“Why wasn’t I enough for them to decide that?” I ask. I don’t expect an answer, not from him anyway. “I understand now why they left me in Oddian, but after they got rid of the Binding, why did they just listen to the Valories and disappear? Instead of returning when I turned eighteen, why did they drag Meridamus away and leave us there to figure it out?
“That shaped Mellcom into someone I truly don’t believe he would’ve become. If Meridamus had never left or if they would’ve returned, Jeremiah never would’ve had that large of a role in my life. If they had come back and told me the truth, I would’ve chosen this path. I would’ve chosen to join them on this journey.”
I throw my hands in the air as a bitter laugh belts out of me.
“Of course, I fucking would have. Who in their right mind wants the realm to fail? Or be taken over by a completely crazy fucking unhinged Beginning God.”
I shake my head and stare at the hot spring for a long moment.
“They had the chance to tell the Valories or the Messenger, whoever, we’re going to return to our daughter and prepare her for what’s to come. Together, we will make this realm what it should be. They didn’t fucking choose that, though. However it went down, the Valories said, you can’t return to her until we’re happy with the realm, and they said o-fucking-kay. It’s taurnshit. I was worth choosing!”
My chest rises and falls as ragged breaths empty my lungs. My fists curl on my thighs, and I fight back the desire to allow my true emotions out.
They’re dark.
But I don’t want them blocking my light anymore.
“I used to try to convince myself that they had to be dead and that’s why they never returned. I never actually wanted that to be the reality…” I shiver. “Until now. I wish they were dead so I could justify why they didn’t come back to me.”
“Watching Lambrit and Laney this week has brought that feeling forward.”
“Yeah.” I nod. “Were the Armends the realm’s greatest parents? No, not with Lambrit anyway, but Laney…they loved her and put her above all things. They were ripped away fromher unjustly. Now she’s here in the line of fire. Minechoseto leave me. That’s inexcusable.”
“You don’t have to excuse them, forgive them, think about them—nothing. But what you must do is free yourself from these things, Thayla. Accept you can’t change the choices they made and stop allowing them to hold you back. It’s time to let go.”
I swallow.
“How?”
“By stopping the part of you that keeps trying to make it make sense. You keep circling the same questions. Why didn’t they choose me? Why didn’t they fight harder? Why wasn’t I enough? You’re looking for an answer that will make it hurt less.” His eyes soften and his smile grows tender. “But there isn’t one. There is no version of their choice that makes it okay. So you have to stop asking it.”
I shake my head slightly. “I can’t just turn that off.”
“No, you can’t, but letting go isn’t forgetting or forgiving. It’s not pretending it didn’t shape you. It’s choosing to stop carrying what was never yours to begin with. You’ve been holding onto your parents’, Mellcom’s, Jeremiah’s, and Meridamus’s choices like they’re proof you weren’t worth enough or you should’ve been different, stronger, maybe even better. They were never proof, though. They were simply bad choices made by other people. You can’t control that.”
He holds my gaze and I nod for him to continue as I wipe the water from my cheeks.
“Every time you replay something or every time you try to find the moment where you could’ve changed the outcome…you’re putting that weight back on yourself. You have to tell yourself with complete conviction that their decisions weren’t and aren’t your responsibility. You were and are worth choosing, even if they didn’t make that choice. Their failure to fight for you doesn’t mean you weren’t worth the fight. Because you are. We—your Valtrue, Yemi, me, our Valtrue, V, Seismet, Verlet, Lambrit, Rose, Havar, Mara—we will fight for you.”
My breath catches and my chest tightens painfully as it expands and deflates unevenly.
“You can keep the parts of you that survived,” he whispers. “The strength. The resilience. The way you show up for people but the weight of their disappointments? You can put that down. They’re the ones missing out. Not you. Don’t let them drag you down.”
Silence lingers between us, heavy but not the suffocating kind. His power swirls through my body and I swear mine caresses it in gratefulness as it flows.
I drag in a slow breath, then let it flow out of me.
“Then what?”
His gaze doesn’t waver.
“Then you start figuring out who you are without that weight.”
I grunt. “The scary part.”
“It doesn’t have to be scary. You’re already almost there. You know who you had to become to survive, endure, and make it through everything that was thrown at you. But that’s not all you are. Some of the parts of you thataren’tbuilt on survival, you’ve been shoving them down.”
I frown. “Like what?”
