Chapter Twenty-Two

Reese

The night had been anything but what Reese had expected. What he’d thought would be a drunken night of partying to forget his impending death had turned into one crazy encounter after another. It seemed like the entire world had gone mad. Or at least, everyone in his immediate proximity.

It felt good to be outside in the crisp air to gather his thoughts. Reese thought he would be more afraid as the hours turned to minutes, but he wasn’t. He wanted to find a quiet place to be alone with nature. The things he loved most about the castle were the grounds and the gardens. When he was young, he’d get lost for hours in the mazes of various flowers and bushes.

He could picture getting lost there with Aster. The memory of her dislike of flowers hit him, and he felt a smile push against his cheeks. Surely she only hated cut flowers arranged in vases to impress lovers or express sympathy. Not ones growing in vibrant green fields.

A sigh sounded from above him, and he glanced up. The mute reader from the garden stood on the balcony, looking out on the grounds. She removed her mask, then her wig.

“Aster?” He blinked and looked again. Was it really her or simply an illusion? Was death playing another evil trick on him?

Scratching at her head, she muttered, “Oh Reese, where are you?”

Taking several deep breaths, she put her mask on, tugged her wig over her capped head, and then she went back inside.

She didn’t see me. Reese darted for the balcony. “Aster!” he called.

He waited, but she didn’t come back. With long strides, he made it to the door and yanked it open. Bounding up the stairs, he felt weak and had to sit on a step. Could this be it? Was he dying? His breath felt labored. He watched a pair of men’s dress shoes pound up the steps to him.

“Reese, are you all right?” Lars asked, squatting on the step in front of him.

“I don’t feel well. Can you help me to the garden? To Aster?”

Lars grabbed Reese’s arm and guided him to his feet. “That girl isn’t Aster. She’s only dressed to look like her to get you to—”

“I know,” he interrupted. “The real Aster is the mute reader.”

“How did you find out?” Lars opened the door leading outside.

“I spotted her on a balcony. She took off her mask and wig.”

The light coming from the lamps on the tree teased Reese’s eyes. He was almost there. The one wish he’d wanted for his birthday was to have one last good-bye with Aster. And there she was, standing beside Leah, wringing her hands, not able to see him with the dark shadows of the trees covering him.

When he stepped into the light, she instantly ran to him and wrapped her arms around his waist.

“Here, get him to the table,” she said, helping Lars guide him to a seat.

“I thought death would just snap its fingers and take me,” Reese said, smiling with effort. “Guess it will be many agonizing minutes of torture before I go.”

Aster knelt beside him and brushed a strand of hair from his forehead. “You’re not going anywhere. I found a way to undo the curse without baby Nathan dying.”

“How?” Hope, mixed with confusion, pulsed through him. He pulled her mask away from her face and pushed her wig off her head with what little energy he had.

She yanked off the cap, and her auburn hair fell down her back. “An ancestor of mine discovered the way. She did it with a crystal. She pulled the curse out of a firstborn son, but…”

She was hiding something from him. “But what?” he pressed.

“It’s painful.”

“More painful than this?” A sharp pain shot through his stomach and he grunted. “I can handle it.”

“Good,” she said. “But you’ve got to remember—no matter how excruciating the pain is, you can’t let go. Not even if I’m in pain, too.”

“You? Why? Will you be hurt?”

“Only if you let go.” She moved to her feet and bent over until her lips met his. It was a passionate kiss, one filled with hope and desperation. Pulling back, she looked into his eyes. “We’ve got this. Trust me.”

He cupped her cheek with his hand. His muscles screamed at the effort. “I trust you, but not those cards.”

She hugged his head to her chest. “Trust is all we have. I love you, Reese. I want forever with you, not just a blink of time. Forever. You hear me?”

“I don’t like this,” Leah suddenly said. “You said you both could die if it goes wrong. I don’t want you to die, Aster.”

Aster shot her a hateful look. “Shut up, Leah,” she said.

Reese grabbed Aster’s hand to bring her attention back to him “Is it true? Could we both possibly die?”

Aster swallowed, then nodded, tears spilling over her bottom eyelashes.

“I won’t do it,” he said.

This time she directed her anger at Reese. “Then I’ll wait until you can’t do anything about it. I’ll do it alone and you won’t be able to stop me. But the thing is…you won’t be able to help me, either. I need you to hold on with me.”

He knew she was stubborn enough to do it. “All right. What do we need to do?”

She kissed him again with so much force, he felt a renewed hope himself.

Aster helped him to sit closer to the table. “Leah, you have to go. Don’t let anyone out here. The energy will be too great, and I don’t want it striking anyone by mistake.”

Leah grasped Aster’s arms. “Good luck. I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to my best friend.”

“No matter what happens, I’ll always be right here.” Aster pressed her hand where Leah’s heart resided.

