I pressed my palms over my ears. Tried to push away the answer I knew they wanted.
Yes, my heart said. I would torture them as they had done to so many of my people. I would tear their hearts from their chests. I would not stop until every trace of hurt had been burned from within me, an old wound cauterized.
But some other part of me yelled,no.
I thought of Safiya standing over the king’s corpse, the vindication on her face that had been so quickly washed away. There had been only devastation left, when she saw the betrayal on Ayla’s face. Safiya had taken her revenge, and she had lost everything for it.
I remembered every time I had protected that black spot on my weary heart and every time I had forced myself into seclusion because of it.
The Rázuri awaited my answer.
“I forgive you,” I whispered, eyes fluttering shut with the bittersweetness of doing the right thing even when it went against my nature. “You were a pawn in a pointless war, following orders. I have killed senselessly, too. I am no better than you, and I forgive you.”
I opened my eyes, and they were gone, as was the courtyard. I sat in my childhood home, hands resting on the oak table. My parents sat across from me, and I knew in an instant what this memory was.
Stephanus had an angry way about him that had not existed before Luca’s death. He looked upon me then with disgust and anger and maybe even a hint of fear.
Anna was softer, as she always had been, the grief settling deep into the lines of her aging face. She did not speak as she traced her fingers over and over again on the grooves of the wooden table.
I waited for the quiet pain to settle over me as it had all those years ago. The hurt was a thing I lived with—knew intimately—but that first day it had been so sharp I could barely breathe.
“You are no longer welcome in this house. You have broken this family and remain only as a reminder of what we have lost.” Stephanus said the words as if he held no attachment to me. I was only a nameless, faceless nobody, not the daughter he had raised so lovingly.
I remembered the way the tears had streamed down my face, how I had begged him.Father, please. Please let me stay. This is my home. I have no one else—no where else to go!
“You are a pest, a scourge, a blight on this household! Leave now, or suffer the same fate as Luca!” Stephanus continued to deny me, to berate me, to threaten me into leaving. The memory darkened as he spat vile words that I had no memory of him saying.
I tuned out his hurtful words, pushed away the needle pricking at my chest.
Instead, I thought of that night at the spring with Harkin. I had realized then that my parents must have always known about my ancestry. Perhaps not that I was a member of the royal family, but that I was Rázuri.
They had done their best to raise me with knowledge of my history, and I had loved it so. They had known and taken me in despite the risk. The risk that later took their only son, their only blood relative, from them.
In the memory, I would have heard enough. With tear stained cheeks and an aching chest, I would flee the house that was no longer a home.
But in this moment, I stayed.
“I have hurt so many people. I have allowed my pain to overcome my goodness in ways that I often regret. I hope those that I have hurt may one day find it in their hearts to forgive me, but I cannotcontrol what they do. Only what I do.” I locked eyes with each of my parents in turn. “I forgive you for turning your back on me. In your grief, it was the only thing you knew how to do. It was wrong, and you wounded me deeply, but I understand why you did it now. I forgive you, because it is the only way forward.”
Their expressions shifted to something like regret and hope, but in an instant, they were gone, the memory fading away into nothing. I wondered if my parents wished they could take those moments back, but I doubted whether I would ever truly know.
Images of Harkin flashed behind my closed eyelids. Every lie he had told and the small betrayals of my trust, but the picture never formed fully because I had already forgiven him. Because he was the one who had taught me how to forgive.
He had told me the truth, and he had chosen me, even when it meant he might lose everyone he loved. He had hurt me, but he had always been there to patch up the wounds.
“I forgive you,” I whispered to the fading image of Harkin. “I love you.”
The world went dark once more. A note of finality hung in the blackness. The Goddesses’ test was almost over. I felt it in my soul.
When the light poured back in around me, I came face to face with a mirror image of myself. The other Seren smiled, but it did not reach her eyes. She did not talk but instead lifted her hands. With a flourish, the image of me disappeared, replaced with a hundred overlapping memories.
I turned away my fellow Guardians, uninterested—or so I said—in friendship or companionship. Lili Barta’s blonde hair whipped past my vision. I cut through flesh and bone, slaying dozens of Rázuri in dirty streets and crowded woods. Dead eyes watched mefrom the grave. Over and over, I chose to build the wall around my heart. The one I now knew prevented me from finding happiness.
I had wasted so much time, and it hurt far deeper than any of the previous memories. I had to face the fact that of everyone who had ever hurt me, my own actions had cut the deepest. I had made myself into my own worst enemy, but no longer. There was a different choice to be made, and I had chosen it.
When the memories faded, and I was left alone with the mirror version of myself again, I said the words. It hurt, pulling them up past my aching chest, through my throat which was thick with emotion.
I felt, for a moment, that I still did not deserve to say the words which would absolve me of the past. Tears fell for every version of myself, and I said them anyway.
