Okay everyone, here it is! The last little bit of Cursed Hearts! Thankyou all for your patiences! There is just one tiny little note before I let you get onto it! Since I was basically tell 2 stories in the one, there are going to be two Epilogues, so to speak. Both are below, so relax. Theres no more to wait for!

A special thanks to my brillant editor AngelONight! Without her my writing would be so much worse! So thankyou!

Now enjoy!

Epilogue

January 18th 1643 - Dawn

It was a bleak morning. The weather mirrored the atmosphere of the village of Little Willow. Wretched, desolate and disgraced. A heavy cloud of despair, remorse and shame hung thickly in the air, blanketing the entire town and sparing none, not even the young. There were no smiles, not even from the youngest of children. Even the animals, both tame and wild were subdued, almost as if they too were mourning the injustice of the black night.

No one was spared from the revulsion, the horrendous shame, of what they had committed on the previous night of madness that had not ended with the dawn. High above, thick grey clouds blocked the golden life-giving sun and cast the countryside into colourless, dreary wastelands. It was as if nature and the earth herself were punishing them for the crimes they had all committed against two innocent souls before the dawn.

After Serenity's death, it had only taken a matter of minutes for the malice to wear thin and for them to realise the grave mistake they'd committed. They couldn't comprehend what had come over them, but whatever it had been, had faded the moment the deed had been done, almost as if they had been bewitched by a witch's spell. The entire village had realised that they had unjustly and falsely accused an innocent young woman of a crime not one of them truly believed her to be guilty of.

In truth, she had been but a child, an innocent who had been the unjustifiable target of their misplaced and unfounded fears. Fears of an evil in their midst that would only bring about misfortune.

And now because of their selfish rash actions, the life of a second young innocent had been lost this night.

A life that never should have seen such an untimely end.

After Serenity's execution, they had released the young grief-stricken Endymion whose screams had been so deafening that it would have been beyond him to utter a single word. They had opened the cell door to find him weeping soul-wrenchingly in a ball on the floor. He had been a broken shadow of a man.

It had been then that the truth had been able to move apart of their fears and hatreds. It hadn't been a spell that had bewitched the young man into his infatuation with the young, flawless beauty.

No, it had been love. He had loved the young, angelic beauty and he had been forced to watch her burn alive, to witness her murdered before his powerless eyes.

On the filthy, icy floor sobbing brokenly Endymion had remained, lost to the world. There he remained. Only after hours of continuous sobbing, did the young man emerge through the open door.

Without a single word or glance towards anyone, Endymion had taken off running into the forest and he hadn't returned. His eyes had been maddened beyond all reason by grief and loss. He had been a man condemned in that he continued to live when she did not.

Within an hour of the young man's disappearance, his furious – and concerned – father had arranged a search party to search the woods. When he had asked for volunteers there hadn't been a single man who had heard the call who hadn't stepped forward.

They had searched the forest for the remaining of the night and well into the morning.

Just on dawn Endymion had been found. But it had been too late for far too long.

Endymion Terran, the man who had been forced to endure the sight of his love's agonizing and unjust murder, had been found hanging from a tree in a small clearing. The noose tight around his neck, his eyes open wide, forever more unseeing, and his pale white, lifeless body was swaying in the unforgiving icy breeze.

Endymion's father, the most powerful man in the province who would not be forgiving, was on his way to the clearing where more than two dozen men had gathered, their heads bowed in prayer, praying for Endymion's forsaken soul and for forgiveness for their own tarnished souls.

They had been the cause of this. They had taken this young man's life when they had taken his innocent love from him so cruelly before his watching eyes.

The priest grimly stepped forward to address the gathered, to bring what little comfort he could to his congregation. He had already given the young man his last rights and had prayed for his soul.

Just as he had done so for his young, murdered love only hours before.

"Miss Serenity's last words to me on yester days black eve were not pleading words of forgiveness nor desperate claims of innocence. No, all the young soul had wanted was promise that her love Endymion would not follow in her fate nor be held accountable for the crimes she had been unjustly accused of. She was a pure, loving soul, a free spirit. A child of god."

"Whose blood is eternally on our hands."

Every man there turned to see a young man of Endymion's age, step into the clearing, his eyes on the swaying body of he who had been his best friend, tears in his grieving eyes.

"Young man." The priest bowed his head respectfully, showing his sympathy for his loss. "Our sympathies for your loss. Young Lord Terran was a friend of yours, was he not?"

But there was no answer from the young man, who shook with tears in his eyes and pain and sorrow in his heart at the horrifying sight of his long time good friend. He had not been part of what had been this passed night, he had only learned of it hours after the unjust execution.

