Elara's POV
The fortress door closes behind us with a sound like a coffin lid slamming shut.
I stand in the entrance hall, still shaking from the execution square, trying to understand what just happened. Commander Thorne saved me. The Stone Heart—the man who's burned hundreds of witches—actually saved me.
"This way." He walks deeper into the fortress without looking back.
I don't move. Can't move. My legs feel like water.
He stops, turns. "Do you want to live or not?"
"I don't understand any of this!" The words burst out. "You dragged me to the execution platform. Let them chain me to the stake. Stood there while they lit the torch. And then—" My voice cracks. "Then you stopped it. Why?"
"I told you why. The curse—"
"No." I shake my head frantically. "You could have just taken me from the dungeon. Why make me think I was going to die? Why let it get that far?"
Something flickers in his gray eyes. Guilt, maybe. Or exhaustion.
"Because High Inquisitor Vale is suspicious of me," he says quietly. "He's been watching me for months. If I'd refused to bring you to the square, he would have questioned why. Sent someone else. Someone who would have actually lit that fire."
"So you made it look real."
"I made it look like I was doing my job. Until I had an excuse to take you that he couldn't refuse." He runs his cursed hand through his hair. "Now stop asking questions and follow me. We don't have much time."
He leads me through cold stone corridors. The fortress is enormous—all black stone and shadows, built into the mountain itself. We pass empty rooms, locked doors, windows that show nothing but cliffs dropping away to nowhere.
It's the loneliest place I've ever seen.
Finally, he stops at a door and pulls out keys. "This will be your room."
The door swings open. Inside is a small space with a bed, a table, a single window with bars.
"It's a cell," I say flatly.
"It's a room with a lock." He meets my eyes. "Which is better than a cage. Trust me."
Something in his tone makes me shiver. "What cage?"
He doesn't answer. Just gestures for me to go inside.
I step through the doorway. The room is cold but clean. Better than the dungeon. Not by much.
"You'll stay here when I'm not training you," Commander Thorne says. "I'll bring meals. Books, if you cooperate. Try to escape and you'll find out exactly how far the drop is from those windows."
"Training me to do what, exactly? Break curses? I don't even know how my own magic works!"
"Then you'll learn fast." He starts to close the door.
"Wait!" I grab the edge. "What happens after the week? If I break your curse—will you let me go?"
He goes very still. For a long moment, he doesn't answer.
"I don't know," he finally admits. "High Inquisitor Vale will expect you to burn eventually. If I suddenly release you, he'll know something's wrong. He'll have me investigated. Arrested. Probably executed for treason."
"So I'm still a prisoner. Just in a different cage."
"Yes." No apology. No comfort. Just brutal honesty. "But at least you'll be alive. That's more than most witches get."
He closes the door. Locks it.
I'm alone.
I sink onto the bed and let myself fall apart. The tears come hard and fast—for my ruined life, my traitorous family, the execution I almost faced. For this impossible situation where my only hope of survival is helping the man who should have killed me.
Eventually, I run out of tears. I'm staring at nothing when I hear something.
A crash from somewhere below. Then a sound that makes my blood freeze.
Someone screaming in pain. Raw, agonized, trying to stay quiet but failing.
It's coming from beneath my floor.
I press my ear to the stone. The screaming continues—gasping, desperate. Then words, so faint I barely catch them:
"Not again... please... not again..."
It's Commander Thorne.
The curse. It must be getting worse.
I should be happy. Should hope it kills him. He's a monster who burns people like me.
But instead, I feel my magic stirring. That same green energy that exploded at Seraphine's wedding. It's reaching out, drawn to his pain like a moth to flame.
The screaming stops. Heavy silence fills the fortress.
Minutes pass. Maybe an hour.
Then my door unlocks.
Commander Thorne stands there. His face is pale, covered in sweat. He's gripping his right arm with his left hand—the cursed one hidden beneath his sleeve.
"We start now," he says roughly. "Can't wait until tomorrow."
