After what felt like an eternity staring at the ceilingI had morized a hundred tis—I finally lifted my heavy body from the bed.
Carefully, I untangled myself from the two sleeping figures beside . Levina had her small hand curled around the front of my shirt, while Amaya’s arm was snugly wrapped around my waist. I moved slowly, gently peeling their warmth away from . They stirred slightly but didn’t wake.
I rose to my feet and padded across the room, putting on my shoes. I opened the door, careful not to make a sound, and slipped quietly into the dim corridors of the castle.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t sleep because of Amaya’s presence beside . She wasn’t the cause of the restless night. No, the truth was simpler—and bitter.
Sleep just didn’t co to anymore.
Whenever I closed my eyes, the silence devoured . It wrapped itself around like a thick fog, pressing in on all sides. It reminded of the hollowness inside—the gaping emptiness I’d been ignoring.
That void... Cleenah had been the one filling it. As loud and irritating as she could be, her presence had always been there. Constant. Familiar. A chaotic noise that had sohow kept anchored.
Now that she was gone, I felt stripped bare.
Vulnerable in a way I hadn’t known I could be.
A sharp breath escaped as I clutched my chest and staggered forward, the long corridors echoing with the ghost of my steps. Eventually, I made it out into the cool night air. My legs carried with an unsteady gait.
Sloth.
Ever since I used that damn sin, the assimilation had been accelerating. It was faster than it had been with Wrath, almost violently so. Back then, I was convinced I could handle it—because Cleenah had been there. I realize now she was helping slow the process down. Protecting in ways I hadn’t understood until it was too late.
And now...
Now there was no support.
No shield.
Just , and a storm of pain I couldn’t block out.
mories—mine, Roda’s, Elizabeth’s, and Cleenah’s—all tangled and crashed together with Samael’s grief. A raw, gnawing agony writhed inside , deeper than anything I’d ever known.
Bitterness. Rage. Loneliness. Sorrow. All of it swirled through like a storm with no center, no calm.
Was this how Samael felt when he lost Sia?
No... it was worse for him. I was only tasting fragnts of his pain—what he must have endured was beyond comprehension. It was the kind of suffering that could drive soone mad.
And in that madness... could I really bla him for turning his back on Eden?
I didn’t know anymore.
Maybe I had been wrong.
Maybe Eden really was to bla.
That thought clenched inside painfully, and I stumbled forward until I collapsed against the cold stone wall of the castle. My body slid down until I was seated on the ground, legs folded awkwardly, lungs gasping for air as if I’d forgotten how to breathe.
Before stretched the garden—lush and peaceful under the red moonlight. The flowers rustled gently in the breeze, petals trembling as though whispering secrets I would never understand. The small trimd trees swayed softly, casting shifting shadows that danced across the pathways.
It reminded of Cleenah’s dinsion.
Of that bizarre little pocket world of hers.
Tears blurred my vision.
She told not to cry.
But I couldn’t stop.
It was unbearable. The grief was like acid, eating through the walls I had even though reinforced over the years. I wanted to rip my heart out just to make it end. To stop feeling anything at all.
She had been there with for two years.
Two long, loud, exhausting, comforting years. Living inside . Talking to . Teasing with her nonsense. Poking fun at everything. Always with that voice, sarcastic and shrill, like nails on a chalkboard—and yet, now that it was gone, the silence she left behind was deafening.
I used to think she was just mocking . I believed she exaggerated on purpose, said stupid things just to get under my skin.
But now, sitting here alone, I finally understood.
That had been her way of helping .
Of calming the storm inside . Of distracting from the bitterness that had taken root after losing Ephera. She hadn’t been annoying—she had been saving in her own chaotic, loudmouthed way.
She wanted to find joy again. To laugh. To live.
And she fought for .
She stood between and enemies I couldn’t even comprehend, let alone defeat. All while I recklessly hurled myself toward death again and again, too blind and too broken to see the truth.
She protected .
And I... I was too stupid to realize it until now.
There were so many things I wanted to say to her.
So many words that had been stuck in my throat, unspoken.
I wanted to apologize—for dragging her into all my sses, for putting her through pain I never acknowledged, for every burden I handed her without realizing.
I wanted to thank her—for everything she had done for , even the things I never saw. The silent sacrifices. The protection. The constant presence that had kept afloat when I didn’t even know I was drowning.
I wanted to tell her...
That I loved her.
That I wanted to know more. About her past, her life before we t. Who she was outside of the voice in my head.
But I kept pushing it back, foolishly thinking there’d always be ti. I delayed and delayed, refusing to face the inevitable.
"I’m so stupid..." I muttered under my breath, letting out a hollow, bitter laugh.
Always too late.
That was .
Too late to confess to Ephera before she slipped through my fingers. I had planned this grand gesture in Paris, thought I’d take her there and tell her everything. I thought I was being romantic. But in the end, all I had was regret and silence.
As I sat there wallowing in my own failure, I suddenly felt soone’s presence beside . Quiet, unintrusive. They sat down slowly, the soft rustle of fabric brushing against stone.
I turned my head to the right, blinking through the haze of tears.
Viessa.
She said nothing at first. I quickly wiped my face with the back of my sleeve and looked away. I didn’t have the strength to talk. Not now.
"It’s beautiful, isn’t it?"Sshe said after a mont, her eyes fixed on the crimson moon hanging low in the sky.
I didn’t respond.
My throat felt tight.
"My mother used to be terrified of it," Viessa continued softly. "Most of my people are. They avoid looking at it. But ... I’ve always found it beautiful. Haunting. Strange, but it calls to ."
I let out a breath. "You want to fall under the Witch’s spell that badly?"
She laughed gently and shook her head. "No. Not quite."
