Chapter Text
Long before love had a name, a god loved a mortal girl but the girl defied the very emotion that the god created.
Her name was Lyssandra Carson, and when Eros, golden and cruel in his ways, offered the mortal woman his heart, she refused it. She refused to be locked to someone who only truly wanted her for her body and nothing else. She wanted to love freely. She didn’t want to worship at his feet. She didn’t want to be controlled.
Eros was angered by her words but intrigued by her defiance. He desired the woman in more ways than the pitiful mortal can imagine but in the end, the woman never went to him. A curse bloomed from that day forward. When the mortal woman turned and walked away from him for good, Lord Eros touched her heart and split it in two, so her bloodline would forever know the difference between being loved and being possessed.
Generations upon generations of women in her lineage would carry his mark: a shimmer beneath the skin, envy burning a bright gold. Ruination would befall any who bear his mark. The woman felt the mark hours later, lying in bed with the mortal man that she truly adored—no she loved this man. A sigil of golden broken heart rested above her heart as she screamed from the pain. The mark was new but it had progressed far beyond what any god had seen before. She begged for the man beside her to help her, to take the pain away but he was silent. She struggled to turn her head but when her eyes landed on her beloved, she realized the mistake that she had made.
The man was dead. Blood dripped from his mouth, his beautiful green eyes were empty. The wails of the woman shook her city. Her wails shook even the land of the gods above. There was one who took pity on the mortal woman. One who could take the pain away for only a little while.
Nyx, the primordial of Night herself. She couldn’t offer the woman salvation for even her power as a primordial couldn’t undo a curse of this caliber. She could only alter it.
“You wished to escape love,” the primordial goddess whispered to the woman as she brushed the hair of the mortal girl. “Then I will continue to grant you that mercy. You will live untouched but every heart that dares to love you will suffer.”
People have told the story for generations, many believing that the Carson bloodline truly began when the curse was placed although there was no record of anyone being affected by the curse since the woman . That somewhere buried in the depth of the Carson estate, the myth still rings true. The god who fell in love with a mortal and lost.
The story changes as all stories do when passed along through generations. The women of the Carson family told the story to their children so that they can always be prepared. Through these women, the name of the god changes. Some of the women call him Eros. Some refuse to even speak his name at all. But they all agree on one thing: every Carson woman is a potential inheritor of the mark.
It doesn’t appear right away. Sometimes it waits for a touch. Other times, it waits for the wrong person to love her back.
When Kyran Carson’s mark appeared, it wasn’t under temple bells or moonlit omens. It didn’t appear in bed with one of her many fuck buddies nor with her friends who cherish her. It happens beneath a chandelier, in front of hundreds of people, when a stranger took her hand.
The air stilled. The lights flickered. And though no one said it aloud, everyone who saw it felt the same quiet, terrifying truth.
The curse had finally chosen its inheritor.