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Anna learned early that lies can be kinder than truths, and that some fates are crueler than death.
“So you won’t keep me.”
“Are you something to be kept, Anna?”
“I was, once. Until they no longer wanted me.”
“I do not keep you because you’re not mine. You belong ...
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“Time can heal, and it can break. Learning to recognize both will serve you well.”
“Khiran. You may call me Khiran.”
“Do you understand what he’s done?”
“He was right to bring you. If you don’t know how to live, his gift will become a curse.”
“I’ve lived on my own for years.”
“No, Child. You s...
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“I will make sure you learn the ...
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“His care cost me nothing but time, a handful of herbs, and a bit of cloth. Perhaps I’ll get some lovely yarn in exchange, but the true worth is the one he doesn’t pay.”
“Impressions and reputation are worth their weight.
“Words we hold on to only grow harder to uproot. Ask now before things get too tangled to let go.”
“Normal is dead to you, Child. Best for you to embrace it.”
“Nothing is without price, Child. Not even the gifts of gods.”
That night, when she curls up under the blanket and lets the tears drip silently from her cheeks, she wonders how it’s possible to grieve the loss of something she never expected to have.
“What we want isn’t always what we need,”
“You’re not unhappy. It’s not the same.”
“What have I been chosen for?”
“To put some good back into the world.”
She’s still a sparrow of a woman. Hollow-boned and fragile. Easily broken. He wonders how long it will take for her to realize that the thing that makes her weak is the same that will allow her to fly.
“There’s an entire world outside this meadow, you know.”
“Fear is for mortals, Anna. Not for us.”
“Strength is learned, not given.”
“There is beauty everywhere—ugliness too.”
“I admit, I never envisioned you marrying yourself to God. I’m feeling a little betrayed, if I’m honest.”
If there is one person worth understanding, it’s him. The god that saves her at one turn and lets her suffer the next. He is the riddle she’ll ponder over every lifetime, never knowing if she’ll learn the answer but struggling to solve it all the same.
Even though she knows it’s useless. Even though she knows he’s already decided, and that weak minds are always the last to change.
Nightmares aren’t without end. At some point, you wake up.”
“I’d like to wake up now.”
Strange that the god that saved her from the fire would be the same one to keep her from drowning.
“Don’t be sad, Bisnonna.”
“Your son lived well and died honorably.”
Anna learns that it was not memories alone that bound Piers to their little cottage, but the hope that someday she’d return. She learns that he passed down their story through his children, and their children to theirs. Franco took the job of groundskeeper to watch over his grandfather’s grave, the same way his widowed sister still lives in the cottage. To watch. To wait. Because Piers’ had been so certain that someday she would return.
💔
“Goodbyes always hurt,”
“That is the nature of them.”
“Was he worth it? Your son? Was knowing him worth the pain of saying goodbye?”
“Always.”
Truths are for those who can afford to live it, not for those struggling to find any bright spot of light in a world that casts them into darkness.
They watch as, one by one, stars emerge in a darkening, ageless sky, and remind themselves that every nightmare has an end.
“I think I’d recognize you no matter the face you wore.”
“Sounds like an interesting challenge. What makes you so confident? Have I developed a tell?”
“It’s a feeling.”
“And how do I make you feel, Anna?”
“Do you still believe yourself to be cursed?”
“I suppose I don’t.”
“The world was cruel to you, Anna. You were stolen from your homeland, blamed and exiled for the patterns on your skin. They gave you reason after reason to be hateful, to be selfish. Instead, you saw a stranger in the woods and you brought her back to your meager home, offered up the little food you had despite the hunger lining your eyes.”
“Do you not see how rare that is? Do you not see how wondrous you are?”
