Dedicated to kristenk923 for being such a lovely reader and awesome writer herself! If you are looking for great christian books you won't be disappointed if you check her work out! Thank you so much, Kristen! <3

"My curse?" I asked them, my voice dripping with disbelief.

"Yes, your curse," Aunt Iris answered.

"W-what? H-how?" I stammered, not knowing what to say.

"We are going to have to tell her everything," Aunt Melody mumbled to my other aunts.

"You don't mean?" Aunt Iris asked with wide eyes.

"That has nothing to do with the curse," Aunt Kara reasoned.

"It has everything to do with curse," Aunt Melody exclaimed.

"But-"

"Enough!" I yelled at them. The three of them became silent and looked at me with wide eyes. "Either you tell me everything," I said, emphasizing the last word with a warning gaze. "Or I will leave this forest and you will never see me again."

"Adelaide!" Aunt Kara exclaimed.

"I have had enough of your lies, you thought me to be always honest with you. I thought that the same thing applies to you, too. I deserve to know the truth about my curse and everything that has to do with me," I finished, my eyes staring at them with determination.

They kept quiet, all of them wearing a guilty look.

"Alright," Aunt Iris said, breaking the silence. "What do you want to know?"

I walked over to them and pulled out a chair. Sitting down, I looked at each one of them before answering her question.

"Who cursed me?"

"A man called Malloreigh, he is a Magie, that's a-" Aunt Iris explained, but I cut her off.

"I know what a Magie is," I said, earning a surprised look from them.

"You do? How?" Aunt Kara asked me.

"The man I met in the woods told me about them," I said.

"If we are going to tell you the truth you need to know something first," Aunt Melody said.

I looked at her with a frown. "What?"

"We are Magies."

"Wait, what?" I asked, my eyes wide open as I stared at her in shock. "How can you be..." I trailed off, not knowing what to say.

"Magies?" Aunt Iris finished my sentence. I nodded and waited for her to answer. "We were born with our powers."

"But I thought that Magies a rare how come that all three of you have those powers when you are all sisters?" I asked.

"We aren't sisters, Adelaide," Aunt Kara said, her voice sounding soft.

"So that was lie, too?"

"Not exactly, we are not sisters by blood, but through friendship. We all grew up in the same orphanage, no one else knew about our powers."

"This Malloreigh, why did he curse me?" I asked, changing the subject back to my curse.

"There is something you have to know first, your father, he isn't a merchant."

"He is not?" I asked confused. "Then why can't I be with him? Why did he never visit me?"

"Because he is the king of Gillion," Aunt Iris said.

"The king?" I looked at them my mouth hanging open. "Does this mean that I am-"

"The crown princess of Gillion," Aunt Melody finished my sentence with a proud smile.

"Your father, King Stefan, and Malloreigh are brothers. Malloreigh is the older one, he was supposed to become the next king. When his father found out about it, he planned on announcing your father to be the next king."

"Malloreigh found out about his father's plan and poisoned him before he could go through with it. King Stefan saw it, but he couldn't save his father. He managed to overpower his brother, but Malloreigh was able to flee."

"He left the kingdom and no one ever heard of him again until one year later, when you were born. It was on the day of your christening when he barged into the hall and cursed you. The guards tried to arrest him, but he again fled."

"Back then the three of us had been your nurses. King Stefan didn't know how to protect you from his brother's magic. It wasn't safe for you to stay at the castle, so he sent you away with the three of us. And back then the only place where Malloreigh would never searched for you was the forest," she finished, silence overcoming us.

"I have had dreams about him," I said after a while. "Why did he call me 'Briar Rose'?"

"Your name is  Briar Rose Adelaide, crown princess of Gillion. We thought it would be better for you to not go by your real name."

"What exactly will the curse do to me?" I finally asked the question, that had been floating through my mind the whole time.

"On your eighteenth birthday you shall prick your finger and die," Aunt Melody said, a sad look clouding her usually happy face.

"What?" I asked as I looked at them in shock. "So that's it? I will die in, what, five weeks?"

"Your Aunts and I have tried everything in our power to stop the curse. But instead of reversing it, we changed it," Aunt Kara said.

"Change it how?" I asked, afraid to find out about it. What if it was even worse than death? How could I live like this, knowing that in only five weeks everything I knew would change? And there was no way to stop it.

"Instead of dying, you will fall into a deep sleep,"

I let out a relieved breath. "How long will I be asleep then?" I asked, feeling calmer now that I knew that nothing bad would happen.

My aunts exchanged a worried look, silence falling over us. I stared at them confused, I didn't know why they would be worried. I would only fall asleep, which meant that I would wake up sometime.

