Page 114 of Castle of the Cursed
“She is gone!” he says, nearly growling with frustration. “What happened?”
I feel the same hollowness I experienced after my parents died. That sense of emptiness that comes from nothing mattering because all the people you love and who loved you are gone and you’re just drifting.
I was supposed to be an anchor, and yet I am unanchored.
“You knew,” I say, turning my back to him because I can’t stand to look at Sebastián and see Prince Bastian. “Last night, when you got your memories back, you knew about my sister. And you said nothing.”
“Our conversation was difficult enough. I did not want to overwhelm you.”
“My tiny human brain couldn’t handle more.”
“I am not sure it could,” he says, my sarcasm falling flat.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. You’re going to kill me. So just get on with it.”
I know the brave thing would be to face my fate head-on, but I can’t look at him. I can’t let the last thing I see in life be him murdering me.
He doesn’t say anything, and I appreciate that he doesn’t bother denying the facts. The seconds drag past in unbearable silence, knowing every breath could be my last.
“I want,” he says softly, “to thank you. For showing me joy.” He says it like it’s a new vocabulary word, and he’s trying it out in a sentence. “As Prince Bastian, I was cruel, greedy, unyielding. I believed my heart was truly made of iron, and that is why I did not bother with the pursuit of anything other than power.”
By the volume of his voice, it sounds like he’s moving closer.
“Yet you found my fracture lines,” he says, and I feel him standing over me. “You showed me the strength of softer emotions is they are malleable enough to sneak in through crevices too tiny to be perceived. That is why I did not notice your grip on me until I was already yours.”
My heart is ramming my chest, and I have no idea how to feel. Most of me wants to turn around and look at his expression while he’s speaking, but to what end? Why is he saying things to make me fall in love with him right as he’s about to kill me?
“I don’t need all this sweet talk, Sebastián. You can’t sugarcoat murder, so just get on with it.”
“I am not going to kill you, Estela.”
He sounds farther away now, and I turn around slowly, anticipating a trick. “Yesterday you wanted to break the spell,” I say. “You said you were over me—”
“I am not over you. I am beneath you.”
He drops to his knees, and it’s the last thing I expected from the future king of the vampires. “By your world’s standards, I am a murderous monster. You were right about cursed castles being for evil princes. I do not deserve you.”
After Felipe’s betrayal, Antonela’s villainy, and Bea’s murder, I can hardly believe Sebastián is the one who is still here, sticking by my side. And as I search his eyes, it dawns on me that Beatríz wasn’t the one who made this castle a home for me.
That feeling started long before she and I connected.
It’s not la Sombra I belong to—it’s Sebastián.
A cracking sound reverberates in my chest, like I’ve been splintered in two, and I collapse into myself. Yet before I hit the ground, I land in his arms.
I let myself break, and he holds me while I shatter. Everything is gone, slipped through my fingers, again. And once more, I’ve been left behind.
“You are not alone,” he says, and I realize he’s been saying it for a while now, repeating it to me like a mantra.
“But I am,” I say. “You will have to go back home one day to sit on your throne—and even if we find a way to get you there that doesn’t require killing me, what would be left for me here? A future as la Sombra’s new caretaker, cursed to be alone like my aunt was?”
His brow furrows, and he’s silent for so long that I worry about what he’s going to say.
“I have been thinking of something you said, about how we should fight our fates. I think you are right. We are impossible—and that proves anything is possible.” He chuckles at himself, and I’m relieved to spy some light in his eyes.
He’s not the heavy-eyed Prince Bastian, nor is he the less burdened Sebastián. He’s someone new.
“I have spent my entire existence caged in a castle,” he says. “If that is to be both our fates, I would rather be locked away together than apart.”
