Curses and Will Chapter 20: Chapter 4: Chains of Malice

Read chapter 20 of Curses and Will by Simply No One on NovelPedia.

The door cracked open. It was Amilia and Annya, standing together with light from the hall cutting a clean line across the floor. Amilia's ears flicked once, curious. Annya's eyes stayed steady, unreadable in the particular way they went when she was deciding something privately. They asked if I wanted to take a walk through the town with them, Hikari and her apprentice coming along too. I agreed, mostly because staying alone with whatever unease had settled into my chest sounded considerably worse than company. We stepped out into Henbō Toshi, into streets that smelled of steamed rice and woodsmoke. Vendors called out softly to passersby. Children chased each other around low eaves. Somewhere nearby a bell chimed, light and unhurried. It felt different out here than it had in the capital. As we walked, I noticed the absence of something I'd grown used to expecting, the cold, heart-piercing stares that usually followed wherever Annya went. No narrow glares. No whispered insults trailing behind us. Faces passed like clouds, curious at most, never cruel. Hikari caught me looking around and offered an explanation. "This town sits far from the capital," she said, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "Annya's legend hasn't quite reached here yet." She gave Annya a small, warm smile. "Distance has a way of softening stories." For a few minutes, it almost felt peaceful. We continued past a row of lanterns, past a shuttered shrine, past the spot where the cobbled street dipped down toward the river. That was when I started feeling it. A faint malice at first, then growing steadily stronger, colder, like a slow hand pressing into the back of my neck. The feeling refused to let go. With every step it sharpened further, a thin needle of dread threading through my ribs. I could feel something revolting waiting at the corner of the road ahead. The worst part was, we were walking directly toward it. I checked the others for any reaction. Nothing from Amilia. No change in Annya's breathing. Hikari kept talking to her apprentice about herbs and supply lists, completely unbothered. No one's expression carried even a flicker of what I was feeling. That told me everything I needed to know. It was them. The yokai I'd spent thirteen years learning to ignore in my own world. But this presence felt far worse than anything I'd encountered back home. In my world, yokai had been unnerving in a low, persistent way, something you learned to carry rather than confront. Here, they felt heavier, worse, like the air itself had gone slightly rotten around them. I'd noticed it early on, that the yokai in this world carried more weight than the ones I'd grown up with. Even so, I hadn't struggled too badly, mostly because being near Annya's curse seemed to dull the edges somehow, like a veil thrown over the worst of it. I'd gotten used to that protection without fully realizing how much I was relying on it. But when something's aura spiked without warning, the way this one had, the chill still climbed up my spine faster than I could brace against it. Like standing on rotten boards, hearing them crack beneath your weight, knowing the drop waited just beneath. I told myself this wouldn't be difficult. I was wrong about that almost immediately. We turned into the street, and the world narrowed. It was filled with yokai. Dozens of them clung to doorframes and signposts like shadows that had somehow learned to breathe on their own. Limbs too long for the bodies they were attached to. Joints bending in directions joints shouldn't bend. Faces stretched smooth where features should have been. Their mouths gaped open without moving, and their eyes were simply holes that seemed to drink in whatever light reached them. A dry hiss rode the air, not breath exactly, just the memory of something trying to remember how breathing worked. And at the very end of the street, one of them was bound to a cracked stone pillar by heavy chains. It was massive. Its shape deformed