CHAPTER LXVI
The Curse of Love
Cael began advancing toward Caeli, her expression cold and merciless. Each step she took felt like thunder shaking the ground beneath us. I couldn't move—I was frozen in place by the sheer horror of everything that had just happened. My heart felt like it was shattering in slow motion.
She had already killed my mother, my father, Olivia...
Everyone I loved.
And now she was going to kill Caeli too?
No. Not again. I couldn't take another death.
Tears spilled down my cheeks as I stepped forward, desperation overriding fear. I looked directly at her—not at the monster she had become, but at the Cael I once knew. The Cael I had loved with every corner of my soul.
"I love you," I said softly, my voice trembling but clear, "and I'm sorry."
Everything paused.
Even the wind stilled, as if the universe itself was listening.
Cael's eyes flickered for the briefest moment—an unfamiliar crack in her cruel expression. A flicker of emotion. Of memory. But she blinked it away just as fast.
That tiny moment gave me the strength to do what I had to do next.
I turned to the Mother Fairy, who was barely conscious, still standing amid the wreckage of our world. Her silver hair was tangled and bloodied, and her wings hung limp at her sides, but her power still pulsed faintly around her.
"Mother," I said, louder this time, "curse me."
She looked at me as if I had spoken madness.
"You once said," I continued, "that Cael cannot be cursed—not directly. That the only curse which could affect her is one that was never meant for her in the first place."
I took a shaky breath, my voice breaking.
"So curse me. With the same curse the Moon God gave to Cael and Vorgath. Let it be mine now. Let it pass through me and touch her."
Mother Fairy's eyes filled with understanding… and grief.
She nodded solemnly.
"So be it," she whispered.
She raised a trembling hand, and the air grew dense around us. Magic shimmered in the space between her fingers. Her voice, though weak, echoed with power as she spoke:
> **"Celeste… I curse you.
May the one your soul clings to the most—
the one you love beyond reason—
be torn from this world as the full moon completes its rise.
Let their soul abandon their body.
And if they are ever born again,
may it be in the Human World—
where they will be trapped in a never-ending loop,
cursed to forget you,
to forget Fairyland,
and everything they once held dear.
Let them remain lost,
until someone pure enough touches their soul
and frees them from the chains of forgetfulness."**
As the final word left her lips, a blinding white light exploded from her chest, rushing upward into the heavens—then curving sharply, streaking toward the Frosthevan Palace.
But it didn't strike Cael.
It missed her.
It vanished into the icy spires of the palace, leaving her untouched, standing tall—still alive, still dangerous.
At that moment, the full moon emerged completely from behind the clouds. Its light washed over the land like a silver flood. Trees withered in an instant. The air turned still and bitter cold. The fires that had ravaged our world died down in eerie silence.
But something was wrong.
Cael remained.
Unscathed. Unmoved. Breathing.
Mother Fairy's voice cracked.
"No… no, this isn't possible," she whispered, stumbling backward. "The curse… it didn't work?"
The three of us—Caeli, Aurelia, and I—stood in stunned silence, our minds spinning.
Why hadn't the curse touched her?
Was Cael too far gone?
Had she fallen so deep into darkness that not even divine punishment could reach her?
Or had something… someone… protected her?
And in that terrible, still moment, I realized something even more terrifying—
This wasn't the end.
This was only the beginning.
The Veil Unravels
Just when the world seemed to hold its breath in stunned silence, the air split open behind us.
A glowing portal emerged — swirling with blue fire and golden threads of magic — and out stepped Ethan, the son of the infamous witch Laila.
His presence alone was shocking, but it wasn't just him.
Behind him, cloaked in the shimmer of otherworldly enchantment, stood five princesses — each from different realms of the fairy kingdoms. Their expressions were solemn, but not broken. Powerful, but not angry. They looked like they knew truths we had yet to uncover.
A wave of dread curled in my stomach.
Ethan's eyes — those eyes that once brimmed with sorrow — now burned with urgency.
"Mother Fairy!" he called out, his voice cracking with desperation. "Please don't do it. Don't curse Cael."
My breath caught in my throat.
He continued, each word falling like thunder.
"The one standing here as Cael… isn't who you think she is. That's not Cael. That's my mother, Laila."
My heart stopped.
I felt the ground disappear beneath my feet.
What?
Cael… is Laila?
Ethan took a few steps closer, his voice steady now — braver.
"This… this entire thing was part of a larger plan. One crafted by my mother and... the Fairy Queens."
A silence heavier than death descended upon us.
"They knew Cael had to be stopped," Ethan continued. "But not through blood. Not through war. They believed the only way to truly remove her was through illusion… through a grand deception."
My head was spinning.
The betrayal was so vast, so rooted in people I trusted, that I couldn't breathe.
Ethan looked at me, his eyes heavy with sympathy. "Cael had left. She went to Lunaria Noir, where Queen Luna told her the truth. That if she wanted redemption, she had to go to Frosthevan and face Queen Elyon. And she did. She's there right now."
I felt my knees weaken.
The Cael I tried to curse…
That wasn't Cael at all.
That was Laila — hidden under her skin, hidden behind my guilt, my grief… my rage.
Mother Fairy staggered back, her hands trembling.
"Then who died?" she whispered, voice hollow.
Ethan turned and gently gestured toward the five princesses behind him. One by one, they stepped forward, heads held high.
"No one."
His voice echoed across the broken battlefield.
"No one truly died."
A heavy wind swept through us as he revealed the truth.
"My mother orchestrated everything. When you summoned the princesses to Frosthevan, she redirected them. Enchanted them. They pretended to fall. The creatures you saw—dying, burning—they were illusions, nothing more than projected pain. A nightmare tailored just for you… for all of us."
I turned slowly, my breath caught in my chest, and faced the one I thought I had cursed — Cael.
But no…
The illusion faded like fog in the morning sun.
And in her place stood Laila — the true witch.
Her eyes sparkled with mischief and triumph.
"I knew," she said with a twisted smile, "that no one would truly be able to kill Caelum… especially not you, Celeste. Because she's still inside your heart. As long as she exists within you, you will never let her die."
Her voice was calm, composed, terrifying.
"But I needed the world to think she could die," she continued. "So that I could rise. So that I could gather strength in Drakon's eyes. So that the Queens would finally sleep in peace, thinking the nightmare had ended."
I stared at her, unable to speak.
"That's why we made it look real."
She tilted her head.
"So real that even you believed it. So real that even you cursed her."
My hands were cold.
My chest ached.
The words in my throat refused to come out.
And then… her final sentence pierced me like a blade.
"By now, Cael might already be dead. If not by your curse, then by the mistake you made in believing the lie we built for you."
She turned and vanished into golden dust.
I stood there — frozen.
A single thought screamed in my mind.
What have I done?
No tears came.
No screams.
Just silence…
And the weight of a mistake that could never be undone.
To be continue....