The Cursed Rose by Leslie Vedder EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Leslie Vedder
- Language: English
- Genre: Teen & Young Adult Fairy Tales & Folklore Adaptations
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2.7 MB
- Price: Free
Fi
DARKNESS PRESSED IN around Fi like a cold frost, making the hair
stand up on her arms and stealing the breath from her lungs. She blinked,
unable to tell whether her eyes were open or closed. Everything was just
blackness. The smooth stone floor was like ice under her bare feet, and she
shivered in her nightgown, wrapping her arms around herself. She had a
feeling that if she could see anything, her breaths would be white clouds in
front of her face. The silence was so oppressive it echoed like a ringing in
her ears. Fi squeezed her eyes shut, trying to get her bearings and figure out
where she was.
A sharp tug on her hand made Fi’s eyes spring open. She looked down
to find a shining golden thread looped around her fingers, glowing over the
Butterfly Curse mark on her palm. The thread spiraled off into the gloom
like an invitation. Fi lifted the golden string and began pulling it in, hand
over hand, following the unspooling thread deeper into the blackness. A pit
of dread opened in her stomach, gnawing at her insides as she went on. She
had a feeling she had been here before. She knew where this path ended.
Fi began to run, her bare feet slapping against the stone. The golden
thread was so light it felt like nothing in her hands. Something rattled ahead
of her, concealed by the dark. Fi gripped the thread like a lifeline.
Suddenly, she was face-to-face with two gleaming red eyes. The
darkness shrank back as a bone creature surged up in front of her, spiral
horns rising from its bleached skull. Its spine was a twist of disjointed
vertebrae, and its arms were ropes of sinew ending in jutting bone claws. It
was a monster with red eyes—but still Briar’s eyes.
The creature seized Fi by the arms, those sharp claws so long they
dragged against her back as its massive bat-like wings unfurled above her.
Its red eyes burned like fire. They were so captivating it took Fi a moment
to notice that the end of the golden thread disappeared into the empty space
in the creature’s chest, where its heart should be.
Terror made everything slow down—the shiver in her lungs, the clench
of fear in her gut. Fi was frozen. The skull face was close enough that she
could make out the tiny imperfections around the eye sockets. Close enough
to kiss. A thrill of horror slid through her as the skull tipped toward her, but
in the end, the creature only lifted one gruesome hand, clutching the golden
thread.
There was a voice in her head suddenly—Briar’s voice.
Where does it lead?
• • •
fi shot up from the nightmare, panting and sweating. She scrambled to her
feet so fast she knocked the chair she had fallen asleep in to the floor. Her
hand slid across the battered desk, scattering papers and quills as she
blinked the dream away. It took a moment to recognize the things around
her: the small, round room of gray stone, her lumpy pallet on the floor, the
arched window that let in the only light.
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