Page 100 of Cursed By Fate

“Exactly the right thing,” Vale said, with a quick glance at me. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Gods be damned.

The monster didn’t eat Yume.

The monster was Yume.

“We need to help her,” I said.

Confusion crushed Chris 2’s face. “I thought the kid was a boy.”

“Not the child,” I said. “The monster.”

I felt like a fool. I was woefully out of practice. The fury in me would’ve figured this out much sooner.

In a way, the realization was comforting. It meant I was slowly undoing the work of the Fates. As I was unbecoming a fury, I was also becoming someone else.

Someone better.

“I need to get to her.” No wonder she refused to leave the area. This was her home, and the family she loved was inside.

“Isn’t that what we’ve been trying to do?” Gage asked.

“Wait here.”

I spread my wings and flew over the marsh. “Yume! Yume, I know it’s you! Please come and talk to me. My name is Maya and I want to help you.”

The monster surged out of the marsh, like a dolphin breaching to catch a seagull. I pulled my feet back, narrowly avoiding the snap of her jaws.

“I don’t want to kill you, but I will defend myself.” The creature had no idea how badly I did not want to inflict pain on another living being, especially this grieving wife and mother.

The monster lashed out again.

“Yume, please stop.”

It was a futile request. What was the creature supposed to do? A single moment of misplaced trust could kill her. She had no reason to listen to me.

I splayed my hands as I hovered above the marsh, wings wide. “I have no weapons. I’m not here to hurt you, I swear. Is there somewhere we can talk, away from everybody else?”

The monster submerged and a few seconds later, I spotted the horns surface a few feet away.

Yume was on the move.

I followed her from the air, waterbirds scattering. It was easy to lose sight of her as the grass grew denser. I was relieved when she reached a narrow strip of land obscured from view by the plentiful herbaceous plants.

Her nest.

I lowered myself to the ground. When my wings retracted, so did her horns. The elongated body contracted and changed shape until a naked human body was all that remained. A woman’s heart-shaped face stared up at me. Even in the gloaming, her skin radiated a warm golden hue.

“Hello, Yume.”

“Hello.”

I sat on the ground beside her. “I’m glad to see you alive.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “If I’m able to take human form, why haven’t I gone home to my husband and child?”

“It does seem like the obvious question.”