Back Where 66“No! Never! I am never letting my baby brother go anywhere. Mearez, why don’t you speak? Stop him!” Serena’s voice rang through the hall of my tower, but no one answered. No one paid any heed.

I was already dressed for the journey. There would be no hesitation. I felt no reluctance, no whisper in my mind telling me to stay. Nothing.

I reached for the potion on the table and drank the whole bottle. a medicine to dull my demon beasts. Then I turned toward the exit and stepped into the hallway.

My two elder sisters were waiting. Mearez stood quietly, still worried, still horrified at what had happened back at the White Pack. Serena, however, will have none of it when I announced I am going to the Empire’s Grove.

The moment she set eyes on me, she rushed forward to block my path. I stopped before her, my gaze locked on her angry face, the anger that barely masked her fear of losing her only younger brother.

“You can’t go anywhere, Lycannar. I refuse,” she said. I waited, knowing nothing more would come. “It’s the Empire’s Grove. You’ve only just healed from the illness she caused you. Will you still go… and die for her?”

The illness Zephyrine caused, the third curse from the Moon Goddess. I could see death, but I must not tell anyone how it would come. I had already broken that rule once when i informed Zephyrine how the Luna would die, and I had paid for it with seven days of immense agony.