The Crystal Curse

• Print length: 296 pages
• Language: English
• Age group: Young adult
• Publisher: Starmist Entertainment
• Publication date: July 8, 2025

Violence
Strong language

Cariel wasn’t bleeding anymore. And she could see, if only through the wildcat’s eyes. She could also move, but only as the cat. Which left just one problem.

She was starving.

By her count, it had been at least a full day—maybe two—since she’d eaten. She’d been so preoccupied with being blind, with falling off the fifty foot ravine, with losing her damn leg, that she hadn’t paid attention to her stomach. But now she needed to. It was time. She desperately needed to eat.

So. Could the cat do the work for her?

She flexed her mind, Willing the cat to move, and it did. It flexed a paw, claws unsheathing, teeth bared. She could feel it resisting through the bond, but only a little bit. It was manageable, as long as she kept a strong Will.

So. Food.

She sent the great cat out into the jungle. Its vision was incredible—so different from her own, or at least how her vision had used to be. The cat could see a great deal: movement where she might not have noticed, peripheral information she might not have been able to see, detail in the dark. She’d never been able to see in the dark before. It felt like magic.

The wildcat prowled the nighttime forest, and it didn’t take very long to find something: just a vole, a little mouse-rat, a small rodent. But it would be meat, even if she couldn’t cook it. It took barely any effort for the cat to capture the vole and bring it back to her, blood dripping from its jaws.

The cat deposited the rodent next to her, and Cariel grasped out for it, struggling to find where it was on the ground. Her movements were opposite of what she expected, like looking in a mirror. She was watching her mangled body through the cat’s eyes—the cat that was hovering over her, eyeing her every move.

Eventually she got it. Her hand closed around the furry, bloody vole. She brought it up to her mouth, and for a moment the smell was overpowering. For a moment she almost threw up, but her hunger was stronger. She needed protein. Never mind that it was raw, bloody, and smelled like wet rat. Never mind that she’d have to crunch through little mouse bones and brains and teeth and claws.

Never mind that the vole was still alive, wriggling in her hand.

She watched herself through the wildcat’s eyes. She almost thought she detected faint amusement in its mind as her body—her destroyed, elven body—ate the raw, wriggling rodent.

It tasted like death.

* * * * *

It took several kills before Cariel’s strength was somewhat restored. By the time it was finished, daylight had returned. She was exhausted. She needed sleep.

But first she needed water, and this was something her own body had to do. So she turned over onto her stomach, crawling with her one leg and two arms, inching through the muddy jungle ground toward the stream. She knew there was one nearby—she could hear it / the cat could see it.

It took nearly all her strength to get there. Every move was agony, pain shooting through her. She felt wounds reopen—the one on her leg stump was the worst. Without actual medicine of some kind, she’d probably grow infected and die. She probably already was infected.

But she had to continue on.

She finally got to the water. It was just a little stream, but the water looked fresh. She dipped her fingers in / the cat watched the ripples of the water as she dipped her fingers in / feeling the coldness as a shock to her skin. Then she crawled an inch further and lowered her face to the water and drank.

It was the best thing she had ever tasted.

The water rushed over her face, soothing her eye wounds, cleaning some of the blood and dirt away. She lifted her head to take a breath, already missing the coolness of the jungle stream, the way the water felt running down her throat.

But there was something wrong.

She / the cat noticed something reflecting on the water. It cocked its head, then abruptly looked upwards at the sky. And there, flying right toward them, was a sakul. One single sakul, the murderous white bird floating alone in the sky, wings outspread. It had only been a few days since she’d last seen one, during the cavek Hunt.

Cariel knew that one peck from that bird would kill her instantly. And the cat seemed to know it too—it tensed, ready for action, every muscle poised and ready.

What could she do? The sakul was still moving toward them at an incredible rate, feathers fluttering as it winged around tree branches, intent on them.

And she was stuck. She couldn’t move—not quickly, at least, and certainly not well. She could control the cat, but she didn’t want to risk it dying to the bird. And she couldn’t send the cat away—she didn’t know how far it could go, if there was a range on this soulbinding thing.

She didn’t want to lose her only friend in the forest.

But then an idea started forming in her mind.

She / the cat paused, staying completely motionless. Cariel’s hand was still trailing in the water, but she kept it still, allowing the stream to ebb and flow around her fingers, looking for all the world as if she were dead.

The cat stood motionless as well, tracking the bird’s movement with just its eyes. The cat’s muscles were taut, ready to spring into action in a flash. Cariel hadn’t needed to force the cat to do any of this—it was acting out of instinct. It had seen sakul before. It knew what to do.

But this time, Cariel was going to alter its approach.

Just as the sakul reached them, Cariel encouraged the wildcat to jump. And it did, but not exactly where it had originally intended. It had wanted to catch the neck of the bird, but Cariel had other ideas. So the cat sailed upward toward the tail of the sakul instead, where a few stabilizing feathers connected to the bird’s body. And just as it jumped, Cariel’s hand flicked the water, flicking it upwards as hard as she could. And as she did so, she reached out through the wildcat’s mind.

Hard.

Everything happened at once, as if in slow motion. Stream water flashed into the air, the droplets catching glints from the sun. Some of the water hit the bird. She watched it through the cat’s eyes, saw as the great wildcat sprang upwards, launching itself into the air with hind legs primed for action. It sailed towards the bird, jaw open, paws outstretched.

She / the cat saw the bird veer slightly, just an inch to the right, in response to the sudden shower of water from below. She watched her mouth / the cat’s mouth plunged into the bird’s rear feathers, wrenching downward and carrying the bird with it. Bird and cat were in the air, all motion halted for the briefest of instants.

In Cariel’s kabul’s eyes, everything seemed to stop. The drops of water hung there in mid-air, gleaming. The sakul bird twisted and paused, its beak turning to inject its venom into the cat. The kabul’s muscles rippled slowly, perfectly, its black fur reflecting the sun as it leapt to grasp the bird. And Cariel’s fingers, her hand, her arm, were reaching outward toward the pair of deadly animals.

Time resumed.

The cat brought the bird crashing down, beak and claws and whiskers and tail thrashing, the bird screaming, the cat growling. Cariel couldn’t tell where sakul ended and kabul began, but she reached out for it anyway. She reached out for the bird. Her hand met it, found its beak, risking instant death.

And in that moment when she held its deadly instrument, she saw a soul there. A third soul. A bird soul.

And Cariel took it.

She captured it, this time violently, this time on purpose. She knew what she was after, and the soulmagic obliged. And as the cat and the bird finally hit the jungle floor, she subverted that bird’s mind, claimed it, enslaved it.

Bound it.

And then she / the cat released its jaws.

And she / the bird alighted softly on the ground, preening its tail feathers, annoyed at the small amount of pain that the cat had inflicted. Cariel / sakul / kabul stood there in the mud, aware of each other’s presence, conflicted and reserved and afraid. Only the sound of the stream and the three beings’ breath pervaded the air. Only the beating of three hearts. She was the bird, now. She was the cat. She was herself. She was three.

And now Cariel could fly.

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