The Faerie Curses

Chapter Thirty: Diandre's Truth

Reluctantly, I allowed my wings to fold against my shoulder blades. I lightly dropped back to the snow coated ground of the Grimwood. My boots crunched in the frost as I settled back on the earth.

Diandre's hand slowly let go of mine, his fingers sliding away like falling water.

"I've been wanting to tell you the truth for a while now," he said. "So that you would stop looking at me like that."

I blinked up at him, staring into his gray eyes.

"Like what?"

"Like I'm a monster."

The words came out soft, broken, and Diandre turned his head away from me so that I couldn't read his expression. But I knew the mark of contorted pain very well. I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but his back was to me and he was already walking up to my family's house.

I followed him silently, bracing myself for what I was going to hear. Diandre sat down on the steps of the front porch, the wood creaking slightly under his weight. I settled down beside him. We sat there for a moment, staring into the endless abyss of dead trees. I stole a glance at his face, but it was now placid like the surface of the frozen lake beyond us.

"It all started here in this forest," Diandre began. "That day in the snow." A ghost of a smile tugged at his lips. "After that snowball fight." Like a mirage, it suddenly disappeared. "I had no idea that they were watching. They had always been watching. Biding their time."

"It was the sprites, wasn't it?" I realized aloud.

Diandre nodded. "Yes. I had no idea that every time I went into the woods with you, they were waiting for the right moment." He took a breath. "And to think that moment was when I had ventured back to find my hat in the snow."

I remembered watching his back fading in the swirling white winter three years ago, and my heart panged.

"As I searched, I grew lost inside the Grimwood as the sun went down." Diandre continued. "I was all alone when the sprites surrounded me, and that deep in the forest, no one could hear me cry for help." His eyes misted over. "No one could hear me scream as they tortured me."

"Diandre-" I whispered, but he cut me off.

"I don't remember much, just seeing tattooed arms beating me over and over again." He swallowed hard. "You can probably guess who it was."

The Master's advisor: the tattooed sprite.

"They would break my bones, torturing me until I lost consciousness. When I would wake up, they would hurt me all over again." Diandre shuddered.

"I'm sorry." I whispered. I bit my lip as my imagination conjured images of the horrible suffering. I could picture thirteen year old Diandre, sobbing helpless in the snow as the sprites hurt him.

" I still have the scars, you know." Diandre said softly. "They haven't gone away."

For the first time, I could see faint lines beneath the white of his T-shirt. They were so subtle, almost unnoticeable, and I couldn't help but gently reach out and rest my hand on them. I took a breath as I carefully lifted the fold of his shirt, his eyes never leaving mine, and I had to restrain myself from gasping in horror.

Diandre's torso was sliced with fading bruises and fierce scars that were healing into stark, painful lines. They were everywhere.

My throat closed as my fingers touched the mutilated skin. Diandre flinched slightly, as if my touch had summoned dark memories. I drew away from him, and his shirt fell over the scars once more, concealing them from the world.