All Chapters of Her Enemy, His Curse: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Arielle:The moon was high when we returned to his quarters.Not because we needed to rest.But because there was nowhere else in the world that felt real anymore.Lucian hadn’t spoken since we left the archives. Neither had I. But the silence between us wasn’t empty. It was tight. Heavy. Filled with every word we didn’t know how to say yet.He closed the door behind us, and I turned to face him.His armor caught the light, shadows sharpening every line of him—jaw tight, eyes unreadable, hands clenched into fists at his sides.“You knew,” I said quietly.His brow furrowed. “Knew what?”“That he was capable of it. That your father could… do this.”Lucian didn’t move. His voice, when it came, was a quiet fire. “I hoped I was wrong.”I stepped closer. My ribs ached. My throat burned.But more than that… I needed something to anchor me.Something only he could give.Lucian looked at me like he was afraid I would shatter.“You don’t have to be careful,” I said, voice a breath. “I’m not a g

ArielleThe scream didn’t start in the sky.It started in the bones of the earth.A low groan that rose like the death rattle of something ancient waking beneath us. It thrummed through the stones of the academy, through the iron-bound gates and the rune-marked arches. It rippled through the training fields where cadets stood mid-formation, swords half-raised, laughter half-formed.Then came the silence.Not stillness. Not quiet.Absence.Even the birds forgot how to sing.Then—the world cracked.A sound like thunder pulled inside out tore across the sky as a seam ripped open in the far eastern valley—a jagged, flaming rift in the land itself. Red light spilled from it, wrong and violent, casting long shadows that writhed like serpents on the hills.And from it—they came.Twisted things. Not monsters, not men.They were memory corrupted. Flesh born from war and ruin. Bone scaffolding wrapped in coils of living shadow. Mouths that screamed without sound. Eyes too bright. Limbs bent b

ArielleThey tried to carry me from the battlefield like I was something breakable.But I had already broken.And I had rebuilt myself in the fire.My knees were bloodstained, my throat raw, my magic ragged. But I walked under my own weight, wrapped in the ache of something ancient still pulsing beneath my skin—the echo of the rift I had sealed shut with nothing more than will and pain and power I didn't understand.No one spoke as I passed.Not even Lucian.He stayed close—his steps behind me steady, protective, watchful. Like if the world dared breathe wrong in my direction, he’d set it ablaze. And gods help me, I would’ve let him.The academy rose before us in the distance—its towers scorched and slanted, windows shattered, flags torn from their poles like the very sky had swallowed our symbols of pride. Smoke still curled from the west wing. The field was scattered with weapons and fallen helms, cadet cloaks torn and strewn like molted skins.The survivors watched us cross the thr

ArielleThey sent the first caravans at dawn.The gates groaned open like the mouth of something ancient and dying, swallowing families, horses, and wagons laden with more grief than goods. I stood at the top of the watchtower and watched it all—watched a kingdom try to carry its heart out into the unknown and pretend it still had a future.I didn’t cry.Not when the children waved with too-big eyes. Not when the banners of fallen noble houses fluttered like torn wings. Not even when the sky began to darken too early, the clouds dragging like bruises across the bones of the sun.Grief was a luxury I couldn’t afford anymore.“Do you hate me?” Lucian’s voice broke through the wind like something reluctant and raw.I didn’t turn. “For what?”“For letting them go. For not stopping the council from sending them away. For not locking them behind the walls and swearing to bleed for every last one of them.”His voice cracked on the word bleed.I glanced down at my hands—scarred and glowing fa

ArielleThe sky didn’t close.It collapsed.A pulse shivered through the air—deep and final, like the world itself had taken a breath and was now holding it.The rift above me split wide, and from it poured the creatures. Not shadows. Not illusions.Real. Ravenous. Writhing.Built from anguish. Shaped by old magic that had forgotten mercy.And they were coming for everything.Lucian lay behind me, bloodied and barely breathing. The amulet burned against my skin, its power cresting—swelling like a tide that had nowhere left to go but out.I stood.Broken. Bleeding. Alive.The ground cracked beneath my feet. The wind howled, pulling at my hair, at my soul.And I let it go.All of it.The fear.The restraint.The history.The fire bloomed from within me like a second sun. Magic surged through my body, not gentle—not tame. It screamed. It roared. It took.My hands lifted on instinct. Light radiated from every pore.The battlefield answered.The first creature dove from above—jaws wide, ey