There were the stories her parents told and the ones that lived silently inside them.
Most were shared freely. Her father’s voice echoing through the hallway, joyful, teasing.“Let me tell you about the time your mother?—”
But the story written in a mess of fine white scars on his back was the one he never told. She still remembered the shadow that drew over his face when she asked about them once when they were swimming in the sea. The memory sprang to mind with ease now.
“Papa, what happened to your back?”
He’d frowned, his eyes going hard. “That’s a grown-up story, Stell-bell. I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
He’d been out of sorts the rest of the morning until they walked back to the house and he’d disappeared into the backyard with her mother. Stella had watched them through the window—her father, her hero, his broad shoulders sagging as he curled into her mother. Cecilia holding him with the same tenderness with which she held her children when they had a scraped knee.
Stella wanted to ask so many times, but the moment never seemed right, and the question always froze on her tongue. She was more afraid of the stories they didn’t share freely than the expectation to live up to the ones they did.
Now she felt breathless, like just seeing that memory had broken something in her.
A new undeniable revelation rose in her mind after seeing theconviction in her father’s words, after seeing him fight to get to her mother, after seeing her mother’s love in trying to keep him from feeling her pain.
Suddenly, it was so clear. Stella had thrown herself into the Gauntlet Games, said she would walk across the fire to be with Arden. But that was not how Arden felt for her.
He didn’t fight for her even in the small ways. He’d taken the first detour on the course to their happily ever after, and she wanted to blame him. She wanted to say he was a selfish, vapid prince who only cared about himself.
But she knew the truth. Deep down, Arden did not love her the way she wanted to be loved—he might not even be capable of that kind of love. She’d let herself be blinded by his charm because she liked how it felt to be in his orbit, even if she was only occasionally at the center of it. And she had always known that. But surrendering that fantasy would have meant facing a reality in which she had no prospects and no idea if she’d ever meet someone who made her feel that way.
Stella had settled for less because she was afraid of having nothing. Wasn’tsomethingbetter than nothing?
Now that she’d seen the real thing, it ripped open the aching wound at the center of her. Stella wasn’t special. She was just another silly girl living in a fairy tale in her head. There was no one coming to save her.
She sat on the dusty cave floor so long that her legs began to go numb, the cold creeping into her bones. Finally, she pushed to her feet and snapped fire to her fingertips. She had to scale back down the ridge before it was fully dark.
Footsteps pounded from somewhere behind her. Stella spun, drawing her short swords. She did not feel prepared for a fight, but her fire magic had been simmering beneath the surface the whole time she was in the memory and now she was made of rage and grief.
A small fire illuminated the cave, drawing closer by the second. The source of it rounded the corner and Stella was ready to pounceuntil she realized it was Teddy. All the fight leeched out of her as she sheathed her blades.
He looked haunted, his eyes wide but relieved, and his tunic torn.
“I saw the night Vincent invaded. I saw—” Teddy’s voice cracked, and he swallowed hard. “I saw the hardest choice my father ever had to make and felt the way he loathed himself for making it.”
They stood there suspended, uncertain of how to move forward in a world where they knew too many of their parents’ secrets. How were they supposed to hold this history they had no right to—these private hurts that their parents had tried to shield them from?
Stella couldn’t count how many times she’d told her mother how lucky she was to have found Rainer and how Cecilia would never understand what it was like to struggle to find someone to love.
“I didn’t know that happened. I—” Stella sucked in a breath. The grief was still alive. “I felt what my mom felt. I was there. I felt every broken bone. I felt the dagger cutting into her thigh—saw the sadistic way that the monster smiled at his handiwork when it was over. I felt?—”
Her voice broke, and a sob ripped up her throat. She’d felt their bond—the way her father had tried to force his way through, the way her mother had tried to prevent him from feeling something so awful. Something she had done a magnificent job of sheltering Stella from.
Teddy took a step toward her, and she flinched. If he was too gentle now, she would fall apart completely. She’d never get up off the cave floor.
Maybe it was the bond, but Teddy seemed to understand. He didn’t touch her like he thought she was fragile. He touched her like he knew she was strong.
He cupped Stella’s face firmly in his hands. “You did what you had to do and now you know you are stronger than that nightmare.”
“How did they survive this?” Stella said between sobs.
Teddy rubbed her back. “I don’t know. But they did, and you did too.”
She drew back and met his gaze. “What did you see?”
Something like grief passed over his eyes. “I saw the choice my father had to make. I saw the night the kingdom fell to my uncle. He was so haunted. I heard your mother screaming.” A muscle ticked in Teddy’s jaw. “I think he’s doing this to punish them. I think Endros is finding a way to punish everyone who was involved in his downfall. Your mother is an obvious one, but the best way to get revenge on any mother is to go after their child.”
