Chapter 344

Chapter 344

I’ve never liked stairs, but they’ve never truly bothered me until now.

The lunatic who designed this staircase deserves prison.

By the time I reach the bottom, my legs finally surrender beneath me. I pitch forward and land face-first on the ground with a muffled groan, too exhausted to care that my mouth is practically full of dirt. Every muscle in my body throbs in protest. My calves burn, my lungs feel scraped raw, and sweat clings to my skin beneath my clothes.

Even Scarlette, who always seems to have endless stamina, looks half-dead.

She lowers herself onto the final step with a grunt, planting both hands behind her for support as her chest rises and falls in heavy, uneven breaths. Damp strands of her vanilla-almond blonde hair cling to her flushed face and neck, and despite trying to hide it, I catch the slight wince that crosses her features.

“We should’ve stayed up there,” she mutters through gritted teeth. “Or at least stopped halfway.”

A groan slips from her lips as she instinctively cradles her stomach.

“It hurts.”

I lift my face from the ground at once, my exhaustion forgotten.

“Scar…”

She shakes her head before I can say anything.

“I’m fine. My babies are stronger than this.” She exhales slowly, leaning her head back as she braces herself on her arms. “Pain’s just inevitable.”

After another long breath, she glances down at me.

“And get yourself off the ground.”

“I’ll think about it,” I mumble into the dirt.

Instead, I fold my arms beneath my head and stay exactly where I am.

The cool earth feels surprisingly comforting against my aching body. I listen to the steady thud of my heartbeat slowly settling, accompanied by our ragged breathing and the distant rustling of leaves stirred by the mountain breeze. My eyes drift shut.

I try to think about anything else.

The sound of the wind through the trees. The ache in my legs. What we’ll do after leaving the temple.

Anything but him.

It doesn’t work.

The priest’s face keeps forcing its way back into my mind, so vivid that it feels as though he’s standing in front of me again. I can still see the terror twisting his features, the frantic way he scrambles away from me, pointing as though I’d crawled straight out of his worst nightmare. His voice echoes relentlessly inside my head, each replay as sharp as the first.

Get that thing out of here.

She doesn’t belong here.

A forsaken evil child.

I squeeze my eyes shut, but the memories only become clearer.

I know I shouldn’t let one stranger affect me this much. He’s the first person who’s ever looked at me with that kind of horror, yet the image digs beneath my skin until my thoughts begin running wild.

What if he isn’t the last?

My mind paints the answers before I can stop it.

Everywhere I go, people shrink away from me. Mothers instinctively pull their children behind them, shielding them from my presence. Conversations die the moment I appear. Faces fill with revulsion. Eyes follow me wherever I walk. Whispers spread through the crowd until they become impossible to ignore.

Monster.

Abomination.

No one actually says the words.

They don’t have to.

I hear them anyway.

A cold heaviness settles in the pit of my stomach, spreading slowly through my chest until even breathing feels harder. The thought of living like that—of becoming something people fear simply by existing—is enough to make my chest tighten painfully. I never realised how terrifying it would be to be seen as less than human until someone looked at me as though I already was.

“Please relax,” Zinnia murmurs, her voice unusually gentle. “Your imagination is far too dangerous.”

“I just…”

“It’s pointless.” She cuts me off before I can finish. “That would never happen. If people were going to react, it’d be more like this…”

The scene in my mind changes instantly.

Instead of terrified villagers shrinking away, a crowd barrels towards me carrying pitchforks, torches and every weapon imaginable. Some have claws instead of hands. It looks less like modern civilisation and more like an angry mob from centuries ago.

Despite myself, I burst out laughing.

“There,” she says smugly. “Much better.”

“It’s still possible,” I argue between chuckles. “Imagine I walk past a mother and her child. She’d grab her kid and start screaming.”

“I’m one hundred per cent certain the curse would make them greedy or murderous, not frightened.” She flicks her tail lazily before bending to lick one of her paws. “Now stop thinking about nonsense. I’m trying to think.”

