~Awooooo~
By simply observing at close proximity, it would be glaringly evident as to why this place was collectively known as the Weeping Cottage.
It was as if the place was designed and built to scare off guests rather than welcome them.
It enclosed a tiny backyard that literally wails like a pregnant woman in her first days of labour whenever the wind drifts by, and a tiny frontyard with a bench that sighed when one sat on it.
It had an atmosphere that can unnerve even the wildest of pigeons, and a bone-chilling cold that didn't just bite; but chewed one down to the marrows.
One could easily be led to believe that the cottage is more of a figurative resting place, than a literal one.
But right there, just beyond the miserable bench, crouched an abode that looked like someone straight-out cropped and pasted a hut from the slums of ancient Nordic movies into the compound.
Nevertheless, within this nightmare-prop of an abode, that Soren awoke to the metallic tang of blood licking at the back of his throat.
It was his customary morning taste of the horrific potency of the Tranquil Poison; a "gift" from the Tribe Matron two years ago.
It was a colourless, odourless, and tasteless cocktail of thirty different poison and venoms meant to stop his heart in his sleep, and end his embarrassment as the "Cursed Heir" of the household.
However, for some miserable reasons, Soren persisted.
He became a sickly, trembling insult to his assassins; his body, a battlefield where venom of tyrannic potency and his stubborn, ineffable will to live aggressively fought to a daily miserable stalemate.
He was seven this year, and yet he looked seventy.
He pulled his thin, moth-eaten quilt tighter around his face, trying to trap the meager warmth of his own breath and catch a bit of sleep after a long night of studying, but the bells of the Obsidian Spire tolling outside his abode wouldn't even give him that much respite.
Today was the day fate would officially decide if he was to continue his life as a person or become a ghost; it was the day of the Awakening Rite.
Lethargic and hesitant, Soren sat up shakily, feeling like he had rusted iron for bones.
He released a breath that bloomed in the air like a soft peppery fart in infrared view.
On his bedside table sat a bowl of water; frozen solid, creating a makeshift mirror with which He daily gazed upon his own reflection—pale, and gaunt, with eyes that seemed too large for his face.
Those were the eyes that had cost his mother her life, or so the servants whispered whenever they thought he wasn't paying attention.
The "Curse" he was tagged with however wasn't just a rumor though; it was a record of the successive disasters that followed his presence back when he still lived within the cozy embrace of the inner rim of the tribe estate.
It was known that on the night of his birth, the tribe's sacred Eternal Flame—a fire that had burned for a hundred years—had briefly turned a deathly grey before plunging into eternal darkness.
Back then, the midwives had been seen fleeing the chamber with bleeding noses, screaming that the Chief's Consort had birthed a Karmic Blackhole; and ever since then, bad luck had followed him like a loyal dog.
By his fifth year, the stigma was set in stone: a gardener had tripped over a rake and broke his neck trying to respond to Soren's wave.
Also, a prized warhorse had once abruptly gone mad in the stables simply because Soren was seen passing by.
People didn't just dislike him, they horrifically abhorred him.
To them, he was like a goodluck thief or a badluck magnet; only one's personal experience with him can truly determine which facet of the curse they encountered.
It would have mattered little to them if these phenomena were all directed towards him, but he seemed to possess the remarkable tendency to brand every living thing in close proximity with this curse effect.
As a result, it was without surprise as to why he had been relegated to the weeping cottage, situated at the outer fringes of the Tribe Estates's inner rim.
-------
~Chweee~
It was just a soft push, yet the cottage door screeched like its hinges that hadn't seen oil in years.
"You're still with us." A timid whisper floated in, followed by a light, hesitant step that snapped Soren out of his reverie.
Liora slipped through the gap, carrying a basin of tepid water and a clean, patched towel.
She was a young orphan maid, and the only one in the tribe who seem to have the ability to ward off Soren's "supposed" curse effect.
To the world, Soren was a plague. But to Liora, he was just a boy who desperately fought his grim fate daily, and refuse to die.
