Chapter 22
Alina
It had been exactly seven months since I left Balthazar—seven long months of trying to shed the skin of my former self and become something new.
Each step forward felt uncertain, the path unfamiliar and fraught with quiet wariness.
My days bled into each other, filled with the exhausting task of keeping up a facade for Philip, who seemed to take delight in testing the edges of my restraint.
These months had become a tormenting limbo—less a journey of discovery and more an endless trial of patience and persistence.
I rolled back and forth on the creaky bed I shared with Philip.
The mattress sagged beneath us. The walls were splintered, the furnishings dull and threadbare.
And Philip—sweet, simple Philip—embodied a life I had once looked down upon.
Everything around me was a pale imitation of the luxury I once commanded.
If I stayed in this forgotten cabin any longer, I would lose what remained of my mind.
I needed a purpose—a mission.
And I had one—find the man Malik claimed held the key to unlocking the power of the Sun and Moon Daggers—John James.
But that name had haunted me like a ghost. “John James” had become more myth than man, a phantom hiding in the shadows of every lead I followed.
I found many who bore the name—a butcher with bloodstained hands, a charming rogue who dared flirt with me despite my swollen belly, a tired farmer, a miserly banker.
Yet none was the John James. The one Malik had spoken of.
Doubt began to fester, creeping into the fractures of my resolve. What if Malik had sent me on a fool’s errand? What if this was his revenge—to leave me wandering in circles, drunk on desperation and choking on hope? I had tortured him, after all. Perhaps this was his quiet, final strike.
And maybe... I deserved it.
Still, the hardest part of this journey wasn’t the pursuit of John James. It was the growing resentment I felt toward Philip.
Everything about him grated on me now—the way he breathed too loudly, the clumsy way he touched me, even the way he smiled when he thought I needed comfort.
I was tired of playing house and pretending we were in love.
The charade had grown unbearable, and worse, it had begun to feel like I was the one being played.
Something was off. Deeply off.
When I’d asked for his help finding John James, he hadn’t questioned it, but his silence had said more than his words ever could. His brow had furrowed, his expression unreadable as he mulled over my request. “We’ll find him, don’t worry,” he’d said with a reassuring smile.
But I didn’t believe him.
There was a weight to his silence, a quiet calculation I couldn’t unsee. I told him only what I had to—never the full truth or about the daggers or what they meant. But still, I wondered… Did he know more than he let on?
Seven months. Seven months of pretending this child growing inside me was his. Of lying every day, knowing full well that the moment it was conceived, I felt Balthazar’s darkness settle deep in my womb. It was his.
And yet I stayed.
Not for love. Not even for safety. But because solitude, the kind that stripped your soul bare, would have destroyed me.
Still, something bothered me—something worse than the lies, the secrets, the dread.
A shadowed suspicion that everyone was using me.
That I wasn’t just a fugitive or a seeker—I was a pawn in a game far more twisted than I understood.
The careful steps I took, the guarded words I spoke… they felt rehearsed, expected.
It was as if I were moving along a script someone else wrote.
A plan was unfolding around me—I could feel it in the air, in the tremble of fate itself. And whatever force was pulling the strings... I was done being its puppet.
It felt like Karma. The same cruel Karma that had ripped my family from me, branding me with loss.
The same vindictive force that made me a target for abuse, for betrayal, for twisted love that came with blades beneath kisses.
The same Karma that had lured Zara into my path and laughed as she tore me apart.
My thoughts kept circling back to Malik. That bastard. Had he sent me on this wild chase knowing it would lead to nothing? Knowing I’d unravel chasing shadows?
Still, doubt could not outweigh determination. My resolve was sharpened into a weapon. I would find the man who held the key. I would unearth the Sun and Moon Daggers. I would cast a deep shadow across this world so that even the stars would cower.
And I would do it alone.
The notion propelled me forward. I would escape out of this nightmare, through blood, flame, and betrayal, if it meant rising again with the power I’d been denied my entire life.
Golden sunlight spilled through the window, catching on dust motes that danced like ghosts. I’d been lying there for hours, trapped in the echo chamber of my regrets. The warmth on my skin was comforting... but it also mocked me. Time was slipping away, and I was still here.
A tremor of emotion overtook me, and I whispered into the silence, “Balthazar… I love you. Maybe… maybe it was a mistake leaving you.”
