Page 7 of Secrets & Curses of Cerithia

The man leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine briefly. Gods, I wondered if he could hear my heart pounding. Kissing Jesper had never felt like that.

“I hope our paths cross again soon, little viper,” he said as he turned and ran toward the trees.

My chest ached as I watched him run away. What if I never saw him again? I watched as he turned when he got to the tree line. I could see his silhouette as he grabbed his hood and pulled it off. What a little shit. I bet he was smiling to himself too.

My mind snapped back to reality when someone yanked my arm roughly. I looked up to see a guard, and behind him stood Tally, Jesper, and the king and queen. Shit. How much had they seen? Did they see the hooded figure? Did they see me touching his face? Him kissing me?

I suddenly became very lightheaded, and my eyes felt fuzzy. I didn’t pass out, however, until after the queen backhanded me across the face for sneaking out. As I felt her hand connect with my cheek, everything went black. I welcomed it, though, because maybe the hooded man would meet me there in my mind, in my dreams.

Chapter 3

Again. Again. Again. I lunged forward and stabbed the makeshift target I had made. Sweat ran down my face and stung my eyes in the unbearable heat of Cerithia. My viper-handled dagger pierced with perfect precision each time, and my heart raced with adrenaline as I envisioned Cassius as my target. He was standing in front of me, and I returned the favor of killing him.

My body did not like envisioning him dying. It did not want to stab him or kill him. But this has been my only focus since returning to Cerithia. The sharp pain in my chest subsided after I ignored it long enough, but the burning of my blood bond was enough to make me stop.

I forced the sadness away and replaced it with images of Cassius being so cruel to me in that clearing. I repeated his words like my own sick mantra.Who could love a monstrosity like you?His hateful words fueled my darkness. It made me stronger. There was no time to grieve everything I lost, and Iknew it. If I let myself think about it too much, I would fall into the darkness and never resurface.

The darkness wanted to take over; it wanted me to allow it complete freedom. It felt like something new lurked inside of me, and it was evil. Not only did it want to level Crimson, but it also wanted to punish the gods. It wanted me to level Elloryon with a flick of my wrist. Everyone should feel as horrible as I did.

How could the gods allow me to live in a realm where Cassius did not want me, did not love me back? A sinking feeling overtook me as I tried to stop my thoughts.

The more I pushed the hurt and confusion away, the more I felt lost. There was nothing else to replace it with. Cerithia had not filled the void of losing Crimson or Cassius.

“Thea?”

I turned quickly and found my dagger pointed at my father and Jesper. They both took a hesitant step back before I dropped the blade to my side.

“What are you doing? The sun hasn’t even come up yet.” My father glanced at my makeshift target before looking at me. My eyes found Jesper. He had been nothing but kind to me since being here, but all I could do was think of how unpleasant I found him in my dream the night before.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Still?” My father glanced over me as if he were looking for something. I nodded but said nothing else. He always seemed to be analyzing me, as if he was expecting to see something. “It's been weeks,” his words faded off, and I knew he wanted to question why I was still so... out of it. I could not seem to get acclimated to Cerithia, no matter what I did. I wish I could feel like I belonged here.

“I’m training. What do you want?” I sighed, annoyed that they were bothering me this early. There was a reason I came out here before everyone else woke up.

My father watched the dagger in my hand, like I would reach out and slice him open. There was no connection in my heart to him, to the castle, or to this family. No one had tried to make me feel welcomed. When I first arrived, I was shown to my tiny room and left to rot away. My father and Jesper had treated my return more like an interrogation. They wanted to know everything about Crimson. What were their armies doing? Did Cassius speak of war? What did I know about everything? When I didn’t have the answers they sought about Cassius or his army, they seemed disappointed in me. They eventually stopped coming to see me altogether when I couldn’t give them anything.

Even now, my father and Jesper stand far away from me. I felt as though they feared me more than they liked my presence. I hadn’t expected fae to rejoice, but I expected someone, anyone, to say they had missed me.

My eyes shifted to behind my father, where the woman with star-colored eyes had appeared. I shook my head and closed my eyes tightly. She wasn’t real. I was seriously fucked up in the head. My eyes snapped open when Jesper spoke.

“Training for what?” He raised his brow, ignoring my irritation.

“To kill Cassius,” I huffed, ignoring the stabbing in my chest. My blood bond burned at my words, but I didn’t let them know that something twisted in me each time I thought of Cassius dying.

“Very good.” My father gave me a weak smile. “That makes me so proud to hear.”

His words should have made me happy, but I felt nothing. My eyes shifted once again to the woman who stood watching, and this time, Jesper’s eyes followed. Her bright eyes glanced over me, pausing on the blood bond on my arm, and I swore she smiled slightly at the sight of it.

Jesper looked right through her because she wasn’t real. He turned toward me and watched closely, like he could see the cracks in my armor. He looked at me like I was broken and barely functioning. The woman looked concerned for me. She always seemed to be looking at me as if she cared about me and could see my sadness that no one else seemed to.

Did anyone notice how utterly lost I was? Did they not realize that my own reality was shattered and I couldn’t fit the pieces together in a way that made sense? I was so...empty. A thickness overtook my throat, but I swallowed it down so my father couldn’t see how tortured I felt. No one seemed to understand the hell I faced. And to make matters even worse, I felt like every part of me from Crimson was slowly dying. Each day that passed took me further from myself and closer to a monster controlled by madness.

They don’t understand the price I paid by losing Cassius. It was as if he had given me a reason not to be completely lost in my darkness. But now that I was without him, I had nothing to tether myself to as a war waged inside of me. I was slowly being lost inside of myself, and no one saw it. My pain was visible, but no one here seemed to care enough about me to help. They were letting me drown in my own devastation, betrayal, and madness.

“Is something wrong?” Jesper took a small step toward me. “You keep looking at something.”

I glared at his movement, and he instantly stopped. The dagger in my hand was gripped tightly to help ground myself. I did not like talking about Cassius with them. They refused to let me go to Crimson to kill him. My father had said I was not ready, and the Cerithia guards would need me to train them for war. It was stupid, but it felt like my father was keeping me away from Crimson for another reason too.

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