Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 63709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Who was she?
For a decade, nobody has entered my castle. I’ve spent countless sun cycles in a deep slumber, safe in my fortress. This place is my retreat from the world. From my people. My kingdom. At times, I wake to correspond with the advisors who represent me in Medea City, but most of the time, I am in a self-induced coma.
My castle and grounds are impenetrable—my magic ensures that. I use a spell of my own making to keep the world out, keep myself in.
How did she get in?
My thoughts are a jumble as I down cup after cup of blix. The strong liquor barely takes the edge off but it’s better than nothing.
The Red Death, she’d said, in her strange-sounding accent. Could it be true? After all these years, could that Ulf-forsaken curse have returned? The mere mention of it is enough to turn the blood in my veins to ice.
She saw the ballroom, and the statues I destroyed in a rage. The smaller with the three figures—my father, mother, and myself as a child—still stands, albeit beheaded. The largest—my likeness as a grown prince—lies in pieces.
Time heals all wounds. That had been my great hope. Alas, it turned out to be yet another falsehood.
I summon the whisps to remove the statue’s remains. During my deep sleep, my servants were dormant. Now, for some reason, they are infused with new energy. They cleaned up the rest of the palace, they might as well get rid of the stone debris. I have other reminders of my family.
I prowl to the gallery where my parents’ portrait hangs. If the intruder had ventured further in, she would have seen it. Painted by one of the greatest artists on Ulfaria, my parents seem alive once more, their hair lifted gently by an invisible breeze, their eyes gleaming with kindness and wisdom.
It’s a knife to the heart.
My mother was a typical Omega—kind, sweet, nurturing. She doted on me, and often expressed her sadness that I was an only child. My father was huge and gruff and stern, and as a youth, I was terrified of him. Now, I see so much of him in myself.
I could have saved them, but I failed.
I was a fool.
With a groan, I stumble back to my bedchamber, refilling my empty cup for the umpteenth time, wishing I had the power to dull my grief.
It’s been many moons since the Red Death came to Medela. A mysterious and terrible curse swept across the kingdom, leaving loss and destruction in its wake. Few were spared.
I searched for a cure, and my efforts nearly destroyed me.
But my parents paid the ultimate price. It is my fault they died.
I sink down onto my bed, burying my face in my hands. The grief is as raw as the first day. I yearn to go back to sleep, to lose myself in the peaceful slumber of oblivion.
Instead, I take a deep breath and exhale slowly, my mind churning.
Could it really be true? Has the curse returned? Is history about to repeat itself?
What reason would that girl have to lie? I hear that last thought in my mother’s voice, and she has a point.
Why else would the stranger break into the castle unless she was desperate?
Closing my eyes, I replay the interaction over and over again in my head.
She smelled so sweet, like moonflowers and honey, with an underlying hint of something else I couldn’t place.
I couldn’t see much of her face, huddled as she was in that huge cloak. She was short, though, even for a Beta. Her accent was strange, almost as if her mouth was unused to forming words, but her voice was clear and sweet despite the desperate urgency in her tone.
She was asking for help, and I…
I roared at her, like the monster I am. She displayed no fear, nothing but curiosity, until that moment. I could smell it: her sweet, moonflower scent turned sour with panic, and—
The thought hits me like a thunderclap and I shoot to my feet, my heart suddenly racing in my chest even as the rational part of my mind is arguing that it can’t possibly be.
Her scent was intoxicating. And only one kind of female smells like that to an Alpha.
An Omega.
But there are no Omegas left in Medela.
Can you be sure of that? Again, I hear the question in my mother’s voice.
The answer is no. While Omegas are rare, they are not entirely extinct. There could have been one born to a Beta couple—just because I’ve never seen that in my lifetime, doesn’t mean it’s not a possibility. There could also be some older ones in hiding, no longer hunted now that they’re beyond their fertile years.
I shake my head to clear it. First things first—my people need my help. While I could not save them the first time, I’ve been given a second chance. I will review my research and, if I can make a cure, I’ll send my whisps out with it.