My Sister Stole My Mate And I Let Her (Seraphina) novel Chapter 553

Chapter 553: Chapter 553 DESTRUCTION (BONUS Chapter 4)

MIREYA’S POV

“Done,” Evelyn announced, stepping back as her fingers dropped from the back of my neck.

A cool breath from the AC swept over my skin, raising goosebumps in her wake—but that was it.

It was laughably anticlimactic, ridiculously underwhelming.

I looked over my shoulder, blinking at the witch behind me. “That’s it?”

She lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. “That’s it.”

I’d expected...something. Maybe a spark, a rush of magic, the sensation of a heavy chain falling away or a leash breaking free.

I was supposedly free, but I didn’t feel any different.

I let go of my hair, letting it tumble in waves down my back, shielding my neck until even the goosebumps faded away.

“Um...” I started, glancing at Evelyn and immediately averting my gaze.

How did you relate to the doctor who stitched up your wound when they were the person who stabbed you in the first place?

I heard her soft sigh and the rustle of clothes, as if she were fidgeting.

“I really am sorry, Mireya. I committed a lot of wrongs in service to Catherine, and I...” Another sigh.

It was hard, but this time, when I looked at her, I forced my gaze to hold fast. I forced the judgment and fear I’d felt earlier to recede, and in their absence, I felt...compassion.

Maybe like me, she’d been Catherine’s prisoner. She’d lived in a cage of her own, forced to live a life she wouldn’t have chosen for herself.

I could understand that.

So I told her, “I forgive you.”

Her eyes widened a fraction. She hadn’t been expecting that. She didn’t believe she deserved it.

I wasn’t even sure I meant it, but I knew she deserved to have her own weight lifted off her shoulders.

“I—” Her gaze shifted to Sera, who had been wordlessly perched at the edge of the desk, watching as Evelyn lifted the curse.

I turned to Sera, too.

She smiled at us, and I wondered what she saw—two women who, perhaps, were a little lost in the world. She’d found us, given us something a little more than what life had allocated.

“Thank you, Mireya,” she said, finding the words Evelyn couldn’t.

“And thank you, Evelyn,” she added, finding the words I couldn’t.

***

Sera found me in the garden as the sun was beginning to set, casting pink and amber on the flowers.

The air was sweet with the mingled scents of the flowers growing around me, and the soft rustle of leaves blended with the faint hum of bees settling for the evening.

Olivia and I had tended a garden like this back home, which is why I rarely came out here. It reminded me, painfully, of home. Of everything I’d lost.

Yet, over the last week, I found myself drawn here, abandoning all the myriad tasks I’d used to distract myself.

“I wonder what it is about this place,” Sera started, lowering herself onto the wooden bench next to me, “that makes it so easy for people to leave.”

I turned to her, my brows furrowing. “What do you mean?”

She shrugged and crossed her legs. I was struck again by how effortlessly composed she always seemed.

When we first met, she’d been a force—I’d never forget the defiant spark in her eyes as she stood against all of Damian’s men and the other auctioneers, refusing to back down from her dangerous purchase—but she’d looked like she was constantly fighting something, holding something.

But lately, she looked the way I longed to feel—unburdened, as if she had finally set her weight down. Free.

“Evelyn left yesterday,” she told me. “Shortly before Lucian did.”

“Oh.”

That was news to me. After she’d removed the curse and replaced it, I hadn’t seen Evelyn. I knew she spent most of her time in Lucian’s hospital room, and it wasn’t like we’d suddenly become fast friends that I would seek her out.

Still, an odd feeling spread through me at the news that she was gone.

It was like reaching for the last slice of pizza, only to find someone else had already claimed it.

“And now, you.”

I blinked at Sera. “Wh-what?”

She perched her cheek in her hand and smiled, gentle and knowing. “Tell me what your home was like. You never talk about it.”

A lump rose in my throat.

Home.

I didn’t know which distance hurt more—time, or space. It had been so long, and it was so far.

“Beautiful.” The word fell from my lips as a heavy exhale.

“We had a garden like this.” I swept my arm around. “I liked to grow flowers, but Olivia was more practical; she grew vegetables and medicinal plants. We spent most of our time in that garden, and then, when it was time, we’d take our flowers and crops to the market and sell them.”

“Was it just the two of you?” Sera asked.

I shook my head. “We lived with our grandmother.”

A shadow crept over the memory, tightening the lump in my throat. “She...she’s the reason I got lost.”

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