Scarred

Chapter 37

Eva's POV
"Are you coming?" She asks dully. Everything about the way she acts is so dead, like she doesn't see the point in trying to feel anything. Though I suppose that was what the curse felt like, not only were the colours and warmth gone, but it was like my emotions were muffled. It's why I started out so cold to Sebastian. Any excitement about meeting a potential new friend was buried so deep inside me that I couldn't be bothered to try and find it.
"I... okay then..."

Reluctantly, I shuffle over, following her to the first painting from this part of my life. It black and white, much like what the one of the fire turned into by the end. I wait for her to put her hand on it, but she doesn't, the painting stays perfectly still in front of us.
"You do it," she says. "I don't... I don't want to start it. I don't want to look back on it."
"Well... okay then." Carefully, I hold her hand - startling her slightly - before lightly touching the painting.

"So that's where you were," Queen Elara speaks as Dad walks into the throne room with me in his arms. My whole body trembles as I hold onto him tightly, barely looking up. "I can only assume that is the abomination of a daughter you were so set on finding."
"Don't talk about her that way. You know you probably killed her mother, right?!" As Dad speaks, my eyes widen, tears on the brink of escaping and rolling down my cheeks. "I couldn't let my own daughter die, and you know it."
"Well of course. You're too soft to let a child you barely know die."
"She's my daughter-!"
"That doesn't mean you had to take her here. On the off chance she managed to survive the fire, she could've stayed with her mother. A rat has no place living with royalty. The fire was meant to exterminate the rat, instead it just killed an entire village of innocent people."
"You're lying! Some must have survived," Dad argues.
"No. They all died."

"No... Alice..." he breathes.
"Mum...!" I whisper, the tears now falling.

"I'm not sure what you want me to do with that," she sneers as she points at me.
"Please, let me keep her here and raise her. I won't go against you ever again, I won't try and make Pures and Impures equal, I won't... Eva will be raised just like any other Pure. No one will ever need to know about her blood."

His words are reluctant. It's easy to tell he doesn't want to follow what he's saying. His agreement to raise me like a Pure is probably one of the main factors that led to me running away. The curse, my desire to see mum again, and this. All of them made living at the palace a living nightmare.

"She's your granddaughter, at least show her some sympathy."

"Fine, you can keep the girl. Let me see her."

Carefully, Dad lowers me to the floor and even though I try to continue to hold onto him, he ushers me towards the queen, making sure to remain close enough to me.

"You certainly do resemble your father in a way. Though your face... it's very much that of an Impure's," she says, combing her fingers through my tangled locks. After a moment, she places a hand under my chin, lifting my head up; as she does, I visibly shiver and she immediately moves her hand away in what appears to be shock.

"How peculiar... what colours do you see?"
"O-only black and white and grey. And it's all cold and-!"
"When did this happen?"
"When I had to be taken away from mum. I couldn't even feel the heat from the fire."

"Peculiar is an understatement. I've never heard of someone who could curse themselves, let alone a child who could use curses. By the looks of things, you certainly weren't exposed to magic in the past."
"That's what we agreed on," Dad says. "I didn't want..."
"Oh, of course. But the curse, it must have something to do with your blood."