Arise - Book Two of The Spinner's Curse

Silence and Secrets

Chapter Four:

68 Years Ago

Eira

Six years ago, I felt the sun. Alec and I had ran, our feet slapping against the cobbled ground between the stable and the massive walls built around the castle. In the daylight, the walls were white and imposing. Mother had ordered them built when a group of renegades snuck into the castle and killed her parents in their bed. At night, they were great stone teeth that gnawed at the sky and shimmered with torches that battled the stars.

Alec's hand had gripped mine, his fingers warm through the fabric of my gloves. Each step had felt like freedom. The feeling had flooded through me, with each step holding a magic of its own as my feet took me farther and farther from the castle.

At the gate, Alec slipped one of the guards a coin. He was an ugly man, which surprised me. Inside the palace, every soldier had a face of impeccable beauty, with eyes as golden as the sun. This guard regarded us with eyes of mud. His nose was crooked and one of his eyebrows was seared white with a scar. He'd grinned a gap-toothed smile as he pocketed Alec's coin and unlocked a side door that we could slip through.

The night nipped at us. Its fingers trailed lines of cold down our backs but we'd smiled and laughed and relished in the mystery of it all. We were going to be free. The sky lightened, a gold mist rose from the ground and ate the stars glimmering above our heads. The rest fled as daylight conquered the morning.

We'd traded our clothes for new ones. Ones with unpatched holes and dull colors. We'd walked through the streets hand in hand, the only thing setting us apart from the townsfolk the white gloves we couldn't part with. I'd smiled at Alec and it was the happiest I could ever remember feeling. Our joy had radiated back and forth along the magical strand, our freedom magnified with each ripple. The sun had warmed our skin and set our hearts aglow.

Then, the soldiers came.

They'd shoved people aside as if they weighed nothing. They'd scanned each face, each hand. They'd known about the gloves.

We'd tried to hide, to flee, but there were so many of them and only two of us. They took us separately and I'd screamed as they'd dragged Alec farther than he'd ever been from me. Pain had wrenched inside my gut and I vomited all over their white uniforms. They'd dumped me in a heap inside my rooms and ignored me as I pounded my fist against the door. Blood had soaked my white gloves, stained them red.

It was the only time we dared to escape.

I thought about that run as Alec stood at the window, his eyes seeing past the bars keeping us in. I don't know why Mother bothered to put them in at all. There were other places high enough to jump from if we wanted. I pulled one of our armchairs closer to him, so that the thread between us wasn't pulled so tight. "What will happen to us when you marry?" Alec asked.

My head jerked back in surprise. Times like these made me wish I could peek inside Alec's head and have access to his thoughts and not just his feelings.

"What?" My hand went out to touch him but he sidestepped me.

"Think about it, Eira. When you marry, your husband will lock you away from me. We're too close. We've let our fear of pain keep us from trying to beat this curse." I blinked. Once. Twice. Three times before I could answer.

"Alec, I won't get married. Mother never did! Sure, she says she's going to find a Lord to send me off to, but do you really believe her? She couldn't bear to have us so far away." I fingered a seam on my gown. "How could she torture us if we're not always in her sight? Isn't that why she keeps us imprisoned here?" He shrugged and his jaw clenched. Anger surged through our link. "She's winning right now. I don't see her giving that up."