Chapter 107: I Curse The Day You Were Born Azure!
The dark sky of the Moonlight Pack was clear, but the air felt remarkably tight around the palace walls. Azure stood alone on her bedchamber balcony, her hair catching the cool evening breeze. She stared up at the glowing crescent moon, a small, calculating smile resting on her lips before her gaze drifted down to the stone courtyard below.
A few guards were rotating their positions across the gravel, and near the far edge of the grounds, two young servants, a boy and a girl—were working together to carry a long wooden board toward the kitchen quarters.
"You two," Azure called out, her voice cutting smoothly through the quiet air.
The children froze, their heads snapping upward in unison.
"What is that board being used for?" Azure asked, leaning slightly over the stone railing.
The boy glanced nervously at the girl, then back up at the balcony, shifting the weight of the timber in his small hands. "It is for nothing important, Lady Azure. Just repairs for the storage room."
Azure kept her expression soft, offering them a reassuring, warm smile. "Very well. Carry on then."
The young servants nodded hastily and quickened their pace. As they rounded the corner of the stone wall, the boy leaned closer to the girl, his voice a frantic whisper. "Did Lady Azure just smile at us?"
"Yes," the girl replied, looking back over her shoulder in disbelief. "I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me."
Up on the balcony, Azure turned her eyes back to the sky, watching the silver light wash over the rooftops. "Moon way up high," she murmured, tilting her head. "My hands cannot reach you, or I would have taken you for myself. Your patterns are truly perfect. Why don’t you simply give yourself up to me?"
She traced the glowing crescent with a manicured finger, her thoughts drifting to her rival. "Odesse draws her power from you. Imagine if I had targeted you instead of her." She paused, touching her chin thoughtfully. "The moon spirit... It really isn’t fair, you know. I have worked and practiced my magic completely independently, but Odesse always has assistance. I have loved Valex for years, but Odesse has him."
A slow smirk returned to her face. "Odesse and I would have been excellent friends if we had met under different circumstances. We have so much in common. Just different motives... actually, no. Our motives are quite similar when you think about it. It’s just a different intent. If only life had been a bit fairer to me."
As the wind picked up, the quiet of the night pulled her thoughts backward, dragging her mind deep into the memories of her childhood.
In her mind’s eye, she was eight years old again, standing in the middle of her parents’ brightly lit parlor. Her school clothes and her face were completely soaked in dark, wet blood. Her mother sat on the couch, her face contorted with anger as she shouted across the room. "What have you gotten yourself into again, Azure? Where did you go after school, and what is all this on your body?"
Little Azure kept her head bowed, her hands pressed flat against her sides.
Her father sighed, placing a calming hand on her mother’s shoulder. "Do not yell at her, dear." He turned his gaze to Azure, his voice gentle and curious. "My darling, where were you, and why are you covered in blood?"
Azure slowly raised her head, a wide, unsettling smile stretching across her face. "I caught a prey, Father."
Her father’s expression instantly brightened, a proud grin breaking out across his face. "Oh, wow! My darling, that is amazing news."
Her mother blinked, her anger shifting into slight confusion. "Really, dear?"
Azure nodded eagerly, glad to have their attention.
"Where did you find this prey?" her father asked, leaning forward.
"I was walking in the forest because I wanted to take the shortcut home from school," Azure explained, her voice bright. "Then I heard a loud sound. The bushes were shaking so much. I transformed into my wolf form and slowly followed the noise. When I got the chance, I attacked it with full force, Father!"
Her father clapped his hands together warmly. "That is wonderful! Was it a big animal?"
Azure smirked, her eyes gleaming. "Oh, Father, it was even more than I expected. It was a human."
Her mother gasped, standing up from the couch in complete shock. "What!"
Azure looked at her mother, her smile never wavering. "Mother, the blood was so bitter. I had to find a river just to wash my mouth out. But I felt so fulfilled, Father."
Her mother rushed forward, her face filled with deep disapproval, and brought her hand down sharply across Azure’s cheek. The blow made the young girl stumble back. "Have you lost your mind, Azure?"
"Why would you do that, dear?" her father demanded, stepping between them quickly.
