway to the Great Hall, thinking. Should she call out for him? If Levissina was in the castle, surely she would have confronted Amelie by now.

But if the Dark One was not here, it likely meant she was at the village. Her brothers and the villagers were in incredible danger, if not already dead. Should Amelie take the weapon potions to the village to fight the very source of the evil? Given the decaying state of the castle, she was forced to recognize that if Davron was alive, she was unlikely to find him.

And if he wasn’t . . . she could not bring herself to think about it.

For the hundredth time since last night, Amelie admonished herself for her actions. Why had she agreed to let Davron send her away? Why had she not fought harder to stay with him, and face Levissina together? In giving up on him so easily, not only had she abandoned him, she had unwittingly taken a chance at victory with her. The Heartstone.

Torn though she was, she decided to arm herself at the apothecary with as much potion as she could carry. She’d search for clues of Davron’s whereabouts on the way. With the castle seemingly empty, she could not justify staying here any longer. Davron would not want her to leave the villagers defenseless. He might have even gone down there to help them.

At first, when she stepped into the apothecary, it seemed undisturbed. Dust lay over the bottles and on the floor. Then, she rounded the corner and skidded to a horrified stop.

Familiar small blue bottles littered the shelves and floor. All the bottles, bar none, were either broken or tipped over, the contents drained. Sticky, dark blue sludge was the only remaining trace.

Davron had no means of suppressing the curse in his body. The day she saw him drink this potion to quell his baneful tattoos, she wondered what would happen if he did not take it. That was now a reality.

Levissina presumably destroyed them. With access to the castle, it made sense that she’d locate the apothecary and ruin the potions. There was no other explanation, because why would Davron destroy the only inhibitor for the curse’s effects?

Unless he no longer wished to fight.

Another awful thought occurred to Amelie. Did the weapon potion still exist? The one that flashed green when Davron rescued her from the cottage in the village? She had never seen the bottle and didn’t know where it was kept. Preparing herself for a long and frenzied search, she squinted at labels and yellowed parchments.

In the end, though, her search was brief.

A cabinet door dangled from broken hinges further into the room. The shattered remains of green bottles lay on the floor. The glass had been reduced to razor-thin shards, spreading far down the aisle, as if smashed with incredible force.

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