She Stole My Curse novel · Chapter 4 of 32
Chapter 4: The Drowned Stores
"Nobody told me," I said.
"Then how did you find it? This is the bottom of the ship. Even my own people don't come down here."
"I had a dream."
He laughed, without any humor in it.
"A dream."
"About this door. About what's behind it."
He set the lamp on a rung of the ladder and came closer, slowly.
"What's behind it, Princess?"
"Food," I said. "Enough for a whole winter."
His jaw tightened.
"My grandfather's grandfather sealed that door when the curse came. Nobody living knows how to open it. We tried with pry bars when I was fifteen. We broke three of them."
"You don't need pry bars."
I reached up and touched the carved dragon's eye. It was a hollow, cut deep into the stone, the size of a fingertip.
"You need your blood," I said. "Dragon blood. One drop in the eye, then you turn the coil."
He didn't move.
In my first life, the Wreck Deep had starved through a whole winter before he found this out.
The old nurse had died that winter.
So had the blind man's wife, and two babies.
Aurek had found the trick in a book in the ruined library, by accident, too late.
"If I'm wrong," I said, "you've lost a drop of blood. If I'm right, nobody in this ship goes to bed hungry again."
He looked at me for a long time.
Then he drew the little knife from his belt and nicked the pad of his thumb.
He pressed it into the dragon's eye.
Nothing happened.
"Now the coil," I said. "Counter to the sun."
He put his hands on the carved tail and pushed.
For a moment the stone didn't give.
Then something deep in the door clanked.
The coil turned under his hands.
The door rolled sideways into the wall with a groan that shook dust off the ribs above us.
Cold, dry air breathed out of the dark.
Keep reading free with an account. Start She Stole My Curse from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.
← Chapter 3 · All chapters · Chapter 5 →
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend