Chapter 29 #2
On my father’s chest, visible through the open collar of his robes, the sun sigil blazes to life. Golden light spills from the mark, illuminating his face from below.
And his expression—
He’s smiling.
He looks the way I must look when I heal. Lost in euphoria, drunk on the sensation. The resemblance makes my stomach turn.
The prisoner writhes. Blood runs from his nose, his ears. Still my father doesn’t let go.
“Enough,” someone in the crowd whispers. But it’s not enough. It’s never enough.
When he finally releases the man, letting him collapse in a sobbing heap, my father’s breathing is heavy, ragged. His hands shake slightly as he flexes his fingers, already craving the next touch. The sigil on his chest pulses once more before fading, leaving a faint golden glow on his skin.
His face is harder now. The softness around his eyes has vanished, replaced by something cold and hungry.
Each use of his power justified by the last, each cruelty a necessary response to the one before it.
The addiction is written in every line of his body: the way he can’t quite stand still, the way his gaze tracks movement through the crowd like he’s searching for his next victim.
I realize my throat has closed up, because I’ve felt what my father felt. I know exactly how good it feels, how the power floods through you like liquid fire, how it whispers that just one more time won’t hurt, that you deserve this pleasure, that you’ve earned it.
I know what he became because I could become it too.
“Lady Cyra,” Lord Evander says quietly. “You need to see this next part.”
The vision changes again.
A moonlit garden. The air smells like jasmine and night-blooming flowers. My father stands alone, then she appears: Mother, approaching in the simple silver robes of a Daughter of the Moon.
She’s breathtaking. Her hair is long and dark blonde, falling in thick waves past her shoulders without a single thread of grey.
Her face is unlined, luminous with youth, all soft curves and delicate features.
Her green eyes – my eyes, but without the gold flicker – are brighter somehow, unclouded by the years of secrets and hiding that would come later.
Her skin is smooth and sun-kissed, her cheeks rounded with the fullness of someone who hasn’t yet known hunger or fear.
She’s younger than I am now. Maybe nineteen, twenty at most.
“You carry too much pain,” she tells him, her voice like music.
When she reaches up to touch his face, I feel it. The pull of her magic, cool and soothing. It flows into him, visible as a faint silver glow where their skin meets. For the first time in months, his expression softens. The hard edges melt away, revealing the man underneath.
I watch them lean into each other; watch the way he looks at her like she’s the only thing keeping him tethered to his humanity.
The mirror shifts again, and dread pools in my stomach before I even see what comes next.
The same garden, years later. Mother stands alone now, one hand pressed to her still-flat belly. Tears stream down her face, catching moonlight. The jasmine smells wrong this time: too sweet, cloying, like it’s trying to cover something rotten.
Another figure steps into view. Astrid’s mother, younger but recognizable. Her kind face – a spitting image of Astrid – is twisted with fear. She’s holding a baby in her arms, clutching the child tight to her chest like someone might rip it away.
“He loves me,” Mother protests, but her voice wavers.
Astrid’s mother’s grip on the baby tightens until her knuckles go white. “He’ll corrupt your child, twist it into becoming a monster just like him. His legacy.” She pauses. “Or he won’t want it at all. He’ll see it as a threat. Either way, if you stay, the child will die.”
“Asha, he’ll punish the Daughters … he could hurt you…” Mother’s tears flow faster now.
“I have seen the threads of fate, Liora.” Astrid’s mother gives a sad smile. “Hope survives when we choose to carry it.”
The scene fades as Mother places a protective hand over her belly. Over me. Her face is pale in the moonlight, jaw set with the kind of determination that comes from knowing you’re about to lose everything.
The mirror goes dark.
I stand there, shaking, trying to process what I just saw. My father’s transformation from grieving boy to addicted tyrant. The love between him and Mother. The moment she realized she had to run.
“This is what truth looks like,” I say quietly. My voice sounds hollow. “This is what I chose to see.”
Lord Castor’s hand lands on my shoulder. Not gentle, but grounding.
“The maze shows us what we asked for,” Lady Nerida says. “You asked for truth without illusion. This is the foundation of everything that came after.”
Lord Evander’s eyes are thoughtful. “Understanding the origin of corruption does not excuse it. But it does provide context.”
I nod slowly. My father wasn’t born a monster. He was made into one, choice by choice, trauma by trauma, dose by dose of addictive power.
Just like I could be.
Before I can process it further, before I can even begin to understand what this means for me, the mirrors shift again.
New images begin to form. Not my father’s story this time.
Someone else’s.
I realize with growing horror that the maze isn’t done showing me truths.
It’s only just begun.