Withering Rose (Once Upon A Curse Book 2) Read Online Free Page B

look at
the ground.
    "I forbid it," he says with the deep voice
of the king I remember.
    My heart drops. But I lick my lips and find
the strength to look up and meet his gaze. "What's keeping you
here, Papa? What's keeping us here?" A brief glimmer of light
passes over his eyes, and I recognize it. Hope. The heavy pressure
in my chest grows. "They're gone, Papa. They're dead."
    The light in his eyes fades.
    His frown deepens.
    A familiar despair gnaws at my thoughts, but
I push it away. We've never spoken of this, but it's always been
there. And it's time.
    "Mother and sissy are gone," I whisper. My
throat is still raw from my earlier screaming, so the words come
out scratchy and broken. "Our kingdom is gone. How many times do we
need to search the maps before you will believe it? Our castle, our
city, our lands, they disappeared in the earthquake, and there is
no way to retrieve them. You are king of a lost kingdom, and I'm
the princess of a people who are never coming back. I can't live in
the past any longer."
    "We don't know," he whispers, strength
gone.
    I cringe. "We do, Papa. We've known for a
while. How many more times will you use their machines to search in
vain for our kingdom? How many more times will you try to find a
home that isn't there? Mother died ten years ago, you and I both
know that is a fact. I could never have the magic otherwise. And
there's another fact we both know. Sissy was barely two, and Mother
never let her out of her sight. They are gone, Papa. We must accept
it. We must move on and figure out how to live in this new world
we've been thrown into."
    He looks to the floor, dropping his forehead
into his hands, running his fingers through his ebony hair. For the
first time in a long time, I realize I'm not the only one hiding,
not the only one running. "You are all I have left, Omorose."
    "I know, Papa," I murmur gently. "We're all
each other has. And if you love me, you must realize it is killing
me to be here. You must—"
    "Being here is the only thing keeping you
alive," he interrupts, snapping his head up to find my eyes.
    My own go wide.
    I flinch as though struck.
    There is a confession in those words, one
I've never understood until now.
    "You," I gasp, then swallow, trying to bite
back the hurt. I shake my head as the realization fully hits.
"Staying here was never about Mother or sissy or our people.
Staying here, you knew what it was doing to me. You knew how hard
it was for me. But you didn't care. As long as I couldn't use my
magic, you didn't care."
    "Your magic will kill you," he says, not
denying anything. "I watched it kill your mother. Day by day a
little bit of her life seeped away, a little bit of her soul, her
happiness, her beautiful essence that I loved so dearly. You were
too young to understand, but it's not only time the magic takes
away. It strips away pieces of you, slowly enough that you won't
even realize they're gone until it is too late."
    "Papa," I whisper.
    I know all of this. I've felt it.
    "Twenty-five years." He sighs deeply.
"Twenty-five years is the longest amount of time any woman in your
lineage has lasted after inheriting the magic. Twenty-five years is
not enough, Omorose. I've outlived one wife and one daughter, and I
cannot do it again."
    I deflate. My shoulders hunch, and the bear
I had still been clutching to my chest falls away as my arms go
limp.
    Twenty-five years?
    And I've spent ten of them in hiding.
    I shake my head and take a deep breath.
"This changes nothing," I answer softly. "If anything, it makes my
conviction even stronger. I have to go, Papa. If I only have
fifteen years left, I want them to be spent living. And what I do
here? It's not living, Papa. I'm barely getting by, barely
surviving. Don't you want more for me than that?"
    The corners of his eyes glisten. But his jaw
is hard-set and stubborn.
    I continue before he can say anything.
"Don't you want me to be happy?"
    My voice falls away. The words hang between
us, filling the small