CURSED: FROM THE BEGINNING [D.M]

-(74) you're all i have

DRACO is still weary about letting her anywhere near himself. He knows that upon the slightest sign of danger, Zilliah will draw the remaining of the curse from his body onto herself with zero hesitation. And it will kill her, undoubtedly. He will not be able to live with himself if he ever lets that happen. "Zilliah", he calls, halting in his track as they were making their way to the library with Theo, Layla, and Theseus. She too stops walking and turns around and faces him, arching an eyebrow in question. "Can I talk to you for a minute? Alone."

"I thought you warned me not to come within five feet of you." A tug at the corner of her lips and even in the midst of all the pain, anger, and dread, all he can think about is how he would shred himself to pieces at her command.

He tilts his head to the left, staring right into her taunting eyes, knowing his gaze is making her skin heat up even though she tries to act like it doesn't faze her. He walks backward, keeping their eyes locked until he's too far into the woods to even see her anymore. But h can hear her calling out to the rest of them to get going and that they would meet them there. And as the sound of the crumbling leaves beneath her footsteps approaches, he hides behind a tree and awaits her.

"Draco", she calls, coming into his line of vision, searching for him. She walks further up to where he is hidden, a certain strain in her steps. "Come on now, if you wanted to play hide and seek, I would've invited the others too."

As she walks by, he pulls her in by the waist and locks her in between the tree and himself, dropping his forehead to hers and meeting her startled glance. "You're stupid."

Soon the shock wears off her face as she pecks his lower lip and bites down on it, bringing her hands up to his head and entangling her fingers in his hair. "You're even more stupid. You do realize I can just finish it off now, right?"

"You won't."

"How are you so sure about that?"

Her breath on his skin makes every nerve in his body heat up. His hands leave her waist and make their way up to cup her cheeks, an earnest look falling over his features. "Because, my love, you told me I'd never have to lose you."

Her eyes soften at that as her hands shift to his neck. "Draco-"

"No", he cuts in, stroking her gentle skin and knowing the day he loses this will be the day his life will lose all its meaning. "I can't fathom a world without you, Zilliah. I can't imagine having to wake up each day without you by my side. So if we can't find a cure for this, let death take both of us. Together. But don't you dare sacrifice yourself to save me, you hear me? Don't you fucking dare." Tears spring to her eyes and he knows it reflects in him too. "I can't lose you. You're all I have."

She softly presses her lips against his, tears breaking free of the cage that holds them. "You won't lose me, Draco."

"Promise?", he draws back and breathes against her skin.

"Promise."

He holds up the pinky of his left hand and asks her again, "Pinky promise?"

She chuckles through the tears and connects her own finger with his. "I pinky promise. I already pinky promised you that I'd never leave."

He feels relieved and somewhat content as they connect their lips again. He lets his worries slide at that moment, weighing everything upon her sole word.

But the thing he fails to realize is that promises are only made to be broken.

.

"Resurrection spells?", asks Zilliah, peering into the book that is left open on one of the tables in the library. "Is this thing for real?"

"Yes", Layla replies to her from beside Draco as they look through the shelves for every last book upon curses and Supernova. "Though no one has ever been able to execute it."

"Why so?", Zilliah quizzes, climbing onto the table and sitting on top of it before taking the book in her hands and devouring everything written on it.

"That spell is a trickster", Theseus says, coming up to her and setting a rack of ten books, small and large, on the table. Draco can see her tensing a little as his presence draws nearer to her and he wonders why. He has never seen her be like that before- like she is intimidated by his proximity. "Only a dead soul can put effect to that spell", Theseus continues nevertheless, never once casting his eyes upon her as he seats himself on a chair. And Draco finds it peculiar because Theseus had been gawking over his girl every single time she was in his vicinity which is in complete contrast to the situation right now. "But the dead do not possess the ability to use that spell for the thread between their powers and the nature is cut off as their body is laid to waste."

"So.. it's useless?", Theo asks, joining them with another set of books. Layla and Draco closely follow him to the table with their own.

"Pretty much", Theseus replies, opening the largest book from his pile and skimming his eyes through the pages of it.

Draco draws a chair closer to where Zilliah is seated and he notices how her shoulders relax at that. He places one hand on her knee and opens a book from his own pile with the other, and reads through it for anything that could help them.

The Book of Curses, the title had read. And it contains information on all sorts of curses- blood curses, half-moon curses, full-moon curses, werewolf curses, dark magic curses, indigenous argive curses, indigenous acquirer curses- everything except a curse caused by a lethal dark weapon in the shape of a human born of the evilest wizard in existence and an ex-queen of the most powerful magic-bearers in the world.

"This is hopeless", Layla groans after a solid fifty minutes of brain death from all the useless information in the books they had collected. "We are never going to find what we're looking for in these."

"Who are these?", Zilliah ignores her comment and asks, plopping the book in her hand down onto the table for everyone to see. She is pointing to a painting of a young couple, dancing in a gazebo with the moon hanging in the sky, the stars peering at them. The man, tall. lean and blonde,  is holding the woman by her waist and has hoisted her up in the air with a smile on his face that Draco just knows is reserved for her and only her. The woman, her brown hair dancing in the wind. looks at total ease in her man's hand, a frozen laugh captured perfectly by the brush, a single dimple poking out of her cheeks.

A distant memory sparks inside him but he can't quite wrap his around it. He dismisses it as just a weird feeling caused only because of the resemblance the couple in the painting has to him and his beloved.

"That's the infamous Lucifer and Lilith", Layla replies to her question, casting one look of disgust upon it and then plucking her eyes away the next second. "That painting is said to be drawn by Lilith herself. It's actually one of the very few artifacts we have been able to recover from the island after it was ruined by that bitch."

"You have it here?", Zilliah perks up at it.

"Yes, we do", Theseus answers, not meeting her eyes again. "In that room of artifacts, I took you to."

"Let's go there, then."

"Why?", Layla scoffs and rolls her eyes. "How would that painting be of any help?"

Zilliah tilts her head to Draco and holds his gaze for a moment before jumping off the table and making her way to the door.

"Zilliah!", Draco calls, making her halt with her back to him. "She is right. I don't think that painting will be of any use to us. We'll just be wasting time."

She stands there for a few minutes like she is weighing her next words out in her mind. When she turns back to face them, she takes in a deep breath that indicates the gravity what she has to say holds. "But what if I told you..", she trails off, like she's unsure.

"What if you told us what?", snaps Layla, impatiently.

Zilliah closes her eyes for a moment and takes in a deep breath before reopening them and setting them solely upon Draco, like he's her only source of confidence. "But what if I told you", she starts again, her voice much more firmer than before, "that it was Lilith who caused this."

"WHAT?!"