"Let our children never know of this." Yelled a man in the crowd, who was immediately greeted with many shouts of agreement. "Let it be so that it is never written, let our children's hands be free of the blood upon ours. Let them not suffer for our crimes."

"The injustice upon their love will haunt this town for always. We will never be free of it," snapped the now furious young man in a voice that was not without anger and deep sadness. "Record this not, but it will not undo what has been done. We will never be free of what we have committed against these innocent souls. We can never wash their innocent blood from our hands. May God have mercy on our murdering souls, for we had none for their pure ones."

And with that Lord Andrew turned and left the clearing with tears in his eyes, tears for his best friend and the woman Endymion had loved who had been unjustly murdered by the village.

The crowd of shamed, silent men watched him go. It was not only the parents of the dead who mourned for the lost innocence, who saw the evil in what they had done.

From the crowd, one man stepped up to the body of Endymion and bowed his head mournfully. Remorse felt down to his very soul. How could they have done when they had? How could they have murdered two children, who had committed no crime, in one night? Whose only crime had been to love each other selflessly.

"May you find your peace in death with the woman you love." The man whispered mournfully. "For we shall never find our own."

Above them, on the branch from which Endymion's body hung, stood a ghostly figure which mortal eyes could not see nor mortal ears could hear. They saw not her long, white, flowing gown or long flowing, golden hair that danced with the icy breeze.

Sadness filled the ghostly figure, her eyes so sorrowful as she stared down at her love that should mortal eyes look upon them, they would have surely shared part of her sorrow and would have died from the agony of it.

"Oh, Endymion. My love." Her angelic voice whispered, unheard by all but her own ears. "Your death was not my wish. Nor was the curse you have cast upon our families and friends. Upon those we hold dear. We are parted now by your hatred and rage. But I will wait for you, just as I promised you. I know you will return to me. You used the power of our love to curse, as I will now use it to save. To give the people of our village a chance of finding redemption and a chance for us to find our freedom. Until the curse is lifted, we can never be together."

Serenity stepped off of the branch and little by little floated down to the ground as a body would sink serenely beneath the sea. Gravity no longer held sway over her.

Serenity looked up at the lifeless face of her love. "Oh, my sweet Endymion. Your curse cast in hatred has parted us. But I fear not, for I know you will find me again. We shall be together once more and then nothing shall part us ever again."

Serenity sighed sorrowfully and looked up at the bleak sky above, Endymion's curse would deny even the golden sunlight to fall upon the village. "We will be together again. I will wait for you." She whispered with bleak hope, knowing the wait ahead of her would be long and lonely. She could sense Endymion's rage and hatred from wherever he was, it was so powerful. "And maybe then we will all find peace."

Present Time (2 Weeks After the Cursed was Broken)

In the last few week Serena, with Darien at her side, had done many difficult things and had faced several dangers, but nothing compared to this. Never in all her life had Serena felt so nervous or terrified. Never had she more before wished that she was someone else than how she felt right now. She would rather face Beryl's dangerous dark magics than continue to face this horror. Both herself and Darien were in grave danger but unlike before this was one situation that Darien could not save her from, could not get her out of.

Their only choice was to wait it out and hope that they survived. All they could do was pray that their love was strong enough to face to face this, to outlast this.

"Could you pass the peas please Mrs Stevens?" Darien asked her mother politely from his seat beside her.

The peas were passed even though Serena knew Darien was forcing down every bite of her mother's meatloaf.

It wasn't that it tasted bad; it was that they were both so nervous.

Serena wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole. Her mother was trying to be polite and welcoming while her husband kept sending murderous glares at Darien, his fingers constantly twitching as if he was just dying to wrap them around his throat. And if he wasn't doing that, he was grasping his knife very tightly in his hand. Serena didn't need to be able to read her father's thoughts to know that her father wanted to kill her boyfriend.

And he hadn't even heard the happy news yet. Oh, this was NOT going to go well.

And her brother, well her brother was just enjoying the whole spectacle. Every time her father snapped a rude comment at Darien or grunted at something polite Darien said, Sammy snorted into his food.

Maybe they could put this off until their next life.

"Ah, Mr Stevens, there's a reason why Serena asked me here tonight."

Oh on. Here is was. The inevitable. The happy news, all of it surrounding the engagement ring hidden safely away in her pocket. All she could hope was that they both survived to lick their wounds.

The End

Hope you've all enjoyed Cursed Hearts!

Chapter 1 of What Darkness Fears will be up as soon as it can be!