You are told at seven that you won’t ever do anything good
in your life. You grow up knowing that it doesn’t matter that you help your
younger sister make her letters properly or that you’re the one who stays up
late with mother when too many custom orders come through the tailor shop. It
doesn’t matter that you don’t want to hurt anyone or control anyone or anything
of the sort. It doesn’t matter that your name means Light in your
mother’s native language because as soon as they realize that you’re the Demon
King, no one ever calls your name again.
You are chased out of your village the moment your powers
bloom at fifteen years old, and the skies turn black with your fear. A rock
hits you between your shoulder blades just as you make it to the main road and
you stumble, falling to your knees in a mud puddle at the very moment the skies
open up.
“She’s cursing us!” the midwife who delivered you screams
over the thunder. “She’s damning us with her!”
Your mother is crying, but she doesn’t raise a hand to help
you. She did everything she could, keeping your Role a secret all these years.
She won’t risk anymore with another little girl to take care of.
No one tells you that you have a choice. No kind stranger
drags you out of the rain and into the warmth of their home where a wise sage
tells you it is not how we are born, but what choices we make.
Instead, you take the little pack your mother hid for you in
the depths of the forest and sling it over your shoulder. There’s money,
provisions, and more wraps to cover the evil mark on your left bicep.
“Your destiny will find you,” your mother told you only
hours ago. “I forgive you for it.”
She meant the words as a comfort, but you only heard
condemnation in it. Without having killed so much as a fly, she is already
blessing you with forgiveness.
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