Page 118 of Heirs of the Cursed

She didn’t want to.

Because if she did, she’d acknowledge that her whole life had been a lie.

She grew up believing that her family had abandoned her and thrown her in Salismar Ocean to get rid of her for being an abomination. Only to discover that she had a twin sister, a family.

Her mind shattered, her entire surroundings breaking apart. No, she had a family, and that was her mother and ten sisters she loved dearly.

Yet her chest tightened at the thought that there was someone somewhere in Laivalon of her own blood being hunted, about to be killed.

‘Find the path, Ra.’

What path? To where?

By the time tears soaked her cheeks and blurred her vision, Naithea found herself heading deeper into Pixies’ Forest. She fell to her knees, feeling the small stones and split branches embed into her skin. Trying to cling to reality, she sank her hands into the mud.

She wasn’t ready, not for this.

She might never be.

“Stop, stop,” she pleaded. “Please, stop!”

With a sigh, Naithea stood up again, fleeing from her past, from her future. She dashed through the forest’s soothing shadows, new images flashing through her mind—of her life, of her mother, and all the secrets Iseabail had kept hidden in order to protect her.

Naithea paused, holding onto the damp bark of a tree as a new wave of memories washed over her.

“I don’t understand what it means!”

The monster inside her growled in disapproval.

The rustle of branches breaking made Naithea press her body against the tree, fearful that she was being followed.

“Naithea,” the commander whispered.

Not the commander, but the Crown Prince.

Her heart pounded violently as her eyes set on the man clad in refined leather. Even in the darkness of the night, Naithea recognized that face. In the time the goddesses had granted them, she had memorized every inch of him.

The boreal colors rippling across the sky reflected on his white hair, even if he couldn’t see them. Naithea longed to run to him, to collapse into those strong arms that had comforted her so often, yet she didn’t. Fate had shown her the way to an undeniable truth, guiding her toward her end. If Killian ever found out who she truly was, he’d kill her for what her life posed to that of his father’s legacy.

“Prince Killian,” she said, trying to pull herself together.

Killian shook his head, as if such formality and distance hurt him. “Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what? Call you for what you are?”

“Please.”

Naithea’s heart skipped a beat at the pleading tone in his voice. She wished she could control her body enough to prevent herself from acting that way in his presence. Yet it was as if something ancestral bound them to one another.

“No.”

She turned on the tips of her boots to leave. But as soon as she moved, Naithea staggered. It had been a bad idea to move so fast. Her head was still spinning with the myriad of memories that had resurfaced in her mind, locked for decades under a dark spell.

Killian was there to catch her and held her tightly.

“Are you all right?” he asked with sincere concern.

No, she wasn’t.

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