Nova

Chapter 44

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

SANORA

When a knock came on my door that evening, I all but sprinted to it.

Like I expected, he wasn’t there. The porch was empty save for the food box in another colour.

I dragged it inside and shut the door mutedly. My legs folded beneath me the moment I dropped down onto the floor beside it. I didn’t even bother with the kitchen this time—I couldn’t wait that long. My hands were already tugging at the lid, zipping it open.

I’d been on edge since morning, checking the clock every ten minutes, willing the evening to arrive faster.

That meal he’d sent in the morning…I could hardly eat it.

The food had been sweet, rich, everything it always was, and I’d been starving right from when I’d woken up.

But after reading his letter, every bite I’d taken had turned to stone in my mouth.

I’d chewed, swallowed, forced it down, only to abandon half the plate because my thoughts wouldn’t leave me be.

Now, as I unpacked tonight’s box, I chanted in my mind.

Please, please. Please let there be a paper.

I grabbed the last box and lifted it, my heart lodging itself in my throat.

There was a paper!

A sharp gasp ripped out of me, and in my haste, I nearly overturned the entire meal, spilling it across the floor. My hands fumbled clumsily, dropping the food just to snatch up the letter because I couldn’t find it in me to care about anything else at the moment.

But I paused

I was too agitated.

My pulse was hammering, and I was nervous. I could barely feel my fingers around the paper.

Closing my eyes, I forced myself to breathe—slow, steady. One. Two. Three. Four. Five deep breaths. My chest loosened only slightly, but it was enough.

Then I began to peel the paper open.

Her name was Kalimetryna.

She was a friend to me, and the only good one I had.

She was light where my life had been shadow, laughter where mine had been silence, she stood with me when the rest of the world only saw my ill blood.

And she knew. She knew about the sickness that killed every one of my kin, and she swore it would not take me too.

She also begged Selvanyra to lift the curse from my veins.

I didn’t care if it meant losing every ounce of magic.

I didn’t care if I became powerless. I only wanted to live.

I was afraid that my heart would harden like my father’s, like his father before him, all of them dead before their lives had begun.

But Selvanyra would not listen. She could not undo her own blessing.

So Kalimetryna did what no one dared. She told no one, not even me, but she began searching and digging into rituals to pacify other gods.

From the day I turned twenty-one, she was already working to save me.

She started preparing, every day, every night.

The dance you saw the first time in your dream was one of the practices.

It was the final part of her ritual, the final step that would absorb my sickness.

But I never knew. Nobody did.

And when the time came, she was too late. The sickness claimed me the same way it had all before me. I died, Sanora. I felt as my blood turned to stone gradually in my veins. I was dead before she started her ritual.

Her initial plan was only to take the sickness from my blood. That alone would have cost her...maybe weakened her power or maybe stripped it from her completely, but it would not have killed her.

But I died. It was not part of her plan.

And she did the unthinkable. Not only did she pull the sickness out of me, she defied life and death themselves, altering the flow.

She brought me back to life in exchange for hers.

She took me back and gave herself to death.

She absorbed the sickness into her own body, and if you noticed it, her divinity turned black.

Her brilliance dimmed and blackened because of what she did.

Because of the impossible, unforgivable thing she did for me.

She died for me.

So yes, Sanora, I killed her. In every way that matters, I killed her. I deserve every single thing that is happening to me now.

With eyes teary and throat clogged, I turned the paper to read the last sentence written on the other side.

The one thing, though, that I do not deserve, is you.

“No.”

The word cracked out of me as my head shook, tears raining down onto the paper. The ink blurred beneath each drop, my fingers trembling as I clutched my chest. I didn’t understand why it was breaking so much, why I was breaking so much.

But I was.

Something in me was breaking on their behalf.

Images of Kalimetryna lying on the ground flashed behind my eyes, black hair fanned across the stone like a pool of ink, black dress clinging to her frail body. Back then, I didn't know. I hadn’t realised she’d absorbed Thrax’s death and sickness into herself.

Now I understood why Thrax had hesitated. I understood the tremor in his hand when he’d held that pin, the war behind his eyes. She was his friend. She had died for him without him even knowing.

He hadn’t wanted her to die. And she hadn’t wanted him to die.

They’d both been desperate to keep each other alive, even at the cost of themselves.

It made me wonder if she’d have still gone through with the ritual if she’d known the outcome.

She had wanted Thrax to live so desperately.

But if she’d seen what her sacrifice would turn into, if she’d known he would be trapped for over a millennium, cursed and soulless because of what she’d done—would she have stopped?

Would she have found another god and saved Thrax without dying and triggering Selvanyra’s wrath?

I didn’t know Kalimetryna, but somehow, I knew she wouldn’t have let this happen.

Thrax had gained life unnaturally, so he was made to live unnaturally—no soul, no rest, no end.

And he’d been living with that burden for centuries. Beyond the blame the world had hurled at him, he had been carrying his own endless, suffocating guilt. He’d been slowly killing himself from the inside out, convinced everything was his fault.

“Fuck,” I whispered, my voice breaking.

None of this was his fault. Not a single thing. He was innocent. He hadn’t known. He wasn’t the monster the world painted him to be.

Thrax is innocent.

I sat there on the floor amid the box and packaged foods next to the door, the letter in my grip, reading it over and over until the words burned into my mind. By the time I finally rose, carrying the untouched food to the kitchen, I felt...empty.

My appetite was gone.

Not that I’d had much to begin with.

He was in a wheelchair.

Winifred.

I had just finished my morning jog, trying to run the weight of yesterday off my chest, when I slowed to a halt beside his bookshop, peering through the space leading to his house behind.