Leah kissed her cheek before departing.

Aster took a seat across the table from Reese. Her hair was flat from wearing the wig, her mascara smudged from the heat of the mask, but she looked more beautiful to him than she ever had before. The cards slapped together as she shuffled them.

The candles on the table blew out, and she went about lighting them. She checked her phone for the time, but didn’t tell Reese what it was. It was sweet how she wanted to protect him. He wished he could be stronger, take care of her as she was now doing for him. He was her prisoner. If he could run away and keep her from danger, he would.

She pushed some messy curls away from her neck as she lit the last candle. The light bounced across her face, and he could make out the dusting of freckles on her nose. He loved her freckles. They added to her cuteness. Before she sat down again, she pulled a black stone from a pocket hidden in her skirt.

Back in her seat, she fanned the shuffled cards across the table. “Okay, pick one. Only one.”

He moved like a zombie. His arm felt like it would fall off as he chose his card. Seeing the death card turn over, Reese stared at it. In the past, he’d let the card scare him, with its skeleton in knight’s armor riding a white horse trampling over a king. Some readers told him it didn’t have to mean death. Sometimes it meant a transition. But that was a normal reading for a normal person. Not for one with a cursed fate.

Her eyes went to the center of the table, where a rod stuck up from a hole in the wood.

“What is that?”

“Our lifeline,” she said. “It’s a grounding rod to take the energy from the crystal before it zaps back at us.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I will use my gift to pull the curse from you. The curse’s energy will rush to the crystal, but the charge is too much for the crystal to contain it all. So it has to go somewhere. The other fate changer and firstborn son died during the transfer because the charge was too big and it struck them. We have to provide an alternate route for all that energy. The rod should be a preferable path for the charge instead of us.”

“Makes perfect sense.”

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“How do you Americans say it? Let’s kick some ass?”

She smirked and nodded. “Yes.”

“All right, then, let’s kick that curse’s ass.”

Aster touched the card. The mark on her wrist glowed red. The image of death rose from the card and separated. It spun, quickly picking up speed.

“Remember, no matter what, you can’t let go.”

When the cards stopped spinning, she shot her hand between the images, holding tight to the black stone. The mark on her wrist turned from red to blue. “Hurry, grab my hand!” she shouted.

He gritted his teeth and groaned as he reached out and grasped it. The crystal was cradled between their hands. When the cards began spinning again, heat built between their palms. The crystal felt like it was scorching his skin.

“Look at me,” Aster cried.

He raised his head. Her face was twisted in agony.

“Don’t let go,” she begged, swallowing hard. “Hold on. We can’t drop the crystal.”

He could have sworn molten lava was engulfing his hand. He grimaced. The pain was intense, but he held her eyes, not daring to look away, for fear he’d give up. Something pulled inside him, tugging, ripping from the depths of his stomach. He cried out, and Aster’s grip tightened.

“It’s leaving you. You have to hold on to me.”

Another excruciating tug, and his ears rang from his screams.

He vaguely heard someone approach them from behind him.

“What’s happening?” his mother’s voice sounded almost animalistic.

Aster groaned through her clenched teeth. Something was happening to her, and Reese wanted it to stop. He wanted to protect her, but he was too weak.

“Leave!” Aster shouted. “Leave now or you’ll get electrocuted.”

Jan came rushing to Reese’s mother’s side and pulled her away from the area.

“It can’t be much longer,” Aster encouraged. “We’ll kick its ass, right?”

Reese could only nod. The pain was so great that he couldn’t form words. He saw tears pouring from the corners of her eyes. She had to be experiencing the same pain he was, but she didn’t flinch. Her eyes stayed fixed on his and any time he broke their gaze, she’d yell for him to look at her.

The edges of his sight darkened. In his peripheral vision, he could see the skeletal knight from the death card, sitting on his white horse, waiting to trample the royal. The horse neighed and reared up on its back legs, then its forelegs came down in a thundering clap.

“He’s here for me,” Reese mumbled, almost too weak to hold up his head any longer.

Aster glanced around. “Who’s here?”

“Death.” His head bobbed forward. It was like a heavy boulder sitting on his neck.

“Reese!” Her scream sounded desperate.

She needs me.

He slowly raised his head. Sweat dripped from his nose. It was as if a million tiny knives slashed at his palm. His resolve to hold on to her hand faded, and his hand slipped.

Aster squeezed his hand tighter, but she was losing her hold and was now clutching his fingers to the crystal. He had nothing left.

I failed her.

Wanting one last look at her, he struggled to lift his head.

“No. No. No! You’re slipping. It’s almost over. Look. The cards are slowing down. Don’t let go, Reese.”

His hand slipped again.

He was falling. Falling into the depths of darkness from where there was no return.