It’s gentle, not invasive like I thought it’d be. It’s almost tender enough to cause my eyes to well with tears.
“I appreciate you acknowledging and saying that overcoming what I have so far was the hard part, but I just disagree. This feels like the hardest part. Talking through what’s sitting on my chest feels like I’m stripping away the last piece of…”
I let out a shaky breath as my gaze drops to the space between us.
“Your armor,” he murmurs.
“Yeah. My armor.” My deep breath fills my lungs, and I force myself to glance back at him. “I’m strong because I’ve had to be. When I got here, my armor—my protection—was firmly in place and since then, it’s been chipped away little by little. It’s hard to describe, but I feel like I started off really strong, then I had to learn to be vulnerable, which broke something down inside of me. Now I have to figure out how to build it and a different kind of strength back up. Does that make sense?”
He nods.
“That’s exactly what you’re doing. Not everyone, fortunately, goes through something that shoves them into survival strength. Some get to go through life and build up their will and strength over time, with ease. You were not one of those lucky people. While they were learning to be vulnerable, open with their emotions, trusting, and seeing life through prettier lenses, you were surviving. Now you’ve had to learn everything they did a long time ago.”
“Now I have to learn how to hold on to that strength,” I mutter.
“Thayla, your strength’s never going to change. Even right now in this moment, if you work through that last line of defense you have around you, your strength is here to stay. It’s just a different kind. It’s the kind where your first instinct isn’t to protect yourself, but the people you love. It’s the kind where you know and trust the people surrounding you enough to allow them to help you without thinking their help comes with ulterior motives. It’s the kind where the old Thayla, the one who lived in Oddian, is dead, and this Thayla has risen in her place.”
My throat clogs, and I clear it multiple times.
“That’s what scares me,” I whisper. “Who is this Thayla?”
He gives me a soft, easy smile.
“Well, let’s find out. Work through the things and people who shaped old Thayla.”
I blow out a breath and bring my knees to my chest.
“To start…Mellcom and Jeremiah,” I huff. “Mellcom was my—I thought he was—my person. Literally my whole life. The more I look back, the more I realize he’s always been this way. Always telling me how to train, to dress, to carry myself, how to speak and when not to speak. I always marked it up as him being protective and him looking out for my best interest.”
I scoff quietly as my fingers curl against my thighs.
“He knew me. Not just surface-level shit. He knew how my brain worked, what I needed, how I’d react to things. He knewwhat I’d been through with my parents, how I felt about being left, and he still chose to betray me. Multiple times.”
The words settle inside my chest heavier than I expected.
“It wasn’t even just the betrayal. It was how easily he did it. Entering me into the Veiling was one thing. But kidnapping—”
I cut my words off abruptly and swallow down the fury that rages to the surface.
“He kidnapped her knowing how easily that’d draw me out. Then he completely flipped the switch to saying our brother-sister act is getting old and I’m meant to be his. What the actual fuck? Seriously. What the fuck did the Goddess of Seduction feed him to make him see me like that after everything?”
A bitter laugh slips out of me, and I throw my hands up.
“It makes you feel like your whole life, everything you went through with him, the bad and good, was all for nothing,” Iric says.
“Yes, exactly. It was a big waste of fucking time. I should’ve…I should’ve left. I should’ve grown the damn courage, packed my shit and left. I didn’t, though, and every single shitty thing he’s ever done has never cost him a thing.”
“No,” Iric agrees easily. “It all cost you.”
I nod once, sharp. “Yeah.”
Silence stretches for a moment as I gather myself.
“And Jeremiah…he’s a whole different kind of fucked up.”
My chest tightens immediately, and I drag in a breath that doesn’t quite fill my lungs.
“I have admitted what he did to me,” I say quietly. “But I haven’t allowed myself to be honest about it, and hearing someone else’s story here lately has made it incredibly hard to ignore my reality.”
