Page 43 of Hexual Healing
“This isn't over,” she said.
“It kind of feels like it is,” Gary said with a smirk.
* * *
Illanya's wings burst from her back in a shower of scales and angry screeches.She was shifting, right there in the yard, becoming the thing that had haunted my nightmares for months after I left her.
“Everyone back!”Zelda shouted, but my magic had other ideas.
Instead of retreating, it surged forward, wild and uncontrolled.But not toward Illanya.Toward the curse itself.I could feel it, like a burning chain between us, visible for just a moment in the dying light.
It was a rope made of fire and broken promises, stretching from my chest to hers.
“What?”Illanya started, then her eyes went wide.“No.That's not possible.”
“What's not possible?”I demanded.
“The curse.You're…you're making it visible.”
I looked down.She was right.The curse was manifesting physically, pulsing with an angry red light.And with each throb, I felt it weakening.Not breaking, but…loosening.
The now-visible curse-chain pulled tight, yanking both Illanya and me to our knees.Pain pierced my chest, but I saw the same agony on her face.
“It hurts you too,” I gasped.“The curse.It's connected to you.It's been draining you just like it's been draining me.”
“Shut up!”she snarled, but tears were streaming down her face.
“That's why you want me back.Not because you love me.Because the curse is killing you too.”
“I said SHUT UP!”
She breathed fire, but it wasn't aimed at me.It was aimed at the curse-chain itself.The flames hit it and bounced back, striking her in the face.She screamed as her skin blackened from the soot.
Oh, goddess.That’s not soot.
They were burns.Third-degree burns.
“Stop!”I reached for her instinctively.“You're hurting yourself!”
“I'm hurting YOU!”she corrected, but her voice broke on the words.
“No,” I said, true understanding finally dawning.“You're hurting us.You've been hurting us this whole time.”
The curse roiled again, and this time, I saw something else.Memories.Not mine, hers.
Illanya, on the day she hexed me, tears streaming down her face, thinking, “If I can't have you, no one else can.”
Illanya, waking up in pain every morning since, the curse eating at her just as much as me.
Illanya, realizing what she’d truly done, that dragon curses always demanded a price from the caster.This was why she came back so soon to claim me.Why she’d threatened the town with immolation and brought three mercenaries to secure me.
“You didn't know,” I whispered.“You didn't know it would hurt you too.”
She looked at me, and for the first time in years, I saw the woman I'd fallen in love with.Not the dragon.Not the monster.Just Illanya, broken and afraid and in so much pain.
“When I saw it was you, after all these years… I just wanted you back,” she sobbed.“I just wanted to stop hurting.”
“I know.”And I did.Because, despite all the bullshit we’d been through, in my weakest moments, I'd wanted the same thing.