CHAPTER ONE
September 5, 1904
Asdiel’s mansion was hovering between the shadows of the oaks and the twinkling verdant ponds. Over the months after the ancient witch’s death, it had lost none of its unrelenting spirit that disguised itself behind the moth-eaten doors, moss-lidded windows and muck-filled garden. It was still that same place that had slaughtered and stained hearts with the unfriendly hand of Dark Magick.
But what was creating more gloom in the wild hill was not the virulent, salty weeds tangling into feet, or the screeching crows throwing clumped ashes to the garden: it was Elliot’s oceanic eyes darkening even with a little agitated
thought, and his mercurial temperament that seemed to skulk into depths of his being for the last few months.
“Most musical, most melancholy bird… How idle thought! There is nothing melancholy in Nature, but some wandering man whose heart was pierced.” One of the poems of Samuel Coleridge slipped out of Elliot’s lips while he was gazing at the skyline.
Like violet embroidered broken wings, the petals of an Iris disintegrated in Melody’s palm. She didn’t even notice she was crushing the flower for a while.
“I don’t understand.” She said calmly, trying to ignore the new frustration
invading her heart whenever Elliot avoided looking at her.
“How? Nightingale used to be one of your favorite poems.”
“I am not talking about that.”
Melody straightened in the chair she was sitting at; when she spoke again, her temperate voice was no longer masking her confusion mingling with heartbreak.
“Elliot.”
He could no longer pretend to be watching the fireflies waltzing above the bright blossoms, not when the fear blossoming in her soul was becoming as visible as the unreasonable winter growing between them. Fighting an urge to
respond to the softening expression on her face with every piece of him, he remained silent when she took his hands in hers.
“I am not going back to the Academy without you.”
———
You can buy CURSE OF THE WICKED on AMAZON!
(IT IS THE SECOND BOOK IN THE ONGOING TRILOGY)
Comments