Silas inspects my braid. “A child cannot consent to giving up its soul. Only a parent can do that. Your mother agreed, but in order for Deleriel to obtain your gifts, you had to suffer, your soul bruised and bloody. Tortured. Your mother happily agreed to do that. She didn’t love you, Mattie. She never did. To her, you were a means to an end. She made sure you were happy and felt loved because you had to be that bright bubbly soul for their plans to work. You feared your father’s intentions, when it was your mother’s you should have been concerned with.” “But Zeke said after I went missing,
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