Chapter 553 DESTRUCTION (BONUS - 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.”

Sera didn’t say anything, but I felt her—listening, waiting.

“She slipped and fell during a particularly bad storm,” I said, my voice dropping low.

“Werewolf healing doesn’t really do much for an old, frail Omega, and Olivia and I were worried out of our minds. I was going to the neighboring town to pick up a salve that was supposed to do wonders for her aching muscles and fragile bones.” I sniffed. “A simple errand. I would have been back before sundown.”

Except, I never came back.

And then Olivia went too, and she never returned either.

How long did Grandmother wait for us? Was she still waiting, or was she gone too? Was there anything left for me back home?

Was there any trace left of the life my sister and I once shared?

Could I live with never knowing?

“No, you probably can’t.”

I blinked at Sera, and she ducked her head, an embarrassed blush coloring her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Sometimes, I read people unintentionally. Especially when their emotions are so...potent.”

I looked away. I didn’t want her reading my emotions or intentions. After everything she’d done for me, she didn’t deserve—

“I understand, Mireya.”

The tenderness in her voice, the understanding, drew my gaze back to her.

“What do you mean?” I asked, my voice shaking ever so slightly.

She reached out and took my hand. “I spent so long searching for a place to call home. Even surrounded by family, I never truly felt like I belonged. But now, I do. This”—she swept a hand around us—“is my home. My destination.”

She squeezed my hand. “Everyone deserves to find their destination, Mireya.”

My lips parted, but no words came out.

Sera continued, “From the moment we saved you from that inn, I’ve known that Nightfang isn’t your destination. You’ve always wanted more; you’ve always leaned toward something else. You’re not destined to go from four walls to four walls. The only thing that held you back was fear.”

My free hand wandered to the back of my neck where Damian’s tracker had rested. Where Evelyn’s cloak now replaced it.

I couldn’t bring myself to step out into the world because I was terrified of being taken by the monsters that plagued it. But if I was hidden from the monsters...

“It’s a big world, and I’m all alone.” I barely recognized my own voice. It was small and fragile—like me.

Sera covered my hand with her other one. “It is a big world,” she agreed. “But you’re not alone, I promise you.”

When she pulled away, there was something in my hand. I stared at the necklace lying on my palm.

It was an unremarkable steel chain, but the pendant was a milky-white stone with a light pink hue shimmering from within. It was warm in my hands, almost as if it pulsed with life.

“It’s magic,” Sera told me. “One last gift from Evelyn.”

“What does it do?”

“It makes sure that wherever you are, whatever you get into, however you need me, I’ll be able to get to you.”

I looked up from the necklace to Sera, her face swimming before me until I realized my eyes were brimming with tears.

She reached out and caught the first teardrop with her thumb. “I want more than anything to keep you safe, Mireya, but not if that keeps you trapped. So, go, if you need to. But don’t ever think for a moment that you’re alone.”

Air left me in an exhale so heavy, it felt like I’d indeed set a weight down. I didn’t realize how much I needed Sera’s blessing until she gave it to me.

She’d done so much for me, and the last thing I wanted was to come off as ungrateful, but she was right. I didn’t know if I still had a home, and Nightfang was a good substitute, but it wasn’t home.

I thought, with the tracker gone, I would lose that feeling like I needed to be moving—like there was somewhere else I needed to be.

If anything, with the tether gone, the urge to move on tugged at me even harder.

To what?

I had no idea.

There was so much possibility, it was frightening.

I didn’t know what fate had in store for me, and leaving felt like setting sail on stormy seas to chase a legend.

Maybe I’d find adventure and treasure.

Maybe I’d drown.

My fingers grazed the back of my neck again.

And maybe the sea monsters would find a way to get me after all.

But if I didn’t leave, if I didn’t move, I feared I would calcify.

I turned to Sera with a trembling smile and held my hand out to her. The necklace glinted on my palm.

“Will you help me put it on?” I whispered.

She took the necklace from my hand and leaned forward, her arms circling my neck.

The cool metal settled against my skin, but instead of pulling back, Sera’s arms wrapped around my shoulders in a gentle embrace.

“Don’t be afraid to return if you need to,” she whispered. “You’ll always have a home here.”

I closed my eyes and hugged her back, holding on a little too tightly.

And for a moment, the restless emptiness inside me softened into something almost like peace.