Page 3 of A Cursed Heart
Once more, his magic ripped through me. My breath stopped in my lungs, blood froze, and my magic just vanished.
Plink. The heart gem landed on the stone floor between us.
My king held out a hand. The gem rose into it. Called to him by the magic in his blood. He smirked at me, tightening his fingers around it.
Seconds ticked by. A ripple of magic worked its way over my exposed skin.
“Malacoda, you have betrayed me, stolen from me. Now you have to pay for your crimes.” His voice thundered through the prison. My pulse pounded in my ears. “You want this so badly?” he paused, studying me and the gem in his fist. “Then it will become your prison until you prove you have a pure heart of your own.”
I felt a tug in my gut. The world twisted and shrank before going dark.
When I awoke, I felt cut off from my magic, my people. All I had was this void, this blank place. There was no time, no hunger, no anything, for far too long. I tried everything I could to escape it, using every trick I could think of. Nothing worked. I couldn’t even make the gem rock or glow, or anything to alert anyone of where I was. Not that anyone cared.
Slowly, I began to hear whispers from the outside. My cell, the heart gem, was put back in the palace, where it stayed for years.I heard my name many times, cheeks burning in mortification when they laughed at my misfortune.
Dagda was right. They entertained each other nightly, taking potions to prevent pregnancy. My siblings visited them, too, most of them ignoring my prison. Only the second youngest—I was the baby of the family—paid the gem any mind. Jaashin spoke to me several times, sometimes blaming my situation on myself, other times expressing pity for me. He almost always took the time to talk to me, remembering me far longer than the others did.
Once, Dagda caught him talking to me. “Can’t you let him out?” he asked the king. By this time, four decades had passed. Dagda was now a father several times over and appeared to have mellowed some.
“Not until he learns his lesson.” He even managed to sound sad about it. Liar. It was all a facade. He didn’t care about me. “The spell is quite specific,” he mused, tracing a finger over the gem, removing a layer of dust for no one ever touched it. “He will have many opportunities in the coming years to prove himself worthy.”
Cultivating any knowledge of the curse was a must. I gathered all the crumbs I could about it. This was a clue, a snippet of information, towards finding a way out.
“Do you think he can?” Jaashin looked hopeless, like he thought it beyond my abilities. He had a husband now. Had adopted a child. Life was carrying on without me, as if I’d never existed.
I fumed in my prison, only able to watch while everyone else forgot me.
“Yes. I know he has it in him.”
It would be many years before I was given my first chance.
