Page 100 of Malediction

“What did you do to me?” he snarled, and I scrambled backward away from him. I saw the greying, blackened skincourse up his arms. Him, this version of him, was alien to me. He stood slowly, coming to stand beside his brother, looking down at me with an expression that was blank and devoid of all warmth.

Fuck self-preservation.

“FIX HIM!” I screamed, putting every ounce of conviction and hate into the words I sent hurtling toward Aamon. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?! What have you done?!What have you—”Broken sobs were all I could muster as the two demons looked down at me. To them, I was nothing more than dirt—a vile, disgusting parasite to be discarded and forgotten.

“Come,” Aamon commanded, as he steered Thallor toward the doors of the church.

“Thallor!” I shrieked. “Thallor, please!”Please. Please. Don’t do this. Don’t leave. My soul belongs to you.I screamed until my voice was hoarse, and his name was the only thing I knew. I cried until my eyes were burning and my hands bloody from where I pounded them against the stone floor. I cried for a numbness that refused to come.

For one brief agonising moment, he stopped. His eyes were a dagger through my heart. I knew I was just trying to convince myself it was there. The ghost of recognition.

I sat amongst the rubble, unable to move, watching the door. But my heart hadn’t even caught up with what my eyes had seen–hadn’t fully registered the goodbye–when the pain started to bloom.

They don’t tell you how thin the line is between a whole heart and a broken one. When love dies, it doesn’t just turn into mourning or sorrow or grief. It ignites. It multiplies. It takes hold of you, planting itself deep. It roots its way into those soft, breakable parts of you until there is nothing else but hurt.

Fairytales and bedtime stories promise magic moments and tied-up happy endings. They don’t tell you about the stories thatgo wrong. The stories that don’t end quite right.But, I only ever liked the stories with happy endings, I just didn’t realise that ours wouldn’t have one.

And just as easily as Thallor had walked into my life, he was gone.

To be continued…