Saramin took a seat by Sabiri's side after bringing a chair closer to her and the two stared in silence at Kurt's sleeping face.

The miss was taken back a little by the idea of being alone with this woman. The two of them hadn't really interacted much in the past besides a couple of moments with the girl's mother picking a silent war with the blond lady over the emperor's attention.

In the past, Saramin would try to take her mother's side and give her some support over her silly obsession, but lately, playing on team Sabiri has been looking like a much more welcoming idea considering how harsh Karina has not been acting like mother of the year material as of late

Best yet, she could use this as an excuse to skip the rest of that godawful dinner and spend the rest of the night with actually tolerable people.

Plus, she was really curious about just what the deal was with Kurt's little weird glowing tattoo.

"When you say curses..." the girl mumbled while pondering about the question she just received.

"There are a couple of dragons out there with the ability to cause harm directly into someone's state of mind and spirit" Sabiri explained, "It is a very rare breed of wild psychic dragons..."

"And one of these guys got their hands on little bro over here?"

"Little bro?" Sabiri smiled softly, probably the first smile she showed the entire night, "I didn't know you two were so close."

"Well, you know what they say, getting chased like animals in the middle of the night and fighting for your life is a great way to bring people together!"

Sabiri began to feel guilty, "M- My apologies... This was not a very respectful way to treat a guest..."

"It's fine..." Saramin shrugged while waving her palm, "For real, back in my old life it wasn't much better. At least in here I can defend myself and have a little bit more security..."

"I see... Kurt never talks about his old life... I wish he would open himself up to me more times..." Sabiri commented while staring at the grey owl resting on the boy's chest, slightly feeling like her spot had been taken, "But I digress..."

"Let me guess, little apple head over here was strolling through the night one day and ended up getting attacked by one of these curse dragons and also ended up in this state. Did I get it right?"

Sabiri turned her face away for a moment and began to hide with her palm out of embarrassment, "Actually... I was the one that cursed him..."

Sara's body instantly froze upon hearing that and slowly began to bring her chair away from the woman, "Uuuuuuhhhh... Context? Please?"

The two stayed quiet for a moment and a couple of thoughts began to cross the girl's mind.

She was thinking that Sabiri was the only rational adult in that building since she clearly couldn't count on her mother or father, but now it seemed that the problem in the dragon race as a whole.

"Sorry... It's just a little hard to talk about this..." Sabiri commented while looking down with a heavy face. She was playing with her thumbs as if her body was trying to comfort itself.

"Sure... Take your time..."

"Do you... How much do you know about... Your sister?"

Her sister. Saramin almost assumed she was talking about her actual sister back from Earth, but then realized that was impossible and began to think about the only other option.

"Ah... You mean little miss psycho?" she replied with a face of disgust.

"I assume you are not on good terms with her..."

"No kidding... I meet that maniac a few years ago when my oh-so-lovely mother tried to show me off for the emperor, as mothers do..." she groaned, "And asked me to challenge that girl to a combat in front of him."

"Oh..." Sabiri also showed a rather ugly expression. She could guess where that story was going.

"Yeah. You can guess what a fun time that was... Mom assumed that since I had my memory talent I could take on anyone at any time. I didn't really know what that girl's power was but I wasn't that worried at first...

At first, that is...

But then..." Sara clenched her fists, "I saw her face... Those eyes... The way she looked at me."

Sabiri noticed the girl's shoulders starting to tremble.

"You know what was the first thing she said to me? It wasn't hello, nice to meet you, glad to find another person from Earth, or any of that... She just muttered a single word...

Boring..."

Saramin gritted her teeth acting as if the person she was talking about was right in front of her. As if the memory of that day was carved into her mind.

"I was boring her... I didn't even want to fight... But just from hearing that, I got this desire to take her down..."

Sabiri began to see how this girl resembled Karina. These two had the same intense glare.

"But in the end, I couldn't even touch her! That freak didn't even bother to use a talent against me! She just trashed me completely and so fast that I don't even remember what she did or how she moved. All I remember was that before I even realized it, I was already on the ground staring at the sky... And that girl and her mother were long gone.

