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30th May, 1310 - The Marquise de Chavaise Chambers - Ducal Palace
It is true. All of it.
Anaïs, Javier, Genevieve and Gabriel. Gone. Slaughtered. Mama too. My father is ashen, and cannot bear to look on me. It is as if he believes in the truth of this curse. He has taken himself away for scourging by the Priests of Kushiel, and I have not seen him since the night of the funerals.
And now I am sick. Am I, in truth, cursed?
My cousin Alexandre, whom went with the others to Béziers speaks of cure that he has found, and to this cause I have given him the lock of my mother's hair which I was keeping safe. He tells me that the curse kills those upon whom it is laid within two weeks, and I have been sick more than one now.
If nothing can be done, if the cure is discovered too late to aid me, then I pray to Elua that I live long enough to see my vengeance visited upon the witch before I pass.
Companions, keep breath in my body 'til then.
The quill falls from Desare's fingers, ink blotting the corner of her journal's page as sweat breaks fresh upon her brow. It's quickly gathered up by one of the maids in her room, and gets placed with her journal on the table to the side of her bed. Samir looks down on the scene; the severed head mottled, black, and crusted with blood where it sits on her dresser, and a healer clucks behind his teeth as he brings across a wooden bowl containing water laced with menthol and thyme. He notes that the rash about her throat has grown darker as the curse tightens its grip on his patient, then sets about cooling her fever with a finely wrung compress.