Lahat ng Kabanata ng Her Enemy, His Curse: Kabanata 41 - Kabanata 50

The door groaned as it opened—an iron weight built into stone, hidden beneath a thicket of ivy and wards that only responded to my blood.No one else knew this place existed.Except Fenton.And yet, as I stepped inside, cradling her weight against my chest, I found the room already lit.Lanterns flickered. A fire crackled low in the hearth. Fresh bandages were stacked beside the washbasin. Shelves were lined with supplies—herbs, salves, even spare clothes.It was fully stocked.Too well stocked.I didn’t ask how he knew. I didn’t want to.I laid her gently on the cot beneath the window, brushing a streak of ash from her cheek. She didn’t stir.Still unconscious.Still breathing.I sat beside her, unable to look away from her chest's quiet rise and fall. My pulse was still echoing from the battlefield—from the way she’d lit the sky like a storm, from the way the magic had poured through her like judgment.She shouldn’t be alive.No one could hold that kind of power and live.But she ha

Arielle:The fire cracked again. Louder, this time—like the bones of the world shifting in their sockets.I blinked once. Twice. The light stopped hurting, but it didn't stop seeing. It knew me now like the darkness had. And something in me looked back.I shifted beneath the blanket. My body answered slowly, as if every nerve had been rewired, stitched back together with threads too ancient to name. The hand around mine tightened—rough, familiar. Grounding.Lucian.I didn't have to look to know.The bond hummed between us. Quiet. But alive. Like an animal curled beneath the ribs, no longer snarling—only watching. Waiting.He hadn't let go.Even after everything. Even after what I became."You're awake," he said softly. His voice didn't break—but something beneath it did.I turned my head toward him. His silhouette was sharp against the hearth light—armor stripped away, shadows curled beneath his eyes like sleep had been a battle he lost more than once."I didn't think…" He exhaled, sh

ArielleThe temple clung to the cliffside like a secret the earth had tried to swallow.We stood before it at dawn—Lucian, Fenton, and I—gazing at what remained of the place where the first curse had been carved into blood. Wind whipped off the jagged sea below, dragging salt and ash through the air. Even the waves seemed uneasy, as if they knew what this place had birthed.Fenton kicked a broken column. “Looks like the gods didn’t like what they built here either.”Lucian said nothing. He hadn’t spoken much since last night, when the nightmares started again—ones he refused to tell me about, though I could feel them burning through our bond. Like fire pressed into my chest.I stepped forward, ignoring the ache in my limbs, the crackle in my bones that still hadn't healed right. The path narrowed to a jagged archway, choked with ivy and soot. I pressed my hand against the stones, and something shifted beneath my skin.Words formed on the wall in a language I didn’t know—but somehow un

ArielleI thought her death would bring silence.Peace.Something like stillness.But as Lucian helped me from the shattered sanctum, the halls of the palace trembled—not with footsteps or enemy fire, but with something older. Deeper.A heartbeat that wasn’t mine.That wasn’t anyone’s.Something had been left behind.Lucian’s hand slipped from mine.“Wait,” I said, suddenly cold. “What’s wrong?”He turned to me, eyes wide—but not with fear. With pain.“Lucian—?”He stumbled. Just once. His knees hit stone.And then he screamed.Fenton’s blade was drawn in a blink, his body between us in an instant. “What the hell—?”Lucian writhed against the floor, hands clawing at his chest. Not his heart—beneath it. His breathing came ragged, wet.I dropped beside him. “Lucian. Look at me. Lucian!”He did.And in his eyes, I saw it.A flicker. Violet-black.Morganna’s magic.“No,” I whispered, reaching out. “No, no, no—”Beneath his collarbone, veins were darkening. Spreading outward like ink in wa

ArielleThe silence after magic isn’t truly silence.It crackles.It hums.It waits.I sat with Lucian’s hand in mine, still resting atop the tangled blankets where we’d collapsed after the ritual. The warmth had returned to his skin, the shadow receded from his veins, but the air still thrummed like a struck bell.Like the world hadn’t quite decided whether to exhale or shatter.Lucian breathed softly, eyes closed, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm that I matched without meaning to. I watched him like he might disappear. As if blinking too long would return him to the pale, cursed thing he’d been only a day ago.The bond was different now.Not chains. Not fire.Not even light.It was deeper. Older. A thread woven into the marrow of us both—quiet, unassuming, but unbreakable. It didn’t tug or flare. It simply… was.And that terrified me more than any magic ever had.The door creaked.I turned quickly, magic rising in my throat like a hiss, but it was only Fenton.His hai