Page 28 of Blackwarden
“Who are you really, Keres? Is that even your name?”
“It is.” His response exploded past his lips. “My name is Keres...” he trailed off as if there was more. “Keres...” The anguish on his face was genuine and I stood as he held the book out toward me. “K...”
His eyes fluttered as he swayed, and I thought he was going to pass out. I steadied him by his arms, but there was no way I could have caught him if he fell. He looked down at me with glassy eyes.
We were so close—my hands still resting on his arms, the warmth of him seeping into my palms. He stared at me for a long moment as if trying to focus, but I was still lost in his eyes, my heart pounding so loudly in my ears I was sure he had to hear it too.
“Ask me...ask me again.” His voice was strained, pressed thin as if it took all his strength to speak these few words.
“Who are you?”
“The other...”
“Is this a curse?”
He swayed again, eyes rolling before refocusing on mine. He took a breath, his lips moving in the shape of the word “yes.”
A line of blood eased from his nose.
“Stop,” I said, much louder than I should have. “What are you doing? You’re hurting yourself.”
He trembled under my hands as the blood carved a path down to his chin. The red was so bright against his pale skin. Nothing else in this entire mansion was as vivid, and I was mesmerized by it as it ran down his neck and soaked into the collar of his doublet.
“What’s happening to you?” I hadn’t wanted to ask him another question, but I didn’t know what else to say. It was becoming crystal clear he wanted to answer me but physically couldn’t. Not without consequences. The way his lips had shaped the wordyessent a shiver of fear writhing through me. It was as solid of confirmation as I’d likely get that there was a curse, that I wasn’t crazy, and the journal page I’d found was accurate.
He swallowed, glaring at me with an unyielding agony in his expression before he turned and stumbled from the library, leaving the book he’d been reading in my hands.
This time, I didn’t follow him. Instead, I read the title over and over again, letting it sink into my bones.Blackwarden.
Was this book about a family? Every time he tried to say his family name, he’d been unable to continue. The Gatehouse, or this curse, whatever it was, didn’t want me to know. But I needed to know, and I’d figure it out if it was the last thing I did before I was dragged to the Unseelie Court.
Chapter 14 ~ Until Her
Keres
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I’m Keres Blackwarden.
I’m the Gatekeeper, the guardian of the portal from the human world to the Unseelie Court. Condemned for my family’s treasonous role in the war between the humans and Dark Fae and cursed for betraying the Hag Queen. I wanted to tell Rosalin all of this, to give her the truth. But I physically couldn’t. I was already paying the price for what I had attempted to tell her.
I cleaned the blood from my face, mesmerized as it danced like red ribbons through the water in the sink basin before dissipating. I hadn’t been in this terrible of shape since I’d tried to break the curse when the first maiden was brought to me. What little magic I currently possessed was decimated, along with my energy.
I stumbled out of the bathroom and over to my bed, dizzy and grasping at the post of the canopy in a desperate attempt to stop the world from spinning. It was a wonder I’d managed to make it back to my room in the first place. Sheer strength of will bid me put one foot in front of the other, until I wasn’t anywhere near her convoluted emotions. I needed the distance. She’d beentoo close, all the conflicting feelings she’d been fighting since our argument were tearing me down. I wasn’t sure how much more I could endure before I did something very stupid.
The brazier beside my bed faded to smoke.
“I know,” I said aloud, even though I was well aware The Gatehouse could hear my every thought. “It was stupid.”
I’d been connected to this place for so long, I could hardly remember what life was like without it eavesdropping. I didn’t know where my magic ended, and the Gatehouse began. In a way, Rosalin’s question as to whether I was part of the house had been an appropriate one to ask. I loathed and loved how perceptive she could be.
I flopped heavily onto the bed and rolled to my back, gazing up at the canopy draped over me as the brazier on the other side of my bed snuffed out.
It was one thing to be cursed to drag human girls to the Unseelie Court every five years—it was entirely different when you couldn’t speak of it. The physical pain was torturous. I couldn’t answer her questions. I couldn’t lie. I was a prisoner trapped in a cage of Rosalin’s curiosity.
“She’s not going to stop asking.”
None of the other maidens bothered to look at the walls—to look around at anything. To notice the fact that I dodged their questions with more questions. None of them ever suspected a curse was involved. They’d simply done their best to avoid me while staring at my wretchedly handsome face for the eight days they’d been in my home. They accepted that some horrible archaic agreement between a vengeful Dark Fae and long dead humans was the reason for them being dragged to the Gatehouse. Which was mostly true at least. They’d been satisfied enough with the explanation I gave them, wooed by my face and my words, just as they were supposed to be.
