Chapter 518:
The Cursed Bangle
“WHAT OTHER LEGENDS of end times are there?” I asked.
The idea of the world ending scared me, but I was morbidly curious.
“There was that one legend—what village was it from again? Hataru? You know, the one about the bangle.” Zinal shot Fische a glance.
Hataru Village? A bangle? That was the village whose church imprisoned Marya.
“You mean the cursed bangle?” Fische asked.
“That’s the one,” Zinal nodded.
“That’s from Hataka.”
Hataka Village? The church there also caused some problems, didn’t they? The church sure has been making a lot of trouble lately.
“Was it Hataka?” Zinal cocked his head to the side.
“It’s about the village girl who gets taken hostage, right?” Fische asked.
Taken hostage…I have a feeling this legend also involves authority figures abusing their power.
“That’s right,” Zinal replied.
“Then it’s definitely from Hataka,” Fische insisted.
Zinal nodded.
“But that legend has nothing to do with the end of the world.” Fische gave Zinal a bit of a frustrated look.
“Oh! You’re right,” Zinal admitted.
Even if it didn’t, I still wanted them to tell me.
“What’s the legend like? I’d love to hear it,” I said.
“Is that the legend about the girl with powerful magic energy who forged a cursed bangle?” my father asked.
Zinal and Fische nodded. “You’ve heard of it?”
“I don’t know the details, but I think I once heard somebody tell it in a tavern in the capital.”
“The capital, eh? That’s odd. Telling this legend is forbidden in the capital.”
It’s forbidden? That seems a bit imposing…
“Is it okay for you to tell us the legend?” I asked.
“Sure, sure, it’s fine,” Zinal said with a wave of his hand.
A smile spread across my lips. I knew that even in the royal capital, Zinal would probably tell someone the legend if they asked.
“This legend is quite long, so I’ll cover just the main points. Let’s see… So the lord of a village offered a girl from his village with powerful magic to the king. She had a husband and a child, but the lord of the village murdered her husband and separated her from her child, forbidding them from seeing each other again. And when the girl was in the depths of despair, the lord of the village commanded her to use her powers to serve the king. If she obeyed, she’d be reunited with her child someday.”
“That’s terrible,” I blurted out.
“Yeah, he was the scummiest man alive, so the girl obeyed the king only because she wanted to see her child again. Then one day, the king gave the girl a bangle on a whim. He did this to make her his conc… Er, uh…”
His conc?
Zinal looked very uncomfortable. I glanced at my father to see why and noticed the same look on his face.
Huh? What’s going on?
“Uhhh, how do I put this delicately… The king took a liking to the girl, so he viola—er, I mean, he forced her to—er, that’s not it, either… He wanted her love.”
Aha. Now I get it.
“Um, I think I get what you’re implying,” I said politely.
In other words, the king made a move on her, ignoring her feelings. Worst king ever.
“Ha ha! Okay, back to the legend. The girl loved her husband, so her relationship with the king wasn’t… Well, we’ll just zip through that part… The girl endured it all to protect her child. But one day, the girl learned the truth. Her child had already been sold to a noble family, and now the kid had died. The moment she heard the news, her powers ran wild. All the suffering she endured, the anguish in failing to protect her loved ones, the hatred toward those who stole everything from her… People tried to restrain her magic, but it still ran wild. The king and queen and their children immediately evacuated without being hurt. The ones who were harmed instead were the girl’s fellow prisoners, who were brought there because of their powers.”
So she hurt her comrades instead of the royal family? Wait, wasn’t this story about a cursed bangle?
“Her magic ran so wild that the castle was consumed in flames. But the flames vanished in an instant, and nobody knew why or how. The king declared it was a royal miracle. He spread the message to every town and village that he himself had swiftly suppressed the runaway magic meant to kill him. The royal castle was rebuilt quickly, and life returned to normal.
“Years later, the girl died. Then, when the king and queen made their grand appearance at a lively banquet, the king noticed the queen was wearing a bangle that contained a very pretty red stone. When the king asked the queen about the bangle, she gave him a funny look and insisted he had given it to her, but he remembered no such thing. When he tried to touch the bangle and get a better look at it, his hand burst into flames. The banquet fell into mayhem and the king howled in pain. He tried to put the fire out with water, but it kept burning. He tried magic, but there was no effect. Eventually, the king’s arm was cut off. The queen tried to remove her bangle…only to find that there was no bangle. They combed the castle but couldn’t find it, and whispers emerged that it was the girl’s curse.
