I don’t feel different. My hands don’t tingle with power. But Mael’s warning rattles through me.
Don’t touch anything living.
I know I won’t. I can’t. Because if I did, it’d rot. A plant or a human, I’d take away its limb or more, depending on the length of contact. I can never again touch another person.
I can never again touch Ryker.
At any moment, the Chastity Wardens could burst through the doors, shove the gloves onto my arms, and drag me into Rust Hollow, never to step beyond its walls again. And if I so much as try to run…
They’ll do to me what they did to my mother.
But the second part of my mind, the louder one, screams that Ryker won’t allow it. He loves me. He’ll understand. I just have to wait for him.
We are supposed to change the kingdom together. A first big change. Surely, with the Archpriest gone and no Church leader to condemn me, Ryker could assert his influence. I just have to wait for him.
I close my eyes and surrender to the stillness around me, feeling the weight of sorrow collected over the centuries pressing down on me.
How many cursed girls have begged and cried in my place? Hoped for redemption? As far as I know, no one has ever been granted a second chance. And why would they?
Calista, the Goddess of Blood and Decay—the Witch Goddess, as people called her—cursed us out of spite for a mortal woman who stole her husband and hasn’t been worshiped for over a thousand years. Would she even hear a plea now? Would she even care?
Perhaps when a new Sovereign God or Goddess rises, things will change… but by then, it will already be too late.
Don’t touch anything living.
I don’t know how long I sit there, arms crossed tight, hands pressed under myelbows, refusing to move, when my gaze lands on the table, on the letter waiting there, mocking me with its neat, careful script.
With stiff movements, I walk toward it, grab it, and sink into the chair.
It is the recent letter my father sent me, avoiding the palace out of shame as usual. Or was he avoiding me? I read the last lines.
In becoming the king's wife, you embrace a destiny that has been long in the making. One that was almost stolen from us. But now, our family name will be cleansed of the disgrace your false-hearted mother brought upon it. I am proud of you, my daughter.
I can’t run. I can’t go to my family estate. My father barely tolerated me before, and that was when I was still his daughter. Now, I am a curse.
I press my fingers to the scar splitting my left eyebrow, a permanent reminder of how he felt about forgiveness. But I read the words again, slower this time, as if their meaning might shift if I held onto them long enough.I am proud of you.
A rare thing to see in his writing. Even rarer to hear from his lips.
My fingers tighten around the parchment, crinkling the edges. Pride.
Not for me, not for the girl who once sat at his feet, desperate for his approval. No, this pride was for his name, his redemption. For the daughter who had finally become useful.
With careful movements I light the candle on my desk, my father’s words resting between my stained fingers like a bitter joke.
The parchment crinkles as I hold it over the flame. A part of me hesitates, but only for a breath. Then the fire catches.
I watch the edges curl and blacken, the words vanishing in a slow,deliberate burn.
I tell myself it doesn’t matter and pretend that this small act of defiance means something, but I might as well be watching my own life burn.
Muffledvoices jolt me back into awareness. My body protests as I uncoil from the cold stone floor, muscles stiff from hours spent curled in on myself. How long had I been here? The dim blue light filtering through the windows confuses me, too pale for night, too deep for dawn.
The thought feels distant, unimportant. My newly cursed body, wrung dry of exhaustion, must have simply given out, slipping into a restless slumber.
The candle on my table has burned out. Then I hear it, the voice behind the door, rising in sharp indignation.
Eva.
