Page 46 of Heart of the Cursed
“I can,” she nodded. “But it won’t do you any good.”
“Why not?”
“Because I searched the building from top to bottom,” she said. “There was nothing other than that spell.” She pointed at the screwed-up paper on the floor. “And as you pointed out, it’s worthless. So, I don’t hold out much hope of anything else in that building being of any use.”
Arun thought about it for a minute, but decided against going back to the library. He would take Selene’s word that there was nothing else to find.
“How did you find out about the other spell? Was that in a library, as well?”
“No,” she shook her head. “I first read about it in a book I found in a house.”
“Can you show me?”
“Nope,” she grimaced. “The house was burnt to the ground. Everything was destroyed.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yep,” she said. “I was still in it when it was set on fire.”
Arun had an idea of what might have gone down, but he still asked the question. “What happened?”
“I was hiding from a bunch of Demons,” she said. “When they realised I was hiding inside the house, they decided to set it on fire. I barely made it out alive.”
“And the Demons?”
Selene raised an eyebrow as she grinned. “I can’t say the same for them.”
Arun was glad the Demons were dead, but he wished he’d been the one to kill them. He would have made them suffer for trying to burn Selene alive.
“What about the second time?” he asked.
“Ah, that book might still be intact and where I left it,” she said. “But we can’t get to it.”
“Why not?”
If it contained information that they needed, then it made sense to retrieve it from wherever it was, or from whoever had it.
“Because I came across it when I was being held prisoner by Ogres. The big, ugly bastards tried to eat me, so there’s no way in hell I’m going back there.”
She spoke as if it was an everyday occurrence, but he could hear the fear in her voice. Arun knew her life hadn’t been easy, but from the bits and pieces he’d found out from her, it was a whole lot worse than he could have ever imagined.
His admiration of her continued to grow, and so did the attraction her felt for her. Her strength and determination was admirable, but it was more than that. The longer he was with her, and the more he learnt about her, the more he was drawn to her.
“They had loads of junk,” she continued. “It was piled high all around their cave. There was a book lying open at the base of one of the piles, which is where I saw it the second time. Unfortunately, I couldn’t read much of the book because it was too far away from where I was being kept, but it definitely mentioned the spell.”
“I take it you didn’t kill the Ogres?”
“Have you tried killing one of them bastards?” she asked. “It’s not fucking easy, and there was five of them. There’s no way I can take on five of them. I couldn’t even take on one. It was hard enough just escaping. So, no, I didn’t kill them. And before you ask, I’m not taking you back there, either.”
“Okay.” He held his hands up in surrender. “Have you read about it anywhere else?”
Selene sighed. “No.”
As much as he didn’t want to force her to do something she didn’t want to do, they needed to go back and retrieve the book from the Ogres. It was the only way they were going to find out more information about the spell, like whether it actually existed or if it was just some made up story.
“We need to go back there,” he said. “We need to see the book to know if the spell is real. Plus, there might be some information in it that could help with our search.”
“I knew you were going to say that.” She grimaced. “Just so you know, if I get eaten, I’m going to make your life hell.”