Mom told me that I passed out before I could even do anything, and the emperor just used his healing flames on me and left while looking like we had wasted his time..."

Sabiri sighed, "I assume Karina wasn't very happy that day..."

"That was the weird part!" Saramin shouted, "Usually mom would throw a fit like a five-year-old, but that day, after I apologized to her for failing, she just looked at me with a pale face and said...

'Never, EVER, anger that girl!'"

Saramin then went silent while looking at her own hands and trying to understand just what happened that day.

"After that, I did my best to stay away from her, and even told Kurt what my mom told me... He already has a bad habit of jumping into things without thinking. I didn't want to risk him getting involved with her..."

Sara then looked at Sabiri wondering why they were talking about Annie instead of Kurt's situation, but once she looked at her, she noticed a look of absolute dread on the woman's face.

"Ah, Sara..." Sabiri whispered while staring at nothing with complete dead eyes, "I'm afraid your advice is a couple of years too late..."

"What? What do you mean...?"

Sabiri took a deep breath and began her story.

"When Kurt was a kid... He almost got kidnapped by the strange black knight that Lian hates so much.

Back then, I didn't know who she was so all I saw was some stranger trying to take away my son from me.

We fought, and I got injured, and that resulted in Kurt somehow awakening his talent in order to heal me..."

Saramin just kept listening to the tale without interrupting and giving her full attention.

"The emperor found out about this, and got so excited about it that he told Kurt everything."

"Everything?"

"Everything... The faction game, the rulers, the guests... He explained all in every possible detail, revealing that he knew who Kurt was and how he planned to use him in the future...

Kurt's reaction was very similar to what we saw today. At first, he didn't believe it, or rather, he didn't want to believe it. That his father was going to send him on a mission to kill or be killed, that our race is dedicating everything we have to eliminate every other species, and that this was an order and not an option."

Sabiri paused for a second and glanced at the ceiling before continuing.

"This kid... He is too kind for his own good... Too nice, too young, too naive... Way, way, too naive..."

"Why? What happened?"

Sabiri stared at the white-haired girl, but her eyes told Sara that she was looking at something else, at a memory from the past, "Kurt rejected his father's offer. He said he didn't want part in this game or anything like this, ever...

But... What he didn't know... Was that Lian is not the kind of dragon that takes 'no' for an answer..."

Saramin stared at the still sleeping Kurt. She began to imagine him as a little kid standing up to the most powerful dragon of the empire just because he didn't want to play in this game of life and death.

She wondered if she would have the same courage as him. When she first heard of the game, she just went with the flow and did as she was told, afraid of what could happen in case she refused.

Being an outsider can be rather intimidating.

"How did the emperor reacted?"

Sabiri rubbed her forehead, "He simply left while holding the biggest glare I've ever seen him make... And three days later, he returned... In the middle of the night...

With her..."

This time, Saramin was the one who shivered from knowing where the story was going.

"It was my first time seeing her... Ano Malia Garen..." Sabiri continued "She was just seven years old back then, but even at that age I could tell something was wrong with that kid.

Her eyes were wide open while the rest of her face was completely devoid of emotion. The two barged into our house and she just looked at Lian while pointing at Kurt...

'Is this the one?' she asked...

Lian nodded at her, and she just began to smile...

That awful, AWFUL smile..."

Sabiri paused again and Sara noticed that her eyes were tearing up as her entire body was now trembling.

"He was three years old, Sara... Three. Years. Old!!

I... I tried to help him, tried to stop her... But all of our servants, our butlers, maids... Everyone that had been living with us, sleeping in the same house as us, eating under the same roof... They all just began to hold me down and forced me to watch...

She... She... Oh my Lord..." Sabiri placed her face in her palms.

Part of Saramin was glad she had stopped. She felt like she didn't want to hear the rest.

"I just stood there... Unable to do anything... Hearing his cry... Hearing his voice begging for help... Begging for it to stop...

Once I knew that nothing could be done... I just gave up and began to pray that it would be over soon... That his suffering would end...

But just when I was about to sense a small glimmer of hope... Lian looked at me and simply said...

'Again!'"

