To Melt A Frozen Heart | ONC 2024

Chapter 15 | A Resolution

I held his blue-eyed gaze. "Yours?"

"You are not surprised?"

I sighed. "No. But now I have questions."

"Don't you always?" That was Wrynn.

Cassian cracked a wry smile; I rolled my eyes.

Then his expression turned serious again. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

Cassian narrowed his eyes. "You will have to be a little more specific than that."

"Well, start at the beginning. What is going on in Evenspire?"

I waited. And waited. Time seemed to stretch out before us.

The king took a breath. "Evenspire is cursed."

"Cursed?"

I raised an eyebrow at him. His expression didn't change – he was serious then.

But how? Curses didn't exist, not really. In books, but not in the real world.

"It is a long story."

"We have time."

"Maybe not."

"Well then, you'd better start now."

Cassian's jaw twitched. "Very well."

Wrynn took up his pacing again. My attention returned to Cassian, and he began to speak.

"A long time ago, I was cursed. My kingdom along with me."

I waited; he continued.

"In rejecting the advances of a powerful sorceress, I was cursed. My heart is freezing, Aurelia. And soon it will be completely so."

"What then?"

"I will die. Evenspire will fall."

My eyes widened. "But there must be a way to stop it, surely."

There always was in the books.

Cassian held my gaze. "Only true love can melt it."

"So, that is why I am here, then? That is why there were other girls like me? To get her to fall in love with you and break the curse?"

"Yes. That was the idea. But the more my heart freezes, the more difficult love becomes. I am colder, harsher, unkinder than ever I was. The odds were always stacked against me."

I cast my eyes down.

So, it really wasn't his fault?

I tried to imagine, what would he be like without the curse? What sort of a man?

"That is not all..." Cassian's voice cut through my thoughts and the swirling snow.

My gaze met his once again.

"The second half of the curse was more dangerous. More destructive. It is why I ordered almost everyone to leave the palace."

"What do you mean?"

"Every night... I change."

I narrowed my eyes. "Change how?"

Cassian paused, indecision in his eyes. "You might know me as the beast."

I couldn't help it then; my mouth fell open. "The dragon? You are the dragon?"

Then anger hit me. "You almost killed me. You killed those people..."

Cassian's eyes widened as he realised the conclusions that I was coming to. "No, Aurelia. I cannot control it. I cannot even remember what I have done. That is why no one is here anymore... I do not wish to hurt anyone."