There was a pause.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"I heard you crying."
I shot her a glance, narrowing my eyes. She t my look with a small smirk before sighing.
"It’s hard to sleep when all I can think about is how many of my people died yesterday."
"You shouldn’t waste your strength mourning the dead," I replied. "Worry about the living. The ones still here."
That was the only reason I kept moving forward.
Because I still had people I loved. People I needed to protect.
Viessa fell silent at that. I looked over to her and saw her lips parted, trembling. Her gaze dropped to her lap, where her fingers fidgeted.
"You know," she whispered after a long silence, "I had a little brother. He was five years younger than ."
Her voice trembled, and she swallowed hard before continuing.
"I raised him mostly on my own. He was fierce—arrogant sotis—but he had the gentlest soul I’d ever known. When I took the throne, when I beca Queen, everything changed. I started spending more and more ti with the other leaders, with the kingdom’s politics. We were called Heroes, and that title ca with... expectations. I told myself I was doing it all for him. That if I protected the kingdom, I was protecting him too."
She laughed bitterly, her eyes glistening with tears. "But I stopped seeing him. Stopped being there. And he never said much. Just the occasional glance, the little comnts. Annoyed, sad, trying to cheer up. Trying not to show how upset he was. And I... I never noticed just how much he needed ."
Her voice cracked.
"I thought he was safe in the castle. I had no idea he joined the battlefield under my command. I didn’t even know he was there... until the day he died."
The tears finally fell.
Her shoulders trembled as she spoke.
"He wasn’t scared when he died. Just angry. Hurt. He started pouring everything out. All the emotions he had bottled up—how he missed , how he hated not seeing , how every night he feared I’d die and never co back. That he cried in the garden when no one was looking. That he trained with his sword to forget the fear, the loneliness. All because he didn’t want to burden ."
Her hands clenched in her lap.
"He just wanted to spend ti with . Just wanted his sister back and I was unable to give him that simple wish."
When she spoke those words about her brother, I couldn’t help but think of Christina.
"I..."
Before I could finish the thought, Viessa glanced at , her eyes narrowing as if she was reading the shift in my expression.
"You have a big sister, don’t you?" She asked.
"I had," I said quietly, the words catching on my tongue like thorns. "Or... I thought I did."
Viessa stayed silent, waiting.
"When she found out I wasn’t exactly her long-lost little brother, everything changed. It was subtle at first—hesitations, glances, that little fear in her eyes. She kept saying everything was fine and still ca to see , but... I could feel it. That distance. That fear. It was the sa with my mother."
I let out a bitter, breathless chuckle.
"So I cut them off. Just like that. I thought, what was the point of pretending? They didn’t see the sa way anymore, and I couldn’t handle that. They were the only family I thought I had left, and now... well, I guess I was destined to be an orphan after all."
Viessa didn’t imdiately respond.
"Did you ever tell them?" She asked.
"Tell them what?"
"How you felt," she said. "About them seeing you differently."
"I... I did."
She raised an eyebrow slightly, not convinced.
"But did you really talk to them? Properly? Honestly?" She asked with a quiet smile. "If they kept coming back, maybe they were waiting for you to say sothing that mattered."
My eyes dropped to the ground.
"It wouldn’t change anything," I muttered. "Words don’t fix how people see you. You can’t force soone to see you the sa way they once did."
Before I could say more, Viessa leaned over and gently wrapped her arms around my head, pulling into her shoulder. I stiffened, surprised by the sudden gesture.
"What are you—"
"This isn’t how you should think, Edward," she whispered. "That’s exactly what Rian did with . He assud I wouldn’t understand, that I wouldn’t listen. And he kept bottling everything up until it was too late."
I felt her tears dripping down onto my hair as she held tighter.
"I was stupid too," she continued, voice cracking. "But if—if only he had opened up and told what he needed... what he felt... maybe things would’ve turned out differently."
She chuckled softly through her tears, trying to compose herself.
"Ah... you know, I’m actually a little jealous of your big sister. If I were her, and you tried cutting off like that, I would’ve kicked your ass until you accepted again. I’d never let you go that easily."
I smiled faintly.
"Christina would never hurt ," I murmured, reaching out my hand to pull myself back.
That’s when Viessa suddenly froze.
"W–Wait..." she stuttered.
Her eyes locked on my wrist. The green bracelet. The one I’d almost forgotten I was wearing.
She reached out and gently grasped it, her fingers trembling. "W–Where did you get this?" She asked, voice breaking, eyes wide with disbelief.
Of course.
She was the one who gave it to —or rather, she would give it to . Or maybe... she already had.
I couldn’t tell her the truth. That it was from her, from a future she hadn’t lived yet. That would be insane.
So I said the only thing that made sense in the mont.
"Soone gave it to ."
Her grip tightened slightly. "Who?"
More tears stread down her cheeks.
I swallowed.
"...My big sister," I lied.
Viessa blinked, stunned. She ran her thumb slowly across the green stone, her expression softening into sothing bittersweet.
"It looks exactly like the one I gave to Rian," she whispered.
"Where is it now?"
Maybe the crystal—the one that brought to the past—was into it since it was from the past?
If I could find it again, maybe I could get back to my own ti. The problem was... I had no idea how Cain had triggered it. I only rembered him mumbling sothing right before everything collapsed.
Viessa turned her gaze toward again, her eyes shimring.
"Do you want it?" She asked suddenly.
I blinked.
"I an..."
How was I supposed to respond to that?
Saying yes would just make things more complicated. She might ask why I wanted her dead brother’s keepsake, and that would be a hell of a conversation I didn’t want to have. It would sound creepy as hell.
Viessa grinned.
"Alright then—call Big Sister, and I’ll give it to you."
"No."
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