Winifred was seated on a wheelchair, an elderly man behind him, easing him down the steps and towards a waiting car.

I pulled out my earpiece without realising, my pulse stumbling as I stared.

He was struggling to hoist himself into the car, his arms trembling with the effort.

The sight of it punched a small ache behind my ribs.

This had happened because of me—because of what he’d done to me, yes, but still because of me.

Whether temporary or not, the damage was there.

And yet, beneath the ache, the little girl inside me was quietly disappointed, angry even, that he’d wanted to lock me in a dark, dusty room for a whole month while drugging me.

My heart stopped when the old man pushing the wheelchair looked up and saw me. His brows crashed together, first in disinterest, then it slowly morphed into loathing.

I turned on instinct, quietly about to keep walking. Of course Winifred had told him what happened and who did it, but how could the man recognise me so instantly? Winifred couldn’t have described me so perfectly to—

Right, my hair. That was probably why.

I stole a second glance at the stranger—salt-and-pepper hair slicked back, a harsh face etched with deep lines. I didn’t know him.

“Sanora.”

I stopped mid-step. My heart dropped to my stomach at the sound of Winifred’s voice.

Slowly, I turned around. His eyes were on me from the back seat of the car, half his body leaning out of the doorframe, pale hands gripping it for balance.

Did I think he’d looked ten years older the last time I saw him? Well, he looked twenty years older now. What was happening to him?

Before I could take a step towards him, my gaze flicked to the man by the door.

His slicked hair made his contempt even sharper, and I quietly analysed the situation.

Although Winifred was weak, this man looked like he was fine handling me alone if he wanted.

But considering how Winifred had ended up in that wheelchair, I was half-certain he’d think twice before touching me.

I stepped forward. “Good morning,” I said to Winifred. He squinted up at me, trying to hold my gaze. Then his eyes slid to the man beside me, and after giving me another unnerving look, he excused himself and moved away.

I almost scoffed at the theatrics but pushed it down, fixing Winifred with the most serious look I could muster. “How do you feel?”

He gestured at himself, a bitter smile twisting his mouth. “What do you think?”

“I think you’re doing much better than I imagined,” I told him honestly.

A deep laugh rolled out of him. “Maybe because what you imagined was death.”

I didn’t smile. “Even if. You brought it upon yourself.”

His eyes hardened, seriousness flattening his tone. “I was only trying to keep you alive.”

“Keep me alive, how?”

He shook his head, lips parting, and I intercepted before he could form an excuse.

“I’ve been standing here for more than one minute and you still haven’t apologised for drugging me and locking me up. That was wrong.”

“Did the twins apologise?”

My head snapped back, eyes narrowing as I searched his face.

Was this still the same man I’d known since I was a kid?

“That’s different. I don’t know those people.

They’re desperate kids, trying to follow in their ancestors’ footsteps and willing to do anything to achieve it.

” I jabbed a finger at him. “But I know you. I’ve known you for a long time.

And you drugged me? Now you’re excusing your action?

I mean, I don’t have any problem apologising on behalf of Thrax for what he did to you—”

His face went molten. “Don’t breathe that bastard’s name anywhere near me.” His glare could have melted stone.

“Why? Tell me, Winifred. Tell me what your deal with Thrax is. Tell me why you drugged me and called it saving me. Why did you do all of that? You left here and suddenly you’re a different person. Or maybe,” I threw my hands out, “I just never knew you.”

He ignored every word. “Stay away from that monster. He’s going to destroy—”

Anger, one I’d been shoving down for days, that I’d been suppressing at the world for repeatedly labelling Thrax a monster, came bursting through me.

I stepped closer, words leaving my mouth through gritted teeth.

“Thrax isn’t and was never a monster. Call him that one more time and you’ll have me to face, Winifred. I warned you.”

I turned to leave, shoving my earpiece back in to calm the pounding in my head. But he spoke up before I could completely block the outside world.

“He already brainwashed you. He’s brainwashing you, Sanora. Leave him.” His tone shifted, pleading now. “I’ll take you back to your house. Away from here.”

I closed my eyes, drawing a long breath into my lungs. I needed to calm down. I couldn’t lose myself here, not to his words—words that were nothing but madness.

“If he’s brainwashing me, Winifred, I don’t mind. I’d let him brainwash me over a thousand times.”

But I knew he wasn’t. I’d seen the fragments of his past, and I knew in my bones that every word he’d spoken and written was the truth.

“I don’t know what you’re up to. But stay away from me. I’ll do the same.”

“You think he loves you?” Ouch? A short laugh burst out of him, sharp enough to slice my chest open. “He doesn’t love you back, Sanora. He’s confused. He’s borrowing your soul, borrowing life from you, and that has confused him.”

My heart froze mid-beat. I turned back to him fully. “Borrowing my soul? What do you mean by that?”

He held my gaze as if he wanted to carve his next words into me.

“His curse can be broken,” he said, pointing at me, “and you’re the key to it.

The two of you meeting isn’t a coincidence.

It’s all him. He’s been deceiving you. He wants to use your feelings against you, Sanora. Come with me before it’s too late.”

I stood there, feet stuck. The old man with the mean stare brushed past me and muttered something to Winifred before closing his door. With one last, unreadable look at me, he slid into the driver’s seat and slammed it shut.

I blinked hard, looking around, willing myself to focus, to think, to drown out Winifred’s voice. He was a liar, a manipulator, a stranger I no longer knew.

But I knew Thrax. Or I was beginning to. And every word he’d told me rang true in my blood.

Still, I had to find out what this curse was, and how I was connected. And the only person I wanted to hear it from was Thrax.