Page 62 of A Touch Charmed

He stood silent in front of me with his arms crossed. He didn’t look angry. Finn never stayed angry. His temper cooled fast. But his eyes were empty. No part of the Finn I knew was there. I reached for him and he backed away from me.

I shook my head again, but I couldn’t clear it. Couldn’t think straight.

“What are you fighting for?” Finn tilted his head, a question in his gaze.

I took a step forward and he backed up again. “Why won’t you let me touch you?”

The fog over my thoughts flickered, like it had temporarily lost its hold. Between the cracks, I could see clearly. This was all a lie. Finn would never recoil from my touch, even when he was mad at me, he couldn’t resist a physical connection.

This was an illusion. Just like the ones Audrey and Wes faced, though admittedly less gruesome. The fog lifted. All around me, dark smoke curled around tree trunks and leaked from the branches, leaving them dead and dry. I’d walked right into a trap.

I turned my gaze back to the fake Finn, but he’d been replaced by the man with the forked tongue. “It was foolish to leave yourself unprotected.”

Black smoke swirled at my ankles. “Who are you?”

He ignored my question. A black knife glittered in his hand, caught in the light of the moon. He ran his finger over the blade, his black eyes swirling with the poison that had nearly ended my life and Finn’s. Was this how he intended to take my gift? By cutting it out of me?

“This is where it ends, healer.” He raised his arm.

On instinct, I pushed my hand out to block him, gripping his icy wrist.

The knife disappeared.

A tumbler on the lock in my mind clicked. The night the winged beast tried to take Audrey, he released her when I touched his shriveled skin. The first snake in the woods had turned to smoke once Finn ripped it off my ankle. The wasps evaporated when I touched them.

The curse could harm us with weapons. Claws, fangs, arrows, stingers. But the forked-tongue man couldn’t be touched in any of his forms. It diminished his power. The exact opposite of what touching did to us. Because the curse was the dark to our light. Magic in reverse.

“You can’t hurt me.” Giddy with my discovery, the words came out on a laugh. “You can’t do anything. My touch makes you weak.”

Rage contorted his handsome features as he lunged for me. I grabbed his face, digging my nails into his cheeks and drawing black blood that ran down his face like ink. He screamed as he evaporated in a cloud of smoke. He reformed a few feet away. The sound of crackling leaves echoed through the forest. An arrow shot through the air and hit my chest in a wisp of smoke, nowhere near strong enough to pierce my skin.

“How embarrassing for you.” I brushed away the line of sooty vapor.

He let out a growl. His shape began to change once more. His smooth and young face became withered and gray. His thick dark hair receded to a few strands of dental floss. His eyes looked almost normal though. A golden tawny color. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve said they were soft, almost sorrowful.

“Run, healer.” The way he said it sounded more like a plea than a threat. Veins stood out on his neck as he appeared to fight an internal war with himself. His eyes turned back to a murky black and swirled with pain and poison.

I should’ve taken the opportunity to run when I had the chance, but I couldn’t walk away without trying to find the answer to his identity. I needed to know. “Who are you?”

“Nirah.” He cracked his neck from side to side. “Son of Ophiuchus.”

Oh my God. Shock rooted me to the spot. Grainy spots appeared in my vision as my legs threatened to give out from under me. There had been a thirteenth descendant.

How could the legend have failed to mention this?

We all believed Ophiuchus’s human lover hadn’t been given a place on this island. It was supposed to be the reason why there was a curse in the first place. But if that wasn’t true, why had it been created? What reason did Nirah have for wanting to wipe out the others?

Nirah began to age backward as I stared at him with my jaw unhinged. It would only be a matter of time before he had the power to take another swing at me, but curiosity had always been my downfall. I couldn’t walk away now. “How can that be? The legend says Ophiuchus created the curse out of jealousy. Because he wasn’t allowed a human lover on the island.”

“The legend is all lies,” he hissed. “Think about who created it and what they had to hide. I’ll show you the truth, healer.”

Before I could back away or run, darkness descended over me, blocking out my surroundings. It pulled me into the same void I’d been in on the beach. Pictures began to take shape in my mind, but instead of taking me into my own memories, people I didn’t recognize started to form on a backdrop that felt as familiar to me as my own hands.

These were Nirah’s memories.

I stood on this island, in the heart of what was now the town, but it wasn’t anything close to the same. There was so much more land between the forest and the sea. The candy-colored shops and sidewalks lined with brightly blooming flowers were replaced by small houses and roughly built cabins. Sea salt and the warm smell of sunbaked earth wafted in the air. The scent of the island would never change, even with modern conveniences.

A man stood beside me. He had Finn’s strong build and dark blue eyes. The son of Libra. He looked about as close to his wax counterpart in the museum as the stick figure I drew of Finn riding a dinosaur resembled him. I didn’t even know his name. That was just one more thing that had been lost to time.

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