So I asked Anxo to build one last wall inside my head.
It’s nothing like what Tiberius did. This time, the barrier isn’t a prison. Anxo sealed my Divine, making it so I couldn’t push past my limit even if I wanted to.
I spent so much of my life feeling like I wasn’t a complete siren that losing something I never truly had doesn’t feel like a loss. I can still use my magic within the same limits as before, and if that was enough to keep me alive this long, it’ll be enough for the rest of my life.
The sound of footsteps pulls me from my thoughts. I look up to see my brother walking toward me, his smile so much like our mother’s that it settles something deep in my chest. Like a piece of her found its way back to me through him.
Zale drops down beside me without asking why I chose to meet him out here instead of inside the castle.
“How did you know I was coming?”
I tap my nose. “You stink up the whole area around the portal every time you cross it.”
“You’re such a bully.”
“I’ve heard that’s a younger sister’s birthright.”
Zale has been visiting often, trying to make up for lost years in weeks. I can’t pretend it doesn’t mend something inside me, knowing hechoosesto come back.
Eldoris now has an open gateway to other realms. King of hell and my brother want our people to travel, to build alliances, to remember there’s a world beyond the dome that kept them caged.
Once Zale wiped out our half-siblings, ending what remained of Tiberius’s bloodline, Eldoris started to change. Slowly, but enough.
I knew Tiberius would’ve destroyed any trace of his family name, but it didn’t matter anyway. Zale wanted nothing to do with our sperm donor. He took our mother’s name instead. The only legacy worth carrying.
Zale Maralyn.
At first, I didn’t think he could do it. He saved me without hesitation, risking his life so I could escape, so I thought he’d have a soft spot for the rest of his siblings as well.
I’ve never been more wrong.
He ended it within a day of taking the throne.
I never asked if it was easy, but the first time he visited me after it was done, it was like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
Dean was right. Zale really is the only heir Tiberius couldn’t corrupt.
I like to think it’s because of our mother. I never got to know her, but she must’ve done something right for both her children to be saner than most in that wretched kingdom.
I wonder when I’ll stop thinking of Eldoris like that. Like a wound instead of a home.
Or if I ever will.
“You could come visit, you know. Just for a day. I could give you a tour.” He says it casually, like it wouldn’t matter if I said no, but I don’t miss the way his fingers tap against his thigh.
I shrug, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “Maybe.”
It would’ve been one thing to hesitate because of what happened to me, but that’s not the part that keeps me away anymore. Finding out what my—our—mother went through added to my hate for that place.
Sometimes I still hear her screams. her pain deep within my bones like it’s my own
But I can never say any of this to Zale. Unlike me, he’s filled with hope, still believes he can fix it. Clean the blood from the walls. Start over. Build something better from what should’ve stayed buried.
And I won’t be the one to take that from him. That’s why I’m grateful his childhood memories are still gone.
I don’t want her screams to haunt him, too.
As I look at him in a crisp white shirt, embroidered by the finest gold, he looks like any other leader from a powerful kingdom.