"Oh, God..." Sara was now also on the verge of tears.

"She... She had the same power as her father... She healed... All of his wounds... And did it all over again... And then he ordered for her to repeat one more time... And then a fourth..."

Sara was now covering her ears and shaking her head. She didn't want to hear it anymore.

"Once... Oh, Lord..." Sabiri wiped her tears, "Once they were finally done... Lian fixed him again and then came to me. He told me to not let that ever happen again...

Kurt... He did not speak for two weeks after that...

His body was fully healed... But his mind... His heart... It was simply too much for him...

I... I had no idea of what else to do... So I went after a cursed warrior dragon, and made a deal with it so that he could take away the memory of that night from Kurt's mind...

And it worked! My little boy! He was finally talking, eating, and walking again... As if nothing had ever happened... All it cost was one day completely erased from his life...

But I knew things couldn't stay that way...

I kept waking up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat, terrified that at any moment Lian would walk through the doors with that... That thing again... And do it all over...

I... I couldn't let that happen!

So I did all I could to make sure Kurt would be safe.

I trained him to make sure he would be able to defend himself. I kept him away from those backstabbing servants in case they ever tried to report back to Lian again. I did everything I could to make sure that night would never repeat itself...

But the one thing I couldn't change... Was Kurt's heart.

I tried many times to explain him the situation, tried to make him come to his father's side, tried everything I could to make sure that man would not see him as a threat...

But Kurt simply wasn't like him...

Kurt hates hurting others... He would rather suffer ten times before harming someone a single time...

So... Not knowing what else to do... I just kept erasing his memories... Again... And again... And again...

Anytime Kurt would start feeling like he shouldn't trust, or obey, or follow his father... Anytime a single speck of doubt would appear inside of him, the curse would activate, and revert him to how he was before he started to feel that way...

Safe and sound...

I... I tried my best to prevent the curse from going off so much... I kept him from interacting with other dragons, kept him from going to school for as long as I could, I removed all the books in our library that had any date on the emperor's plans... I even prevented him from learning enhanced senses in case he accidentally heard anything he should not...

And I've been doing that until now... Trying to avoid all of his questions... Trying to stop him from learning the truth..."

"Does..." Saramin finally tried to talk again after feeling like a mess, "Does the emperor knows? About the curse? He was explaining things to Kurt today's as if it was the first time..."

Sabiri shook her head, "He thinks the trauma of that night was too big and ended up making him forget... Or maybe he knows and is just laughing at us, watching for how long we can keep this up... I don't know...

All I know is that he left us alone for now... I can't ask for anything more..."

Saramin wasn't sure how to react. Kurt was carrying scars much bigger than she expected, and the kid himself didn't even know about it.

Or did he?

"Were there any side effects? Did Kurt..." she asked while thinking about the boy's expression during his fight with Hugh. An expression very similar to Anomalia while she was enjoying their fight tonight, "Did he show any changes?"

"A few... Yes... There are times when we train that he started to stare coldly at me, not as a mother, but as an enemy...

I also heard a report from one of the bodyguards that I assigned him with that he will often fight like her... Constantly harming and then healing his opponents just so he can harm them even more..."

Saramin began to hold her forehead.

"His mind doesn't remember her... But his body does...

I think the more his memories get erased, and the stronger he gets, the more he forgets who he really was, and starts to turn into something like her..."

Saramin began to picture Kurt, the same kid that would pick a fight with the whole school just to defend Gaby, the same kid who looked so excited about forming a study group, the same kid that risked his life to save her tonight...

That kid, of all people, becoming a monster...

"Y- You have a plan, right?" Sara asked with intense worry in her voice, "You're not gonna let that happen to him, right?"

Sabiri stared intensely at her and wiped the last of her tears before speaking in a strong tone, "There is only one way to save my boy from the emperor... I need her!"

"Her?"

Sabiri stared at her arm in the exact same place where she was wounded many years ago.

A wound that was fixed by Kurt.

A wound that was caused by the only thing in this world that scares Lian Garen.

"The black knight..." she mumbled, "I need her to be the hero that will save my little dragon...

And me as well..."