Page 71 of The Cursed

This felt like it held secrets.

I moved along the path, following it as it wound through the greenery. The ground beneath my feet felt strange, foreign in a way it never had. It wasn't the earth I had known all my life, almost as if this maze existed between realms.

A place all its own.

I rounded the corner yet again, half-expecting something to jump out at me. What met me instead were the glimmering wings of butterflies as they fluttered down the path. One landed on my hand, the glowing blue wings so much like a crystal that I stared at it for a moment before continuing on my way. The magic in this place coated the air, surrounding me like the depths of the ocean after plummeting to the bottom.

I felt it in my lungs. Felt it in my stomach and my mind.

I was it, and it was me. And as I walked to the center circle, I understood where I had wandered.

Into the heart of the Source itself.

CHAPTER 40

WILLOW

Willow

I approached the three statues of the Cursed that waited in the center of the circle, laying a hand down on top of the one closest to me. He pointed to the ring they formed, guarding it like sentries as they looked out at each of the three paths. One lay to my left, the hedges in that path older. They were the thorned, twining branches of death. Jutting toward the course as if they might cut any who entered; they were a relic from the past.

To my right, the maze grew with the luster of spring. The pathway was littered with flowers, the hedges bright. The green was new and budding, whereas mine was the green of a mature plant.

I peered down onto the pedestal at the center, my brow furrowing at the symbol of the triple goddess staring back at me. The full moon in the center was surrounded by two crescents facing out, the arches curving slightly toward the two paths I had yet to take.

Movement to my left sent me reeling, spinning back from the triple goddess and what I could not understand, to face the figure moving through the thorns. She emerged from the pathway, donning a black dress that covered her arms and fell to the ground, dragging over the grass as she approached me.

She was exactly as I remembered her, her face so like mine even now that she had been gifted the truest of deaths.

"Charlotte," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. Tears stung my eyes, even as I understood it was foolish to be so happy to see her. I'd only met the elder Hecate witch once, even though she'd held my hand when I needed it most.

She smiled sadly, crossing the distance between us to stand on the side of one of the crescents. "Willow," her voice was soft, as fond as I'd remembered my mother's being when I'd had a nightmare and crawled into her bed at night as a little girl. Charlotte reached over the triple goddess, gently cupping my cheeks. "I told you I would always be with you."

"How is this possible? How am I here?" I asked, looking around the maze.

Her smile widened. "Clever girl, you've already figured out where you are?"

"I can feel it," I admitted with a nod, raising my hands in front of me. They reminded me of Gray's eyes, of the golden magic that shimmered within me when I healed over a wound. However, in this place, my skin seemed to simply glow with it.

"You are here because you surrendered yourself to the Source," Charlotte said, tracing the shape of the crescent moon closest to her with her pointer finger. "Just as I did when I gave my life to save yours."

"But I'm not dead," I said, glancing back at the entrance of the maze. I'd been alive when I entered, and the thought that I would have unknowingly left Gray after everything we'd gone through...

He'd be dead, too.

"No, you are not dead, Willow. My purpose in life was to strike my bargain, to finish out the price that Lucifer demanded. Lucifer believed that your purpose ended the moment you opened that seal, until that dream when he decided he wanted to keep you anyway," she explained, taking my hand in hers.

She touched my fingers to the moon at the center of the triple goddess, a spark of power flickering when I touched it. "But I knew you had to live. That was why I made Lucifer promise to make sure I was always with you. So that I could be there in the end to protect you."

"I don't understand," I said, drawing my hand back from the triple goddess.

"Lucifer is as much a part of the Source as you and I. As are his father and his siblings. Long ago, God offered himself to the Source to gain its trust and power to create life. However, he has since turned his back on those creations in his own greed for worship. He deviated from the Source, taking enough of its power with him to make any fight impossible. He used his influence to make people turn their backs on the old ways and traditions. The Source weakened with every person who abandons it and with every witch who neglected it. Your job is to give that power back so that we are strong enough to fight God’s army,” Charlotte said, her voice growing distant. She stared at the empty place where the other crescent moon waited, the budding life awaiting.

"The angels," I said, nodding along. My memory of Michael was so vivid. His assertion that the witches should be condemned was something he truly believed.

Charlotte nodded. "They carry the power God stole within them. We carry the power of the Source, directly from her. We are not the same, and we will not be demonized for touching what was forbidden to us in the Garden of Eden," she said, pulling an apple from the pocket of her dress. She tossed it to me, compelling me to catch it in two hands as she stepped away from the triple goddess.

I stared down at the red apple in my hand, the forbidden temptation pulsing with magic in my hands.

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