"You need rest—"
"I need you to tell me everything you felt when you touched my hand." He stumbles into the room. For the first time, I see him as something other than the Stone Heart. He looks young. Scared. Human.
"The curse is worse tonight," I guess.
"It's always worse at night." He sits heavily on the room's single chair. "During the day, I can fight it. Control it. But when I sleep..." He trails off.
"What happens when you sleep?"
He looks at me with those exhausted gray eyes. "I dream about everyone I've burned. Every witch I've executed. And in the dreams, they're all Elena Cross—the woman who cursed me. They beg me to stop. To show mercy. And I never do."
Guilt. He's drowning in guilt.
"How many?" I whisper. "How many people have you killed?"
"Fifty-three confirmed witches. Probably more whose names I never learned." His voice is flat, dead. "Most of them were innocent. I know that now. But back then, I believed the Inquisition. Believed magic was evil. Believed I was protecting people."
"And now?"
"Now I'm dying from a curse I earned." He laughs bitterly. "Poetic justice, really."
I should hate him. Should want him to suffer for all those deaths.
But looking at him—broken and cursed and haunted by his victims—I just feel tired.
"Show me," I say quietly. "Show me how bad the curse is."
He hesitates. Then slowly pulls off his glove.
I gasp.
The gray stone has spread up his entire hand, across his wrist, halfway up his forearm. It's not smooth like regular stone—it's jagged, cracked, like his skin is breaking apart from the inside.
"Touch it," he says. "Tell me what you sense."
I reach out carefully. The moment my fingers brush the stone, magic slams into me.
It's worse than before. So much worse. The curse isn't just killing him—it's torturing him. Every second, it sends waves of pain through his body. And buried deep in the magic, I feel the curse's true purpose.
"Oh gods," I breathe.
"What? What do you feel?"
I pull my hand back, horrified. "It's not just turning you to stone. It's making you feel everything you made your victims feel. Every witch you burned—you're experiencing their pain. All of them. Every night."
The color drains from his face.
"That's impossible. No curse is that—"
"This one is." My magic pulses, confirming what I sensed. "Elena Cross didn't just curse you to die. She cursed you to understand. To feel what they felt. To burn from the inside out, slowly, for years."
He stands abruptly, swaying. "Can you break it?"
"I don't know! I barely understand my own magic, let alone—"
"Try." It's not a command. It's a plea. "Please. Just try."
I stand, moving closer. Place both hands on his cursed arm.
My magic reaches out instinctively, searching for a way to help. Green light flows from my palms into the gray stone. For just a moment, the curse responds—pulling back slightly, like it recognizes my power.
Then it attacks.
Pain explodes through me. I scream, jerking away. The curse doesn't want to be broken. It wants revenge.
Commander Thorne catches me before I fall. "Are you hurt?"
"It fought back," I gasp. "The curse—it's alive. Or at least aware enough to defend itself."
"But you touched it. Your magic connected to it."
"For two seconds before it tried to kill me!"
He helps me to the bed. His cursed hand shakes as he releases me.
"Then we have six days left," he says quietly, "to figure out how to fight something that's smarter and angrier than both of us combined."
He walks to the door. Stops with his hand on the frame.
"Elara? The woman who cursed me—Elena Cross. She had a daughter. Eight years old."
My stomach drops.
"What happened to her?"
He doesn't turn around. "The Inquisition doesn't leave loose ends. Someone else executed her a week after her mother died." His voice drops to barely a whisper. "I couldn't stop it. I tried, but my rank wasn't high enough then. I had to watch them burn an eight-year-old girl for the crime of having a witch for a mother."
He leaves, locking the door behind him.
I sit in the darkness, my mind reeling.
The Stone Heart isn't just cursed. He's been living in hell for three years—haunted by the innocent people he killed, unable to save a child, dying slowly while feeling every victim's pain.
And somehow, I'm supposed to save him.
But the real question keeps circling in my mind:
Do I even want to?