Chapter 164 Breaking free
Chapter 164 Breaking free
Zara’s POV
The world had grown louder in the weeks since I returned to school. Reconstruction hammers echoed across the grounds, laughter from students trying to reclaim normalcy floated through the air, and the scent of fresh paint blended strangely together. Yet somehow, inside me, there was only silence.
I hadn’t spoken to Aunty May since that night. Since she shattered everything I thought I knew with one sentence: “I am your mother.”
I should have cried. I should have embraced her. Maybe part of me had wanted to. But another part—the bigger, heavier part—felt bound in invisible chains. Chains of lies. Chains of control. Chains that told me my life had never been mine to begin with.
And so, I ignored her. Letters went unopened, phone calls unanswered. Even when she came to the school gates once, I refused to go down. I had decided: if I couldn’t sever her, I could at least starve the bond until it thinned into nothing.
But of course, nothing about May—no, my mother—was so easily dismissed.
I was leaving the training grounds when I saw her.
Her figure was a familiar silhouette against the gray stone archway, shoulders squared but not unkind, a shawl wrapped tightly around her as if bracing against a storm that wasn’t there. Students gave her a wide berth, whispering as they passed, probably sensing the tension radiating between us even before I did.
“Zara,” she said softly, her voice trembling just slightly, though her eyes didn’t waver from me.
Every muscle in my body locked. For weeks, I had practiced avoiding her. But here she was, standing in front of me like a wall I couldn’t sidestep.
“Why are you here?” I asked, sharper than I meant to, though I didn’t regret it.
“To see you.”
“You’ve already done enough of that,” I muttered, brushing past her.
But she moved quickly, stepping into my path, and for the first time in my life, I noticed she wasn’t the untouchable figure I’d always believed her to be. There were lines etched into her face that hadn’t been there before. Guilt, maybe. Or grief.
“Please, Zara,” she whispered. “Just listen.”
I clenched my fists. Listening was dangerous. Listening meant opening the wound wider. Still, some cruel part of me needed answers. I gestured toward one of the smaller practice courtyards, empty now. “Fine. Five minutes.”
.
We sat on the stone bench. The silence between us stretched like an unbridgeable canyon.
Her hands trembled slightly as she folded them in her lap. “I know you hate me—”
“I don’t hate you,” I cut in, though my voice cracked. “I hate the lies. I hate that you didn’t trust me. That you thought chains and half-truths were love.”
Her eyes flinched at that, but she didn’t look away. “You were so young. And you don’t understand how dangerous this world can be for someone like you. I thought if I could just shield you long enough, you could have something resembling normalcy.”
“Normalcy?” I laughed bitterly. “You think hiding who I am gave me that? You erased my memories. You decided what truths I could handle. That’s not love, May—it’s control.”
Her lips trembled, and for a moment, the woman before me looked less like the powerful guardian I’d grown up with and more like someone drowning in regret. “I didn’t want you to carry the weight of the Blackwood curse. I thought—if you didn’t know, maybe it would never touch you. I was wrong.”
“Wrong?” The words tumbled out before I could stop them. “You don’t get to make that sound so small. Do you know what it feels like to realize your entire life was built on someone else’s choices? To feel like a stranger in your own skin?”
Tears welled in her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. “I know I can’t take it back. I can’t undo the lies. But, Zara, I did it out of love. A mother’s love. Twisted, broken as it may have been, it was all I knew to give you.”
For a long moment, I just stared at her. The anger in me burned bright, but beneath it, something softer came, something that hated seeing her crumble like this.
“You don’t get to use love as an excuse,” I whispered. “Love doesn’t suffocate you. Love doesn’t chain you. If you wanted to protect me, you should have stood beside me, not above me.”
Her hands gripped her shawl tightly, knuckles white. “You’re right. And that’s why I’m here. To let you go.”
My breath caught.
She reached into her pocket, pulling out a small silver pendant I hadn’t seen in years. My heart lurched—it was the charm I’d worn as a child, the one she’d always told me was just for luck.
“This belonged to me,” she said quietly. “I kept it because I was selfish. Because I wanted you to need me. But it’s yours. Always was.”
Her voice broke on the last words, and she pressed the pendant into my palm.
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. It was as if the weight of every secret, every hidden truth, every chain she’d bound me with pressed into my skin.
“I don’t know how to forgive you,” I admitted, my voice barely audible. “Part of me wants to hate you forever.”
Her shoulders sagged. “Then hate me, if that’s what you need. But don’t hate yourself because of me. You’re not cursed, Zara. You’re not broken. You’re stronger than I ever was—and I see that now.”
The silence stretched again, this time less hostile, more fragile.
Slowly, I closed my fist around the pendant. The metal was cold against my skin, but it felt… right. Like a piece of me I hadn’t realized was missing.
When I finally looked at her, I saw not the enemy, not the jailer of my past, but a woman who had made too many mistakes out of fear and love tangled together.
“I can’t promise to forget,” I said. “I can’t promise it’ll ever be the same. But… maybe I can start with this. With not hating you.”
Her tears spilled over then, running silently down her cheeks. And for the first time in weeks, I didn’t turn away.
We didn’t hug. We didn’t magically heal years of wounds in a heartbeat. But something shifted, something small, tentative, and real.
.
That night, I sat by my window, the pendant warm in my hand. For the first time, the silence inside me wasn’t empty. It was… waiting.
Waiting for me to decide what to build now that I was free.