All Chapters of Her Enemy, His Curse: Chapter 61 - Chapter 68

The morning light was unforgiving, spilling harsh and unrelenting through the stained glass windows. It fell in fractured shards across the war room where I had returned hours ago, but this time the fire in the brazier was cold, reduced to smoldering coals. The council had not dispersed. They lingered like shadows bound to the room — waiting, watching.Lucian was by my side still, but the space between us felt fragile — stretched taut by things unsaid. His fingers brushed mine once, twice, but I didn’t reach back. Not yet.The woman with the silver hair — Irena — sat at the head of the table, her eyes sharp as broken glass, dissecting every movement I made. Around her, the others shifted, cloaked figures wearing the weight of old grudges and heavier secrets.“You burned in their fire,” Irena said, voice cool, a faint edge of something like grudging respect threading her words. “And you survived.”“Yes,” I said. “Because it was my flame, not theirs.”She nodded slowly, but her eyes bet

The halls of the Keep echoed with footsteps not my own.Morning light filtered weakly through the stained glass, casting fractured beams across the stone floor like wounds in the flesh of the stronghold. In the quiet hush before war, the Keep only held its breath and did not sleep.I had barely crossed the main corridor when one of the outer guards, breathless, intercepted me.“There’s movement,” he said, chest heaving. “From the southern edge. Riders. Two bearing the mark of House Yvain. One cloaked.”My stomach clenched.House Yvain had long been silent, scattered, and half-dead since the Hollowing claimed their mountain keep. Their sudden reappearance now was no coincidence.“Have they requested parley?” I asked.“They haven’t had the chance. The gate warden held them at the perimeter until we could inform you.”When I reached the outer court, the tension was thick as oil.The riders dismounted slowly, careful not to reach for weapons. One stepped forward—a tall man with skin like

Dawn did not break in the Wildlands.It peeled back the edges of the mist slowly, like a careful hand unwrapping something sacred. Light bled in soft and gold, not from the sky—but from the roots, the stones, the very breath of the glade. The forest did not sleep, and neither did I.Lucian’s warmth was still pressed to my side, though he didn’t speak again. He didn’t need to.The Wildfolk moved in silence too, not from fear but from reverence. Each step they took was deliberate. Ritual. The way they readied themselves was not like us—no armor, no war cries. They wove bone and bark into braids, anointed their limbs with sap and ash, and looked to the trees as if asking permission.Permission to leave.Permission to kill.Permission to die.When I rose to my feet, the woman from the glade—her name still unspoken—was already waiting.“You slept like one of us,” she said, though we both knew I hadn’t.“I listened like one of you,” I replied. “The forest speaks in its own way.”Her lips cu

The morning came dressed in ash and silence.No birds sang. No horns blared. The sun did not rise—it only bled pale light through the veil of storm-heavy clouds, painting Hollowspire in shades of war.Lucian still held me when I woke.One arm thrown over my waist, the other curled beneath his head. His breath stirred my hair in slow, quiet intervals, and for a fleeting moment, I let myself believe this was peace. That we were just lovers in some far-off corner of the world where curses didn’t exist and kingdoms didn’t fall.But then the weight of it crept back in.The scent of stone and sweat. The ache in my thighs. The echo of our names whispered like vows against the walls. And beneath it all—the truth.We had crossed a line that didn’t exist anymore.I shifted, and Lucian stirred instantly.His eyes opened, stormy and watchful, as if he never truly slept. "You should’ve let me go," he murmured, voice hoarse with sleep and something older. Something broken.I didn’t answer.Because