531- The Serpent's Truth and the Fractured Heart
POV Thalyndra Moonclaw:
I tried to swallow, but the saliva wouldn't pass through my constricted throat. I blinked again and again, trying to dissipate the image I saw, but it wouldn't disappear.
I felt Anton's arms around me, steadying me further.
He knew what I was feeling. He understood the magnitude of my despair, of my rejection, of the pain of longing and confusion. There were so many feelings that I thought I would die.
"What the hell is this?" Myrion exclaimed. Severian snapped his fingers.
"Well, how remiss of me." He slid his arm over my mother's shoulders. "Allow me to introduce my second offspring: Sorina Gaius."
Gaius? That was wrong, she was a Moonclaw, like my father.
"Mother..." I whispered in a broken sigh. "What's happening?"
She blinked, sorrowfully.
"He's telling the truth, Thalyndra. Severian is my father."
"That's a lie, William would have smelled her, he was too clever to be deceived by a Mercante," Edric retorted.
My mother nodded, agreeing with him.
"Yes, he was. That's why I was sent on a mission to get involved with him and obtain information about the artifacts. My mother was human, so my scent is dissipated, yet I have the woody notes, as does my daughter." She pointed at me. "Smell her and you'll see I'm not lying."
I shook my head in denial.
"To me, she smells of cedar and sandalwood," Myrion commented. Vladren whistled.
"I think she's telling the truth, the cedar reminds me of the woody scent of those bastards."
I looked at Anton, my eyes full of tears while others already streamed down my face. I couldn't bear the idea of being rejected or despised by him for being someone I didn't even know I was. He leaned in and kissed my forehead, full of love and care. He ran his thumb over my face, wiping away the tears.
"It's alright, Little Beast. We'll face this together," he whispered so only I could hear.
But nothing was alright.
I turned to her, trying to better understand what was happening.
"How? My father?" I sobbed. "I can't understand..."
Sorina ran a hand through her hair, tucking the strand behind her ear, licked her lips, preparing to speak:
"Your father was always a man who was too intelligent, shrewd, and of great knowledge. It was difficult to reach him, to find him. With that, Severian sent me to him. I was the only one who didn't have the strong scent characteristic of the Mercantes, because of my human mother, it would be easier for me to persuade him than anyone else." She tried to approach, taking a step, but stopped upon hearing Anton's threatening growl. "In the beginning, it was supposed to be just a simple involvement. Obtain some information, collect data, but I ended up liking him, getting involved much more than I should have. Still, he didn't open up to me completely, he didn't trust me. Then came my heat. I didn't take the inhibitors, I thought that if I went through that period by his side, I would gain his trust."
Severian rolled his eyes.
"She just didn't expect to get pregnant so quickly." Sorina opened a weak smile.
"I had seen many she-wolves go through the period and nothing happen, I thought the same would happen to me, but that wasn't quite the case. I despised the idea of having William's pup, he was just the male I was supposed to get involved with out of interest. But... it was already too late, I was pregnant and there was nothing more to be done."
I didn't know how to react to what I heard coming from her mouth. It was so absurd it bordered on unreal, as if I were just having a bad dream.
"No, that's a lie!" I contested, moving further away.
"I communicated my pregnancy to my father, and he saw in it the opportunity to have me stay by William's side, to live a life with him. With that, I would continue obtaining information and helping our clan."
"You spent all those years lying to him?" Edric asked in a cold tone.
"Do you think he could escape how?" She laughed. "William taught at universities, one call and they would know where he was. It wasn't his more reserved lifestyle that allowed him to escape. They never wanted to find him."
"If that's true, why did we move so much? With them always approaching, always nearby!" I shouted.
"William could find the artifacts much faster with all his knowledge. The hours dedicated to books, centuries of study made him valuable. He informed them of all the objects he acquired; when he had something relevant, the pursuit would begin. We had to run, and with that, he would end up leaving some things behind."
I still didn't want to believe what I was hearing, although deep down, I knew that everything coming out of her mouth was the purest truth. Things started to make more sense. The information they had, the objects that disappeared whenever we moved hastily.
"He... he would have noticed," I commented.
"And he did." She shifted, restless. "Years ago, he found a vase." She snorted. "Only the Gods know how he did that. It turned out it was quite important to the Mercantes. They came to us, as always. With the escape, the vase was left behind. However, they couldn't find it, and later, I discovered William had hidden it at the university, keeping it far away to protect it. I told Severian, of course. When William returned to retrieve it and didn't find it, he became suspicious."
I looked at Anton and he immediately realized which vase she was talking about.
"Yes, that very one you're thinking of," Severian commented, catching us by surprise, noticing our exchange of glances. "We delivered it to the Eldoria as an apology gift. We thought the object would return to William when Sorina told us he was suspicious, so the easiest and least obvious way to do that was to send it to Edric. But it didn't work out, there was a lack of communication between the two."
"William changed after that. In the last few years, we needed to be less incisive or my identity would be threatened." She made a gesture with her hand. "I thought everything was fine, until I was caught by surprise by William. He discovered the truth about me. I had only told him my mother's name, always reiterating that I never had a father. It was a mistake to give the real name, he managed to investigate so deeply that he reached her and uncovered her death, linking it to the Mercantes."
I straightened up, remembering the research he did and kept in secret, always carrying the papers with him and keeping them in a safe that not even I knew the password to. He said that at the right time, he would tell me what it was about. I always thought it was something new, outside the norm, that he still didn't want to talk about because he was waiting to be certain.