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For the next few days, Miss Kaur basically stuck to me like glue. Not in a clingy way, but in a "you might literally die again, so I need to monitor your every breath" kind of way. And honestly? I didn't blame her. Because that ancestor was not a joke. He was real and he already tried to kill me once. I'm not sure why because wasn't he supposed to raise me or something? So that we kill sallos?
She kept checking the pendant she gave me like it was some kind of heart monitor. Every few hours she'd make me sit cross-legged while she hovered her palm over my chest, mumbling spells that sounded like ancient tech support incantations.
"It's stabilizing," she'd say. "For now."
I nodded every time, not because I understood, but because I trusted her now. Weirdly, she was the only one who made me feel grounded. Because last time she called me her brother.
Apparently, the pendant wasn't just some accessory. It was like a soul anchor. It locked my spirit into my body. If I wore it too long, it could even make me immortal.
"Cool," I said the first time she told me that.
She gave me a look. "Not cool. You don't want to be like him. If you wore it forever you'll be immortal but yk for mortals like us being immortal would not be a great choice. Even if you want to be one for knowledge, it's not a good idea. You know how it went with him"
She didn't even have to say who. We both knew she meant our hooded ancestor, the forgotten son. Dude had been alive for way too long, trapped in his own fate, alone, and… still planning stuff like some emo wizard from the past. No thanks.
Miss Kaur showed me some spells too. Basic stuff at first, protection circles, minor healing, aura sensing. But then more intense ones. Spells for when "it" happens again. The curse. Or when something inside me tries to push its way out. Apparently, that's a thing now. Thanks to the ancestor again.
"You need to be able to tell when it's not you anymore," she said one night, sitting across from me with herbs and scrolls spread out between us.
"I mean, I feel like me," I said. "Most of the time."
"But that's the problem," she replied, serious. "It doesn't always announce itself. The curse seeps in. Slowly. Until you're doing things you wouldn't have done before. Or worse, letting things happen."
Her words chilled me, and not because it was cold. Because they were real. She'd seen it before. She knew what was coming.
We started training, physical and mental. Not like ninja boot camp, more like… spell yoga? And mind exercises. Like trying to remember specific thoughts under pressure, tracking movements with my eyes, feeling when the room's energy shifted.
"You're getting better," she said one afternoon while I practiced sensing her magic signature.
"Yeah?" I grinned. "Nice. Next stop: full-on demon slayer."
She snorted. "Slow down. First, survive puberty with a demon thread in your blood."
Fair enough.
Then i got curious and giggled to myself. Miss kaur looked at me with a slight smile.
"What's with the giggle silly?" She poked my cheeks.
"I just thought that someone who deals with demons and curses, how would she even have a habit of playing games like that one you asked about, the one of which I had my headphones of" I grinned slyly. Miss kaur finally laughed a bit and told me that she got to know about the game from the school she previously taught. It was nice talking about other stuff tho. It wasn't just a training session. We talked. A lot. Mostly late at night when we were both too tired to pretend we were fine.
She told me about her side of the family. What they believed. What they'd done.
"They always said our ancestor died because of your ancestor's betrayal," she said, picking at the frayed edge of a blanket. "They were furious. Called her weak. A coward."
I looked at her, unsure what to say.
"They think your family abandoned us," she added. "Let the curse take her and left us to deal with the fallout."
I blinked. "I mean… my family doesn't even talk about any of this. They just pretend it never happened. Ghosted the whole situation."
She laughed bitterly. "Figures."
Apparently, after our ancestors died, both women, married in secret, fighting this curse together, their families completely cut ties. My side dipped first. Miss Kaur said her people saw it as cowardice. My side thought hers was dangerous, obsessed with rituals, and the final straw? They believed Miss Kaur's side let their own kid die.
"So no one ever reconnected?" I asked.
"Nope," she said. "They avoided each other for generations. Bitterness like that… it sticks. It seeps into everything."
I thought about that. How two people who loved each other died trying to stop something evil, and the families just… split. Like it was easier to fight each other than face what actually happened.
"Your family thought we were cursed," she said. "Ours thought yours were cowards. No one wanted to face the truth."
"Which is?"
She looked up. "That they both failed."
Silence.
"Until now," she added quietly.
That hit hard.
I didn't ask for this, but maybe… maybe I could fix something. Not everything. But one thread of it. One cursed thread.
One night, I asked her something that had been sitting heavy on me.
"Why do you care so much about me?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Wow. Thanks."
"No, I mean like… You risked your life for me. You're teaching me stuff, protecting me, basically playing therapist, and so… why?"
She didn't answer right away. Just stared into the fire.
Then, finally: "Because you feel like family."
I blinked. "Wait, seriously?"
"Yeah," she said, looking at me. "I know it's weird, but I see you like… a brother. Or someone I should've grown up with. Someone who was supposed to be there this whole time. Maybe it's the shared bloodline. Maybe it's the pendant. Or maybe I'm just tired of watching people in my family die alone."
I didn't know what to say.
"Also," she added with a half-smile, "you're the first idiot who didn't scream the moment I mentioned Sallos."
I laughed. "Hey, I've screamed internally many times, thank you."
She smiled. Not a big one. But real.
There were moments where I could see it, the exhaustion on her face. The burden of carrying generations of pain and responsibility. And yet, she still showed up. Still fought. Still taught me. At night, when I lay staring at the ceiling, I wondered if I could ever be like that. If I could carry someone else's life on my shoulders like she did mine. Maybe someday.
For now, I focused on learning.
The spells started getting harder. Some of them messed with my vision, made my skin feel too tight. One even made me hear voices, faint whispers in a language I didn't understand.
Miss Kaur stopped me fast when that happened.
"Too soon," she said. "That one connects to the boundary. You're not ready."
Boundary? I didn't ask. I could tell it wasn't good.
One night, while practicing sigil drawing, my hands started shaking. I dropped the chalk.
"Sorry," I muttered. "I don't know why it's happening."
Miss Kaur crouched next to me. "It's okay. It's your body adjusting. Your mind, too."
"It's just… a lot," I whispered. "Sometimes I feel like I'm gonna burst."
She nodded. "I know. I've been there."
"You too?"
She looked down. "When I first started using the mirror, i was sixteen. It has so many curses that my mind nearly snapped."
My chest tightened. "Why didn't anyone stop you?"
She looked away. "There was no one left to stop me."
That night, I cried. Quietly. She didn't say anything, just sat next to me until I fell asleep. A few days later, we revisited a part of the forest I hadn't seen since before my collapse. I hesitated.
"It's okay," she said, reading my face. "Nothing here will hurt you now."
We walked together, not saying much. But something about being there again, feeling the trees around us, hearing the wind whistle the same melody as before, it made me feel like I'd circled back stronger.
Like the forest had watched me fall and now watched me rise again.
"I'm not scared anymore," I said quietly.
"You will be again," she replied. "And that's okay. Fear keeps us human. It reminds us we're alive."
I smiled. "Then I'm super alive."
She laughed.
We stood there for a while, the sky open above us. Two broken families. Two people left behind. Trying to stitch together something lost for generations. Maybe this is what healing looked like. Not perfect. Not clean. But it is possible. Even if the past was cursed. Even if the future was unknown.
At least now…
We weren't facing it alone.
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