"It's a heavy day, Soren," she said, her eyes avoiding the patches of dark, necrotic bruises under his skin where the Tranquil Poison rebelled overnight.
She dipped the towel into the water, and began to scrub the ink and soot from his trembling fingers.
"The Chief is watching, Soren. The whole tribe will also be watching too, so we have to make you look like an Heir, even if it's for the last time."
She worked with a feverish kindness; smoothening his hair and tightening his belt to hide how much weight the poison and malnutrition had stolen from him.
For a very brief moment, Liora's warmth seemed to push back the depressing atmosphere perpetually surrounding Soren.
"There," she whispered, squeezing his hand.
"Let them see that the curse hasn't won just yet." She added, pulling him toward the entrance.
However, their moment was soon shattered by a kick that sent the door swinging open; rebounding against the stonewall with a bone-breaking crack.
"Get up, little curse." An indignantly arrogant voice echoed, for the lack of a manly baritone.
Soren realized it was Kaelen, the First Heir of the Ignis Tribe and his Stepbrother.
The boy stood at the doorway; draped in white silk robe, with his chest thumping with the rhythmic pulse of an expert at the peak of the Body Tempering Stage; yet, even he dared not step inside.
No one, except Liora, has ever stepped fully into Soren's room if they could help it.
At worst they feared his "curse" would catch their luck, or at best, they feared the sickly stench of his room denoted a highly contagious disease.
To Soren however, he really couldn't decide which was more taunting; the fact that no one wanted to near his abode, or the envious pulse of power vigorously brimming within his brother.
"I'm coming, brother." He replied with the voice of one who hasn't tasted water in weeks.
"Unh? Brot-... Are you dumb or stupid? Don't ever call me that again," Kaelen's arrogant indignance flared even stronger.
There was no way he was having any of it. His hand had momentarily hovered past the violet hilt of his sword when he realized they weren't the only ones in the house.
"You; an overestimated ink-blot on the family scroll dares to call me brother.
I guess I can't be overly punished if I let out a little open secret to you, Blightbearer.
Just so you know, father is only allowing you to attend the Rite of Awakening so the Shamans can formally declare a valid reason to label you dead to the lineage.
Try not to cry, okay. It's bad enough that you're a failure; don't be a coward too." He retched, casually flexing the force within him to shake away the smear on his pride.
Soren, having anticipated what was about to follow, slipped his hand out of Liora's grasp as swiftly as he could, just in time for an invisible wave of pressurized force to send him tumbling across his bed, barging shoulder-first into the stoned wall of his room.
Without sparing any attention to Soren's condition, Kaelen turned and left; his silk sleeve snapping with a whiplike crack, even as he left a trail of expensive scent to mask the smell of the sickroom.
Soren simply laid there for a bit, ignoring the cold of the stone walls seeping into his new bruise.
He stared at his hands; small, pale, and stained with the blue ink of the ancestral scrolls he'd been illegally hoarding.
There was no way he could contend with a Peak Body Tempering Stage cultivation when he had yet to even temper his own; especially while his body is perpetually being decimated from within by a mysterious poison.
After taking a few moments to regain his bearings, Soren wiped the soot off his cheek but carelessly stood up too quickly to head out the door, and then it hit him.
A wave of disorienting nausea buffeted his face, causing his vision to blur for a moment; and right then, Soren could have sworn the gray stone of the floor turned translucent.
It was almost as if veins of pulsing, jagged light were running through the very foundation of the yard in a sickly violet and aggressive gold hue.
For a split second, it looked like the world was infected, but the moment he blinked to refocus his sight, the vision vanished like a figment of his imagination, leaving behind his growling stomach and the ever-present cold.
'Ahh... Here I am, hallucinating a floor made of glass while my stomach is almost see-through.' He lamented weakly as he followed behind Liora.
But what Soren would never have guessed was that the stone itself was just a victim in this case.
The only thing running through his mind was that he had to walk into the sunlight and let a relic older than the tribe tell him how useless he was, in the presence of the hundreds.
He knew those gathered at the village square were only waiting to watch the "Cursed Heir" of their tribe finally be erased from their history...