All the Stars and Teeth(93)
I rise to my feet, but it’s no longer in resignation. I drag the skinning knife across my palm and close my fist around it, coating it in my blood.
I’ll separate my magic, fine. But it won’t be so he can control me. I’m done with Cato. This man is nothing more than a coward trying to justify his need to feel important. To feel powerful. And it’s time someone put this small man in his place.
I tear into my own soul, ripped and bruised and shredded. It’s so simple, as easy as breathing. But it’s not curse magic I rip from it; it’s soul magic.
Cato stretches his hand out expectantly, but rather than give him the cursed knife, I shove it deep into his palm.
He reels back, his face so astonished that it’s clear he never expected I might do something to harm him. But as he’s no longer the boy I used to know, I am no longer that girl.
The blood coating my palm mixes with his, and I slap it across his forehead.
I hardly know what I’m doing. My body is three steps ahead of my mind, acting on the angry impulse writhing within me. Acting on the power and the heat of the charms around my wrist.
“You will forget my name,” I snarl, pinning him to the ground. Cato buckles and attempts to throw me off, but somehow I manage to keep him down. My body convulses. With rage, perhaps. Or maybe with fear.
“You will forget my face, and that anyone ever loved you. May this magic be every bit the beast you are; may it curse your bloodline for all of eternity, almighty king.” I spit the word. “The moment you harm another creature, may this magic eat you from the inside out. May it spend its existence trying to accomplish nothing but the eradication of your soul. Should you let your guard down for even one moment, may it consume you entirely. Cato Montara, I hope it destroys you.”
I slam Cato’s head against the ground, and his eyes glaze over. By the time my mind and body catch up with each other, I practically fall off him, shaking so fiercely I can’t even scramble to my feet. My breaths come in sharp, desperate gasps, icicles shooting up my spine and through my veins. They’re all-consuming, but I can only laugh.
Never did I think it possible to curse a person directly, but with this vicious power I’ve gathered from the cursed bands around my wrists, I’ve done just that.
I laugh and laugh as Cato’s eyes go white, his body convulsing as the curse tears into him, settling into his blood.
He’s nothing more than an angry little boy who’s ruined countless lives with his own jealousy. And now, finally, I’ll make him pay for it.
When he jerks his head to me, his eyes are wide with fear, but I only smile as my heart collapses.
It turns out cursing another person’s life directly takes a substantial payment I hadn’t quite expected, but I don’t mind giving my life in exchange.
“The people of Arida will forget what I did to them.” Shaking, I smear my blood over the grass, then into the dirt, trying to bury it as deeply into the soil as I can get it. “Everyone on this island will forget what they have lost.”
It’s the last bit of kindness I know to offer. Choking, gagging, unable to find air, I curl the skinning knife tightly in my palm and make my final curse.
I give it my memories. I fill the knife with the story of this past year, and drop it onto the shore for the waves to bury. I want my friends to live in peace; I want them to forget the pain of all they’ve lost.
But perhaps one day, when the kingdom is ready, they’ll find this knife and learn the truth of who King Cato truly was. Perhaps one day they’ll know what I’ve done.
A wave grazes my fingertips, the water pushing the knife deeper and deeper into the sand until the blade’s been devoured whole.
All air flees from my lungs as my body stills, slackening into something both so heavy and entirely weightless at the same time.
Arida fades from my vision, and I draw my final breath.
* * *
I stagger back, and Cato’s skinning knife clatters to the ground.
There’s a lump in my throat I bitterly swallow down as I stare at my trembling hands—no longer Sira’s, but my own. In my mind’s eye, I once again see the blood of my first prisoner gliding down my fingers.
As Sira, I understood curse magic perfectly—you decide what you want people to see, and curse an object with that image or story by connecting it with your blood. There’s a chance someone could have made this whole thing up, but this curse was nothing like the one with the fox; it was far too real. Every breath Sira took was my own; I felt every emotion. Every ounce of pain and fear. It was curse magic at a level that will never be rivaled.
And it showed me that the magic within me isn’t meant to be vicious.
Sira’s soul magic was never a beast that waited to consume her the moment she let down her guard. It was gentle and inviting. Comfortable.
Her curse on Cato is what makes my soul magic behave the way it does. And the cursed soul magic she used to get rid of everyone’s magic—the one she hated herself for even possessing—is exactly the kind of magic Kaven uses, now.
Everything I grew up believing—about my blood, my magic, my lineage—none of it was real. This isn’t the way it’s meant to be.
All this time, has Father known the truth?
I don’t know how long I sit in the cavern, letting the truth sink in. I only stand because I know I have to, and my head spins with the toll of this knowledge as I make my way back out.