Page 115 of Heirs of the Cursed

“She brought you in her arms with a huge smile on her face, a smile that she never gave me.” Conrad let out a laugh of disbelief.

“She loved you, Conrad,” she said, gasping for air.

“But she loved you more. Her favorite daughter, a savage raised by wolves and goddesses know what else. An abomination. And yet she spoiled you like no other. She bought you new clothes, sewed toys for you to sleep with, and even gave you that beautiful pendant that for so many years has protected you.”

Darcia lowered her gaze to the moon-shaped pendant, where the boreal colors in the gemstone swirled with darker hues. Though there had been a time when she believed that the necklace was responsible for her nightmares, she had found safety in it as well. From then on, she held it in her hands whenever she was afraid.

“I always wondered what it was that made you so special. She scolded me every time I asked too many questions, especially when I was old enough to realize you weren’t normal,” Conrad went on, playing with the dagger between his fingers. “You got sick, you were weak . . . She stayed by your side, locked in your room, whispering prayers in adhmati.”

“I don’t believe you,” she dared to say.

“Are you calling me a liar?” he screamed in her face.

Darcia bowed her head. “Adhmati is the dead language of the Fallen Kingdom. How could she—”

“That’s what I wondered,” Conrad interrupted her and paced around her. “Your constant sickness, the necklace you weren’t allowed to take off, your strange magic, the adhmati chants . . . I turned to my father for answers, but he didn’t listen to me either. And so I set his desk on fire.”

“Fire?” she asked in a whisper.

“Surprise, little sister. I was born with the power of flames, making me the first dryad in Dawnfall to wield it in over two hundred years. People gathered in the square to celebrate, thinking the goddesses had given me their blessing. One you took from me!”

Conrad had been fire. He had been flames.

And now he was nothing.

“How would I do that?” Darcia spat, unable to believe him. “I create illusions. That’s the whole extent of my power.”

In a fit of rage, Conrad grabbed her by the throat so tightly that the air vanished from her lungs. “You took my gift from me! You, with that filthy power of yours! You took my magic and my mother!”

“Conrad . . . Let go of me,” she begged him.

“You ruined everything! You ruined my family!” His hand squeezed her throat tighter, where soon there would be marks that only time would erase yet she’d remember forever.

The tears had returned, no longer of helplessness, but of pain. She couldn’t have done those things. Darcia was a good person; she’d worked her entire life to be one. With her eyes fixed on the night sky, she pleaded for air. She wasn’t going to die in that forest, she wasn’t going to die at Conrad’s hands.

Her magic swirled inside her, begging her to release it and finish him off.

But she couldn’t.

“When you took my powers away, my parents asked me not to blame you. After all, you were a little girl who didn’t know what you were doing. Father promised me that, when you were old enough, you would leave. He’d find you a home, away from us. But then you killed my mother, and those promises were broken.”

“I couldn’t . . .”

“Yes, you could! And you did! She took care of you, she protected you, and you killed her! You killed her!”

Conrad threw Darcia to the ground with brutal force. Pain shot through her bones. Still, she didn’t care.

She’d killed someone. Not just any person, but Lisabetta.

Their mother.

She was a killer, a monster.

“When your powers manifested, I saw an opportunity. If you were going to stay, a murderer in our house, you would at least be of use. My father quit his job as a scholar and money soon began to run short. I had no magic that I could use to keep us fed, but I had you,” Conrad said, his eyes gleaming with mischief. “And that was more than enough.

“I sought out ghouls, cripples, orphans with no future,” he resumed. “I sought out people with all kinds of powers, desperate to make a place for themselves in the world. I turned them into a spectacle, until every one of them needed me to survive. None of them were worth it. Except for you, the golden girl . . . The Mind Breaker.”

Darcia whimpered. She’d been just another pawn in Conrad’s game.

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