Page 4 of The Cursed and the Broken
The táltosok, like witches, were powerful non-humans living in the woods, right near the Romanian border. Much like shamans, their power was spiritual, forming a connection between the living and the dead. The strongest could re-animate the dead. It gave me shivers just thinking about it.
Still, the men from that village were fathers, sons, brothers … and though we lived separately from them, they were essential. Unlike human families, ours were unconventional in that we parted ways. The girls would return to their mothers’ covens to learn how to weave their magic, and the boys would train with táltosok to harness their gifts.
I’d always wondered why anyone thought it was a good idea to break families apart—why it had to be this way at all, but it wasn’t worth the trouble of finding myself in the council’s crosshairs. The chief elder wasnotsomeone to trifle with.
My father had passed away years ago, and it still irked me how he had been so close yet so far. A figurehead, little more than myth. After Mama fell pregnant with Eszter, our little family had returned to our coven. They never married, he never visited, and Mama never spoke of him. It was only when news came of his ill health that she took me to see him one last time.
My last memory of him haunts me still. Skin and bones covering a deflated stomach. Barely a vessel to hold his heart and soul intact. It had scared me how emaciated he was in his sickness, and yet, there had been kindness in his eyes. Hazel, like mine. He had patted his bed with a frail hand until I sat before him, and he had looked upon my face. I was six then.
He had taken my hands in his own and whispered words in another language. Ancient. Powerful. The hair on my prickled skin had raised and my blood had seemed to swell with hunger. A devouring of power. Only I didn’t know what that power meant. What I could do with it once I realised what a gift he had given me.
And what a curse.
I had been too young to understand the depth of his gift back then. It’s not like he had time to explain the magic’s use, and we never had a deeper bond. My lack of attachment to my father was not unlike the other witches’ feelings towards their fathers and brothers.
To live to every womanly whim; such was the way in our village. To cavort with others was a primal instinct, if nothing else, to preserve our line without sacrificing independence and authority. Adult witches took human lovers from time to time, but the unfortunate souls would soon find themselves in the woods without a clue how they got there.
The elders didn’t mind, so long as we remained safe. Secret.
Of course, their laws didn’t include teens running off to roll among the tree trunks with táltos boys. We weren’t human, but the elders enforced many of their traditions, and keeping our maidenhood safe before marriage or childbearing was high on that list.
Arranged marriages were rare, but not unheard of. These days, witches and táltosok usually bonded to produce heirs or to strengthen a house’s blood. Táltosok would come to court witches on the spring festival and bonds formed thereafter.
Not all witches followed such rules.
Including me. My virtue had been lost to a stableboy in the town over. I’d hidden myself in one of the trade wagons headed to the markets and had explored ineverysense of the word. Mama had given me an earful about it, but it was one of the best days I’d ever had. I think, deep down, she knew what I’d done, but she had never asked about it and I hadn’t offered.
More importantly, she had never stopped me from going again. Or, at least, I’d grown smarter about how I planned my trips. Mama was usually none the wiser.
Being hidden in plain sight amongst the humans always filled me with a sense of exhilaration—filled me with wonderment and joy. In our small village, I’d always felt trapped and alone. But out there the world was full of possibilities. And more, there was comfort in the arms of another. Comfort I never found among my own people, bar the embraces of my family.
I know Hanna also sought such comfort—snuck out at night to meet with lovers in the woods. Eszter had learned Hanna was promised to another and, if she was to be wed soon, her dalliance would not impress the groom. Nor her mother.
It was so like Hanna to run off and leave everyone worrying. She was a beautiful, well-dressed bully. A conceited creature who valued power, beauty and status, and she used those tools as weapons to prey on those who didn’t conform to her society’s standards.
I snorted. Her vanity was so far up her ass, she could wear it as a hat.
Despite my animosity towards her, a niggling feeling deep within my gut told me there was more to her absence. Five days? A long time to be left in the woods, especially during winter. There were many creatures within the surrounding forests that wouldn’t take kindly to her lingering and, worse still, there were those that preyed on witches and the weak-minded.
Hanna was the latter. I wouldn’t miss her, but she hadn’t always been horrid. We’d even been friends once upon a time, and Hanna’s mother had always been good to me. She didn’t deserve the worry and IsupposeHanna didn’t deserve to be eaten by wolves … or worse. Lidércek, tündérek, and changelings—incubi and faeries—were mischievous and self-serving. There were many good ones, of course, but come across evil and evil will devour flesh and soul.
Regardless of my feelings towards her, I felt compelled to protect my coven, to keep other witches safe.
“So youareworried,” Eszter said with a pointed look at my hands absentmindedly bunching up my skirts.
I rolled my shoulders casually. I wouldn’t let her see how concerned I really was, but Hanna wasn’t the first girl to go missing. Ever since my eighteenth birthday, witches had disappeared. None had returned.
Imighthave spied on several of the elders’ council meetings to gauge their thoughts on this. Safe to say, they were equally concerned.
I chewed my lip. Hanna and I were not friends. She had burned that relationship long ago, but a small part of me still held on to happy memories. I might despise what she’d become, but I didn’t want to see her hurt.
“I still think Hanna is reckless, but if she’s injured or worse …” I sighed. “We’d better look for her.”
Eszter grinned with wolfish delight and I rolled my eyes before my smile spread. Yes, Eszter always started our mischievous adventures, but I spurred them to action. I couldn’t help myself. The woods called to me. Sitting still for too long was not in my blood.
“We’ll go first thing in the morning after chores. Mama will have our necks if we don’t get our work finished.”
“I’ll have more than that if you’re going to sit around eating me out of house and home,” Mama said with a playful smile as she swept into the room, a basket full of spools in bright pops of colour in the crook of her arm. She rounded the table and gave us each a kiss on the forehead. “And how was your day, girls?”
