The curse split in half. A piece of it latched onto a dragon-hide bracelet and poor, baby Azeth. The two connected, so as the baby grew older, it was clear he wasn't fully human—but part dragon. The other half of the curse was more dormant and didn't show up as quickly. But when Raziel got stuck in a haunted forest, he, too, found himself changing, into something more or less like a tree. The two halves never came into contact with the other for fifteen years, until Azeth crossed the haunted forest that Raziel was trapped inside. Unfortunately, when the two met, the curse halves reacted and reformed the full curse—only held at bay by a cripple who seems to have a resistance towards magic. But when the cripple gets kidnapped, Raziel and Azeth's curse take a turn for the worse.