CHAPTER 15 PART ONE
O F C R O O K E D C R O W N S A N D C U R S E S
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Some secrets are made to tell.
Others are made to bear.
Vera Thuy Adelaide is one of those pitiful few whose secrets are made to bring ruin. So listen, and listen closely, for such secrets do not unravel more than once. Keep your eyes strained, your ears wide, and your lips sewn shut.
Hush, my little one. Do not speak.
Listen. Can you hear it?
The accursed song of the ravens, the sorrowful melody wrenching from their little beaks. Their voices are dry and coarse from weeping, their eyes are pitch black from losing too many tears. Their feathers, the color of misery and cold shadows, are bristling from fearing of the tragedy about to come and the tragedy that has already come.
But listen carefully, little one. Do not flee.
Stay. For who can tell this tale when all the ravens fall too?
When Vera Thuy Adelaide was born, a crown of curses was placed upon her little head. Rivets of black gold poured from her head, trickles of obsidian fell down from her cheeks. No one has ever seen what the crown for what it was, not even the gods themselves.
They say the crown was sewn with a broken talon of a cursed raven, for no other needle would ever be as sharp nor as clever as one belonging to a thief of the dead.
Held carefully together by the infinitely strong sinew of the last silver deer, the crown was to bound the wistful knowledge of the forest to itself.
Adorned beautifully with the blessed white feathers of a cursed dove, the holy crown was to hear the voices of heavenly spirits.
Embellished gently with the ruby scales of a two-headed koi, the crown was to withstand the currents of a thousand storms and the swords of a thousand armies.
Braided hastily into the crown's band laid the lethal tails of a hundred scorpions, for it was to protect the beholder from even the most strongest of curses.
Gilded proudly around the very tips of the crown was the tusks from the mightiest walrus, for it was to bring the strongest luck to each and every hunt.
And lastly, streaked swiftly across the width of the crown rested a fiery foxes tail, for it was to silence all lies from those before it.
But the crown's beauty and strength also came with great misfortune and even greater suffering. The great and terrible crown bore the lives of entire armies – its creation carved from the deaths of kings and queens themselves. And so the crown, soaked in death, betrayal, and gilded hope, began to manifest its own soul. What an abomination it was! To be filled with so much death that it had brought itself to life!
They say you only see the crown reflecting in the blank eyes of the dead,
for they say it shall be the last thing you see before you cross to hell. Those unfitted for the crown vomited blood and crimson as they screamed for mercy. Hands tearing at their own flesh, fingers digging out their own eyes for the visions of the dead held too deathly of a burden.
Yet it laid innocently on the head of a child no older than a few days.
How could a crown worth more than all the gold and lives of millions men belong to a sinless girl whom had never had to kill for it? Perhaps the crown found itself to be cruel and had simply wanted to craft a devastating jest. What an ironic trick that would be. Though the true reason, buried beneath all the fear and fury, was something no one could dare think about.
If a crown was to be made fit for a ruler, than this crown was to be made fit for Ruination herself. After all, the crown is only a crown, unless it is to be wielded by a queen. And so the child innocently wore the crown, with her midnight hair blossoming onto the bed of white feathers and the blood of a thousand armies blooming unknowingly beneath her heart.
For the crown makes no mistakes.