The Cursed Kingdom

TWO

"Your right?" I cried, eyes widening in horror. "How can—How do I know you didn't do anyth—" I stopped, remembering something. The blood. The screams. The terror. It all came back so painful, equivalent to a strike to the abdomen with a mallet, that it had me audibly gasping. "Wait, the wolves they—"

I reached up to my neck and bit my lip, holding back a sob that was trying to make its way past my lips. The skin that had once been smooth now felt bumpy and raw to the touch. I could barely brush my fingertips over the area without hissing in discomfort and I dreaded the thought of ever looking in the mirror.

"What happened?" I asked slowly, my voice more steady and sure than it had been when I first opened my eyes.

I saw, in the shadows, his head cock to the side as if he thought it was a peculiar question.

He sighed, slipping off his glasses to place them in the chest pocket of his expensive looking jacket. He almost sounded remorseful.

"Your friends crossed Cursedland's border at the wrong time."

"No, they didn't," I argued desperately, lips wobbling and the bite on my neck burning. "I made sure of it. I watched their feet. Not even a single hair crossed."

In the deepest part of my brain, where logic was outweighed by childish hopes, it gave me the strange sensation that if I defended them enough, that it would somehow make the situation better. That maybe if I said their names enough times aloud they would reappear and everything would be just as it was before.

But the feeling was just that: hope.

My friends were dead, I knew. No amount of justice or good deeds could ever persuade the gods to give them back to me.

"That's impossible. Are you positive?" the man asked coldly. Accusingly.

I tried not to get offended or lash out, reminding myself that I didn't even know where I was and that I needed to be on my best behavior and act like a grateful guest. Angering this stranger, who physically already had the upper hand, without knowing the full extent of his capabilities first would have been the worst thing I could do.

"Yes," I said confidentially, trying to keep my voice level and calm, and repeated it again just in case he hadn't heard it the first time.

"I'll look into it then," he said, his voice telling me he was annoyed.

He suddenly stood, making me recoil in fear at how massive he was. He snapped his book shut, placed it under his armpit, and stalked over to the left side of the bed, his legs and strides so long that it barely took him but a couple steps. Grabbing the curtains, he quite roughly pulled them open to reveal the sunlight, whose bright midwinter beams landed straight on his face and revealed what the darkness had been hiding.

My eyes widened.

I had expected him to look older, his deep voice having held a maturity and somber tone that I assumed came from at least decades of turmoil and education. Instead, I was met with the face of a young twenty-something year old. Paired with a strong aquiline nose was a set of golden eyes and pink lips that almost looked feminine but somehow made him more handsome, a nice change from his otherwise sharp features. With high cheekbones and a defined, square jawline covered by smooth tanned skin, his face could easily be described as the most beautiful I had ever seen.

But what really had me staring so intensely, consuming me with shock and something along the lines of fear, was the deep, jagged scar that ran through his dark eyebrow on his left side, over his eyelid, and down to the bottom of his nose.

"You," I said, my eyebrows lifting in recognition at the healed wound's familiar pattern. "You were the wolf, the black one with scars. You stopped that other wolf from..." I trailed off and brought my hand around and to the back of my neck. The memory of why they were there almost made the superficial puncture wounds more painful than the mutilation above my collarbone.