The Curse We Share

The next few days passed like a strange dream.

I stayed in the palace—not because I was forced, but because I had nowhere else to go. And maybe… because I didn’t want to go.

Jonathan became my reluctant guide.

He didn’t smile. He didn’t praise. But he taught me how to dress like a proper servant, how to walk without echoing, how to blend into halls older than most cities. I was terrible at most of it. My balance was off. I spilled tea. I tripped during bows. My posture was… awful.

But I could sew.

That, I didn’t fail at. Jonathan noticed.

“I want you to be in charge of repairing the Princess’s gowns,” he said one evening.

I blinked. “Isn’t that a little… important?”

“You didn’t ruin a single stitch. I trust you more than the tailor.”

I didn’t know if it was a compliment. But it felt like one.

That night, I was given access to the sewing room—a chamber of sunlight, warm threads, and cloth that shimmered like woven moonlight. As I stitched, I remembered my mother’s hands. Her hums. The way she’d hold my shoulders when I messed up.

For the first time in years, my fingers moved without fear.

But not everything was peaceful.

It happened during a shopping trip to the capital.

Jonathan and I took a horse-drawn cart to the marketplace, gathering rare silks. My first time outside the palace walls.

It was beautiful. White stone roads. Canals lit with magic. Floating lights that followed children like fireflies.

Then I noticed the stares.

Not at me.

At him—Jonathan.

Whispers. Sneers. Eyes like daggers.

“Why are they…?” I began.

He didn’t flinch. “They blame me. For raising her.”

“What?”

“She wasn’t supposed to survive,” he said. “Let alone inherit.”

It hit me.

Princess Annya. The last of her line. The court must’ve hated that she lived—and more, that a commoner like Jonathan raised her.

“She was a cursed child,” he added. “Most people would’ve let her die. Maybe… I should have.”

I stopped walking.

“Don’t say that.”

He looked at me. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Yes, I would,” I snapped.

People turned. I didn’t care.

“I know what it’s like to be blamed. To be hated just for existing. After the fire, they whispered, ‘Why did the boy survive?’ ‘He must’ve started it.’ I was six.”

Jonathan didn’t react.

But something in him shifted.

That day, I swore something.

I would protect her—Annya. Her smile. Her peace. Even if the world hated me.

Because she had smiled at me when she shouldn’t have.
Because her shadow didn’t scare me anymore.
Because maybe… I belonged here.

Not as a hero.
Not as a knight.
But as someone who sees what others refuse to see.­­­

Her curse.
And her.