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)
Bestian is silent but there’s a world of hurt in his eyes.
I reach up and trace my fingers over the ridges of his scars. “Is it because of this? Because I don't care. I swear.”
He huffs. “It's not that. It is not only that,” he amends and rolls away, coming to a sitting position. “Rose, there's something you should know.”
I rise too, and climb into his lap. His expression is distant and it makes me want to be close to him.
“There is great power in the bond between two souls,” Bestian says, his eyes more gray than green, matching the endless ocean. “But with it comes danger.” He lets out a ragged breath. “My reason for not claiming you fully… it has to do with my parents. How they died. How… I killed them.”
Oh, Bestian. I steel my features and nod. “Tell me.”
“The day we first heard of the Red Death, my father was adamant that we stop it. We were all scholars. We would search high and low for a cure. But my father knew that there was a way to stop it instantly. A failsafe.”
Bestian reaches over and touches one of my braids. When Rogue did my hair, it took out the jewels, but it seems one got missed. Bestian plucks it out and turns it this way and that, making it wink red and black and purple in the fading light.
“I told you of the symbiosis between an Alpha King and the land. It is a power Alpha kings have, to bond with the land. We don’t understand it, but my father studied it all his life, and he understood more than most. It is within the king’s power to draw strength from the land. And, conversely, to draw out curses and heal the land by taking those onto himself. When the Red Death first started spreading, my father wanted to do that right away. But he didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I stopped him. It was my stupid pride. I did not know if drawing the curse into himself would harm him. I argued with him. I said there was another way. I was so sure…”
Bestian trails off and stares out over the water. He looks so lost, I mold a palm to his face, to warm his skin. To bring him back to me.
“We threw ourselves into searching for a cure. Days and weeks passed, and things grew worse. People were dying. My own mother started showing symptoms. But I knew I could find the answer. I could fix it.”
“Bestian,” I murmur.
He blinks and says in a different voice, a more scholarly one, “I suspect now that the Stone King cast the curse. It caused him great harm—there is a rebound, a recoil to such curses—and I believe casting it weakened him and poisoned his land in return. But at the time, we did not know that. So when the Stone King sent a parcel, claiming it was a possible cure, I opened it just like I did the others.” He grimaces. “If I were really wise, I would have listened to my father, who warned me countless times how evil the Stone King was. I would never have opened it. But I was working day and night, visiting my sick mother instead of sleeping, poring over ancient scrolls… I was desperate. And in the end, it was all for nothing. I destroyed my face and nearly died. And my parents paid the ultimate price.”
I take a moment to absorb it all. To think. “You said you were responsible for their deaths,” I say. “How could you be at fault, if you lay dying?”
“I let my hubris and my pride get the better of me. Don’t you see? Because of me, because I was so sure I could find a better solution, my father waited to reverse the curse and take it into himself. By then, the afflicted numbered in the hundreds of thousands. The entire kingdom was suffering. My father pulled all that into himself, and it was too much. Too big. It killed him instantly—and, through him, my mother as well. They both died because of me.”
My face must show that I don't understand because Bestian explains further, “My father claimed my mother the usual way. They were soul-bonded forever. When he cast the spell to break the curse, he took it into himself.” His voice is barely a whisper now, ragged with grief. “He couldn’t have known… but when he did that, my mother absorbed it too, through the soul-bond.” He lowers his head, staring at the sand. “I killed them both.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did. My father wanted to absorb the curse right in the beginning, when there were few more than a thousand cases. But I argued against it. I assured him I could find a cure. Find another way. If he hadn’t waited… he and my mother would have lived. So many more would have lived!” His roar of anguish echoes off the cliff-face.