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Curses, dear reader, are strange, fickle things. Some are ended as easily as they began, some cling tightly on, and still others pass from person to person, so they can never quite be destroyed. The curse with which we are occupied today fell first upon King Daeron II, called The Good. From him, it passed onto his eldest son, Prince Baelor, called Breakspear. From him it passed in turn to his own eldest son, Prince Valarr. From him it passed onto his wife, Kiera. Kiera was widowed, and when she married Prince Daeron she passed it onto him, and afterwards they passed it on to their daughter, Princess Vaella. After she was widowed a second time, Kiera spent most of her time with Princess Daenora and that, dear reader, is where our story begins.
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Kiera knew she was cursed. It was something of an open secret. She knew the risk of getting too close to anyone, but she couldn’t live her whole life confined and shut away. It wasn’t like the curse would kill anyone. More than that, it wasn’t like Daenora didn’t know the risks as well as she herself did, and she was still willing to take the risk. If Daenora was prepared to risk it, then Kiera wasn’t doing anything wrong by letting herself care for her.
She had far more reason to feel guilty about passing it onto Vaella, her dear daughter, but she couldn’t have helped it. Any child of hers would inherit this curse, but many before her had made the choice to have children even knowing a curse could pass onto them, and Vaella seemed happy enough. She was a cheerful, untroubled girl.
So Kiera held Daenora tight, and let herself love her. She loved her as she had loved Valarr, and hoped that Valarr would have been happy for her to find love again.