Chapter 2 #2
My parents had taken me to dozens of healers, priests, sages, and witches. They all said the same thing: there was nothing wrong with me; it was only an emotional blockage that would bloom in time. But the years had bled into decades, and all I ever managed were these weak manifestations.
The vines I’d summoned moments ago proved it—fragile, unstable, burned away in a blink by Merith.
But even with that knowledge—even knowing how stunted my magic truly was—I wouldn’t let this creature touch a single hair on my mother’s head. I straightened, ignoring the tremor that threatened to betray my voice, and allowed fury to drown out my fear.
“Who do you think you are?” I shot back, injecting every ounce of arrogance I could muster into my voice.
I lifted my chin, dragging my gaze up and down her frame as if assessing something of questionable quality.
“You interrupted a private ceremony, disrespected our sovereign, and insulted our people. How dare you judge me like you are my superior?”
If a pin dropped, everyone would have heard it.
Her predatory smile widened. “Who am I? Oh, my dear, I’m better than almost everyone, and you have far too much courage for someone so weak.”
I hated that word, but I refused to show her.
“Today, I’ll teach you a lesson,” she continued, her voice slipping into a hypnotic, almost seductive cadence. “A lesson your father should have learned centuries ago.”
She turned her gaze to him. My father—the man who had faced monsters without flinching, survived bloody wars, and endured betrayals that would have broken lesser souls—trembled.
“She has nothing to do with this!” he shouted, but the sound lacked its usual authority.
My chest tightened. To see my father, the sovereign of Ceilte, my anchor, shaking like a leaf before her was far more terrifying than the acrid sulfur filling the air.
Merith stared at him for what felt like an eternity. In that heartbeat, I saw a storm of emotions swirling within her dark eyes, but the current pulling hardest was pure hatred.
“She has everything to do with it, Alasdair.” Her finger remained leveled at me, an accusatory spark dancing at its tip. “I warned you that you would pay for your sins. But, as always…” the corner of her mouth curved in a cold, humorless smile “…you waited too long to do the right thing.”
The air shifted, turning thick and suffocating. A low, droning buzz filled my ears, swelling until it nearly drowned out the sound of my own frantic breathing. My mind began to fog, as if someone were smearing my consciousness with shadowed fingers.
The tingle started in my fingertips before racing up my arms. My knees buckled. Part of me—the rational, terrified fragment that remained—understood the gravity of the moment:
This is the end. On the very day my life was supposed to change forever. The irony tasted like ash.
An invisible pressure shoved me to the ground, my legs giving out. I braced one hand on the floor to keep from collapsing, but even that felt like too much effort.
Merith’s voice reached me muffled, distorted by the rising hum:
A new destiny was forged
for her whose legacy
was bathed in blood and treachery.
With only a pledge of pure love
shall her curse be undone.
O daughter of the war
and neglect,
whose fierce defiance will reject
the one for whom her soul still cries,
for whom her eyes,
like a spring, run wild with tears.
To save the one she loves,
within her heart
a newborn spark
must rise and burn.
And only with a touch
of magic
shall the curse fade through.
My stomach knotted, and fire bloomed under my skin. At first, it was a dull, suffocating heat, then it flared into living flames, licking and scorching every inch of me. My lungs seized until I could barely draw a breath.
Then the screams began, bursting through the hall like a storm.
Some voices cried out my name, high and shrill with horror.
I ran my hands over my arms and torso, frantic, trying to smother the invisible flames devouring me from the inside out. My nails scratched at my own skin, drawing blood, but it was useless—the fire wasn’t on me, it was inside me.
“No… no…” I whispered, my tongue heavy in my mouth.
The world began to blur like I was under water.
Through the haze, the scene was a fragmented nightmare.
People were running in blind panic. My mother remained imprisoned in that wretched stasis, her eyes wide and glassy.
My father was on his knees, his hands hovering over me, trembling—the Lord of Ceilte reduced to a man who could only watch his world burn.
Guards drew their blades, a wall of steel rushing toward the intruder—
My eyes found her.
Merith.
Standing at the center of the chaos, her hands lifted like a conductor guiding a macabre symphony. Her eyes glowed like burning coals, and a slow, satisfied smile spread across her lips.
The flame inside me clawed its way up my throat. I gasped for air, thick and heavy as molten lead.
Then, with a soul-deep horror, I realized the sharpest, most agonizing scream echoing through the hall didn’t belong to the crowd.
It belonged to me.