Then, as Lucus explained the details of the curse to Nora and the Binder, I walked down the hill slowly, step by step, until we realized no one even needed my aura anymore.
I jogged back up. “Do you think the curse is broken now?”
“I wish I knew of a way to break it, but my experience has shown that curses are permanent. One can alter, stretch, or twist them, but they remain,” the Binder said.
He looked different now with his hand on Oliver’s head and his gaze distant. The energy around him felt settled, and his eyes had lost that gleam of madness. Nora too appeared like an entirely new individual. Though circles ringed her tired eyes, her shoulders were straight, and her fingers no longer twitched with the need to do something.
Like we’d summoned a dark spell, the castle trembled, throwing down several stones from the top of the curtain wall. We dodged the debris as the clock chimed, jarringly announcing midnight.
“Ugh. I think it’s still in effect. Different, but still there.” I tromped back inside to look around since it seemed like the quaking was done for the moment.
Hekla trailed me, Lucus on her heels. “I thought the sacrifice was made when you put someone outside the castle? If they can all leave without turning to ash, how will the sacrifice work?”
“There is no way to know,” Lucus said, glancing at his brothers.
Baccio glared. “Lucus, I don’t want to be your enemy, but…”
“But you sided against me.” Lucus glanced at Aurelio, who had the decency to look ashamed.
Baccio sighed, his jaw working. “But after all we’ve suffered, I can’t believe you dragged me back here. I can’t live like this. Not anymore.” He spun, leapt, then took off into the sky.
Lucus inhaled sharply and watched his brother disappear into the night.
“How far will Kaippa and Baccio be able to travel from here?” Nora asked.
“I suppose we’ll find out,” I said.
The Binder lifted Oliver into his arms and pushed the boy’s thick hair away from his eyes. Oliver buried his head in his father’s chest. “Coren, you do realize who you are, don’t you? That you might possibly have the ability to do what has been impossible until now?”
“What am I? Oh, you mean the Yew Bow? I’m not that prophecy lady though. I’m clueless, and I don’t feel any more powerful.”
Lucus lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t you? I know you have my magic flowing through yours.”
“How?” Nora asked.
“It was the unicorn blood,” I explained. “The unicorn of scary darkness was on Team Us and spoke to my brain and told me to put my hands in his pal’s blood.”
Hekla whistled. “I forgot about that. He really was a dark one.”
“Yep. And when I let Lucus feed from my aura…” I glared, daring anyone to judge me. “When I chose to allow Lucus to take from my energy, the blood that had sunk into my palms somehow made it so I could absorb fae magic. That’s how I broke the Yew Bow barrier. Lucus poured his power into me, and I combined it with my own and the ley lines’ strength, too.”
Nora crossed her arms, a grin tugging at her lips. “You are the Yew Queen.”
“No way, dude. Just a baker. Oh, and a mage, I guess. But that’s it.”
Hekla reached across Lucus to sock me in the arm. “You have to be the queen thing because the Yew Bow is still here. The story said only the mage meant to have the Bow would be drawn to it. Did you feel anything when you first saw it?”
I swallowed, feeling like the castle might be shaking again, because the world seemed to have tilted on its axis. I wasn’t a queen of anything. “I did. I heard it humming. And I couldn’t stop staring at it.”
“I wonder…” Lucus scratched his chin. “Did you hear a song in the Bow like you do in your own magic?”
“Yes! When I claimed it, I heard one heavenly note. It was wild. You all heard it too, right?”
They shook their heads.
“It’s you,” Nora whispered, her eyes wide and her grin becoming a smile. “You are fated to wake the world.”
I wiped my sweating hands on my trousers. “What does that even mean?”
Nora shrugged and looked to the Binder, who didn’t seem to have an answer.
Lucus studied me, his gaze slipping over my body like hands before he met my eyes. “You will introduce the modern world to magic they can’t ignore, Coren. You will wake them up. Shifters. Mages. Fae. Humans. You will change them for the good as you have changed me.”
Hekla sighed. “Get a room. But really, if you’re super powerful, let’s see if you can break the curse?”
“You up for it?” I asked Lucus.
“Since the curse protects no one from Baccio or Kaippa and will most likely demand one of our lives at the end of the moon’s cycle, yes. I am indeed up for it, as you say.”
Chapter 31
I grabbed the Yew Bow and held it above my head. I wasn’t sure why, but it felt right. Kind of like those old He-Man episodes or Highlander or whatever. Lucus held my free hand as I envisioned my golden aura, my energy, and pushed it to expand, to increase. The energy from the ley lines surged through me, unexpectedly strong, and my eyes shot open. I hadn’t even realized I’d closed them.
Everyone watched me, faces full of awe. Lightning snapped in the air around my head, and amethyst clouds billowed through the courtyard.
“Show us the curse,” I demanded, willing the Mage Duke’s magic to show itself to my own. “Show me the curse cast by
