Prologue
It was raining, heavily. Raindrops fell on my face, but I barely felt them. There was no expression left on me. She stood in front of me, a bloody knife clutched in her hand. I hadn’t seen her in years, yet the memory of her haunted me every day. The day I had feared my entire life was here—my worst nightmare alive before me.
I looked around. A girl in her mid-teens crouched on the ground, clutching a child to her chest. She wouldn’t let go. I knew the woman with the knife wouldn’t harm the child; her target was the one shielding it.
A groan sounded nearby. I glanced sideways. He looked at me with pleading eyes, blood seeping through his clothes, his stomach torn. Pain twisted his face.
“Please… please… you have to do it…” he gasped before losing consciousness.
I stepped forward. A tear slipped down my cheek.
She turned to me, and a smile curved her lips.
“My boy…” she whispered. Something in her tone made my heart falter. I raised the pistol, hands trembling, but I knew I had to do it. I had to end this—whatever “this” had become.
Her expression flickered—something between recognition, betrayal, and sorrow.
“I told you… you can’t trust him,” she hissed at herself, scolding, almost pleading.
“He’s doing this for Lavarna. He always would… to end what you began,” she murmured, and a shiver ran down my spine.
She turned sharply toward the girl holding the child.
“Not before I—” her scream cut off, replaced by a brief hesitation, a pause that felt like a question meant only for me. Then she raised the knife.
I pulled the trigger.
She collapsed, and I rushed to her side. My hands shook uncontrollably as I cradled her head in my lap. Tears blurred my vision. I had done what I never thought I could. I held her close, ashamed, trembling, and the world should have hailed me for killing a monster—but instead, I wept. For her. For us. For what we had once been.
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