chapter 39
Pri could only make a rough guess as she watched.
“So go on. Don’t waste your time here.”
“…Alright. If you say so, I’ll go. But, Sister… I have something I want to ask.”
“What is it?”
Gaia’s eyebrows arched upward.
Annoying.
She wished this useless Pri would just leave already. How much more miserable was she going to make her before going? The hands resting neatly on her lap—not touching her tea—trembled slightly.
She had never once hidden her desires in front of others. But now, she had to. For her own life. And in front of her utterly worthless little sister, no less.
No matter how she tried to hold it back, anger kept bubbling up inside Gaia.
“So what is it you want to ask that you’re still standing there?”
Feeling the shift in Gaia’s tone, Pri realized there was no time for hesitation.
“It’s nothing else, it’s just… Sister, when you were young… was there ever a fortune-teller who cursed you?”
She had asked hoping that what she’d seen was nothing more than an illusion. But Gaia’s expression instantly hardened to a cruel degree.
“How do you know that?”
“What?”
“…It happened when I was a child, so how do you know?”
“It’s… really true?”
“…Yes.”
Surprisingly, Pri was the one more shocked.
“It’s… real…? Then, could you tell me about that day?”
“Haa… fine. If you want.”
Gaia, who was always so on edge, suddenly changed her demeanor.
“That was when I was five, Itar was four… right before you were born. Even Itar barely remembers it, but I saw it clearly—a mad old man, completely consumed by insanity.”
For some reason, Gaia slowly began recounting that day.
“There’s a northern mine our ancestors swore never to touch until the day they died. You know how the Ezan Kingdom is called the Land of Gold, but that mine didn’t produce gold—it yielded diamonds, more precious than gold. It was bigger and richer than all the gold mines in Ezan combined.”
“This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“Of course. After the first diamonds were found, my father sent many workers to mine them. But every time they went deeper past the entrance, the mine would collapse, or sudden earthquakes would strike.”
Gaia’s face tightened, as though unsure why she was even telling Pri this, yet she spoke without omitting a single detail, like she was passing on crucial information.
“It didn’t matter whether they went in by day or night—accidents never stopped. Even so, Father couldn’t give up.”
“…That northern mountain… the one we’re forbidden to approach—”
“That’s right. It’s not far from the palace, so whenever something happened there, the aftershocks reached the palace directly. That’s when a lunatic appeared—a man who called himself an astrologer.”
Gaia sighed deeply and swirled her empty teacup. Her gaze drifted to nowhere, as if recalling her childhood.
“One day, the sky suddenly darkened, thunder and lightning struck though there was no rain. A shabby old woman requested an audience with my father, claiming she knew something about the mine.”
“…And what did she say?”
“She said it was sacred ground, promised by our ancestors never to be disturbed when they founded this land. If we continued to touch it, disaster would strike. My father, hoping she might know of another entrance to the mine, granted her an audience—but her raspy voice only spat curses, which made him furious.”
Pri hung on every word, afraid to miss anything.
Could what she’d seen in her dream really be true? Not fiction, but fact?
“So my father said—”
‘What nonsense.’
‘If you let greed blind you, the gods will be angered.’
‘There are no such things as gods. Beat this rambling astrologer until she comes to her senses, then throw her out.’
‘Yes, Your Majesty!’
The knights dragged the rag-covered old woman away without hesitation.
Just then, thunder cracked in the sky.
‘Pathetic… truly pathetic. I offered you a chance, but you could not take it. Tsk tsk. Foolish humans… human king… man blinded by greed. In the end, you will die and die again, never breaking this curse.’
Perhaps it was those ominous words that made the king leap to his feet in fury.
‘How dare you speak to me—!’
‘You will regret this moment. You will writhe under a terrible curse until you lose yourself. Something amusing will happen, indeed! Oh pitiful human king… your bloodline’s last child will be born—the child of the curse! Through that child, the curse will begin, and they will be more miserable than anyone.’
‘Rubbish! Off with her head!’
But before his words could even reach the knights, the ragged cloth the old woman wore fell to the floor. The old woman who had stood there was gone.
Beyond the window, thunder rumbled as if to warn of ill fortune.*
Everything Gaia said matched exactly with the day Pri had seen in her dream—except for the part about the cursed child being born. There were some small differences, but otherwise, it was identical.
Pri’s vision momentarily darkened.
“Why are you making that face?”
“What?”
“You’re afraid of curses too, aren’t you?”
Gaia sneered, and Pri was a little startled. For the first time, Gaia’s face looked… human. Not the deranged woman she usually seemed, always snapping and raging at her.
She didn’t look kind, but she looked lucid.
“Why are you staring like that?”
“Ah… no reason.”
“In any case, after that, workers still went into the northern mine several times, but they were all crushed to death. Only after nearly five hundred died did my father finally give up on it. But not long after… some lunatic gave birth to a child in that mine.”
The unexpected detail widened Pri’s eyes.
“A child?”
“Yes. Crazy, isn’t it? Maybe someone left them there, or maybe the woman went there on purpose to give birth. Or perhaps, because of the curse that old woman spoke of, the child was simply born there. At the entrance to the mine was a palace maid and a little girl. My father tried many times to kill that child—said it unsettled him.”
“….”
A chill ran down Pri’s spine.
“But no matter what he tried, he couldn’t kill her. In the end, he gave up and kept her. You.”
“…Me…? Are you saying that was me?”
“Fits perfectly, doesn’t it? The king’s child, born not long after the curse was foretold. Pri—that’s you.”
Pri shook her head violently in denial.
“So… so…”
Even seated, her legs felt weak.
So that was why her mother hid her pregnancy? A palace maid from the king’s chamber… who bore Pri.
Even at birth, she had not been blessed. Her mother had delivered her alone, without even a midwife, hiding the fact that she carried a royal child.
Perhaps she had even planned to run away—there had been a packed bag found at the maid’s home. As if she meant to hide it forever.
When Pri had first heard that story, she’d only thought it strange. If her mother bore the king’s child, wouldn’t her future have been secured? Why wouldn’t she take advantage of it?
Now she knew the reason.
Then—
“So how long are you going to stay here?”
Gaia’s voice, calm until a moment ago, suddenly turned sharp.
“Ah… Sister.”
“What?”
“How can you remember all this in such detail? You said you were only five…”
“Are you doubting my memory?”
“No, I’m just curious…”
Wasn’t it strange? For a five-year-old to recall something so vividly, as if it happened yesterday?
Pri could remember because she had seen it in her dream, but for Gaia, it was a story from many years ago.
“I’m not stupid like some people. And that day just stuck in my mind. I don’t know why, but it did. Do I really have to explain myself to you?”
And then came the order.
Her voice was sharper than ever—Gaia as Pri usually knew her.
“…No.”
“Now you see a little, don’t you? Why everything you do fails. If Father hadn’t been soft-hearted enough to raise you, anywhere else would’ve locked you away in some high tower and erased your existence.”
Pri only nodded at the smirk on Gaia’s lips.
So she was the problem. The cursed child. That was her.
“….”
“If you understand, get out!”
