Long ago, in the kingdom of Eldoria, beauty and power walked hand in hand. The royal family was beloved by all—tall, graceful, and radiant as if kissed by the gods themselves. But beneath their perfect smiles hid a sin so grave, the heavens turned away.
The curse began on a moonless night.
Queen Selara, desperate to preserve her family's youth and rule, had struck a secret bargain with a wandering sorceress. In exchange for eternal beauty, Selara offered the sorceress a promise: "Take whatever you desire that is not human." The queen thought the words harmless—until dawn, when the sorceress vanished and a strange sigil burned upon the palace gates.
The first transformation came at midnight.
The king's roar echoed through the marble halls. His body contorted, bones snapping and reshaping until fur tore through his royal garments. His eyes, once kind, glowed a feral gold. The queen screamed, only to feel her own skin crawling—scales rippling up her arms, her voice twisting into a hiss.
By morning, the palace was silent again. The curse had its rule: By day, they wore crowns. By night, they wore claws.
For years, they hid it. Servants were dismissed before dusk. Banquets ended early. The royal family lived in fear of moonlight. Their children—Prince Kael and Princess Lyra—grew up behind locked doors, never knowing why their parents forbade mirrors after sunset.
But as Kael came of age, the curse deepened. His beast form grew stronger, harder to control. Unlike his father's lion or his mother's serpent, Kael became something worse—something that fed on fear itself. He began to sense emotions, to taste anger like blood and despair like wine.
Lyra, the gentler soul, discovered another truth: when the curse took her, she could still think—half woman, half raven, cursed to watch her family lose their humanity night after night.
Desperate to break the spell, Lyra sought the last descendant of the sorceress. In a forgotten forest beyond the kingdom, she found her—an old woman who laughed when Lyra begged for freedom.
> "Your family wished for beauty without end," the crone rasped. "But beauty must have a shadow. You cannot banish the night."
Lyra wept, realizing the curse was not meant to punish—it was meant to balance. Their monstrous forms were reflections of their true selves: greedy, prideful, vain.
So one night, as the moon rose full and white, Lyra gathered her family in the throne room. She stood before their snarling faces and said,
> "If we cannot end the curse, then we must earn the dawn."
She took off her crown and cast it into the fire. One by one, the beasts hesitated, their human memories flickering through the rage. The king bowed his head. The queen hissed and wept. And when the fire died, so did the curse—leaving behind a humbled family, stripped of royalty but free at last.
From that night onward, the people spoke of the royal family not as monsters, but as a legend—the cursed royalty who learned that beauty without mercy is the ugliest curse of all.