Chapter Fifteen
1582 Words
Aria's POV
Two days of being in my room after the incident in the garden.
I was seeing a ghost woman.
Cursed.
Hybrid.
Sudden power flowing through my veins.
Witch.
Alpha Valdric.
Like I was ticking the check box of my thoughts, I focused my thoughts on these six things, making up theories in my head of why things had happened the way they did.
My eyes narrowed towards the window latch, I had been sitting on the floor of my room
My back was against the side of the bed frame and it wasn't for any particular reason except that I grew tired of the bed and standing by the window still but I couldn't go out.
Underneath my thoughts was the fear of what could happen if I step out, what was I going to destroy next?
The people already saw me as cursed and crazy.
I was one leaving-my-chambers step away from being called a monster.
I started to contemplate laying rigid on the floor next when I heard the knock on my doors.
“My lady." The guard's voice was flat “a visitor."
I didn't move an inch. “And who might that be?"
Secretly hoping it wasn't Lila since I wasn't sure I wouldn't control myself to move a table.
"Lord Calix of the Wyrdwood Coven."
Calix, Calix Evergreen.
His figure registered in my head, it was the male witch whom I'd thought was just one of Elias' efforts to help me fit in.
When I thought about his expression when he'd see on the floor, I suddenly rose and straightened my dress.
" Send him in.”
The door opened almost immediately and he stepped in, just as I remembered, only this time, he was wearing a loose sleeved shirt with black pants, no coat on and no attire of formalities.
His white hair slightly disordered and his blue eyes casually searching around my room like he had done the first time.
I wondered if he did it because somehow the environments were informative.
" You were on the floor?" He asked, staring at the ground where my hair pin laid.
I bent swiftly to pick it up.
" I was carried away by my thoughts” I responded.
" On the floor?” He repeated.
I sighed evenly, was he already trying to call me a monster?
“I'm sorry if I acted so unruly" trying to layer the tone of my sarcasm.
He smiled, “The only act of unruliness is the number of guards outside your door." Reaching out his arm.
“Walk with me," he said.
I looked at him and then at his arm like he had just made a joke but instead I was met with a more serious expression.
" Um,” I started "I haven't had a bath or changed of clothes"
He glanced at my dress with a brief assessment, maybe checking if it was worth the excuse.
“You look fine to me," he said simply.
“That is not the point…
“The gardens don't care," he said “And neither do I. Let's go"
I shifted my gaze to the guard in the doorway, who looked back at me with the expression of a man waiting to be told what to obstruct.
I picked up my shawl from the chair.
"Well, okay” I replied.
He walked the way I imagined he did most things, at this unhurried pace that made him seem so graceful. His hands still in his pockets and his eyes moving with this observing pace.
Meanwhile I got stares from all around the castle, they must be wondering what sort of beast was I to have done what I did.
We got to the garden, the other part with wild lilies growing out from every sprout.
" Your head,” he started "I assume it's fine now"
How did he know my head felt like it was about to explode.
“First time witches often get side effects when they use their gift sometimes” he replied like he was reading my mind.
First time witches.
Was that what I was or perhaps I was actually cursed like they really said or maybe dying and resurrecting back again made me some kind of jinx.
"Yeah, I'm fine now”
He nodded once like he was going to accept it without believing it, which was somehow less irritating than being argued with.
We both turned into the longer path that ran along the western wall, that was filled with climbing ivy that marvelled me at the sight of them.
My eyes scanned through the flowers with the growing urge to touch them.
" You seem surprised, haven't you been here countless times?”
Snapping back to reality, I cleared my throat.
“Well, not really."
I could feel his gaze on me even though I didn't want to meet his eyes. "Oh wow, I have never heard of a Luna queen who didn't went around her gardens,"
I shrugged. “It's not like I was given much time to even become queen" I resorted, trying not to dwell on the memory of honey life started to crumble.
He paused for a millisecond. "How long have you been here?
This time, I turned to him, both our gazes locked together and I could feel this tense feeling up my spine.
" At the palace or at the pack?”
His brow arched " huh?”
A small smile crawled up my face at the sight of how confused he seemed.
“I'm led to believe you don't even know the whole story of ‘Aria the cursed one’”
He chuckled lightly. "I think it's best to hear it from Aria herself"
I playfully roll my eyes, pressing my lips to form a thin line.
" My family's pack was raided when I was three” sighing so I had the time to think it through "my mum, she um, she hid me somewhere and I don't know how I survived, how those rogues never saw me.”
There was a small pause.
“You've lived quite the life,” he smiled.
"I'm starting to feel like I just started"
“Most people," his tone started steady. “When they are told what you were told yesterday…"
“About being a feeble old lady?" I said immediately.
Calix couldn't help but laugh at my joke.
"No Aria…" he looked down at me, now. " About the hybrid blood, the whole witch talk…. They panic, they deny it and some even spend considerable energy arguing that it cannot be true."
I reached for the petals of the flowers. "It's not like I had a choice, there was no other explanation to whatever was wrong with me.”
“That's fair enough." Looking away from me as the air shifted.
“Plus I lived as an outcast,” my tone increased, trying to clear the gloomy air around us “all my life, even when I was announced as the future Luna. Everything in my life felt like I deserved it, like I was paying for someone else's bad luck” I took in deep breaths.
"And then I died."
He glanced at me.
"Right under the moon." I paused like I was searching for my words . "And I came back alive and suddenly everything stopped making sense entirely."
I turned to look at him briefly, balling my fist like I could feel something surge right under my skin "I woke up a different version of myself……. The worst part is, I never got to know who I truly was even while being an ordinary wolf and now, now I'm something more… I feel power move through me like it's always been mine and someone simply forgot to give me the key"
I stopped to breathe before realizing how much I had said.
Calix was quiet for a moment, long enough for me to regret what I had said to him.
Then he said, "You are remarkable, you know."
My brow arched, I had expected him to call me crazy or delusional or worse but instead, I could see the glistening in his eyes as he looked down at me.
"It's not flattery, by the way” he looked away. "I'm just saying the truth"
Remarkable.
No one had ever thought I was remarkable.
Or was it because I was now half wolf and half something else…..
A witch.
I opened my mouth to ask.
“His lordship Beckwood” a high pitched feminine voice called out
The voice came from behind us.
We both turned.
Lila stood miles away from us on the garden path, composed as always.
She didn't seem like she had bruises or was in any way affected by what I had done to her.
She came towards us, her eyes moved from me to Calix and then back to me before she had a stiff smile at the end of her lips.
“And what a pleasant morning to have our guest take the risk of walking dear Aria”
I turned to Calix but he held this charming smile that could bring any woman down to her knees.
“Peharps the queen could take the risk to join us, if she's up for it?"
I could see the undeniably anger and fear flush through her expression, along with the break of sweat trailing down her forehead.
- Writer
