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Keeping my chin safely tucked into my chest kept me from having to meet his eye. The veil my hair created also allowed me to measure his reaction when I nodded.
Without offering to help me up, he walked to the side entrance and wrenched the door open, then held it open for me. I adjusted the strap keeping his instrument secured to my back as I slunk off his bike.

Cain wiped the tears welling in his eyes
as I approached. I was surprised by the vehemence of his reaction, but then again, I wasn’t. Cain had not just lost his only child, but Lissa. Easy as it would have been to pretend otherwise, I knew a part of him would always carry her in his heart.

His hands brushed my shoulders as he pulled the instrument case over my head and hefted it over his shoulder. I stared at his scuffed
-up black boots, at the way the sunlight bounced off the silver buckles, to keep from looking him in the eye. And then I forced myself to remember that I was already dead, living on borrowed time. I didn’t belong in this world of humans any longer. This world belonged to people like Cain and Lissa and their children.

Children you will never have. U3

I gasped at the unexpectedly painful thought and trudged down the stair after him.

Music greeted us at the bottom of the stairwell, the same breathy, brassy kind I listened to every day in his apartment. Here in the club everything was much more real. I could easily see him and Jude scampering between tables and behind the bar where they shouldn’t be. People flittered in and out of the dressing rooms half-clothed and a few of the women shrieked with embarrassment when they saw Cain. He glanced at me from the corner of his eye and his scar creased deeper into his flesh as he grinned at me. My furrowed brow smoothed and I smiled back. It would seem, in spite of everything, nothing had changed between us in Cain’s eyes.

Stage lights were already fully honed in on the instruments and their players. Cain had told me a rough idea of the way things would go tonight. He assumed I was dancing again but I was unwilling to expose myself to anyone tonight. This night was about him.

Cain didn’t like revealing much about himself to most people, I had learned. Apparently Jude and Lissa knew a lot more than Cain would have liked them to. Now I knew pieces of what they knew and so the moment they met us off stage, I understood why Cain tensed so tightly. I knew why he had pulled away from Lissa. But I wondered for a moment what had happened between him and his cousin.

Jude smiled with a swaggering step and
a thick dollop of charisma on his tongue. Swearing heavily at first, he added, “Never thought anyone was gonna get you back on that stage again, little cuz. She must be really good.” His laughter was quickly cut off after a jab of Cain’s fist to his arm. Jude scowled a moment and rubbed the sore spot.

“Serves you right,
” Lissa drawled over him with a sneer and reluctantly met my eye. “He’s got a point though. Orona must be something special to get
you
here.”

Had I not heard the wistfulness in her tone, or caught the flicker of longing in her gaze as she looked to Cain, I might have thought she was jealous. Her reaction only confirmed my suspicions.

“She is,” my love replied. Cain reached over and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me into his warm side.

Jude laughed and arched an eyebrow. “Good thing. We were short of acts tonight. Lissa here can finally re
st those vocal cords of hers. Ain’t that right, baby?”

Lissa pasted a false smile on her face when he reached over and clasped her neck with his hand. Only I caught the flicker of fear in her green orbs. Briefly, I recalled how haggard and broken she had looked in Derek’s apartment.
Unwittingly I scanned her skin for bruises to see if she had gone home with him last night after all.

Lissa’s hand reached up to cover her bare arm then, hovering over the very place my eyes had been fixed on. Before I could silently confront her, she had turned
and slipped away.

Jude called out to the instrument players, “What kind of garbage is that?
Am I paying you to write your own music? You expect to draw in a crowd or turn them away?”

Cain’s chest expanded against mine and I looked up at him ju
st in time to catch his pensive study of the stage. He smiled faintly when I squeezed his arm and said, “You are going to do well. Remember how you told me how it felt the first time you played for your uncle?” He nodded and tucked his chin into his chest. I smiled and added, “This time you will play for you.”

“I’d better get up there,” he replied with a lift of his shoulders. The movement was just enough to pry him from my touch and I watched
sadly as he approached the stage.

Jude turned and noticed his taller cousin and clapped a hand on his shoulder. This time Cain did not reject the teasing banter.

I slipped into the shadows and sat upon one of the many empty plush bar stools. I watched as the other men and woman ceased in their playing to greet Cain. He climbed upon the stage and stiffened against an onslaught of hugs and exclamations. I watched fondly, even as a fresh wave of pain clenched my chest and refused to let go.

The heart that should not be still beating was grasped in a tight vice and needle
-sharp pricks danced up and down my skin.

Not now! Please!

My hand reached out to clasp the edge of the bar as I doubled over and struggled for breath. I could not ruin this for Cain. Nothing mattered more to me now than his healing. Music was the key to his soul, as it had once been to mine. Sound thickened and grew muffled around me. Soon the sound of laughter gave way to amplified strings being plucked on the stage. I recognized Cain’s touch even now, in the heat of the curse’s hold over me.

Blood escaped my lower lip where I had bit down too harshly and the taste was what pulled me from the haze. I blinked, startled to see an immeasurabl
y short span of time had already passed.

Where is Cain? Where are Jude and the others?

Colors filled my vision as I watched the dancers grace the stage. Though I knew their personalities to be crass, their movement was fluid like the swirling waters of the sea. They did not dance with the same fevered intensity as my sisters and I once had. Which was just as well, judging by the reaction my dancing had pulled from the audience the other night. Music was timeless in its ability to pull your soul. Soon my eyes wandered from the bright lights pouring in harsh lines above, to the halos of color emanating over everyone’s heads. Immediately I straightened and stared, disbelieving.

