Chapter 8: The Whispering Curse
Aurenya's POV
The morning air was sweet with the scent of lavender and dew, the kind that made the estate gardens look like a dream embroidered in sunlight. Birds chirped lazily in the hedges, the stone paths sparkled faintly with dampness, and for the first time in days, there was a sense of calm—a momentary illusion of peace.
It didn't last.
I had woken early that day, disturbed by a dream I couldn't quite remember. There had been shadows, I thought. Whispers. A cold that sunk into my bones. But the details unraveled like smoke the moment I opened my eyes. Still, it left me uneasy.
Seraphine had been up before me, which was unusual. I found her already dressed, standing at the edge of the main garden with her arms folded across her chest, staring at something near the stone archway.
"Morning," I called softly, stepping through the path lined with rose vines. The fragrance was heady this morning, stronger than usual, as though nature itself was trying to mask something sinister beneath layers of sweetness.
She turned, but slowly. Her face was pale, and her hazel eyes had lost their usual luster. She looked… off. Like someone half-remembering a nightmare. Her movements were slow, almost dreamlike.
"I couldn't sleep," she said, voice a whisper. "I felt like something was calling me."
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
"Calling you?"
She nodded toward the cluster of vines near the base of the arch. "I was walking past and saw something glinting. I dug it out."
There was something wrong with her voice—an echo, maybe, or a hollow quality that made the words feel like they didn't belong to her entirely.
Curiosity prickled in my gut like a warning. I stepped closer and saw what she meant—a small object, partially covered in loose soil, glinting faintly beneath the leaves.
"Don't touch it," I blurted.
But it was too late.
Seraphine bent down and picked it up with a soft gasp. The moment her fingers wrapped around the dark metal, a visible ripple passed through her body—as if the air itself shivered.
She staggered backward, clutching the object in her hand.
"Seraphine!"
I lunged forward and caught her just as she stumbled. Her skin was cold, her lips parted in confusion, and her eyes were locked on the thing in her palm.
It was a pendant.
No—an amulet.
Oval in shape, with blackened silver edges and a center stone so dark it seemed to drink in the light. Veins of red pulsed beneath the surface, like living blood trapped beneath glass.
And then it bled.
I watched, horrified, as a thread of shadow leaked from the edges of the gem, curling around her fingers like smoke from a dying fire. It slithered along her wrist, winding like a snake up the length of her forearm.
"Drop it!" I yelled.
But she didn't. Couldn't.
She stared at it as though it had entranced her. Like her very soul was listening to something I couldn't hear.
In that moment, I remembered.
The same amulet. The same garden. The same soft gasp and the same shadows.
It had started here. Everything had started here.
In my past life, this cursed thing had been the beginning of the end. I hadn't even known about it until it was too late. Seraphine had found it, just like now, but I had been too caught up in court drama, too blind to notice how she began to change.
How her smile began to dim.
How she stopped speaking during meals.
How her eyes looked like windows to a place not meant for the living.
And then one day—
She was gone.
Vanished without a trace. Some said she ran. Others whispered she had been taken by a rogue faction. But I knew. I knew because I had found the amulet days later in her room, under her pillow, still humming with dark energy. I'd held it. Felt its hunger. Its cold, biting hunger.
I'd failed her once.
Not this time.
"Seraphine, look at me," I said, crouching to her level, placing both hands on her shoulders. Her skin felt like ice. "You need to drop it. Right now. It's cursed."
"I can't," she whispered. "It won't let me."
I gently reached for it, but as my fingers brushed the metal, pain ripped through my hand. Not physical—mental. Emotional. Images flooded my mind.
Fire.
Blood.
A throne room lit with firelight.
A noose tightening around my throat.
The amulet didn't just show horror. It consumed you in it.
I reeled back, breath ragged, clutching my head. My vision swam with flashes I couldn't make sense of—cries in a forgotten language, something ancient clawing at the edge of my mind.
"Seraphine—"
"Aurenya!"
Elara's voice cut through the haze like a sword.
She ran toward us, skirts flying, eyes wide as she saw Seraphine. One glance at the amulet and her face drained of color.
"In the goddess's name, what is that?"
I stood. "It's cursed. We have to get it away from her."
But Elara seemed to sense it already. She pulled a piece of folded cloth from her sleeve, murmuring something beneath her breath, and reached carefully.
"I'll take it," she said, "just for a moment."
Seraphine blinked. And blinked again. Then, with a trembling hand, she dropped it into the cloth. Elara wrapped it tightly and stuffed it into her satchel.
The moment it was gone, Seraphine collapsed into my arms, shaking.
"I didn't mean to—" she whispered.
"I know," I murmured, holding her tightly.
But something had already shifted.
The curse had found her.
---
The rest of the day passed in a blur. We brought Seraphine inside, gave her warm tea laced with calming herbs, and wrapped her in the thickest blanket we had. Her color slowly returned, but her gaze stayed distant, like she was only half there. She barely spoke, and when she did, her words were vague, as if something unseen held part of her mind elsewhere.
Elara stayed close. She didn't ask questions immediately. She simply watched. Observed Seraphine with the silent attentiveness of someone who had seen too much magic go wrong.
Later, we gathered in my room. The cursed amulet was now locked away in a box layered with salt, iron, and protective sigils Elara had drawn with quick, precise movements.
"I've seen magic before," Elara said quietly, seated by the window. Her fingers tapped against the wood frame, restless. "But not like this. This is old. Dangerous."
"It got to her last time," I said. My voice cracked. "I didn't even notice until she was too far gone."
Elara turned toward me slowly. "What do you mean 'last time'?"
I froze.
It slipped out. Again.
I looked away, struggling for words.
"Aurenya," she said gently. "How could you know what happens to Seraphine before it happens?"
"Because it already did," I whispered, meeting her eyes.
She stared at me, frowning. "You… you mean you've had a vision?"
"No," I said quietly. "I've lived this before. All of it. The garden. The curse. Even her death."
Elara blinked. Her expression flickered with doubt, then fear, then something unreadable. "That doesn't make sense."
"I know it doesn't. And I wish I could explain it better. But it's true."
She didn't respond immediately. She stared at her hands, then looked over at Seraphine sleeping on the nearby couch. "So you're saying… you've lived another life? Like reincarnation?"
"I don't know what to call it. But I remember. Everything. Too much."
There was a long silence. Finally, Elara reached out and touched my hand.
"She's still here this time," she said, voice soft.
"Not for long if we don't do something."
I stared at the box, my stomach coiling in dread.
"Someone put that amulet there. Buried it, knowing someone would find it. This isn't coincidence. This is a threat."
"Do you have any idea who?" she asked carefully.
I shook my head. "No. But I plan to find out."
---
That night, I couldn't sleep.
I sat by the fire with a journal open in my lap, quill unmoving. My thoughts spun in circles. The shadows danced on the walls, stretching long and strange across the wood.
I kept thinking of the way Seraphine's eyes had looked when she touched the amulet. How the shadows had bled like ink from her skin. How she hadn't screamed.
The curse was working its way into her mind already.
I had time. Not much, but enough to do something.
I would not let this life repeat the last.
Even if I had to unravel every secret in this cursed kingdom to save her.
Even if I had to fight the darkness I once feared.
They were my family.
And I would burn the world before I lost them again.