23. Spilled Truths #2
"Everywhere. Nowhere." She shrugged. "Spent a few months in the capital, living in abandoned buildings. Made it to the coast, worked on fishing boats where they didn't ask questions about a child traveling alone. Turns out there are worse things than a curse."
I couldn’t find words. I had known something terrible must have plagued her past, but I’d never imagined it was this bad.
"Got worse as I got older. And harder to control." She looked past me, her gaze distant. "I'd settle somewhere, try to build something like a life. Get a job at an inn, or apprentice with someone desperate enough to overlook my reputation. It would be good for a while. Weeks, sometimes months."
"So what happened?"
"I'd get angry. Or scared. Or sometimes just tired." She sighed, the sound heavy with resignation. "And something would happen. The inn would burn down. Or my employer would have an accident."
"That's not entirely your fault. I mean, it's not exactly like you could control it." I reached for her arm, but she stepped away.
"Maybe not directly. But I was the common denominator.
Every place I touched turned to shit eventually.
" Her voice held no self-pity, only a hard-won acceptance.
“So I made it my mission to learn to control it.
" She looked past me, her gaze distant. "Eventually, I realized it wasn't just tied to my emotions. It was tied to my thoughts."
"So it was mental?"
"Exactly. I started paying attention. Really paying attention." She tapped her temple. "There was this... moment. Right before a curse would manifest. Like a switch flipping in my mind. Took me months to even notice it was there."
"How did you learn how to control the switch?"
"Trial and error. Lots of error." A wry smile crossed her face. "I'd sit alone for hours, thinking horrible things about rocks, trees, my own boots—anything that couldn't suffer. Trying to catch that moment, that switch, and hold it. Stop it from flipping."
"That sounds exhausting."
"It was. But I finally learned to flip the switch on purpose instead of by accident.
" She flexed her fingers, studying them.
"Then came the hard part—learning to aim.
To be specific. Instead of just thinking 'I hate you,' I had to think 'I want your left bootlace to snap. ' Precise intentions, precise results."
"That's... actually brilliant."
"Had to be." She kicked at the sand. "By the time I was sixteen, I could curse a single thread in a piece of cloth.
Make it unravel without touching anything else.
All because I learned to control that switch in my mind, to direct my thoughts like arrows instead of letting them explode like wildfire. "
We walked in silence for a moment before she spoke again. “Before that, I’d actually started to believe I really was cursed. Or maybe that I was the curse . That maybe my parents had been right, and I was some kind of abomination that needed to be purged."
"That's ridiculous?—"
She cut me off. "I know that now. These powers—it's just another kind of gift. A shitty, inconvenient, occasionally homicidal gift, but still." She looked at me directly, challenge in every line of her body.
“How did you get discovered?” I asked. “Or did you volunteer?”
"Of course I didn’t volunteer. I was nineteen. Working at a bakery in a port town called Greywich. The owner was half-blind and desperate for help, didn't care about what I did or who I was as long as I showed up on time." She peered out across the black sea. "That's where I met Finn."
The name came out soft, careful, like she was afraid it might break.
"He worked at the lumberyard. Used to come in every morning for bread, always with some terrible joke.
" Her lips twitched. "First person in years who didn't flinch when I looked at him.
Found out later his sister had been blessed—taken to the Trials when he was twelve. He recognized the look in my eyes."
"He knew what you were?"
"Figured it out quick enough. Caught me one night practicing my control in the alley behind the bakery. I was ready to run, had my bag half-packed before he said—" She paused, swallowing hard. "'You must be so tired of running.'"
Her gaze clouded.
"We were... careful. He never asked about the curse, never pushed. Just accepted it as part of me. For two years, I had something almost like normal. We even talked about leaving together, finding a remote place where priests rarely went."
"What happened?"
"Someone saw me. Late one night, lost control for just a second—cursed a drunk who grabbed me. Nothing fatal, just boils. But it was enough." Her voice went flat again, emotionless. "The priests came at dawn. Finn tried to stop them. Stood in front of the door to my room, told them I wasn't there."
My heart sank. I already knew how this ended.
"They cut him down where he stood.” She turned away from me. "His last words were telling me to run. So I did. Right into their trap—they had the whole block surrounded."
"Marx..."
"The thing is," she continued, not acknowledging my sympathy, "I could have saved him. Could have cursed every one of those priests before they touched him. But I hesitated. Didn't want to prove them right about what I was. And he died for that hesitation."
She paused, staring out at the horizon. "You know what the real kicker was? The Trials weren't for another year. A whole year they kept me in that cell where we did the proving. Just... waiting. Counting down the days until they could murder me."
"A year?" I couldn't hide my horror. "Alone?"
"Oh, I had company. The screams from other cells. The knowledge that Finn died for nothing—I was caught anyway." Her voice went hard as flint. "Plenty of time to think about every mistake I'd made. Every moment I'd chosen restraint."
The parallel slammed into me. Restraint only worked for so long in this world .
"That's why you fought so hard," I said quietly. "You're not hesitating anymore."
"Never." She met my eyes, and I saw the steel there, forged in loss and tempered by rage. "They want a monster? I'll give them one. But on my terms."
We stood there in silence for a few moments. A part of me wanted to hug her, or tell her how sorry I was for the life she endured. But I couldn’t find the words.
"Your turn,” she said casually, turning back to me.
I blinked, caught off guard. "What?"
"I just spilled my tragic backstory all over this beach. Least you can do is return the favor." She crossed her arms, waiting.
I considered lying, deflecting. But she'd given me truth, raw and painful. I owed her at least a version of the same. "I grew up on an oyster farm."
"Thrilling start."
"Shut up." I let a grin escape. "My brother and I, we were raised by..." I paused, choosing my words carefully. "By our father, Sulien. Our mother—she died when we were born."
"I'm sorry," Marx said, surprising me with her softer tone.
"Yeah." I bent to pick up a stone, worn smooth by the tide. It felt heavy in my palm. "Sulien tried to keep us safe. Small village, quiet life. It worked for a while."
"Until?"
"Until I manifested." I opened my palm, letting tiny points of light dance across my skin for just a moment before closing my fist. "Sixteen years old, nearly an adult, and suddenly I'm pulling stars from the sky during a nightmare."
"Bet that went over well."
"Sulien nearly had a heart attack. Made me swear never to do it again, never to tell anyone, never to even think about it." The memory burned through me. "He was terrified. Not of me, but for me. "
"Understandable."
"I practiced in secret. Late at night, down by the coves where no one went. Learned to shape the light, to transform it. We lived twenty-six years in that village. I worked the oyster beds, had distant friends, even had..." I thought of Marel, pushed the ache away. "Had a semblance of normal life."
"Until the priests came."
"Until the priests came," I echoed, thinking of Sulien's blood on the sand, his final words.
"So," Marx said eventually. "We're both fucked up mortals with dangerous powers and tragic backstories. No wonder we get along."
I laughed, surprising myself with the sound. "Is that what we're doing? Getting along?"
"Well, I haven't cursed you yet, and you haven't stabbed me with any stars. I'd call that friendship."
"High bar."
"The highest." She glanced at me sideways, a smirk curving her lips.