The words slipped out before I could stop them—raw, real. Not a spell. Not a performance. Just the broken truth bleeding from my soul.
Hot, salty tears rolled down my cheeks like molten lava, searing paths of pain across my skin. My obsession with power had driven me into the abyss. And now, I wasn’t sure there was any way back.
Then it hit.
A sudden pain that made me double over.
I cried out, clutching my belly as the pressure wrapped around me like a vice. I could barely breathe.
The contraction passed, only to be followed by another.
And another.
My breath came in ragged gasps. Panic flared in my chest. Not now. Not here.
But the time had come.
The loathsome child was coming.
Pain surged through me like a tidal wave of knives. My screams had barely faded when Philip burst into the room, his face pale and stricken. He rushed to me, gathered me in his arms, and I collapsed into him, sobbing.
“It’s alright,” he murmured into my hair, brushing away my tears with clumsy gentleness. “Everything will be alright. I’ll find a midwife. She’ll help us through this.”
“No!” I hissed, clutching his shirt. “No midwife.”
“But, sweetheart, you’re in pain,” he said, attempting a tender smile that only made me want to spit. “I can help the cows and the sheep, but a woman in labor…” He chuckled nervously. “That’s a mystery I dare not solve on my own.”
My glare could’ve melted glass. If looks could kill, he’d have been a smoldering heap on the floor.
He didn’t notice. Or he refused to.
The contractions rippled through me again, dragging screams from my throat.
“Alright,” I panted. “Get her.”
Philip hesitated, then trudged away, the floor creaking beneath his boots as if the house itself mourned what was coming. The front door groaned open.
“Greetings, Philip.”
That voice—cold, familiar. Dread swept through me like a blizzard.
“H-how do you know my name?” he stammered.
“I’m a midwife,” came Zara’s low, mocking reply. “We’re trained to know what matters most about our patients. I came to check on Alina. How is she?”
“She’s in labor! Please, come right in!” His voice wavered, high and strained, tight with urgency and fear.
Zara glided into the room like a wraith, chilling the air. Her eyes skimmed over Philip with the disinterest of a queen inspecting a servant. Without a word, he turned and fled the room, leaving me alone with her.
Zara’s gaze settled on me, and it burned.
“Pathetic,” she sneered. “What’s wrong with you? Childbirth should be a blessing. I didn’t flinch when I gave birth to Balthazar’s children. You, on the other hand…” She shook her head, savoring my agony. “You’re a wreck. A screaming, useless wreck.”
She stepped closer, her shadow stretching across the bed, consuming everything.
She was power incarnate.
And I was at her mercy.
Terror gripped me like a vice. My heart pounded with hatred—for her, for the child, for the twisted fate that had led me here. I wanted them both cursed, damned, erased from the world and consigned to the deepest, cruelest pit in hell.
Zara smiled, baring her teeth like a predator. “Why so quiet now? Has fear strangled your tongue?”
“What do you want from me?” I sobbed as a contraction ripped through me.
“I’m here for the child,” she said, her tone eerily calm. “To make sure no harm befalls her… especially from you.”
I clenched my teeth to hold back a scream. My body trembled, slick with sweat, every nerve ending on fire. My hands curled into fists as I forced breath after breath through my burning lungs.
I pushed—screaming into the silence—again and again, until it felt like I was splitting in two. The world narrowed to pain. Blackness clawed at the edges of my vision.
Then, finally, a piercing cry tore through the air.
Zara stood over me, backlit by shadows, her expression flooded with something disturbingly close to reverence. Blood streaked her arms as she held up the squirming infant like a dark priestess offering a gift to some unseen god.
“You’re beautiful,” she whispered to the newborn, her voice thick with tears. “Balthazar’s girls are always beautiful.” She looked down at me, her lips curling. “Don’t worry—I’ll protect her from her monster of a mother.”
I gasped, my body limp from exertion. My tears weren’t from joy—they were from rage, from defeat.
Zara bit through the umbilical cord with her teeth like some ancient predator and pressed on my abdomen to help expel the afterbirth. Her movements were clinical. Efficient. Inhuman.
Then, with a chilling tenderness, she placed the baby in my arms.
The child’s weight, so small, so warm, was heavier than any burden I’d ever known.