Page 139 of Rage

Steele retrieves his shirt and slips it on, buttoning it swiftly. “Who?” he asks worriedly.

Before I can answer, a cold wind tears through the room, setting all the papered artwork to the wind as it extinguishesevery candle and the hearth’s flame. The air is wicked from my lungs as the gilded mirror cracks, the fractured surface emitting the shadowy figure of my father, the king. His twisted, half-mad face emerges from the frame, stepping down from whatever nefarious plane he whisked himself to. The wicked smile splits his face, and his eyes glow unnaturally.

“My little beast,” he sneers, his voice dripping with venom. "I see you’ve found a new companion to toy with."

Again, the rage returns with a vengeance, and I spring to my feet, positioning myself between my father and Steele. “You should’ve stayed in whatever pit you crawled into.”

A laugh ricochets outward from the king’s twisted mouth, reverberating like swords clashing. “And miss seeing how far you’ve fallen? No daughter. I’ve come to finish what I started.”

The air grows oppressive, and Steele struggles to stand as my father begins an incantation.

A snarl bubbling up from the deepest depths shakes me to my marrow as I rush at him, colliding with air that sends me sprawling into the wall, the breath shoved out of me as I land hard on my shoulder.

"You’ve wasted your time clinging to your humanity," the king taunts me as I struggle to stand. "You could have embraced your beastly nature and ruled this forest. Instead, you linger in shame, waiting for someone to love a monster."

“You want to talk about monsters?” Steele snipes, his voice surging with rage; the veins on his neck bulge out unnaturally as though he has a beast within himself. “She’s more human than you’ll ever be.”

The king narrows his eyes at Steele. "And you. The fool who thinks he can save her.”

My father raises his hands, dark magic swirling toward Steele.

I know that magick.

I’ve suffered its fate for centuries.

The roar I let loose could dislodge the mountains as I lunge forward, diving into the space between the king and Steele. The magick slams into me like a collision, and my monstrous form grows larger, more feral, as I absorb the full brunt of the curse.

“Reverie! What did you do?” Steele shouts from the floor, having fallen with the collision of magick.

“I won’t let him hurt anyone else,” I growl, my voice distorted, but desperation fuels my conviction.

I fully embrace my monstrous form and charge for my father again, my claws ripping through his skin like butter. Four slash marks tear through his clothes and flay his skin wide open, blood dripping onto the floor. The king falters but doesn’t yield, his laughter echoing ominously.

"You can’t fight what you are," he hisses, his mouth weeping more of the crimson color, blood painting his teeth red.

“I’m both the beast and the maiden,” I spit venomously. “I’m strong and fierce and will murder those who hurt others. But I’m not what you made me. I made myself and chose to wear my trauma like war paint. The past does not define me. While it may weave painful stitches in the fabric of my being, it’s only holding space for the rest of my patches that now make up the present future.”

As I speak, the magick floating around us begins to swirl. My body sinks to my average height, the fur disperses into my skin, and my clothes morph back into the size that fits my body.

Orange, red, and yellow sparkles leave me and swirl into my father, freezing him where he stands. The king lets out a roar of frustration as his form begins to dissolve. Piece by piece, he joins the sparkling air like a sand statue in a wind storm.

“You think you can save yourself?” he sneers as his hands disappear. “You’ll never escape what I made you.”

A snow globe appears in my hands, empty at first, yet as the orange swirling air desiccates him, it shifts its stream into the globe and reassembles him within the glass dome. “You can never hurt me again, nor anyone else. For I curse you for eternity to be who you are. You’re the monster. And you’ll live forever in isolation with nothing to keep you company but your selfish, sadistic thoughts. And then, you’ll devour your own soul into nothingness, and nobody nowhere will remember you even existed.”

The king moves to say something, but the dissolve has reached his face. He withers into the globe, where nothing and no one can ever hear him again.

I collapse from the sheer exhaustion of working with unfamiliar magick.

Steele rushes over to me, pulling me into his embrace.

“You did it,” he coos, cupping my face. “You beat your curse.”

“We did it,” I tell him, looking up into his campfire eyes. “You saw the beauty within the beast. It was because of you that I was able to see the real me, who is both. Equal parts beast and beauty.”

My breaths abandon me as he kisses me in his arms.

“I saw you from the very first meet in your garden. Your beast has always been becoming on you.”

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