Every day spent with Chrys by his side was a day overflowing with happiness, but Kyzar’s unease was never too far from the back of his mind. Since finding out that she did not plan to stick around for the long haul, an uncomfortable lump had formed in his chest, a tiny nucleus of doubt that had metamorphosed into a full-blown fear that he would lose her faster than he could cling to her.

While Chrys passed most of her time either scouring inhuman volumes of text in his study or pushing the limits of her magic out in the forest, Kyzar caught up on his administrative duties as lord of Huvestria and pondered ways to keep her in his territory. 

They had settled into a routine, one where they naturally spent nearly all of their waking hours together. In the days immediately after he regained his ability to speak and write, Chrys had been more jumpy and on guard around him. He suspected that she was more afraid of the him who was capable of speech than the him who was just a monster, and truly, it was one step forward and two steps backward with her. On one day, he could hold her hand and she would shyly recount to him bits and pieces of what she had learnt through her readings, and on another, she would flinch the moment he reached out for her, warier than prey that knew it was being hunted. 

Her hot and cold behaviour kept him on edge, but there was at least one thing that she was pretty clear and unchanging about: she did not want to sleep with him again. She never gave him an explanation, and while he had been stupid enough to fall for the lies of an evil witch, he was confident, and begrudgingly so, in his interpretation of the relationship between him and Chrys post-virginities. She was repulsed by him, and the only reason she had allowed him to touch her in the first place was that she had felt pressured into it. The truth hurt, but Kyzar had no choice but to accept that the woman his heart yearned for, did not reciprocate his feelings.

Kyzar gazed out his study’s window. Spring was in the air, and the sprightly colours made for a beautiful backdrop with Chrys as the centrepiece. As usual, sly Barnes was coiled up and resting on her shoulder while she read, and Kyzar could not help but wonder if she would be as comfortable if his soldier was suddenly able to speak. Perhaps he had lost his mind, for he often entertained the thought of never breaking his curse, because it would mean that Chrys, kind soul that she was, might find it hard to abandon him. After all, despite her caginess around him, she was fully devoted to her study of his curse. 

Chrys looked up at him, and like a child that had been caught in a naughty act, Kyzar quickly ducked into the curtains. His heart was beating fast. It was not the first time he had been discovered watching her, but he did not want her to misunderstand his antics as coercion. 

Knock, knock.

“What?” 

“Elliot, reporting for duty. My lady has dismissed Avis. Will you join her outside, Your Grace?”

Steaming behind his non-existent ears, Kyzar hurried out of his study, down the stairs, past his castle doors, through the hole in the wall, and then he was face to face with Chrys. He felt self-conscious. The world could very well end tonight, and he would have no regrets, because Chrys was not avoiding him.

“Your Grace.”

“Chrys.”

She was chewing on her bottom lip. “Could I…take a piece of your horn, please?”

Without hesitation, Kyzar broke off an entire jut from his head and handed it to her. “What do you need it for?”

“This book…says there’s a way for us to figure out why and how your curse was casted.” 

On the grass in front of her, next to an open book on a page full of illustrations, there were herbs and berries, and now, a bloody piece of his monster flesh. Kyzar sat. She was crushing his horn with the materials she had gathered, creating a greenish red paste. Then, to his dismay, she sliced her palm open and drew multiple overlapping circles with the blood that dripped from her in a steady stream of bright red. No hesitation, no wince, not even a flinch. For there to be zero reaction to this level of pain, Chrys must not be an ordinary person. 

With her hands cupping the mixture of monster and plant, she entered the innermost circle demarcated by her blood. Her body folded, kneeling. Both of her hands met the earth, pressing the chunky goo into the grass as she murmured a prayer in an ancient tongue that he did not understand. Unlike the chants Millse had uttered on that accursed day seven years ago, Kyzar sensed no malice in Chrys’s. His heart felt light.

Until Chrys’s entire body froze.

She looked like she was in pain. Her eyes were wide, her face whiter than a sheet. Kyzar wanted to grab her, but he worried that doing so might disrupt the flow of magic and hurt her. Where curses were concerned, he simply did not have the courage.

“Chrys, can I…”

She staggered backwards, awash with terror. Out of the magic circle, she collapsed onto her behind, at a loss for words. Kyzar wrapped his arms around her waist, supporting her back.

“Tell me what’s wrong, Chrys.”

Tears speckling the side of her eyes, she looked up at him. “A hundred babies,” she uttered in a deathly whisper. “A man and a woman.”

Kyzar’s stomach turned. Chrys did not need to elaborate; the look on her face told him everything he needed to know. Millse had sacrificed a hundred and two lives to curse him. A hundred lives that ended before they could even begin, and two that could have experienced more of what life had to offer. He grabbed her bloodstained hands, seeking to comfort her, and perhaps comfort himself too, and his eardrums nearly shattered.

They were screaming. Pain, anger, anguish, voices so sharp and grating they could abrade skin. The babies and the couple were blackened from head to toe with bits of their bodies crumbling off, their faces charred beyond recognition. They were burned so badly, they were ash more than they were flesh. The intensity of their agony was unfathomable. His heart clenched. By coming into contact with the sludge on Chrys’s hands, he had somehow looped himself into her magic, bearing witness to the horrors of Millse’s curse.

A bloodcurdling laugh echoed, originating from an unknown entity somewhere amongst the screaming souls. Kyzar flinched. It was a baby, but it was nothing like the rest. In the most pristine of health, a glowing picture of innocence, until a dark shroud of evil wrapped around it and the devil appeared. Eyes redder than freshly spilt blood, teeth sharper than daggers, it was a fearsome appearance that rivalled Kyzar’s monster form, but they could not be more different. Where Kyzar meant no harm, this creature was malice incarnate.

It swallowed the baby whole.