Page 136 of The Alpha's Cursed Queen

He takes my hand in his and squeezes it. Tightening my jaw, I start off with him after the witch.

When we reach a small lake, Nara touches the surface of the water, and it begins to swirl. Soon, the water parts, and narrow steps appear. Nara begins to descend into the dry lake. Darian and I exchange a bewildered look, then we follow her.

The water doesn’t touch us. Once we get to the last step, Nara continues walking, and her body begins to disappear into the bottom of the lake.

“Darian?” I look up at my mate, flabbergasted.

“Let’s go,” he says in a determined voice.

A false bottom, I realize.Created by magic.

As soon as the last strand of my hair vanishes into the ground, I hear the roar of water, and I look up to see that the lake is now covering the entrance overhead.

“We’re not trapped down here, are we?” I whisper to Darian.

“Of course not,” he replies uneasily.

We walk down another staircase. It is lit up, but I can’t see the source of the light. It takes us quite a while to get to the bottom, where there is a door made out of stone. Nara places her palm on it, and it swings open, revealing a massive room filled with golden light and white marble floors.

“Each king renovates the archives room according to his preference,” Nara explains. “The previous king hated the darkness and the stone flooring. He had it all replaced with marble.”

“Who laid the tiles?” I murmur without thinking.

Nara looks over her shoulder at me with a small smile. “I did.”

“Of course you did,” I mutter. “Silly me.”

Darian looks around. “How are we supposed to find information in all of this?”

Shelves filled with thick tomes line the walls, all the way up to the ceiling. It will take months to go through all of them.

“You can ask me what you want to know, and I will tell you,” the witch informs us. “I have memorized every book, journal, and entry within this place. I am the archive.”

Darian and I exchange another look.That’s not creepy at all.

“I want to know about the white witches, their weaknesses,” he says.

“They don’t have any,” Nara says steadily. “Although, if you mean in terms of physical weakness, they’re as fragile as humans.”

“How do we get rid of them?”

“Kill them,” is Nara’s simple response.

I can feel my mate’s frustration and squeeze his wrist. I ask the archive keeper, “Why are the white witches so dead set against the dark witches? They used to coexist before, didn’t they? What changed?”

Nara shifts her gaze to me. “Greed. The dark witches used battle magic. The white witches were always limited to healing magic. Both covens existed for centuries till the white witches beganto resent the important positions held by the dark witches. The white witches wanted such power and glory, as well. However, it was impossible because healers exist in the background. So, they vied for the positions of their counterparts.”

“What happened?” I ask, enthralled.

“A wolf shifter, the king at the time, fell in love with a dark witch. He made her his queen and took her as his mate, and they had a child. Childbirth was difficult for the queen, and the child was born with the dark witch bloodline. Those who carry the dark witch bloodline have a mark on their ankle. White witches have their own identifying mark.” Nara pauses, studying Darian. She’s reciting everything in a monotone voice as if reading from a piece of paper. “The queen did not die from the birth. She was recovering, but one afternoon, she began to experience pains. The white witches were called in, and they declared her dead. The death of the queen created an uproar. The white witches used the king’s grief against him. They told him that his mate’s death was because of the child she bore him, that the dark witches had cursed the child to bring about the end of the royal bloodline. They wanted the king to hand over the newborn to them. The king refused.”

I can feel Darian stiffen. “I’ve never heard of any of this.”

“If you do not believe me, you can confirm every word written by your ancestors, including the king of whom I speak, his trusted hand, and the king’s younger brother, who betrayed him. It is all recorded in these journals.”

“How do I know that those words aren’t lies?” Darian demands.

Nara gives him a long look. “Once a king takes his rightful place, his first task is to visit the archives. Had you arrived when Iexpected you, I would have given you a journal and one for your most trusted hand. Like the journals of those who came before you, they would be enchanted. They would never record a word of untruth. It is the only way to uphold the sanctity of the royal family’s archives. Your father received one, and his most trusted attendant received one. The minute a king passes, these journals vanish from the palace and appear here in the archives. This has been the case for centuries, ever since the dark witches and the wolf shifters first formed an alliance. The archive keeper is always a dark witch, the guardian of prophecies and the caretaker of the past.”

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