Cursed in Glass
Kye
I tried to stay away from water, but it wasn’t easy for many reasons.
For one, my palace stood on a coral reef in the middle of the open ocean.
It was surrounded by water, with the larger half of the palace located under the surface.
My kingdom was the vast, majestic Olathana Ocean, the Kingdom of Sirens.
It was undoubtedly the most beautiful place in the whole of Nerifir.
The kingdom’s only blight was me, its cursed king.
I tried to stay away from the shore and the waves, even as every door and terrace of my palace led out to the water. But like with every siren, the water still called to me. And like any other siren, I had no choice but to answer the call when it got too hard to ignore.
Of course, I couldn’t do anything that sirens normally did in the ocean. The water no longer obeyed me as it should. Even my song was long lost.
All I did while at the water’s edge, was just sit on a glass branch of the dead coral, stare out toward the horizon, and bask in the sun like a fucking turtle.
I dipped a foot into the waves below and felt only the faintest whisper of the connection I’d once had with the ocean.
The sun warmed my skin. The breeze played with my long hair.
Those sensations were clear, but the caress of water between my toes was muffled, reaching to me as if through a thick fog or a layer of dense wool.
A large, rainbow butterfly fluttered by.
“Ah, stay away, little guy.” I promptly leaned back from its colorful wings, giving it enough space to continue on its way.
The butterfly turned toward me, however, probably pushed by the breeze.
“No.” I shifted aside as it fluttered straight toward my bare chest. “Stay away!”
My naked ass slid on the wet glass of the coral. I flailed my limbs. My fingernails scraped against the glass but found no purchase as I plunged into the ocean.
The water didn’t feel wet to me. It rolled around my body in a thin layer of glass dust, obscuring my vision and plugging my nostrils. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t swim under the surface. I was the only siren in the whole damn world who was drowning in the ocean we all called home.
Panic jolted through me. The urge to release my fins burned my skin along my spine, my calves, and my forearms. But no fins opened. Frantically, I beat the water with my arms in the desperate attempt to stay on the surface.
Water grew thick and heavy with glass dust from me. I used whatever power I still had over it to keep me afloat.
A hand reached for me from above, and I grasped it without thinking.
Alarm speared through me the moment the slim fingers curled around my hand.
I froze, no longer struggling and allowing the water to close over me once again.
My lungs burned with all-consuming need for a breath, my body tightened in convulsions, yet I knew I wouldn’t die.
I couldn’t die.
I could only suffer.
Incredibly, the hand clasped in mine didn’t turn to glass. It was smaller than mine, more delicate, but very strong. As it pulled, it drew me upwards, out of the water, and back onto the shore.
Gasping for air, I dropped on the ground between the dead, glass branches of the coral.
The hunched over woman in a pearlesque gray cloak looked too frail to lift a pebble, yet she held onto me with ease. Deep lines of wrinkles criss-crossed her gray skin, but warm amusement shone brightly in her dark-brown eyes.
“Odine… What are you doing here?” I asked between my panting breaths.
She laughed.
“Did you just take the plunge to save a butterfly, my boy?” she mused.
“Stupid, I know,” I agreed, sitting up.
I realized with a start that her hand was still clasped in my fingers, and I held on to it with the determination of a drowning man clinging to a piece of driftwood in a storm.
Her gaze slid to our connected hands. Thankfully, she didn’t take hers away, probably realizing how much I needed it, to feel someone’s touch.
The world around me seemed suspended for a moment.
Even the swishing of the waves moved away.
The entire awareness of my body, of my very soul, narrowed to that one point of contact.
I wished I could pull Odine into a whole-body hug. The only thing that stopped me from doing it was the fear that she might mock me, despite the warm expression lingering in her eyes.
“It’s been a century,” she said softly. “Exactly one hundred years today.”
Yes. A hundred years of my living alone in the palace that I had long turned entirely to glass.
All my servants had escaped to the village nearby, in fear for their lives.
And all my courtiers had eventually migrated to my uncle’s court.
I might be the King of the Olathana Ocean, but serving my uncle didn’t come with the risk of accidentally being killed with a handshake, like serving me did.
“A century, really? Time flies, indeed.” I smirked, as if I hadn’t been acutely aware of every passing minute of this century, filled with horror, maddening rage, and crushing loneliness.
Odine, the former royal hag of the Court of Olathana, let me hold her hand, and that was my only contact with another living being in exactly one hundred years.
Even if she did it solely out of pity, I took it, gladly paying whatever was left of my dignity for the treasure I could no longer afford—a touch.
Of course, she saw right through me. The warmth in her eyes didn’t cool when faced with my attempted bravado.
“Do you believe the life of that butterfly was worth the plunge, Kye?” She asked.
I felt foolish. I’d acted on impulse, but I didn’t regret the fall.
“It didn’t deserve to die. At least not because of me.” I shrugged, not letting go of her hand.
She nodded, with a contemplative expression.
