CHAPTER 2 : WHAT THE FORTRESS KNOWS
1138 Words
Darius
The guards separate us immediately……dragging Liora in one direction while others half carry me in another.
I try to fight but my legs won't hold me.
The silver has spread too far, burned too deep.
"Wait," Liora screams, struggling against the hands gripping her arms.
"Where are you taking him?"
"To his chambers," Rowan calls back. "where he'll stay until we figure out what to do with you both."
"You can't just lock us up."
"I'm the acting Alpha now," Rowan says, as he steps closer to her, his smile cold in the torchlight.
"My brother can barely stand, which means pack law gives me authority."
I try to speak, try to warn her again, but blood fills my mouth.
I cough and it splatters red on the ground.
"Darius," Liora's voice breaks, she stops fighting the guards, her eyes locked on me.
"What's happening to you?"
"The curse," I manage, each word costs me……."it's moving faster because you touched me."
"Then I'll fix it…. I'll figure out how to heal you properly."
"No," I force the word out louder. "Liora, listen to me, don't try to heal me again, promise me."
"I'm not promising that."
"The bond is a trap," I say, my vision blurs but I keep talking.
"Every time you use magic on me it feeds the curse.
The goddess designed it that way."
Rowan laughs, "finally telling her the truth brother, how noble, too bad it won't change anything."
"What did I do?" Liora asks, her voice small now, scared.
"In those other lifetimes what happened?
"You tried to save me," I say, "and it killed us both."
The guards start moving again, pulling us further apart.
Liora fights them now…..really fights… her hands start glowing with that silver light.
"Don't," I shout at her, "don't use your magic, not here, not around me."
"I have to do something."
"You have to survive." I say, "that's all that matters."
Then they drag me around a corner and I lose sight of her. The bond in my chest screams at the distance, pulling so hard I think it might tear me apart from the inside.
Kael whispers in my head, louder than before, angrier.
Why did you warn her, why do you always try to push her away.
"Because loving her kills her." I say through gritted teeth.
No, Kael says, his voice cold…. refusing to love her kills you both, stop fighting the bond and maybe this time you will break it.
"You don't know what you're talking about."
I know more than you think, Kael goes quiet after that, leaves me alone with the pain spreading through every nerve.
The guards carry me through the fortress gates, past pack members who stop and stare.
Their faces shift from shock to pity when they see the silver covering half my body now.
"Is he going to die?" someone whispers.
"Looks like it," another responds.
The fortress feels different than I remember, alive in a way that makes my skin crawl, the stones pulse under my hands when the guards prop me against a wall to rest.
"Almost there Alpha," one says, won't meet my eyes.
"Don't call me that." I say, "if Rowan's claiming authority then I'm not Alpha anymore."
"You'll always be Alpha to some of us," he says quietly.
They get me to my chambers finally, the doors open and the room looks exactly how I left it this morning ... .before everything went wrong, before I felt the pull that led me to the forest.
The guards lower me onto the bed, I try to thank them but the words won't come, my throat is closing…..the silver reaching for my lungs.
"Should we get a healer?" one asks.
"No point," the other says, "healers can't fix a goddess's curse."
They leave, close the door softly behind them like I'm already dead.
I lie there staring at the ceiling, counting my breaths, each one shorter than the last.
Through the wall I hear movement…..footsteps, someone pacing in the room next to mine.
Liora, they put her right next to me.
I press my hand against the wall, feeling the bond stretch between us, seeking, desperate….. she must feel it too because suddenly her hand is on the other side, and even with the wall between us the connection flares bright and burning.
"Darius," her voice comes through muffled, "can you hear me?"
"Yeah," I say, my voice barely working.
"Are you okay?"
"Not really."
"Tell me how to help you."
"You can't, the only thing that helps is distance."
"I don't believe that."
"The bond wants us close but closeness feeds the curse.
I close my eyes, "we're caught in a loop that only ends one way."
Silence from her side, then, "that vision I had in the forest.
When I touched you, I saw fire and someone who looked like me.
Was that real?"
"Probably," I say, "the bond shows us pieces of our past lives sometimes, warnings about what happens when we give in to it."
"What happened?"
"We fell in love," I say simply…. "we tried to break the curse together, and we burned the world down trying."
"Then we make a different choice." Liora says, her voice fierce now.
"We refuse to play her game."
"I've tried that five times already."
"Then try harder," she says, "or give up and die. But don't expect me to just accept this."
Something in her voice makes me smile despite everything.
"Thank you for saving me in the forest, even if it made everything worse."
"Don't thank me yet," she says, "I'm not done trying."
Footsteps echo in the hallway outside, multiple sets, heavy boots.
The door to her room crashes open and I hear her gasp.
"Get your hands off me," she shouts.
"Alpha Rowan wants you in thelower chambers," a guard says.
"I'm not going anywhere."
"It wasn't a request."
I try to stand, my legs collapse…I hit the floor hard.
"Liora." I shout, it comes out as a whisper.
Through the wall I hear struggling….hear her magic flare and someone cry out.
"Stop fighting or we'll hurt the Alpha," a guard says.
"You cooperate or we make sure Darius doesn't survive the night."
The fighting stops immediately.
"Fine." Liora says, her voice shaking with rage.
"I'll go, but if you hurt him I'll burn this entire fortress down."
Footsteps fade, her door closes, silence falls like a weight.
The bond in my chest tears and screams as they take her further away.
Kael speaks again, softer this time, almost sad.
She will try to save you, she always does, and it will destroy her.
"I know." I close my eyes, feel tears slide down my face.
"Because watching her give up would hurt more than dying.”
- Writer
