A Curse of Shadows

“I’m sorry.” I step back until I’m pressed against the mattress behind me.

He continues to stride forward, not stopping until he’s standing in front of me. Close enough to feel the heat rolling off his skin but never actually touching me.

“Never apologize for your desires.” His words come out layered with a rumble that lights my inside on fire.

And when he strokes the back of his fingers gently over my cheek, my eyes flutter closed as I grip the comforter behind me, doing my best to stay upright.

Seconds tick by as I lose myself to the velvet of his touch. My previous racing thoughts are nothing but a distant memory until he speaks again.

“You should know, we have Elodee.” His words are like ice water over my senses.

My eyes snap back open and stare up at him, still standing close. “Where is she?”

I move to pass him, but he catches my wrist, his grip gentle yet firm. “Before you see her, there’s something you must know.”

Anxiety clenches my stomach. “If someone hurt her?—”

His soft chuckle cuts me off. “Nothing like that. She’s in perfect health, sleeping soundly in the next room, even, but you need to understand who she is before you see her again so that you can explain everything to her when she wakes.”

I struggle for breath, my hands starting to tremble. “What do you mean?”

Losing Elodee will kill me, so if Asher is about to tell me she can’t stay, I don’t know what I’ll do.

His next words are a cautious whisper. “You once told Grayson she was like your soul sister.” I nod in confirmation before he continues. “You were more right than you knew. Issie, she is your sister.”

“I’m sorry. What?” My eyes feel as if they’re going to pop right out of their sockets as I shake my head. “We were foster siblings. What do you mean, she’s my sister?”

“Before you vanished, you had a sister named Estee,” he explains, his voice gentle. “Nobody has brought her up to you because we didn’t want to hurt you while you were still processing so much. We thought that she’d died and chosen not to come back. Now, we believe whatever happened to you, Estee must have figured it out and the same thing happened to her.”

The room spins as I absorb his words. This reshapes everything I thought I knew and all I’ve yet to understand. “Why would anyone want to harm us?” I whisper, the question a weight in my heart.

Asher steps closer, enveloping me in his presence. “We don’t know yet. But whatever their motives, they underestimated your strength. We’ll find the truth, Issie. I promise.”

In that moment, his vow feels like an anchor, grounding me amidst the storm of revelations and giving me a hope that I didn’t know I needed. Plus, he’s right. Whoever might have done this to us, they won’t go unpunished, even all these years later.

A shudder courses through me at the thought of our tormentors still lurking, possibly planning to strike again. “So, they murdered me, then my sister, and we’ve been stuck on Earth ever since? Am I understanding what you’ve pieced together correctly? And what if they get to us again before we figure this out? We will go back to Earth, taking away my memory of these last few days?”

My stomach hollows out. Losing the knowledge of what I’ve gained since stumbling into this world paints a shadow over my heart.

Asher’s grip tightens on me reassuringly. “Nobody is going to take you from me again. I can promise you that,” he declares with fierce certainty. “And yes, I believe you were cursed to be reborn on Earth. Though I can’t fathom how—since magic supposedly doesn’t exist there—your soul managed to leave Lunara and be reformed into another life without the blessing of the Gods.”

I lean into his warm touch, seeking comfort. “How is that even possible here?”

“The gods,” he explains solemnly. “Every soul born in Lunara has the choice upon death to return to the realm of the gods, where they can stay and rest, or to be reborn, living another life.”

“Is their world, like, heaven or something?”

“Or something,” he replies, a bit of tension lacing his words. “The gods have long kept to their own world, and we prefer to leave them to it, only seeking their help when we have no other choice. When one of us chooses not to be reborn, there is a place where our souls rest. The gods are very vague on what that means, but they promise peace and nothing more.”

Interesting. I guess it makes more sense now that my mother would have taken that option. I may not have ever thought about having children, but I can imagine that losing two of them would be unlike any other pain in the world. Recovering from that doesn’t seem possible.

“Grayson.” I gasp. “He was close to death. He wanted…”

Asher nods. “You returned just in time. Another few days and he would have been gone.”

My mind reels at the thought. He’s the only real connection I’ve felt since coming here. Sure, there’s the attraction to Asher and a sense of home in my surroundings, but that split moment when my heart opened to Grayson, when I knew he was family, I can’t forget that. I also can’t imagine almost never having met him.

“Is Elodee with him now?” I ask because I can’t wait any longer to see her. I need her to be with me and I need to be the first face she sees when she wakes up. More than that, I need to wrap my arms around her and have a good cry because, holy shit. I thought what I’d already learned was a lot, but this is another level of unbelievable.