But her presence pulsed through me — slow, deliberate, like a second heartbeat under my own. She filled my lungs, wrapped around my spine, settled in my bones. Not soothing. More… anchoring. Rooting me to the now.
As if she could sense the storm starting again in my head.
She wasn’t wrong.
The questions were back. Heavy. Rusted. Sharp at the edges.
Why had my father sent me to my aunt like he already knew? Without even asking how I survived Jonas’ attack…
Why had he known I would’ve saved him, healed him when he saw Hator rise behind my eyes?
Why hadn’t he ever told me what I really was?
And why had my mother — a phoenix, she had to be — died giving birth to me? Or was that a lie too?
Phoenixes didn’t die giving birth.
Did I kill her, maybe?
Unless what they were giving birth to…
