I Awakened A Divine Curse

Auren struggled to grasp the truth about the time difference. What they described felt like a dream—hazy and distant—because in his mind, they had parted mere hours ago.

But their hardened faces told no lies. Meredith's once pristine leather armor now hung in tatters, revealing unblemished skin beneath. Her hair, though still beautiful, had lost the shimmer it possessed when they last met.

'A couple of hours ago…'

The thought echoed in Auren's mind as they walked.

Despite everything, reuniting with them brought an unexpected comfort. He hadn't known them long, yet their presence felt like a balm to his soul.

'Perhaps this is what people call sentiments.'

Jasper hesitated, scratching his neck while studying Auren. The boy's casual mention of slaying a Wretched Cursed Creature left him uneasy. Was it a joke? The dark aura surrounding Auren suggested otherwise, making Jasper's throat go dry.

Words failed him after Auren's declaration. The intimidation that had briefly subsided now returned tenfold.

These past days—strange as it was to acknowledge them as such—had pushed Jasper to his limits. He'd been forced to grow up quickly; survival demanded nothing less. The battlefield's horrors, the guillotine blade that nearly took his head, the cold steel against his throat—he'd endured them all. And Meredith had weathered far worse.

Against all odds, they stood here. They had found Auren. They were a team again. Yet suddenly, Jasper felt like a child in the shadow of a giant.

He swallowed hard before speaking.

"Master Auren."

Auren glanced at him, his expression calm as still water.

"Hm?"

"This woman you say we must find... do you have any idea where we might locate her?"

After settling their immediate concerns and planning their journey to Sundered Spire, Auren had asked them to help him find someone who would make their travels considerably easier.

With Asenya's guidance, he was confident they could navigate the challenges ahead with greater precision.

The problem was, he had no idea how far the Sandworm had dragged him from where he'd left her.

Auren squinted one eye, the moon's somber glow falling on his pale face as he answered.

"Well, technically, no I don't. But we should be able to follow the worm's trail, right? If we don't find her, we can just head to the temple."

Jasper nodded slightly, his shoulders relaxing a touch.

"Ohh, alright, okay."

They pressed on through the desert, their boots sinking into sand with each step as they tracked the unmistakable furrow left by the Sandworm. Every few minutes, Auren's gaze would drift toward Meredith, lingering just long enough to be noticed.

Questions bubbled inside him like water about to boil over. So much to say, to ask—yet the words remained trapped, prisoners behind the bars of his uncertainty.

'Now that I think about it... have I ever had a normal, casual conversation with someone my age?'

Auren's mind came to a standstill as he rummaged through the library of his past, searching for a memory that wasn't there. The shelves stood empty.

He dug deeper, sifting through fragments of recollections, when a voice—cool as night air—pulled him back to reality.

"What have you been doing that let you miss the flow of time? I suspect it's a different kind of nightmare..."

Meredith's words trailed off, but her eyes spoke volumes of unasked questions. She observed him with that peculiar calm of hers, neither warm nor cold—just present.

She was different from others. Most people approached such topics with deliberate gentleness, wrapping their concern in layers of softness. But Meredith stood bare—authentic in her directness.

Her care was genuine, or perhaps it wasn't. Auren couldn't tell if her interest stemmed from true concern or mere formality.

'Or maybe it's just my brain playing tricks on me.'

'My damn brain…'

Her violet eyes, deep as twilight and just as unreadable, waited for his response.

Auren shrugged after his prolonged silence, the gesture almost too casual for the weight of her question.

"...A different kind of nightmare... yes, you could say that. I had to die, a lot of times. And sometimes, reality and dreams blurred together like mixed paints. But what matters is I'm here now, and you guys are too..."

Meredith nodded once, her expression unchanging.

The hollowness of Auren's answer hung in the air—a half-empty cup offered to the parched. Instead of quenching their curiosity, his words only deepened their thirst for understanding.

Perhaps not both of them felt this way. With Meredith, certainty was a luxury. But Jasper's furrowed brow spoke clearly as he studied Auren while lagging a step behind.

His gaze sharpened like a whetstone against steel before he spoke.

"Wait, Master Auren, you didn't actually have a nightmare where you kept dying, did you?"

Auren glanced at him, his expression flat as the horizon.

"That is underachieving. Why would I dream of dying and make a big deal out of it?"

Jasper's eyes narrowed further, a sudden defensiveness igniting behind them.

"Not to digress, but I do not agree with you, Master Auren. Nightmares can be terrifying—it's alright to make a big deal out of them!"

"The only way they're terrifying is if they become your reality. Anything outside that is luxury."

"Having nightmares is not luxury!"

Auren rolled his eyes, the gesture dismissing Jasper's protests like brushing away a fly.

"Yeah. Sure."

Meredith glanced at Jasper, hesitated for a heartbeat, then spoke with her characteristic detachment.

"He meant sleep."

"Oh—"

The young noble of Passion Province fell silent, his mouth closing around unspoken thoughts that seemed to race behind his eyes.

They trudged onward, following the serpentine trail carved into the desert. An invisible wall seemed to separate Auren from his companions—a glass barrier he could see through but not breach. He wouldn't lie to himself; it felt strange, this disconnection between them. Things had flowed more naturally with Asenya.

But had they ever truly been connected, the three of them? Looking at Jasper and Meredith now—the way they moved in silent understanding, anticipating each other's steps—Auren realized they shared something deeper than he'd been part of.

Meredith, typically sparing with her words around him, transformed in Jasper's presence. The subtle shift in her eyes when he spoke, the ghost of a smile that touched her lips when he rambled about things Auren found mind-numbingly dull—these small betrayals of emotion revealed the bond forged between them.

And it left Auren adrift, a boat cut from its mooring. Their shared hardships had welded them together while he stood outside the forge, untouched by that particular fire.

Which, from another angle, felt like the universe's cruel joke at his expense.

'What? No! I had Asenya to rely on too!'

Auren's steps faltered as realization struck him—that dependence had been the genesis of his troubles.

'At least she gave me her sword…'

He paused again, the thought souring like milk in the sun. Of course, she hadn't given him the sword. And that blade represented the worst of it all.

'Ah... she really is a rotten person through and through. Even when I'm trying to make excuses for her, it's not working.'