Chapter2

He gave me a glance and quickly looked away. "Whatever you say."

The final string of hope in my heart finally snapped completely.

The incantation stone pressed against my chest. My limbs were locked tight by runes, rendering me entirely immobile. "Damien, for the sake of all the years we've known each other, after I die, bury me in the White Feather Plains."

The White Feather Plains was the place where we first flew side by side. Back then, he had just inherited the title of Duke. He rode a silver-winged griffin, and I spread my pristine white wings to fly beside him. The wind rushed between us. He turned his head to look at me, his eyes filled with absolute wonder: "Aria, you look so beautiful when you fly."

"You still have the nerve to mention the White Feather Plains!" He pressed his lips into a thin line, his voice plunging into sudden coldness. "When we were ambushed by dark sorcerers back then, you clearly could have flown away with both of us, but you didn't! You flew away by yourself and left me to those demons!"

"I didn't run away..." I stared at him in sheer disbelief. "Damien, what are you talking about?"

Chloe paused her preparations for the ritual. "Aria, how can you even say that without any shame? When the Duke was surrounded by dark sorcerers, if I hadn't risked my life to find reinforcements, he would have had his soul drained dry!" "But what about you? While his life was hanging by a thread, you just spread your wings and flew away!" "You abandoned him. What right do you have to talk about that sky now!"

She grew increasingly agitated as she spoke, looking as if she wanted to stab me in the chest a few more times. Damien grasped her wrist, softening his voice: "Alright, it's not worth getting angry over someone like her. Let's proceed with the ritual first."

I clearly felt the dark magic curse mark begin to corrode into my chest. It was agonizing. Unable to move, I could only clench my jaw tight as my consciousness gradually blurred.

Three years ago, Damien was ambushed by dark sorcerers. It was me who had used the protective amulet he personally hung around my neck to sense his location. I carried him into the sky with my wings, but the dark sorcerers' rain of poisoned arrows was too dense. To shield him, one of my wings was brutally pierced through, and it could no longer support the weight of two people. I had no choice but to hide him in a secret cave at the top of the cliff, using my last bit of prayer power to seal the entrance. Then, dragging my mangled, bleeding wing, I lured the pursuers toward the other side of the bottomless abyss.

I fell into the abyss and remained in a coma for seven full days. When I woke up, my right wing was completely shattered, and the ruined feathers would never grow back. Damien came to see me once. He stared at the severed wing on my back, lingered in silence for a long time, and then turned away. From then on, he never looked at me with gentle eyes again. I thought he was overwhelmed with guilt and heartache because I had become crippled, so I never dared to bring it up.

But as it turned out, he believed I was a coward who feared death and flew away alone at the first sign of danger.

The person who led the reinforcements to find him in the cave and claimed the credit for saving his life was Chloe.

He clearly had my protective amulet, which carried the essence of my origin. As long as he infused a sliver of magic into it, he would have known what kind of torture I was enduring in the abyss back then. But he never tried. Not even once.

The intense agony in my chest became more and more pronounced, interrupting my thoughts. The curse mark had completely corroded through my flesh and skin. My chest cavity was violently pried open, and dark gold runic chains acted like glowing rib spreaders, forcibly securing the edges of the gaping wound.

In the next second, Chloe's freezing hand reached inside. Her movements were clumsy. She probed blindly through the bloody mess three times before finally grazing the edge of my heart. Dark golden blood splattered from my wound and trickled down the altar. Cold sweat soaked my ritual robes. Unable to hold on any longer, I cried out in pain.

"Chloe, pause for a moment," Damien's voice rang out.

I thought he had finally changed his mind and halted the ritual. Instead, I saw him look down. A pitch-black serpentine familiar was flicking its tongue by his feet, slithering around his leather boots. "Morkel came looking for you." A doting smile reached his eyes.

Chloe immediately set down the incantation stone heavily stained with my golden blood. Without even taking off her ritual robes, she rushed over to pick up the venomous snake. "I'm so sorry, darling! I missed your feeding time! It's all because of that useless living sacrifice, Aria!" She rubbed the snake's head affectionately and took a silver jar from an attendant's hand. "I know you only drink the Shadow Dew mixed personally by the Duke. You must be starving, right? Drink up."

Abandoned on the freezing altar with a massive, gaping bloody hole in my chest, I watched helplessly as she fed her snake in what should have been a sacred and solemn sacrificial chamber.

Damien turned around and met my gaze, his brow furrowing. "Why are your lips so pale?" He took the remaining half-jar of Shadow Dew that Chloe had just used to feed the snake and walked toward me. "Drink this."