The door to my room closes behind me, and I finally let myself break.

My back slides down the rough wood until I’m sitting on the cold stone floor. The trembling I’ve been suppressing since Draven’s chambers finally takes hold, shaking my entire body like leaves in a storm.

I did everything right.

I scrubbed floors until my hands cracked and bled. I smiled at the servants who ignored me completely. I made myself small and useful and invisible.

And still—the coldness. The suspicion. The way people look through me like I’m not even there. Different house. Same rejection.

The irony isn’t lost on me. I ran halfway across the realm to escape being invisible, only to become invisible all over again. Truly, I have a remarkable gift for suffering.

I press my palms against my eyes, trying to stop the tears. They come anyway, hot and bitter, streaking down my cheeks in relentless streams.

What is wrong with me?

The question echoes through my mind like a curse. I’ve asked it a thousand times before. In Mintia, huddled in corners after Cassandra’s cruelties. In my parents’ presence, searching their faces for any sign of love.

There must be something fundamentally broken inside me. Something that makes people instinctively turn away. Some flaw I cannot see but everyone else recognizes instantly.

Memories surface unbidden, each one a blade.

Cassandra’s laughter rings through my skull. The way she’d smile while destroying me, that sweet veneer hiding venom underneath. Her cruelty was always precise and calculated.

“You’re worthless. No one will ever want you.”

She wrote those words on scraps of paper and left them in my room. Under my pillow. Inside my boots. Everywhere I turned, reminders of my inadequacy awaited me.

Mother’s voice joins the chorus. Cold. Distant. Speaking to me only when necessary, like addressing a troublesome servant rather than a daughter.

“We only needed one daughter to rule.”

Father’s disappointment follows close behind. The way he’d look at Cassandra with pride and at me with barely concealed disgust. Like my very existence offended him deeply.

“You’re uncontrollable. A monster.”

And Kael. The cruelest cut of all.

I thought he was kind. I thought his gentle words meant something real. I built dreams around his soft smiles and careful attention, constructing entire futures in my foolish mind.

“I felt sorry for you, Evelyn. That’s all it ever was.”

Pity. Not love. Not even friendship. Just pity dressed up pretty enough to fool a desperate girl starving for any scraps of affection.

I pull my knees to my chest and bury my face against them. The sobs come harder now, ugly and raw and impossible to contain. Here in the darkness, I can finally admit the truth I’ve been running from.

I am alone. Completely, utterly alone.

And perhaps I deserve to be.

Perhaps everyone who rejected me saw something I cannot. Some fundamental unworthiness written into my very bones.

The thought hurts worse than anything Draven said tonight. Worse than his implications about my body. Worse than his threats and his circling.

Because what if they’re all right? What if I am broken beyond repair?

I don’t know how long I sit there, crying into my knees like a child. Long enough for my tears to dry. Long enough for the trembling to fade into exhaustion.

Eventually, I force myself to move. The floorboards creak as I crawl toward my hiding spot. My fingers find the loose board and pry it up carefully, reaching into the hollow space beneath.

Warmth floods through me the moment my hands touch the egg.

I pull it out carefully, cradling it against my chest. The shell pulses with gentle heat, chasing away the cold that’s settled deep into my bones.

“I felt your pain,” Aspis whispers through our bond. “Every tear. Every memory. I was with you through all of it.”

“You are not pathetic. You are wounded. It’s different.”

“Wounds heal. Weakness does not change. You have survived things that would have destroyed weaker souls entirely.”

“Running toward something is not the same as running away from something. You ran toward me. Toward us. Toward freedom.”

“There is nothing wrong with you.” Aspis’s voice turns fierce, burning through my despair like fire. “Listen to me carefully, Evelyn.”

“Your family twisted love into a weapon. They trained you to believe rejection was your fault. That their cruelty somehow reflected your worth.”

“It did not.” The force of her conviction pulses through our bond. “Their hatred says everything about them and nothing about you.”

“I know you. I have touched your soul. I have felt the depths of your heart.” Warmth floods through me, gentle and fierce at once. “You are not broken, Evelyn. You are waiting.”

“To become what you were meant to be.”

“Something they never expected. Something they cannot control or contain.” Aspis’s presence wraps around my consciousness like an embrace. “You have survived poison disguised as love. Cruelty masked as care. That takes strength.”

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