Rain of Shadows and Endings

by Melissa K. Roehrich

I want you to know you are strong enough for this, Tessa.” She couldn’t speak around the sudden lump in her throat as she swallowed back the tears threatening to well. “You still don’t know me,” she whispered. “If you knew—” A frustrated sound rumbled from him when he cut himself off. “If I knew what?” she pressed. “If you only knew what I knew,” he said, something Tessa could only describe as a mixture of longing and pain sounding in his voice. “It’s something you can’t learn until you’re forced to walk through it, but you’d know that strength grows in the moments you think you can’t go on, but you do anyway. Strength is fighting back. Strength is doing whatever it takes to claim what is yours, even if others try to convince you it is not yours to take.” “What if I’m not? What if I’m not strong enough for any of that?” “You are, Tessa. If you are weak enough to fall, you are strong enough to rise back up. Weakness and strength come from the same place, and both are necessary. Both provide purpose, and both can lead to destruction or salvation. You just need to embrace a little chaos,” Tristyn said, a fierceness filling his features. “And when you come out on the other side of this, the Heir of the Arius Kingdom won’t be the nightmare. You will be.”