Her mother pointed a trembling finger at the young girl, her voice dripping with resentment. "You disgust me, you evil child."
Azure’s head remained turned to the side from the impact, her jaw clenching as her small fists tightened so hard her knuckles turned white. Her mother turned on her heel, storming out of the parlor and slamming a room door behind her.
Her father turned back to Azure, kneeling down to her eye level and gently rubbing her hair. "My darling, do not listen to your mother. I am proud of you. Your very first catch. I shall go talk to her, okay?"
He hurried down the hall after his wife, leaving Azure alone in the large, quiet room. Through the walls, the loud, angry voices of her parents began to echo.
"I curse the day she was born!" her mother’s voice rang out shrilly. "She has done nothing but bring failure to our family name!"
"Dear, do not say that," her father argued defensively. "She is a wolf. It is entirely normal for her to hunt."
"No, it is not!" her mother shouted back. "You have to fix your daughter! I am so tired of this. She is always seeking to hurt people. The other day, I heard she hurt her fellow classmate—not even a human, but a fellow wolf! And when I asked her why, she told me she did it because it was fun!"
"She is just a child, dear. Our duty as her parents is to educate her—"
"She ripped the child’s ear off, Jovan! That is what she did! Do not defend her behavior!"
Standing alone in the center of the room, little Azure glared at the floorboards, wishing the ground would simply split open and swallow her whole.
The memory faded, dissolving back into the cold reality of the Moonlight Palace balcony. Azure’s eyes lingered on the glowing moon as a single tear escaped, tracking down her cheek.
"Mother was right to curse the day I was born," she whispered into the night air, her face falling into a rare shadow of genuine sadness. "Even I curse the day I was born. I wish I was different. I wish I was like other people. I wish my childhood was like other children’s. But it is not my fault I always found happiness in control and torture of other lives. If only my destiny had been different."
She looked down at the courtyard stones, a cold, bitter smile returning to her face. "Do not think I am going to look up at the heavens for you, Mother. I know exactly where you are. I do not regret what happened to you at all."
Another fragmented memory surfaced from her tenth year. She recalled opening the front door of her childhood home after school, dropping her bag by the entryway. The house had been entirely too quiet.
"Mother, I am back," she had called out, stepping into the hallway.
Her acute wolf ears had tingled, picking up strange, unfamiliar shuffling sounds coming from the master bedroom upstairs. She crept up the steps, sniffing the air and said, "I can smell the scent of Mother, but whose is this other scent?" As she approached a door, she paused and pressed her ear against it. She heard unfamiliar sounds, like screams. Slowly, she pushed the door open, her eyes widening in horror as she caught a glimpse of what was inside. Terrified, she closed the door gently and took a few steps back. Her expression turned cold as she walked down the stairs in a slow, eerie manner.
Once in the kitchen, she picked up a knife and then walked back up the stairs. Pausing at the door, she began to knock softly. She continued knocking until the door opened slowly, revealing her mother, who was wrapped tightly in a blanket. Azure looked up at her mother and her mother said, "Darling, you’re back." Azure stared at her mother’s face and replied, "You are evil, Mother... you know I am just like you."
...
Azure shook her head, forcing the old memories back into the dark corners of her mind.
She continues to gaze at the ground of the palace courtyard. She says, "I will come to meet you in hell soon, Mother. Perhaps we can finally have the mother-daughter bond we never achieved here on Earth."
"Father was the only one I truly had," she mused softly, her voice steadying as she remembered his passing years later from an illness. "He was not a bad man. He would correct me when I did something wrong, but he never looked at me with absolute disgust. Not the way you did."
She paused, her eyes narrowing as she thought of the Odesse. "And that is the exact same look I see on Odesse’s face whenever she looks at me."
Azure leaned her back against the balcony railing, a dangerous, wide smile spreading across her lips. "I know Odesse will try to redirect the spell. So all I have to do is wait until I realize that she has. I do not know if she has done it yet, or if she is still preparing. But the moment I realize it..."
She threw her hands up slightly, her eyes widening in dark amusement. "Boom. I’ll die. You see, Odesse, even if you live, this story will still end how I want it to end. Only I can kill myself."
Comments