Chapter 71 What it actually takey
Chapter 71 What it actually takey
We didn’t stop until the river noise faded and the ground leveled out. Alexander slowed first, raising a fist. I caught myself before running into his back. He listened, head angled, eyes scanning the dark. Nothing followed. No voices. No dogs. Just the night doing what it always did, pretending it wasn’t watching.
He moved again. I stayed close this time, close enough to hear his breath change when the terrain shifted. The forest thinned into a stretch of old paths, half-forgotten, pressed down by years of use and abandonment. Someone had walked here often once. Not recently.
We reached a low stone structure tucked between trees. No door. Just an opening covered with hanging vines. Alexander pushed them aside and stepped in. I followed.
Inside, the space was small but dry. A fire pit sat cold at the center. Blankets folded near the wall. A water skin hung from a hook. Not a hideout made in a hurry. This place had been waiting.
I dropped onto the ground and pulled my wet shoes off. My fingers shook, not from fear but from the cold biting back into me now that we’d stopped moving. Alexander knelt, started a fire without ceremony. Sparks caught. Light filled the room slowly.
He didn’t look at me.
I wrung water from my skirt and set it aside. My hands left damp prints on my thighs. I wiped them again, uselessly.
Footsteps crunched outside.
Alexander was up in a breath, knife in hand, body angled toward the entrance. The steps stopped. A shadow crossed the opening.
“Seraphina,” a voice called. Not loud. Familiar.
My mother stepped through the vines.
Her hair was loose. Dirt streaked her sleeves. She looked smaller here, stripped of walls and witnesses.
Alexander didn’t lower the knife.
“I followed the river,” she said. “I knew you’d go this way.”
I stood. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I couldn’t let you leave like that.”
“You already did.”
Her eyes flicked to Alexander. “You brought him.”
“He came on his own.”
She stepped closer. “You don’t know what he’s involved in.”
I laughed once. “That’s rich.”
Alexander spoke then. “You should go back.”
She ignored him. “They’re furious. They think he’s taken you.”
“He didn’t.”
“You ran.”
“Yes.”
Her mouth pressed thin. “You’re making this harder than it needs to be.”
I moved toward her. “You made it this hard.”
She reached for my face. I caught her wrist before she touched me. Not rough. Not gentle.
“Don’t,” I said.
Her eyes filled. “Everything I did was for you.”
“No,” I replied. “Everything you did was for what you were afraid of.”
She pulled her hand free. “You don’t understand what they would’ve done.”
“What they did do,” I corrected.
Her shoulders sagged. “I was trying to buy time.”
“For who.”
“For you.”
I shook my head. “You bought silence.”
Alexander shifted behind me. “You need to leave. Now.”
She turned on him. “You have no right.”
“I have more than you think,” he said.
She laughed bitterly. “Of course you’d say that.”
Then her gaze dropped. To the pendant.
Her face changed.
I saw it clearly this time. Recognition. Fear. Guilt.
“You still have that,” she said.
“You knew about it.”
Her lips parted. Closed. “I hoped it was gone.”
“You hoped I’d never ask.”
She took a step back. “You don’t know what it means.”
“I know it was my father’s.”
Her breath hitched. “He wasn’t meant to pass it to you.”
“But he did.”
She looked between us. “He trusted you with it?”
“No,” Alexander said. “He trusted her.”
Silence fell heavy.
“They were never supposed to find you,” my mother said quietly. “Not like this.”
I stepped closer. “Who.”
She swallowed. “The ones who made him disappear.”
The fire crackled. Shadows danced.
Alexander didn’t move.
“You let me believe he left,” I said.
“I let you believe he chose distance.”
“You let me believe he chose nothing.”
Her voice shook. “I couldn’t tell you he was taken.”
The word settled between us.
Alexander’s hand tightened around the knife. “Taken where.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. He broke ranks. He hid things. He refused to hand her over.”
“She was a child,” Alexander said.
“She was leverage,” my mother replied. “And he wouldn’t give you up.”
My stomach dropped.
I stepped back, then forward again. “You knew they would come for me.”
“Yes.”
“And you stayed.”
“I stayed to keep them close.”
Alexander barked a humorless laugh. “That’s not protection. That’s proximity.”
She turned on him. “You think you know better.”
“I know what fear looks like,” he said. “And I know what power does when it gets nervous.”
Footsteps echoed outside again. Multiple this time.
My mother froze.
Alexander moved fast. He grabbed my arm and pulled me deeper into the structure. Pressed a finger to his lips. I nodded.
Voices filtered through the trees. Orders. Names.
“They followed you,” I whispered to my mother.
Tears streaked down her face. “I didn’t mean to.”
Alexander shoved a bundle into my hands. “Take this. If they find me, don’t stop.”
“What about you.”
“I’ll slow them.”
My mother grabbed his sleeve. “You’ll die.”
He pulled free. “Then she won’t.”
I looked at him. Really looked. Dirt on his cheek. Blood drying at his knuckle. Resolve settled deep and quiet.
“I’m not leaving you,” I said.
He met my eyes. “You already left them.”
The voices grew closer.
My mother stepped back into the entrance. “Go. I’ll tell them you went the other way.”
I stared at her. “Why.”
Her shoulders squared. “Because this time, I’m choosing you.”
Alexander hesitated only a second, then nodded.
He grabbed my hand. We slipped out the back of the structure through a narrow break in the stone and into the dark.
Behind us, my mother’s voice rang out, calling my name, leading them away.
We ran.
Not because we were afraid.
Because something had already been taken.
And it wasn’t going to take anything else.