Page 220 of His Blazing Witch

He stays quiet for a moment.

"...Not really. She didn't even blame her..."

"Then that's the same, Liam. Your mother unknowingly protected you three by not holding it against Nephera, so the curse only worked on Nephera, who couldn't forgive, and your father. If you think about it, all the curse's victims were people who couldn't forgive. Clarissa's mother, or grandmother, and Nephera. Your father. The people who were fine or stronger are the ones who did. Your mother and Queen Diane. Both forgave and thus, protected their descendants, just like Luna did by forgiving the witch."

He stays silent for a long time. From all the frowning and pouting, I can tell he is definitely thinking about everything I said, trying to make sense out of my crazy theories.

I do admit it's far-fetched, but I believe that story. I believe in it like I believe in the curse, and I know for such a bad thing to ever be created, there ought to be some strong sentiments behind it. Resentment, hatred, but also the pain and jealousy of a broken-hearted witch. I felt echoes of that pain and that hatred during my first fight against the curse when it was possessing my body. The saddest thing is... there is no real culprit, to begin with. That wolf didn't purposely break the witch's heart, but it also couldn't control the strength of her love either. She was a lonely woman who fell for someone who gave her attention. It's so similar to Nephera's story, it's obvious in my eyes, the curse found the perfect vessel through her, but it also feared its enemies: the Lunas who forgave. The people who cared about those witches, like Sylviana who was the only one to feel sorry for her own sister...

"...Liam, say something please," I sigh after a long time has passed. "...Do you think I'm wrong somewhere?"

He slowly shakes his head, and grabs my hands, rubbing them with his fingers.

"No... I mean, everything you said does make sense. It's just that there are too many gray areas. I mean... I do get the thing about the curse using Nephera. It totally makes sense with what happened. I don't know about Queen Diane, to be honest, like Nora said, anyone who knew about her is dead now. I do believe it would be... more believable to think she had a man, secretly, rather than that she conceived the twins out of the blue. That part was odd from the start. Moreover, she was said to have powers of healing, divination, and the likes, which are basically witch powers. So the whole... super Luna part, I get that, and it fits Nora and Selena too. What I don't understand is the part about the children. Clarissa and little Mara too, Nephera's daughter. What did they have to do with this? They were witches’ daughters, why did they have to be cursed as well?"

...Liam has a good point.

I'm trying to remember what the Water Witch had said. She didn't see Clarissa and little Mara as the same, did she...? She called Clarissa a Cursed One, but considered Nephera's daughter a real little witch, although she was unborn. So what was the difference...?

"...Their father," I finally realize. "Nephera's daughter was the child of another wolf, one who hadn't betrayed her mother. While... Clarissa, or her mom, was the child of whoever had betrayed her. It would have explained why Clarissa and her mom were cursed as well. The curse wasn't... purged. It simply moved on to the next vessel that came its way. From the moment I woke up in Clarissa's body, the voices were there. The voices of all the witches from the curse, all those who had hated men and werewolves before. She mentioned it in her journal too, it was driving her crazy. Clarissa was constantly depressed and pushed into the darkness by those voices. Those voices were the curse's doing. Mara never had those voices, because her mother didn't pass the curse on to her. She was... unborn, and Nephera died still prey to the curse."

"It does... explain a lot," Liam nods, "even why the other witches don't like you in particular."

"Of course. Like the curse said, I'm basically a... patchwork of whatever survived it. Like we said, Clarissa wasn't even supposed to survive this far with what she was carrying. It's no wonder she wasn't born a witch, the curse probably took everything from her. Without her magic, her body struggled until the end..."

"...Until it was replaced with little Mara's Fire Magic."

"Exactly. There's absolutely no darkness in an unborn witch's magic, the curse couldn't do anything as soon as those two got together. Clarissa got a lot better as soon as she and Mara got together, and the curse even almost disappeared when I took over. It tried to attack me... psychologically. It reacted to male werewolves, in particular, or simply men trying to harm me. It reacted to feelings like anger, loneliness..."

"Basically all the components for a good curse," sighs Liam.

I nod.

He grabs my mug, and takes a gulp of my hot chocolate. When he lowers it, he has a little brown mustache above his lips... I can't resist, I lean in to kiss and lick it away. Liam looks at me with a little smile once I'm done, licking my own lips.

"...Miss Witch, I thought we were having a serious discussion right now?"

"We are," I chuckle, taking my half-empty mug from him.

Liam chuckles.

"Okay... Well, at least we definitely see clearer about that whole curse now, and even what was... wrong with you, if you don't mind the shitty wording."

"I get it."

"But the curse is completely gone from your body now, right?"

I hesitate. ...Is it?

"It's not... I mean, the more time I spent with you, the weaker the voices were. I haven't heard them in a while since we actually got together, so I think... getting a male partner helped a lot. But... it still surfaced through the mirror, and in that dream Sylviana gave me too."

"So what, it's just hanging around and waiting to do shit whenever it gets a chance?"

I sigh.

"Well, it's still there, one way or another. Remember the tale? The curse was stronger than the witch who had created it. If it got stronger with each witch that was betrayed by a male werewolf ever since, maybe now it's... trying to come back."

"Why would it come back? Anyone who... defeated it died. Queen Diane died, Nephera died, my mom too... I don't know what that curse is after. Why would it have clung on to you, of all witches? We already know there are Dark Witches out there, so why you? Does it have a grudge because of your rebirth of something?"

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