Page 97 of Cursed

The bathroom erupted into chaos—shadows flickered violently against the walls as the water in the bathtub exploded upward. I staggered back and lifted my arms to cover my face, instinctively shielding myself from the backlash.

The shade’s anguished scream thundered in my ears, and then it was gone.

Red-tinged water lapped gently at the sides of the tub, but the circle I’d painted on the tiles in my own blood was still whole.

A lingering chill hung in the air and silence pressed down on me until I gasped for breath.

The candles flickered, and the glow of the sigils I’d traced on the tiles faded away as the spell ebbed.

“Rest now, shade, and return to the abyss,” I murmured. “Your pain is witnessed; your tale, not dismissed.”

I stood there for a moment, breathless. The echo of the shade’s anger vibrated in my ears. But then the reality of what I had done crashed over me like a tidal wave, dragging me under.

My knees buckled, and I crumpled to the unforgiving floor. The tiles dug into my skin, cold and unyielding, but they grounded me in a way I desperately needed. Tears streamed down my face, hot and bitter, and I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep from sobbing aloud.

I had sought answers, a connection—a piece of her— And instead…

Failure.

I thought I could find solace in understanding. But after all of that pain and exertion… I understood nothing.

Sorrow took hold of me, and I didn’t have the strength to fight it. Tears didn’t solve anything—but I had nothing left.

I fell to the tiles and let them come.

It was useless.

I’d tried everything I could to banish Avril from my mind—I’d even gone as far as to seek out spells to try to dampen my obsessions… but everything I tried only increased my longing for her.

Ridiculous.

Childish.

Weak.

Thoughts of her gnawed at the edges of my consciousness, an unsettling itch that refused to be scratched.

Memories of her body—the way she had submitted to me… to us. They interrupted my thoughts at the most inopportune moments.

But it wasn’t just her body, or the thought of possessing her completely— Now that she had the grimoire, everything had changed.

The grimoire was the key to unlocking deeper, darker magic than she had ever encountered before. Its power had driven some of the most pious Sages in Messan’s history insane and it had become a relic of the Necromi faction because of that legacy.

Someone like her—a witch in possession of pale and inconsequential magic—should never have come into contact with it.

It should have swallowed her whole.

Bastian should never have shown her how to open it.

“You’re going to wear a hole in the floor if you keep this up,” Valen’s voice cut through the silence in the room.

“What?” I snarled.

“You’re pacing again.”

Leaning casually against the doorway, Valen ran his hands through his unruly hair and pulled it back from his forehead—he looked more like Lucian as the shadows revealed and defined the angles of his face. He hated it.

“I’m not pacing,” I retorted.

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