They never called me by my name. To them, I had none. The day I was born, the crops withered in their fields, and a stillborn calf lay cold beside its mother; so they gave me a name born from fear, not love. "Velmira," they whispered, a name spat like poison, passed from one trembling mouth to another. Child of the rot. Daughter of decay. A curse wrapped in skin. No one asked what I was truly called. No one cared. To speak my real name-Liora-would be to humanise me, to suggest I was more than the thing they believed I was. And so Velmira I became. A shadow among their children. A living omen. The name clung to me like soot, thick and suffocating, and I wore it in silence.
I stood in the center of the courtyard, staring at the villagers who stared back with horror. I looked at the priest, shaking behind a wall of believers, and something inside me snapped.
I smiled.
Now, at seventeen, I stood at the edge of the forest, the village glowing behind me like a waiting pyre. My hands pulse with the black fire that has lived inside me since birth.
Tonight, I will end them all.
The trees whisper as I step into their shadows, the black fire coiling tighter around my wrists like it knows what's coming. It's hungry. So am I.
They called me cursed. A monster. A bad omen wrapped in soft skin.
Fine. Let them choke on the truth.
Behind me, the village clock tolls. Once. Twice. Midnight. The sound slices the night clean in half. For a heartbeat, everything goes still.
Then I flick my hand.
The fire launches forward like a hound off its leash, curling around the nearest roof and consuming. Flames bloom upward; furious, beautiful. I hear the gasps, the screams. Too late. Far too late.
I don't flinch. I don't look away.
I just watch.
They never watched me, not really. Only the bars. Only the cellar door. Only the shadows I made when I wept in the dark.
Well, now they're in the dark.
The priest stumbles into the square, gripping that crusty old book like it'll grow fangs and bite for him. He tries to speak. Something holy. Something brave.
I raise one brow.
That's all it takes.
The fire answers, obedient and merciless. His name never even gets the chance to finish leaving his lips before he's nothing but ash swirling into the sky.
I exhale. Not in relief. Not regret.
Just release.
This isn't revenge. I'm not that petty.
It's justice.
And I've waited seventeen years for it.
When the last scream dies and silence settles over the bones of what was once home, I turn to the forest. The trees lean in, but they don't fear me now. They open.
The curse? It isn't my prison anymore.
It's my crown.