Ethan’s words hung in the air like an echo that couldn’t be silenced.
Enora did not respond immediately.
She couldn’t respond.
The promise.
You will take care of my son.
Cecilia’s voice came back to her with a cruel clarity, as vivid as the day she last heard it. There was no reproach in that memory, only trust. An absolute trust that now felt heavier than any crown.
She had sworn to protect him, not imprison him, not break him.
She had believed, with the stubbornness of someone who had already lost too much, that separating him from love would save him. That tearing out his heart was preferable to burying it. But what kind of protection was that? What life was she offering him if she let him breathe without living?
If he stays with her, he will die.
That was what she had thought.
