Chapter 128 128
Amarien's POV
I had no real memory of my son’s face.
They never let me hold him long enough.
I tried to hold on to what's left of him, his cries, his smiles, his scent, but they all kept slipping away
I do not know how long I stayed on my knees before the shrine.
The Blue Moon climbed higher above the canopy, and still I knelt there, shoulders shaking, fingers digging into the damp earth as though I could anchor myself to something solid.
Seeing Daevir again had torn open a wound I pretended had scarred.
It wasn’t him alone.
It was what he carried in his face.
“If you had lived… You would have looked just like him.” I pressed my hand on my wooden child.
I traced its tiny sculpted cheek with trembling fingers as my mind began to build his image back from the pieces I knew.
Daevir’s amber eyes.
His long dark hair.
His strong mouth.
I imagined those features softened by infancy, by innocence.
“You would have had his eyes,” I whispered silently. Bright. Fierce. Impossible to ignore.
A fresh wave of tears burned my throat.
If you had lived, you would have looked just like him.
And maybe…
Maybe that was why seeing Daevir tonight had shattered me.
Because in his fury, in his blazing eyes, I saw the ghost of a child who never drew breath long enough to cry.
I pressed my forehead gently against the wooden baby.
“I’m sorry,” I breathed.
This shrine had not been built in peace.
It had been built in madness.
After they told me my child was dead, I wandered for days, weeks, half-senseless. I remember clawing at walls. I remember screaming until my voice tore itself raw. I remember looking at the river and thinking how quiet it looked beneath the surface.
The thoughts had frightened me.
The things I imagined doing to myself.
The things I imagined doing to others.
So I built this.
Stone by stone.
Flower by flower.
Something to hold my grief so it would not spill into destruction.
When the rage rose too high, when I felt the urge to tear the world apart with my bare hands, I came here.
I knelt.
I cried.
I cooled the fire before it consumed me.
I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand now, trying to steady my breathing.
“I still hate him,” I said aloud. “I hate your father.”
My fingers tightened around the brazen image.
“I’d kill him with my own hands if I had half the chance.”
The words came easier when spoken to a lifeless wood.
“He had no right,” I continued, my voice sharpening, anger seeping back through the cracks of sorrow. “No right to accuse me of making his son go blind.”
The injustice of it flared hot in my chest. He gets to suffer his son going blind, while I never got to touch my own child!
“It’s what he deserves,” I muttered bitterly. “It’s what they all deserve!”
The North.
The court.
Everyone!
I let out a broken laugh.
“They reap what they sow.”
But the anger wavered as quickly as it rose.
I looked again at the tiny sculpted face before me.
Am I a terrible person to think that?
The question slipped out softer than the rest.
Is it monstrous to wish pain on those who hurt you?
To feel satisfaction at their suffering?
I covered my face with both hands.
My shoulders trembled again.
“I don’t know who I am anymore,” I whispered into my palms.
Grief had hollowed me out.
Some days, I was nothing but ash.
Other days, I felt like fire given human form.
And tonight…
Tonight, I had stood between two brothers, ready to destroy each other because of me.
Because of love. Because of hate.
The Blue Moon bathed the shrine in pale light, merciless in its clarity.
A branch shifted somewhere behind me.
And I stilled.
I had not heard anyone approach.
My senses were usually sharper than this.
But grief deadened the senses.
The presence settled behind me with an eerie patience.
And then…
A hand touched my shoulder, sending chills rushing down my spine.
A voice followed, low and calm as embers beneath ash.
“Luna Amarien.”
My tears stopped mid-breath.
I raised my head slowly.
I did not need to turn to know who stood behind me.
The air itself felt different when she was near.
It was her. My friend who always comes to me in the darkness.
The Scarlet Witch.