The dream does not wait for sleep.
It drags me under the moment I close my eyes.
I am screaming before I am born.
The air is thick with blood and fear, the room blazing with candlelight that flickers wildly against the walls. Women shout orders and prayers, their hands red, their movements frantic. The scent of crushed herbs and sweat burns my nose.
My mother is on the bed.
She is beautiful even in agony, her dark hair plastered to her skin, her breaths shallow and desperate. Her hands clutch the sheets as pain tears through her body.
"Push!" someone yells.
She does.
I feel it—the tearing, the breaking, the final sacrifice. Her scream shatters the room, then cuts off abruptly as her body gives up what little strength it has left.
The silence that follows is worse than the screaming.
Then I cry.
My first breath steals her last.
They lift me, slick with blood and life, and place me into my father's arms. I am small, helpless, unaware of the ruin my existence has caused—but he sees it immediately.
His face crumples as he looks at my mother's lifeless body.
"She's dead," he whispers.
Then his gaze drops to me.
And something in his eyes hardens.
"She killed her."
The words fall like a sentence. No one corrects him. No one dares. The elders exchange knowing looks, fear and ancient understanding passing silently between them.
"She took my mate," he snarls, his voice breaking into rage. "She took everything from me."
Whispers ripple through the room like poison.
Rare.
Forbidden.
Moon-cursed.
His hands tremble—not with weakness, but with revulsion.
"Take her away," he commands.
The words strike deeper than any blade.
"She will not call me father. She will not know love. She will never have a family. Any man who touches her will die."
I wail, the sound raw and desperate, reaching for a warmth that will never return.
He turns his back.
Every time the dream reaches that moment, it tightens its grip. I wake gasping, heart racing, nails digging into the mattress as if I am still being torn from her body.
The present crashes in around me—the unfamiliar room, the ache in my bones, the weight of another death pressing against my chest.
I press my palm over my heart, feeling it beat steadily.
Proof that I lived.
Proof that she did not.
Some curses are written by the moon.
And some are carved by the hands that refuse to love you.