As the most powerful hag of Olathana, who had also made a pact with a sea goddess and was able to access the divine power, Odine was the only living being in the world who could withstand my touch. For that, I was grateful, but her pity pressed heavier on my spirit the longer she stayed.
“If you’re here on a state matter,” I said, “My uncle is in charge of everything now. So…”
I glanced down at our linked hands, finding no strength to let go, despite my dismissive tone of voice.
Odine nodded again, freeing her hand from my grip in one gentle but swift motion, as if she knew that prolonging it would only torment me more.
“I will stop by Prince Arnon’s palace to pay my respects before I leave here. But I wanted to see you first,” she said.
“Why?” I held my hand in front of me, with my fingers still curled around the disappearing sensation of holding another’s hand.
“I discovered a spell that would—”
“Cure me?” I blurted, momentarily breathless with hope against my best intensions.
I’d spent a century searching for a way to break this fucking curse. If she knew something, anything…
“No,” she said firmly, crushing my hope. “There is no cure, my boy, and you know it. But I could possibly make your life a little easier if you manage to procure some spider silk from Sky Kingdom.”
“I have plenty of spider silk… Well, I mean,” I corrected myself. “My uncle surely has some.”
“It has to be a freshly spun silk, Kye, with the dew of the clouds still woven into the fibers to hold my magic. Only then can it become impervious to your touch.”
“Do you mean I’d have a fabric that would not turn to glass when I touch it?”
“Exactly.”
“What for? What would I do with it?”
“You can make yourself some clothes, for one.” She gestured at my naked body.
“That hardly feels important,” I scoffed.
The warm weather in Olathana made clothes mostly unnecessary even for those whose bodies didn’t turn fabrics to glass. I didn’t suffer from my nakedness, even if some might object to it.
“Doesn’t it?” Odine tilted her head. “Just think about it, Kye. A layer of fabric between you and the rest of the world would allow you the many conveniences you don’t currently have.
A pair of pajamas would make it possible for you to sleep in a real bed again.
A pair of socks made from the magic silk would let you walk anywhere you want.
And a pair of gloves would allow you to touch. ”
I inhaled deeply in anticipation of such a possibility.
A touch. The ability that everyone had and likely everyone took for granted. I certainly had never fully appreciated it until I lost it completely.
“Where would I get the silk like that?” I asked quickly.
“Directly from Sky Kingdom, of course.” Odine lifted a finger pointing at the cloudless sky above.
I knew I couldn’t see Sky Kingdom from here. It was impossible to spot even on the clearest of days, despite it being always above us. Yet I followed Odine’s gesture anyway, tipping my head back to stare straight up.
Olathana didn’t trade with Sky Kingdom anymore. Not after its King Aigle betrayed my great-grandmother by luring her to the Peak of Kings then murdering her in front of the rulers of the Lorsan Wetlands and the Dakath Mountains.
“We don’t trade with Sky Kingdom,” I said. “And even if we did, I can’t get up there. I can’t get off this reef. I hardly ever leave this palace.”
“Then send someone to get it for you and deliver it to me right away,” Odine replied.
“For the next decade or so, I’ll be staying in the monastery of Goddess Ghata on the shores of Sarnala.
The werewolf nuns have all taken the vow of silence.
It’s peaceful there, except for the full-moon nights, of course. ”
“But who can I send if not a siren?” I pondered out loud.
Where was I supposed to find a non-siren willing to do my bidding if even my own people steered clear from me?
“You are the great, powerful King Kye of Olathana. I trust you will find a way, Your Majesty.” Odine bowed, switching from the warm tone of the woman who’d known me from birth to the politely detached voice of a courtier.
She walked away, iridescent mists seeping through her cloak and rolling in a shimmer down her frail, hunched over shoulders.
I stared after her for as long as I could see her figure through the thick, multi-faceted walls of my palace.
Her visit brought a new hope. Only I wasn’t sure if hope was welcome here anymore.
During the past hundred years, I’d tried every “cure,” every spell, and every potion in many fruitless attempts to break or reverse the curse.
All I had to show for it were the numerous glass statues of everyone who’d either genuinely tried to help or just attempted to fool me.
Did I have it in me to try one more time? Could I deal with yet another crushing disappointment if it failed?
Except that Odine didn’t claim she knew how to break the spell. She only promised to make my life a little easier, a little more bearable…a little less lonely perhaps.
In which case, was it even worth trying at all?
Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t notice the butterfly land on my hand until it was too late.
Its wings stiffened and turned translucent, losing all their vibrant colors. Its delicate legs immediately broke, with glass being so much more brittle than the living tissue. The poor thing tipped sideways, falling off my hand.
“No.” I reached for it.
But too thin and delicate to exist as a glass figurine, the doomed butterfly hit the glass sand under my bare feet and shattered on impact, pulverized into tiny shards that were immediately lost in the sand.
Well, fuck…
I failed to save it after all.
Just as I had never saved a single person of the many people I’d murdered.
Yes, my friends, we’re going to Olathana, the ocean of the sirens, where Zeph is from.
The Cursed in Glass duet is coming in the Fall of 2026.