Page 133 of Castle of the Cursed
La Sombra has been leading me to Antonela since I arrived. The purple room gave me the photos, the letter in the journal room revealed I had a sister, the mirror room showed me Antonela’s past, and my dreams shared memories of our childhood together. Brálaga told me they are partly this castle, which means this place is in league with them. It keeps us chained to Brálaga’s vision.
This is how the cycle continues.
The blood we’ve fed la Sombra has made it a real-life member of the family, and it wants what any creature wants—to survive and reproduce.
We are its children. If it wanted to, the castle could eat the whole world—but it doesn’t. Because it loves us. And in our own sick way, we love it. This place gives us shelter and purpose.
We are cursed with the castle’s love.
“I don’t want either of us to die, and I know you don’t, either,” I say to Antonela, subtly moving closer to my body to shield it from her. “Today is our eighteenth birthday. We should be celebrating, not fighting. We can figure this out together if you can just have some patience.”
I hold out a purple smoke hand to her in an offer of peace.
“There is nothing to figure out,” she says, leaving me hanging. “I must have your body in order to achieve my goal.”
“You mean Brálaga’s goal.” I start moving toward her to lead us away from my body. When I get too close, she pulls back, keeping a buffer between us. She must’ve picked up more than a few defensive mechanisms at that school.
“You have been used by Brálaga and Teo, but you’re free now,” I tell her. “You can do what you want. After being alone your whole life, don’t you want a family? A sister?”
“I want power.”
“You told Sebastián that he opened you to new feelings.”
She stops moving, the shadow beast a sore spot for her. I shrink the distance between us to three feet, and still she doesn’t budge. She waits in silence, as if daring me to come closer.
I stay where I am. “Give me the chance to do the same for you. I can show you how it feels to be loved—”
“Bast knows what it is like to grow up among monsters, trapped in others’ power grids, the prisoner of a fortress you cannot escape,” she says, her voice a snarl. “You understand nothing. You are innocent, gullible, young. The only one of us who has anything to teach the other is me to you, so get out of my body.”
Before I can even think to protect myself, she jabs a fist into my gut, and I double over in pain.
My vision goes dark, and I’m in a black space that is pure grief. I feel every bad feeling I’ve ever had sucking me down, every depressive thought, every betrayal, mad moment, sadness, nightmare—
Only the feelings are not mine.
They’re hers.
Five-year-old Antonela stands amid black flames as the spell sends her to the other castle. She is terrified, crying, hysterical, as the world spins around her, and then she’s in and out of consciousness.
She sees fragments of scenes. A door opens, and hooded giants pull her through. She opens her eyes to find she is trapped in a coffin. She is being bathed by a tall hooded being.
She finds herself in a space with other young beings, and none of them look like her. They have things like horns, or fangs, or claws, or wings. She has no recollection of anything except for this moment, this home, this family.
Antonela grows with her cousins, brought up by their hooded instructors. Yet she and the others do not age at the same speed, and she gets left behind.
The others are constantly picking on her. They throw things at Antonela, they beat her, they set her hair on fire, they burn her skin—
“Enough!” I shout, breaking free of her memories.
“You cannot even stomach the ghost of what I have endured,” she says, sounding almost proud. “You have nothing and no one, remember? What is the point of hanging on when all life has to offer you is pain?”
Before I can block the blow, she pops me again, this time in the jaw.
I’m on the subway, with Mom and Dad and the four girls.
I’m at the center, sobbing into my pillow while my roommate snores.
I’m in front of the media while the FBI director lies to the world.
