CURSED TO RISE

chapter 4

CHAPTER 4: THE TRUTH

KEIRA POV

I hear them talking before I see them.

Two voices. Both angry. I'm stretching in the training grounds and I just.. freeze.

One voice is Ezra. The other one makes my skin feel wrong. Makes my stomach drop all the way down.

Vera.

"She's cursed," Vera says. Just like that. Like it's nothing.

I can't move. I can't breathe.

"You're wasting your time, Ezra," she keeps going. "She's broken. She'll always be broken. The curse made sure of that."

My whole body goes numb.

Cursed.

Not just weak. Not just... broken. But cursed.

"I know," Ezra says.

And I feel like I'm falling. Like the ground just disappeared under my feet.

He knows. He's always known. He's known the whole time and he never told me.

"Then why keep her?" Vera asks. "Why bother? Just send her back. She's no use to you."

"That's not your concern," Ezra says. His voice gets hard.

"She's dangerous, Ezra. You know what her line can do. You know what happened before. If you wake her up"

"I said it's not your concern," he says louder.

I hear footsteps. Vera leaving. Stomping away.

My hands are shaking so bad I drop the thing I'm holding. I don't even know what it was.

I try to sneak away but he sees me.

"Come here," he says.

"No," I say. I'm already moving away.

"Keira"

"You knew," I say. My voice is all shaky. "You knew the whole time. And you didn't tell me."

He doesn't say anything back. He just walks toward me.

"Stay away," I say.

But he doesn't. He keeps coming closer.

"We need to talk," he says.

"I don't want to talk to you," I say. But that's a lie. I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to hit him. I want to know why he lied.

"Come on," he says. "Please."

And I'm so mad at myself but I follow him anyway.

He takes me to some room. Just a small room. Nothing in it. Just walls and a window and us.

He closes the door.

"How long?" I ask him. "How long did you know?"

"Since you got here," he says.

I feel my chest get tight. Like there's a hand around it squeezing.

"Why?" I ask. "Why wouldn't you tell me?"

"You weren't ready," he says.

"That's not..." I stop. I'm shaking. "That's not your choice. You don't get to decide what I'm ready for. You don't get to lie and pretend you're helping me when you're just... you're just lying."

"Keira"

"What else?" I ask. I'm crying now. I can't stop it. "What else aren't you telling me? What else are you hiding?"

He's quiet. He doesn't answer.

"The curse," I say. "What curse? When? Why am I cursed?"

"It happened when you were young," he says. Real quiet. "Someone put it on you."

"Who?" I already know. I can feel it in my bones that I already know.

"Vera," he says.

Everything stops. Everything just... stops.

My own aunt. The woman who was supposed to take care of me. She did this.

"Why?" I whisper it. "Why would she do that?"

"She was scared," he says. "Your family... the power in your blood... It's old. Really old. A long time ago one of your people almost destroyed everyone. Vera thinks if you wake up, if you ever use that power, you'll do it again."

I can't... I can't get air in my lungs.

"So I'm not just weak," I say. "I'm dangerous."

"No," he says. "You're bound. It's different."

"Don't," I say. "Don't do that. Don't try to make this okay. My aunt cursed me. She put chains on me because she was scared. That's not okay."

"I know," he says.

"And you," I say. My voice gets loud. "You knew. You've known this whole time and you trained me anyway. Why? Why would you do that?"

He doesn't answer.

"Tell me," I say. "Tell me why you care. Why would you protect someone who's cursed? Someone dangerous?"

He looks at me and his face is... it's broken. His face is actually broken.

"Because," he says. And his voice cracks. Like actually cracks. "When I first saw you... you were so alone. You were crying and no one cared. No one even looked at you. And I couldn't... I just couldn't watch that anymore."

I don't move. I don't breathe.

"I watched you," he says. "For years. Even before the curse. I watched them ignore you. I watched them treat you like you weren't even there. And I couldn't stop it."

His hands are shaking.

"I tried," he says. "When you were smaller. I tried to break it. The curse. But it... your heart stopped, Keira. For three minutes your heart stopped and you weren't breathing and I thought... I thought you were dying."

He sits down on the ground. Just sit. Like his legs broke.

"So I stopped trying," he says. "But I couldn't leave you. So I just... I listened. Every night I sat outside your room and I listened to you cry. And I hated myself for not being able to help. But I did it anyway."

I feel something rip open inside my chest.

"You sat outside my room?" I ask him.

"Every night," he says. "For years. Just listening. Just being there. Because it was the only thing I could do."

I sit down next to him without meaning to. My legs just stop working.

"I don't understand," I say. "Why would you do that? Why would you care about me like that?"

"Because you're the only thing real," he says. And his voice is so broken. So raw. "You're the only thing that makes me feel like I'm not completely empty. Your pain..It made me feel something. Your being here made me feel like there was a reason."

I'm crying hard. We're both on the ground and we're both broken.

"What am I supposed to do with that?" I ask him. "How am I supposed to feel about that?"

"I don't know," he says. "I don't know anything. I just know that when the curse breaks... when you become powerful... you won't need me anymore. You'll figure out that I'm nothing and you'll leave."

"I don't know that," I say.

"I do," he says. "Because everyone does. Everyone leaves. Everyone looks at me and decides I'm not worth it."

And I get it suddenly. He's not just scared of me being dangerous. He's scared I'll leave him.

I reach out and I take his hand. It's so cold. But it gets warm when I hold it.

"I'm not going anywhere," I say. I don't know if that's true. I don't know what will happen next. But right now it's true.

"You will," he says.

"Maybe," I say. "But not now. Right now I need you."

He looks at me and his eyes are so sad. So full of things he can't say.

"That's the problem," he says. "I need you too. And I'm scared."

We sat there. Hours maybe. Just holding hands. Just breathing together in the dark.

And I know that we're both trapped now. Both were scared. Both falling for someone we're not supposed to fall for.

And we don't know how to stop it.

We don't even want to stop it.

But we're both terrified anyway.