Chapter 68
All my life I’ve repressed so much. My enthusiasm for life, my free-spirited nature, my joy for things like sweet baked goods and the perfect mix of colors on canvas. I’ve been told who I was supposed to be, married off to someone I hated and who considered me spoiled goods.
For over a year now, I’ve pushed away the call to flee from my home. The call to a land that I was more willing to believe was a myth than to face the scary unknown of it.
But even with my heart pounding relentlessly and my body on edge as if I’m about to dive off a cliff, I give in to the Call.
I stand behind Murtagh’s safehouse, my back against the brick wall, my bare feet in the dirt, eyes closed, and senses open to the land around me.
I allow visions of the tree, of beautiful fields of flowers and misty waters to flood my mind.
It fills my body with a strange certainty of just where to go.
Perhaps someday soon I can come back to Paramount—to find Father. Perhaps someday I’ll be able to face my sister and mother again. But for now … For now I need to get everyone to this sacred land.
The goddesses have gone quiet in my mind, but coming to terms with the truth of my existence is hard to accept.
It’s difficult to know that I’d truly been dead before a dark Sorceress who deemed herself a Healer had brought me back to life.
I’m not sure exactly what that means for my future; I’m not sure if I’m living on borrowed time because Radika robbed Lugda of a soul.
What I’m certain of is that it’s time for me to stop living half a life. It’s time for me to lay down my complacency and faintheartedness.
Time for me to take charge of my life and to embrace who I am without shame.