Page 123 of Heirs of the Cursed

She had to be brave.

“Get inside my mind.”

Darcia turned to look at him. “What?”

“Get inside my mind,” Alasdair repeated. “Yours isn’t going to give you peace right now, and that’s what you need in order to rest.”

“What makes you think your mind won’t torture me any more than mine?”

“If I wanted to torture you, I would do it myself,” he replied.

Darcia pondered for a few seconds before sighing and shifting her position. She ignored the pain in her body and faced the thief. The two shared a silent gaze before she closed her eyes.

The painful images returned; yet this time, they were short-lived. For when she opened her eyes again, she saw Alasdair surrounded by luminous threads, as neat and beautiful in color as the moon itself.

She admired him from the ground, watching them glow each time she blinked.

“Not that bad of a mind for such a wicked being, is it?”

A faint smile, that was all Darcia could offer him.

There was silence, so much silence.

The pounding in her chest soothed, and Darcia felt as her thoughts intertwined with Alasdair’s. She caged her power the best she could, not wishing to invade his privacy.

“Nothing bad will happen if you let go,” he told her, as if he understood her fears. “You won’t succeed in finding anything I don’t want you to find.”

“Is that your gift as a dryad?”

“I have many gifts,” Alasdair replied.

“That’s not what I meant.”

Without offering her an explanation, his eyes rested on her, sympathetic and curious.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Darcia ordered him.

“Like what?”

“As if you pity me.”

Alasdair’s steps echoed around them. When the distance between them shortened, he held out a hand, which she stared in confusion.

“Dance with me, gorgeous,” he told her.

“What?”

“You need to appease your mind enough for sleep to overcome you. You won’t be plagued by nightmares here.”

Nightmares or her own reality, for horrible things would soon unfold. The beginning of something greater. Something Darcia would have to face when she awoke the next day. He stretched out his arm further and, uncertain how she gathered her strength, she accepted it.

At the first contact of their skin, Alasdair’s hand was warm against hers before his fingers locked on hers. She let him hold her waist carefully, as if she were a porcelain doll easy to break. He nodded, giving her permission. Her body trembled, but Darcia rested her head on his shoulder anyway.

As soon as they began to move in a paced dance, the threads of Alasdair’s mind changed color: a mixture between a granule of moonlight and a brilliant boreal light.

A strange warmth spread through her body. A feeling that made Darcia believe she was protected and safe. In his mind, she wasn’t a cursed princess, she wasn’t an heiress to a kingdom of stone and shadows, she wasn’t a fugitive whose head was to be cut off by the king.

She was Darcia Voreia.

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