“From that day onward, the king was a completely different man. Then one year later, when the king woke, the bangle he saw on his queen’s wrist that fateful day was lying on his bed. When he screamed, the knights rushed into his bedchamber and were ordered to dispose of it at once. But just then, the king’s son came into the room. And when one of the knights tried to leave the room with the bangle, the king’s son was engulfed in flames. The king had to watch in horror as his son screamed and struggled before his eyes. At a loss for what to do, the king and his knights could only watch him burn to death. Then the bangle disappeared again.”
“Wow…that’s a horrific tale,” I said.
I felt like the slow burn of the suffering was what made the whole story all the more terrifying.
“There’s more,” Zinal said. “After that, all the king’s descendants died year after year. First, it was the king’s daughter, and the year after that, his other son… The last one to die was the king himself, and that’s where this legend ends. It’s different in places, depending on who tells it, but the gist of it is mostly the same.”
So the king was the last to die. This story is filled with so much hate…it has to be real.
“Did they ever find the bangle?” I asked.
“Oh, they found it. When the king died, it was found in his bed. They say the bangle is locked away deep in the castle under heavy guard.”
So that means the bangle is still around. Scary. Wait, was it only the king? What about the lord of the land?
“Didn’t anything happen to the lord of the land?” I asked.
“Oh, the lord of the land got cursed, too,” Fische said.
Zinal nodded. “Now I’ll tell you a legend from Hataka Village. In one village, red rain fell from the sky. The villagers feared it and watched it from inside their houses. Then, a lone lady appeared before them. She slowly walked through the village, the red rain dyeing her white dress. The villagers called out to her, but she ignored them and just kept walking slowly. Then she stopped in front of a house and collapsed.
“When the red rains stopped and the villagers emerged from their houses, the lord of the land’s voice boomed through the village. Everyone hurried to his house to find the woman dyed in red rain lying dead there. When the lord of the land saw her, his face twisted with terror. A man who had lived in the village a long time screamed the woman’s name when he saw her. The lord of the land retreated into his house and yelled from indoors that the villagers had to take the woman away. The woman was buried by a man she knew.
“One year after her passing, the red rains came again. They stopped after a few hours, but the lord of the land was struck with a mysterious illness that very same day. The man investigated what had happened to the woman…and that was when he unearthed the lord of the land’s crime, and this is the part of the story where we find out what the lord and the king conspired to do to the girl.
“So, on the day the woman died, the man prayed to ease her sorrow and suffering. The villagers also offered prayers to send her soul to peace. After a few years, the red rains stopped coming, but the lord of the land continued to suffer from his illness…until he died on the very same day as the king. That’s how Hataka’s legend goes. The bangle doesn’t show up in it, but people think there’s a connection, so it’s included in the legend of the cursed bangle.”
It’s a scary story…but I think it’s comforting that the lord got his comeuppance, too. Is that wrong of me?
“That reminds me, doesn’t Hataka Village have a day of prayer?” Fische said.
“Wait, they still do?” I asked in surprise. When had they started that tradition? Since they called these stories “legends,” it must have happened quite a long time ago.
“Hearing your story reminded me, Zinal. Isn’t that the day people pray for her soul to rest in peace?” Fische asked.
Zinal shook his head. “Not sure. I do know the tradition is very important to the villagers.”
“Yeah, I remember that.”
So they observe her memory to this day. I hope that eased her anger a little?
“The royal family vehemently denies the stories, though,” Fische said.
“Huh? Why?” I asked.
“Because they’d have to acknowledge that every member of the royal line died.”
Oh, that’s right! Since we still have a monarchy today, they’d have to deny the stories. Maybe that’s why they forbid people from telling them. But if these stories are true, that means our current monarch isn’t even…
“Um, this made me think of a question,” I said.
“What’s up?”
I stared at Zinal. “Why did the king assemble powerful people like that woman? What was he trying to do with them?”