"We- we don't know," Aunt Kara admitted, breaking the silence.

I sat there frozen, not knowing what to say. How could they not know how long I would be asleep? They were the ones who changed the curse, they had to know how long I was going to be asleep.

"What do you mean?"

"You were supposed to die, when we changed the curse we had to curse you with another one, one that would stop you from dying and allow you to come back. The curse we set upon you is a very strong one. Someone will have to pay the price for it, we just don't know yet who it is going to be."

"What is the price?" I asked.

"A life."

"A life?" I asked, shocked. "You mean someone has to die first before I can wake up?"

"It can't be just anyone, the person must have a connection with you and they must decide for themselves. We can't force that person to give up their life for you," Aunt Kara explained.

"But I don't want anyone to give up their life for mine. I won't let that happen," I said as I stood up and took a step back, tears starting to well up in my eyes.

"Adelaide, it's the only why you can live," Aunt Iris said.

"Then I don't want to live. I could never live with myself, knowing that I am the reason someone else is dead. I would rather stay asleep and never wake up than live on the cost of someone else's life. I couldn't," I said, tears started to roll down my face.

Turning around I ran to my room and closed the door behind me before sliding down to the ground, holding back a cry.

How could they even think that I would let someone else die for me? If this was the price that needed to be payed then I had to find a way to stop the curse before my birthday. I wouldn't let somebody else pay the price for my life.

I heard I soft knock on the door and whipped away a tear that was threating to roll down my face. Standing up, I turned around and opened the door. Aunt Kara stood in front of it, her mouth was curved into a small smile.

"Can I come in?" she asked me hesitantly, almost afraid that I would sent her away.

I nodded and took a step back, letting her enter the room. Closing the door behind her, I walked back to my bed and sat down.

"I am sorry, Adelaide," she said, breaking the silence.

I looked at her for a moment, my eyes focused on her. I could tell that she really meant it. "About what?" I asked.

"About everything," she said while sitting down next to me. "We should have told you about the curse. You shouldn't have found out like this. I am sorry."

I nodded, not knowing what to say. Part of me wanted to scream at her for leaving me in the dark for this long. But the other part of me just wanted to hug her and hear that everything would be alright, that no matter what happened, we would stick together, like family.

"Your father, he wants you to come back," she said after a while.

I looked up at her surprised. "He does? Why?"

"He didn't tell, he just that you are to be brought back to the kingdom immediately."

"But won't I be in danger if I go back? This man, Malloreigh, he could find me," I said. All thoughts of wanting to leave the forest banned out of my head.

"No, he can't. Your father, King Stefan, captured him a few years after you were born. He is held prisoner in the castle, stripped away from his power."

"How come?" I asked.

"His chains, they are made of a very powerful, but at the same time rare stone, the arch stone. If you come in touch with it, it takes away your ability to use magic," she explained.

"So he doesn't have any magic anymore?"

"He still has it, he's just unable to use it while his exposed to the arch stone," she said. We stayed quiet for a moment, silence falling over us.

Aunt Kara eventually broke it by standing up. "You should get some rest. It's been a long day for you."

I nodded, my eyes focused on the ground. Aunt Kara bend down and kissed my forehead. "Goodnight," she said as she walked over to the door.

"Aunt Kara?"

"Yes, Adelaide?" She turned around and looked at me with raised eyebrows.

"The curse, can it be broken?" I asked her.

"No, I am sorry, it can't. There's no way to stop something so powerful as Malloreigh's curse," she answered with a sad smile.

"But there has to be something I could do, right?"

"Nothing that I know of," she said.

"If Malloreigh was the one to first curse me, would he be able to undo both curses?" I asked.

"He would never do it. Malloreigh's heart has turned dark along time ago. Not even you could safe him."

"It wasn't always dark, who says I couldn't bring light to it again. His heart might be dark, but as long as he holds on to it, there is still a chance to safe him, make him good again."

"I suppose he could, but don't put too much hope in that. Some people just like to be bad because the like the feeling of destroying other ones' happiness. Goodnight," she said before leaving the room.

I stared at the closed door for a moment before laying down on the bed.

Aunt Kara was wrong. No one was born with a dark heart. It was the people we encountered that turned them into monsters. Villains had a dark heart for a reason, there was always a story behind them. People were just too afraid to tell it. They would rather make up stories about them, then find out the truth.

Something happened to Malloreigh, something that changed him and filled his heart with darkness.

And I was going to find out what it was.

Hey guys! I am back! Hope you liked the chapter. Let me know what you think and don't forget to vote! Thank you!

Tessa