Rajah's Curse

Chapter 32: Pleasant Conversations

Galamight is often mistaken for turquoise in its finished state. In Egypt, it

is referred to as Neshmat or Heseg and it can be used for clarity of mind,

increased communication with a lover and for balancing the feminine

and masculine inner selves. However, this gemstone earns its common

name from its association with the Galafem warriors. The lady warriors

combine Galamight with spun Galafem gold in a Herculean knot to

create Chastity Belts. The belts as the name suggests are used to teach

chastity and temperance. A belt grants luck in battle, but its true power is

the adverse effect that it has on men. It causes them to lose their inner

strength and mental clarity over time. This effect is magnified for men

that the wearer finds worthy of the marriage bed. Thus, the wearer learns

the worse men have to offer and is no longer tempted by their wiles.

Jasmine finished reading the passage aloud. Then she lifted up the scroll and placed it at eye level for me. "Here's a picture of it."

It was hard to make out the details or the exact shade of blue now that I was a tiger, but I already knew it was a perfect match.

The sight of it ignited my rage again. I snarled at the page and had to dig my claws into the floor to stop myself from ripping the scroll into shreds.

"Yeah," she said darkly as she returned the scroll to the small desk.

Jasmine placed a hand on my head and began to stroke my fur. My snarling decreased a bit, partially out of gratitude. I had never truly realized just how effective her touch was at calming me. Even as a human, I had felt it.

Though I should not have needed the help. My behavior earlier had been disgraceful, uncivilized, and a bit disturbing.

"I completely agree," Jasmine said.

What?

"That's why we're not going to father's study today. I'm leaving my headpiece here and we're going to spend the day at court."

Oh right. That. Of course, she wasn't talking about my earlier loss of temper. Jasmine had no idea how feral I had been before and hopefully she would never need to know because that wasn't happening again. It was bad enough feeling like that as a tiger. Feeling that level of rage as a human was simply unacceptable.

Instead, the princess was still talking about what actually mattered: the scroll. After I had finally told the princess her headpiece was cursed earlier tonight, I had insisted that she read the scroll for herself before we dealt with my injured hands. It had taken her no time to see that the gem in the illustration matched the one on her head.

She had ripped her headpiece off and for a moment, I thought that she was going to smash it against the desk, but instead she calmly placed her headpiece down and retied her blindfold. Then she turned to me and said in a low voice crackling with suppressed anger that we needed to be sure of all the facts before we assumed anything. It was a perfectly reasonable response, unlike mine.