“About what?”

“I wonder…”

The smirk in her voice is unmistakable.

I roll my eyes.

“You’re so useless.”

“Look in the mirror, little one.”

I snort.

At that exact moment, Scarlette gasps. The sound is so sharp that my eyes fly open.

She’s already on her feet.

Before I can even sit up properly, she’s sprinting into the forest.

“Scar!” I shout, scrambling after her. “Where are you going?”

“Red butterfly!” she calls over her shoulder. “Come on!”

I stop for half a heartbeat.

Red butterfly…

Then it clicks.

Dad.

The exhaustion weighing down my body vanishes beneath a rush of adrenaline. I throw myself after her without another thought. I can’t see the butterfly myself, but Scarlette can, so I trust her completely and follow as she darts between the towering Greek firs.

We run for what feels like the better part of an hour, weaving through roots, rocks and dense woodland before Scarlette finally slows. A short distance ahead, two towering Judas trees stand side by side, their branches spreading wide amongst the darker firs like silent guardians.

Just before we reach them, I catch it.

A flash of crimson.

The butterfly slips neatly through the narrow space between the two trees before disappearing from sight.

Without thinking, I move ahead, with Scarlette falling into step behind me. By now we’ve travelled so deep into the forest that the others are nowhere to be seen, the sounds of the temple long swallowed by the mountain wilderness.

The moment I step between the two Judas trees, the forest disappears.

I come to an abrupt halt.

A cave stretches before me, its vast interior bathed in a soft blue glow. Hundreds of luminous yellow butterflies drift lazily beneath the ceiling, their wings shimmering like scattered embers, while strange blue orbs embedded in the stone walls pulse with a soft, steady light. The air is cool against my sweat-soaked skin and carries the clean scent of damp earth mixed with something faintly sweet.

I spin around, my pulse quickening.

The forest is gone.

There isn’t even an entrance behind me. Only the cave, stretching endlessly into the distance as though it has never known an outside world.

Before panic can fully take hold, another figure materialises a few steps away.

Scarlette.

She blinks once, glances around as if this sort of thing happens every Tuesday, then casually bites into an apple.

I stare at her.

That… actually calms me down.

At least I’m not trapped here alone.

“Where did you get the apple?”

She gives an indifferent shrug, more interested in surveying the cave than answering my question. Travelling to impossible places clearly doesn’t faze her anymore. She has wandered through enough strange lands over the years that this barely registers as unusual.

Without another word, she tosses me a second apple.

I catch it instinctively.

“So,” she says around another bite, “where do we go?”

“I wish I knew.”

I sink my teeth into the fruit. It’s crisp and unbelievably sweet, the juice instantly cooling my dry mouth. The red butterfly is nowhere to be seen.

“Should we split up?”

“Nah.” Scarlette shakes her head immediately. “Terrible idea when we don’t know what’s living in here.”

“Fair point.” I take another bite, then pause. The ache in my legs has vanished. So has the heaviness weighing down my body since the Sun Fox touched my forehead. Even the exhaustion from climbing that cursed staircase seems to melt away with every breath.

I flex my fingers.

The stiffness is gone.

“Is it just me,” I ask slowly, studying my hands, “or do you suddenly feel… refreshed?”

Scarlette rolls one shoulder before testing the other, then clenches and unclenches her fists.

“No,” she murmurs, surprise flickering across her face. “I feel it too. It’s—”

“Turn around… and go forward.”

The whisper is so soft that, for a moment, I mistake it for the butterflies overhead or the breeze slipping through the cave. Then it comes again, gentle and clear, brushing against my ears with the innocent softness of a child’s voice.

It isn’t Zinnia.

It isn’t the mysterious girl from my dreams either.

Whoever it belongs to, there’s something strangely reassuring about it. I don’t recognise the voice, yet every instinct tells me to trust it.

Without stopping to question why, I turn around and head deeper into the cave.