Page 300 of Cursed Evermore
Father had gone through all the hells to find the ingredients for that damn potion. They were so rare it was nearly impossible to find them. But he did.
He came back triumphant, clutching salvation in his hands… and that was when we discovered Zyrra was sick too.
My sister had hidden her sickness with glamours strong enough to deceive even us. After seeing what we went through with Mother, she didn't want us to worry, and she knew Father wouldn't have been able to get the ingredients for two potions.
Zyrra begged Mother to take the potion, to live the extra hundred years it promised. Mother, of course, refused.
In his distress, my father suggested we take a few days to think, hoping he'd come up with a solution to save them both.
But Mother gave the potion to Zyrra the very next night. Then she came here to end her life, wanting to leave this world with what little remained of her Fae essence. She died believing her sacrifice saved her daughter.
But the potion didn't work. It was too late.
The glamours that concealed Zyrra’s sickness masked how far it had spread. Her sickness ran deeper than any enchantment could reach. Too much of her essence had already been devoured. Her body couldn’t bind to the elixir. It slid throughher like water through cracked stone, powerless against what she had become.
After that, the sickness devoured what little remained of Zyrra's essence, draining her until she became Hollowborn. A soulless, destructive vessel that drew evil like a beacon. There was no saving her.
In the end, when she began to kill, we weren't left with much choice. We had to stop her.
I brought her body here to be with our mother. Though the blight had devoured their souls, I knew they would have wanted to be together. I'd hoped the afterlife would remember them anyway.
This mountain carried their memory in its stone. Every echo of thunder, every hiss of fire rising from the crater whispered their names to me. I came here because it was the one place that still remembered them with me. The one place where my rage found a voice. And yet, I couldn't escape the pain.
Zyrra's face haunted me daily. Because of what I had to do. Seeing her standing there yesterday in the clearing, alive—not dead—gave me hope I should never have harbored. And when she disappeared, the pain from the past struck me anew.
My mother's death broke my soul. But Zyrra's death ruined me. The wound she left cleaved a hole through my essence so deep there was no healing. Even Alaric couldn't stand to look at me. Or maybe it was me who couldn't stand to face him. We carried the same grief, but mine was poisoned by something far worse than loss.
Guilt.
And Elariya...
What she told me about Zyrra struck me to my core. I knew there had to be more at work, more than what we saw. But my enemy had come at me with the one thing they knew would break me down to nothing.
Now I sat here in ruins. Elariya had come into my life, forcing me to feel again, to want again. But I was useless to her now.
I pressed my skull-like face into my hands, the bone cold and unforgiving beneath my touch. Lightning split the sky, and for a heartbeat, Elariya's face flashed through my mind.
She had caught glimpses of my Deathwalker form, but never like this. She must have known by now that my power reached beyond this world. And still, though terror had shone in her eyes, she had run toward the monster I had become, not away from it.
And I sent her away. Because monsters didn’t deserve salvation.
But the truth was worse. I saw her run toward me, and I knew I couldn't afford to slip up again.
The fucking battle was testament enough. We'd been lured into a trap, and she'd nearly been taken. Had she not thought to use that strange power—another one I couldn't explain—they would have had her. I'd have been locked in combat with the beast while they carried her away.
The necromancer had been right. Love had blinded me.
Love had crippled me once before, keeping me from seeing Zyrra's sickness. I lost my sister to the shadows, and if I wasn't careful, I would lose Elariya the same way.
That was why I sent them all to the safe house and left Bastian with instructions. I severed every link that could lead back to me, even Elariya's shackle. I needed to be alone, to unfuck my head and drag myself back into control. However long that might take.
I had bound Bastian by blood oath for this very reason, though I never imagined it would come to this.
Elariya needed someone strong enough to keep her safe. Someone steady enough to protect her when I no longer could. I'd damned her by bringing her to Galaythia, and my plans toreclaim the ring had failed. Now I had to fix the mess I'd made. The first step was removing myself. Maybe that meant losing her forever. Once her memory reset, it would be over.
Then I'd just have to protect her until I got the ring back. She’d be safe then.
But gods... was this truly it? Our goodbye? Was I really going to let her go back to Stormfell and forget me? Forever?
