Page 85 of The Stone Curse
Bright light blinds me.
CHAPTER 39
SHARNIZA
“What is this?” My father holds up the glittery silver bow I’ve had hidden in my dresser for the past month. “Why do you have it?”
Because I bought it, and it’s mine. “I…I found it.”
His eyes narrow. “You found it? So why did you keep it? Why hide it like a treasure? Is this what you want? To be a shiny, glittery thing?” He closes his fist around the bow, crushing it. “You think bows and bangles will make you a good warrior?”
The maid stands in a corner of the room—the culprit who obviously found the bow and gave it to my father. I shoot her a glare, and she meets it with sad, mournful eyes filled with remorse.
The wave of rage aimed toward her dies. She’s a prisoner just like me. A woman in a household ruled by males. An omega who’s served her purpose and now services my father when the fancy suits him.
She’s the closest thing to a mother I have here, but now I know that she’s also his spy.
Fuck, my father is still speaking.
“You think that your enemy will quake in his boots at the sight of your sequins and chiffon?”
Part of me wonders how he knows about chiffon, and the other hopes the floor can open and swallow me.
“Why do you have it? Answer me!”
“Because it makes me feel pretty!” The words are out before I can stop them, and twin spots of color stain his cheeks.
“Pretty? You thinkprettywill help you become a guardian?”
I’m overcome by a rare wave of defiance. “What if I don’t want to be a guardian?”
I know as soon as I say it that I’ve made a grave mistake. His face goes blank, and the rage in his eyes dims to something flat and cold. He drops the bow on the ground and walks out of my room, closing the door behind him.
Do you remember…my guide’s voice asks.Do you remember what happens next?
There’s a pit in my belly. “Yes.”
Do you want to see?
“Do I have a choice?”
Look in the mirror.
A mirror appears in front of me, and I see myself, aged fifteen, wide-eyed and teary, long, dark waves cascading down my back.
You loved your hair.
I turn away from the mirror. “I did.”
And he took it from you…
“I know all this. He had the maid chop it all off while I slept. What’s the point of all this anyway?”
You stopped loving the things that made you happy. You became what he wanted you to be. You denied yourself…your true self. Look at the mirror, Sharniza, look at who you could have been…who you can still be.
I can’t help myself. I stare at the woman in the looking glass—tall and powerful with thigh-high boots and long wavy hair pulled up in a ponytail and braided down her back. Her eyes are rimmed in kohl, and her lips are rouged. She looks badass, and she’s me.
The image melts away. “I don’t need makeup and fancy clothes to be me.”
