Page 89 of Heirs of the Cursed

She kissed her forehead and leaned on her elbow to look into her eyes. “There’s something I want to tell you.”

“Is something wrong?” she asked, frowning with concern.

Darcia reached a hand between the gap in the bed and the wall and pulled out the small bag of vramnias that Gion had given her. Caeli’s eyes grew wide as she held the bag in her hands.

“What is this?”

“A promise of the future, if we choose to take it.”

Caeli settled on the mattress and, after brushing aside the strands of her unruly hair that fell over her eyes, she began to count the coins. Her fingers traced the lofty details engraved on them, a dumbfounded expression paling her face. When she finished counting, she let out a sigh of disbelief.

“How is this possible? Where did you get so much money?”

“It doesn’t matter. What I wanted to tell you is—”

“Let’s do it!” Caeli said with no hesitation, and burst into euphoric laughter. “Darcia, we can go. We can leave everything behind. We have finally made it! You made it possible.”

Darcia froze, feeling the world fracture abruptly. “Caeli, we must think it over carefully,” she urged. “If my stepbrother finds out we’re running away, he’ll hunt us down and have us killed.”

“Let him rot in the Akhirat.” Caeli took Darcia’s hands with her eyes full of tears. Joy. She was crying with joy. “This is more than enough money to start a new life. We can start fresh, in a place where no one, not even Conrad, would dare hurt us.”

Darcia let out a sigh, a wail of agony that had become entrenched in her chest and stabbed at it every day. She longed to have a future with Caeli, to be happy with her, to have a place to belong, and to be the master of her own destiny . . . But deepdown, she longed for something darker that threatened to stain her soul.

She wished she could have the strength to face her stepbrother. To be smart and powerful enough to destroy everything he had built over time and turn him into a ghost who would never find the realm of the goddesses. Conrad had done enough to hurt many people and, if it wasn’t Darcia who stopped him, no one else would dare to do so.

“We should be cautious . . .” she insisted.

“I’m afraid too, Darcie. And I’m tired of being afraid,” Caeli confessed. “All my life I’ve been looking for a way to survive, with my mother and with you. I’ve seen every beating Conrad has given you to protect me and everyone in the circus. I have healed your wounds and woken you up when nightmares threatened to drag you into the abyss.” She let out a sob and Darcia’s heart broke a little more. “Please don’t ask me to endure it anymore. Don’t ask me to watch it end with you over and over again, without me being able to do anything. Let’s take this chance at a future together.”

“What about Sadira and Bassel? Your mother and my father? We can’t just walk away. We also have a life here, and we can’t afford to leave it all behind,” Darcia replied.

“We can start the process. Maybe . . . we can buy a farm. We can work in a store somewhere, in Hamleigh or Bellmare if we’re lucky.” Caeli shook her head. “People waste their money there without regard. We could get enough vramnias to bring them all with us.”

“And the people in the circus, Cally? What about our real family?”

Caeli looked down in shame. It was clear that she didn’t wish to abandon them either. Darcia knew that fear was greater than any reasoning, but she was also aware that any desperate decision could make everything fall apart.

“If we allow our hearts to remain chained, then we’ll never be able to leave this place, Darcie,” Caeli said in a serious voice. “The world shouldn’t depend on us, on you.”

Darcia knew she was right. Yet, if she left without doing something about it, the guilt would haunt her for eternity. Even if she found happiness, the thought of thousands of lives destroyed by her selfishness would drag her down into tribulation and grief.

“Give me a week,” she asked. “That’s all I need. One week to think about how I can end Conrad’s circus and free everyone. Then . . . Then we can leave without looking back.”

“All right,” Caeli agreed, nervously turning the bracelet on her wrist. “But, at the slightest sign of danger, you run in the opposite direction. As much as I love our family, your life matters more to me.”

“I promise,” she vowed, kissing her lips.

For once, Darcia Voreia would face her fears and do the right thing.

The next day, Darcia walked through the sunny streets of Dawnfall on Sadira’s arm. Due to Conrad’s absence, she’d taken another day off, so when her friend had come to find her at the cottage and asked her to take a walk together, she couldn’t refuse.

Ignoring the stares of the soldiers, Darcia and Sadira engaged in gossiping and laughed as if they were still two innocent children with a whole world to discover.

“I think my brother is in love,” Sadira confessed, after sitting down at the fountain in the square, adjusting her heavy wool coat.

Darcia dropped next to her with her mouth open. “Mister ‘I’m never going to fall in love’?”

Her friend laughed and nodded. “That’s the one.”

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