The Book of Deadly Curses

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Malveor was never a sorcerer in the service of kings or guilds. His hut stood beyond the last moorland path, where the light grew thin and even the crows began to whisper. Those who sought him came with questions no one else dared to ask. And Malveor answered—at a price paid only by the fainthearted. It began on an evening blotted out by rain. The drops tapped against the window like fingers from another time. When Malveor entered the room, it lay simply there: a book with a midnight-blue cover, silver-studded, the clasps still damp from the mist. A small statue sat enthroned on the lid—a pale reaper with his scythe lowered. Malveor was certain: this book had not been carried in. It had waited. He did not touch it, not that first night. But in the morning, the book had opened. The pages were empty. Only one line appeared, written in his own handwriting: "You already know me." Malveor, his mind sharp as an obsidian knife, smiled only thinly. "Then it is time you remembered." He began to read. And the pages began to write. Old curses flickered—not from someone else's pen, but forged from Malveor's own thoughts. Words peeled from memories, from fears he had never fully considered. One curse turned water to glass. Another stole the name from a face. They were not spells—they were wounds cast in language. At first, he thought the book was a collection. But soon he understood: It was a mirror. Not a silver one, not one of glass. A mirror of guilt and possibility. The more he read, the more it wrote. And sometimes he felt the handle of the statue on the cover grow warmer. The nights changed. Malveor no longer spoke aloud. It was enough for him to think of a curse—and somewhere a bird fell dead from a branch. The ravens began to avoid him. The wind avoided his door. His reflection grew paler. And then, first the voices in his house disappeared, then his shadows, and finally: his memories of certain faces. He tried to banish the book, to chain it, to burn it. But it laughed. Not with words—with proximity. It smelled of lavender, of forgotten rooms, of the voices of his childhood. It said, "I have always been here." And Malveor understood. It hadn't come; it had awakened. The statue was only a gesture. The true Reaper sat within him, whispering through his tongue, writing with his fingers. Not to kill him—but to make him useful. On the thirtieth day, he cast the curse that made a village sleep. Forever. Not a twitch, not a protest—only silence. And from the book came a gentle sound. Like the turning of a page. "You are ready," said a voice that didn't sound, but knew. Malveor nodded. He had no more questions. Only answers, dripping like poison. He left his hut at night, the book to his chest, the statue's scythe aimed at his heart. Since then, stories have been told of a wanderer who mutters dark verses as he walks through the fog. The air freezes around him, and with every step, a thought someone once dared to think dies.