Chapter 42 #3
“I fell in love with Caius,” Magda said, her voice barely more than breath.
“Buna warned me—my grandmother. She read it in the smoke, said destruction would follow if I gave my heart to him. Loss had etched the same scar into us the night we were born; to join our lives would tempt whatever hand had carved it.”
Her mouth trembled, just once. “She saw everything. She begged me to listen. But I was young. I was certain love could outrun prophecy.” A bitter smile flickered and died. “I called her superstitious. Met him in secret. Believed myself clever.”
Her gaze dropped to her hands. “And we conceived a child.”
The words landed like a funeral bell.
This wasn't the story of a reckless girl chasing romance.
It was a tragedy written long before either of them had taken their first breath—a cruel, inevitable spiral of love and loss, of fate tightening its grip no matter how fiercely one fought it.
I felt it then, the unbearable weight she'd carried across centuries.
I'd judged her. Branded her with the same cruelty I'd reserved for Bastien. But even monsters, I was learning, were often born of grief so vast it hollowed them out.
People were complicated. Vampires even more so.
I reached for her hand, gently, offering what little comfort a stranger could give across lifetimes of sorrow.
“Caius's father was the boyar,” Magda said quietly. “A powerful man. Wealthy. Influential. When he learned of us, he forbade Caius to marry me—sent him away as if distance alone could erase what we'd done.” Her fingers curled in her lap.
“And I was cast out. Turned away in the village square, pregnant and terrified.” She swallowed, the memory still sharp after centuries.
“Dani—who had loved me all along—married me then. I thought I'd gotten away with it. Thought I'd fooled him into believing Anca was his. That marrying so quickly had sealed the lie.” A hollow breath tore out of her. “But I hadn't.” Her throat worked. “He'd known. All along. Every moment of it.”
Silence closed in around us. “He let me keep the lie,” she whispered, “until the guilt ate me alive and I broke.” Her voice cracked.
Just barely. “He did it for me. And…I think, in his own way, for Caius too.” Her eyes shone—grief laid bare, no guard left to raise.
“I wasted the love of a good man.” Her voice broke finally.
“The best man I ever knew. All for a foolish, reckless love I mistook for destiny.”
The room was silent. Too much to process. We sat for a bit before I pressed on, hoping Magda could help me make sense of the rest.
“Your ruby told me the two stones reunited would right a wrong,” I said carefully. “That they would return what was taken.” I hesitated. “Do you know what that means?”
Her gaze drifted past me, unfocused, the regal composure she wore like armor slipping away. In its place was something hollow. Worn thin by time.
“The cave dweller gave me the rubies,” she said at last. “Told me what power they carried. What I was meant to do.” Her voice faltered, just slightly.
“And then he told me to wait.” She let out a breath that sounded more like a laugh than a sigh.
“Wait,” she repeated. “And wait. And wait some more. Six hundred years, Mira.” Her eyes finally found mine again, anguish shining brightly in their darkness.
“Do you know how many times I thought I was a fool?
A stupid, desperate fool clinging to a lie?
How many times I wondered if I'd imagined it all—if I'd thrown my second chance at a life away for a promise that was never meant to be kept?”
The air in the room felt heavy, a lead weight pressing down on us all.
She swallowed hard. “I waited anyway.”
Sorcha lifted a hand gently, a silent request to speak. Magda turned toward her, granting permission with a nod.
“This cave-dweller you mentioned,” Sorcha said carefully. “Does it have a name?”
It. The word landed strangely on me.
She didn't seem unsettled by the lack of gender—if anything, it appeared to make more sense to her and Sorcha than it did to me.
“Serban—my maker,” Magda continued, “called it Ossivian. He said it was a conduit for the gods. That it led him to me the night I was dragged from the cottage.” Her voice remained steady, though the words themselves were anything but. “Beaten. Raped. Stabbed. Thrown from the cliff.”
The air felt suddenly thin.
“The being said the gods used him to turn me. That my suffering was…necessary.” Her mouth twisted. “That I was to be their instrument of vengeance—for what was done to me, and to Anca, and to Dani.”
My stomach tightened.
“Serban told me Ossivian gave him the rubies that night,” she went on. “Said that once I had learned what it meant to be a vampire—once I was ready to leave him behind—I was to return. That Ossivian would tell me how to bring her back.”
I glanced at Sorcha.
For the first time since I'd met her, she looked shaken—sitting rigid at the edge of her seat, eyes wide. She opened her mouth to ask something else, but I cut in before she could.
“Bring her back?” I asked quietly.
The question that had been clawing at me since the ruby's vision finally found its voice. My pulse pounded, echoing in my ears. And I saw it in Magda's dark eyes for the first time since we'd met.
“My daughter. Anca.”