This is new.

Fear prickled in the back of my thoughts as I opened myself up to Seid’s gift as far as I dared. I spent much of my existence fighting his hold over me. Yet these past days, as I struggled to find my humanity again, my pain worsened. For some time I had fought the obvious answer.

Now that I chose to give in to the curse, I felt a rush of invincibility and power. I could feel the color prickling from beneath my skin, yearning to escape and unveil my true nature. And the sudden rush of emotions and flicker of memories leaked from the people before me in a web of glowing blue strands that twisted together. Until they were one roped cord that pierced
and flooded me as it was meant to do. What frightened me most was not that it was overwhelming or too much.

It feels right.

Tears flowed down my cheeks and I tore at the visible cord as I attempted to break the connection. The writhing blue threads followed me when I ran from the edges of the club and towards the dressing rooms.

Why did he not come to find me?

I needed to see Cain again, needed to ground myself in his presence. I needed his touch and his lips on mine to keep me human and safe.

When have you ever needed anything?

I told the voice in my head to shut up and stumbled into the vacant women’s dressing room. For a moment the emptiness of the room made me feel like I was set adrift in the middle of a sea of loneliness. I realized then I had half expected to find Lissa here with the dancers. Perhaps Cain too…

Vaguely I remembered them dancing, with the other players and workers pausing to watch them rehearse. But this
brought back the memory of emotions, the flickering images of their hopes and dreams and the almost impossible to ignore
need
to fulfill those desperate desires.

I
stared back at the broken woman in Lissa’s mirror. I gasped when I saw how her orbs were glowing with every color. Her skin too burst with ever-moving ripples of pinks and blues and greens that pushed into softer violets and dusky orange. But her usually golden hair was lit from within, from root to end with a white light.

I wordlessly moaned and resisted the urge to smash the image of the very creature I had fought against for two thousand years. I backed away from the lights and the mirrors until I sank against the wall behind the entrance and buried my face in my hands. My heart beat in my chest like an unceasing drum and the memory of
Seid passed through my closed lids.

I ignored the whispers and fearful gazes coming from my sisters nearby. I was eldest and therefore responsible for their wellbeing, especially after our mother’s illness. I was to set the example of obedience and had struggled to fulfill my father’s expectations. He lamented over having no sons to carry his fortune. I must carry the family legacy, he had said to me moments before.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror, the braids and flowers my sisters had helped arrange with
Mother’s combs. The coal lining my eyes brought out their almost violet shade, another one of my odd features that marked me apart from my dark-featured sisters.

I ignored their whispers now. A wedge had been driven between us that could not be undone. They had spied on us, on Seid and
me, on our special place. Telling Father had been the worst of all choices they could have made. They did not know this yet. They were younger and I sheltered them much.

Now I had no choice but to join with my newly proclaimed husband. What would Seid think? Was he watching even now? Did he know? I longed for the peace I felt in his presence, in his touch. Why did nothing make sense apart from him?

Father suddenly appeared in our rooms and my sisters all bowed low in fear and subjection. His gaze met mine through the mirror. “Come,” he said in that harsh, scathing tone he had begun to use recently. The steel behind his pale eyes might have terrified me more if I had not known the Storm Maker himself.

I followed my father, my sisters trailing behind me, as one going to her funeral. I would never go to our secret place again, I told my rebellious heart. I was going to be a dutiful wife and help manage h
is estate, as Mother had taught me. I was doing this to save my family from certain poverty.

I would never see Seid again for his sake. I made him weaker, he had said, after all. He was not meant to be grounded but wild as the winds over the waters.
This was the only way.

If I had known my husband would be dead in less than two days’ time, I never would have agreed to Father’s demands. Seid’s weakness was greater than he or I knew. His love transformed into a jealous, dangerous monster when he realized what I had done. To him, I had betrayed everything. He had already tried to save me from my father and the man to be my husband once before. He had vowed to destroy them all and held back his fury for my sake.

My husband paid with his life. I never was allowed to see my father and sisters, to learn what happened to them after. For many bitter years
, I believed Seid had killed them as well. Until I returned to our inlet and saw my sisters’ white heads and wrinkled skins. And time softened as much as it hardened some.

I stared at my glowing hands, slicked
wet by the moisture of my tears. For the first time, I saw that day with my eyes wide open. I saw Seid’s face flash before my eyes again, in the moment after he rescued me from my husband’s raping.

“You were
with
him!” he roared. Those glorious sea-crafted orbs were frozen into cold hard metal now, indifferent to my screams.

“I pledged myself to you!” I cried. “
Why are you doing this?”

“Y
ou know why,” he said, seething.

“I didn’t betray you! You would have known if I had! Please spare them!
Punish me!”

He paused and a new gleam filled his eyes, tarnishing their glow to dull silver.
“Will you avow yourself to my will?”

“
I shall do whatever you ask!”

“Cursed!” he cried in a pain
-filled voice. His temper had always been as restless and unpredictable as the sea itself. But his words had power behind them and I felt the effects instantly. Too late to take it back.

“
I grant you your wish to be with me always, yet not as we wanted,” he said. “Now you will walk the earth and seas, to find love and protect it. The one joy you will refuse to feel, you are cursed to preserve at all costs. Always watch but never be seen, Orona, and never touch, lest you face my wrath. Cursed you will be evermore,” he declared, “until time’s end, until it is broken...”