Page 39 of A Curse So Vile

“What about the warring?”

“There were some of my kind that held fast to their beastly nature and chose to stay savage. They found my kind appalling, worse than humans because we were choosing to dilute our gifts. They tried to keep their blood pure, but their fertility was lacking, and they loathed being forced to take human mates. They took their anger out on my kind, killing all that they could. We fought back, but our casualties were great. In the end, two clans formed, and each went its separate ways. We sought light, so our human sides could flourish, while they sought darkness, settling in and enslaving the town of Ossory. The town we cohabitate with, Felwick, treats us as family.”

“Will Fiona become a beast?”

“She has the old blood flowing through her veins, so she will go through some changes, but she may never achieve full transformation. Some simply cannot. If it means anything to you, just know I’m truly sorry. I wouldn’t have done this if I felt I could have avoided it.”

“Well, Brenna. I don’t like you, and I don’t like what you’ve done, but here we are, having to deal with it.”

“Trust me, Dorthea, I meant no harm.”

“I believe you, but that doesn’t mean I like your methods, or even agree with them. You didn’t tell us what you were doing! We had no choice.”

“I couldn’t risk you saying no. She would have died. And trust me, I’ll pay for my deed. I face execution because of what I’ve done.”

“Death may have been better. That’s all I’m saying.”

Brenna shrugged. “Perhaps you’re right.”

“And this curse of yours? How does that figure into all this?”

Brenna was at a loss for words, which was rare. She wanted nothing so badly as to share her burden, but with it came feelings she wasn’t prepared for. Feelings of guilt, shame, and vulnerability.

It would be an easy thing to tell Dorthea to mind her own business, but she found she wanted to tell her story. Knowing that in her final days someone would know and understand her pain gave her a peace she hadn’t felt in over a decade.

“I’ll tell you everything, but you have to promise never to tell a soul.”

“Do I look like the type to chatter?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

Dorthea chuckled lightly. “Your secret is safe with me.”

“Years ago, I visited a witch’s tent to have my fortune read. She put a curse on me, and on my twenty-third birthday under the light of the blood moon, I will forever be stuck in my beast form, or as my tribe calls it, my Denithian form.”

Dorthea cast her a look of sympathy but said nothing.

Brenna raised her brow. “It’s your turn.”

A dour look crossed Dorthea’s face. “But—”

“No buts. We’re sharing.”

The old woman dabbed the sweat from her forehead with her shawl. “You know kings and the like, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, my father ruled Gryndar. Not in the way of your Dreyléon, but in the ways of my people.”

“So you’re…a princess?”

“A bastard princess. His trueborn daughter was always jealous of me. She’d catch the men courting her staring in my direction, and her hatred grew. When my father passed, her people came to slaughter me, but the palace guards secreted me away in the dead of night. I remember being on a boat, destined for a world I had been taught was foul and dirty. As I came to find out, it was.”

“You mean from the Great Blight? That happened so long ago?”

No one knew what exactly caused the spill of such poison into their world, but it rendered the whole of the north unlivable, and many people grew sick with the taint of it over the years.

Dorthea nodded. “Your land is foul. The people here are just so used to it, they give it little thought.”