She Stole My Curse novel · Chapter 27 of 32

Chapter 27: Taken, Not Given

I didn't answer her right away.

I looked at her lying in the chains, with the violet scales on her jaw and her eyes red.

For one breath she was the girl I'd shared a cradle with.

The girl who'd held my hand at our grandmother's funeral because I was crying and she wasn't.

Then I saw the long table in the Ember Trench, and the sugar tops of the cakes.

"I can't," I said.

"You can. You did it before. You told me you did."

"He gave it to me," I said. "That's the only way it works. You didn't take it from someone who gave it. You stole it." My voice was hoarse from the night's singing. "A taken curse can't be shared. It can't be given back. It's yours."

"You don't know that."

"The witch told you. I told you. In the Tide Circle, in front of everyone."

Her face twisted.

"Then you'll find a way. You always find a way. You found the stores and the meadows and the..."

"Isveth."

She stopped.

"Even if I could," I said, "I wouldn't."

She stared at me.

I watched it go into her. All of it, finally.

Then she began to scream, and the captains had to hold her down.

← Chapter 26 · All chapters · Chapter 28 →

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