“Lili, you need to eat,” Alistair’s gentle voice called out from the doorway.

Liliana didn’t turn her head to greet him, her gaze stuck on the window, sapphire eyes dull. She was ensconced in a mountain of blankets so high her head barely poked out, and there was a roaring fire in the hearth that blazed away, despite it being summer. The room was sweltering, and even still Liliana remained shivering, a bitter cold having set its teeth into her body and refusing to relinquish its hold.

A healer had been called an hour after she’d come home, her skin still cold to the touch. They’d worried there had been poison on the blade because of her reaction, but a healer found that there was nothing technically wrong with her. It was a mental affliction, one of her own making.

In a world where magic interacted so heavily with everything, it was within the realm of possibilities for someone to turn their own Mana against themselves. For their mental demons to become a genuine danger to themselves. For the cold she so vividly imagined icing over her innards, to become real enough to affect her.

There had been offers to have a healer with a Psyche affinity come to aid her, but Liliana had refused. She had too many secrets in her mind to risk having anyone else messing with her head. Her status as a soul from another world was safe enough. Her boons ensured no one would gain that knowledge from her, but the rest of it, the memories from this life, those were at risk. The healer had told them that she could overcome it on her own, but Liliana wasn’t so sure anymore. Wasn’t sure she was strong enough to untangle the choking tangle of dark thoughts jumbled in her mind.

“Lili. Please.” Alistair pleaded as he stepped further in.

Liliana flinched at his intrusion, and she didn’t have to look to know the heartbroken expression that surely painted his features. Liliana hadn’t flinched from her brother, not for over a year now. But she couldn’t help it. His presence hurt. The guilt was suffocating her, a heavy weight on her chest, pressing the air from her lungs. Alistair was at risk now because of her. At risk from an enemy neither of them could ever hope to defeat. How could they fight someone who had powers comparable to a god’s?

He was a target, because she had been weak enough to care for him. Now he was a weakness someone could exploit to break her, and he had no idea he was even in danger. He deserved to know, to understand the peril he faced because of his association with her. Because of the mistake he’d made in loving her. Yet Liliana couldn’t speak the words. Couldn’t admit to him her failures, what she’d brought into their lives thanks to the darkness tainting her soul and her greed for power.

I thought I’d changed the story enough. I thought I’d changed all of our fates enough, so it wouldn’t matter anymore what was supposed to be. Isn’t that how these stories are supposed to go? A person from Earth gets thrown into a fantasy world from a book or game and they change it so much that the original story is nothing but a faint memory? Isn’t the butterfly effect supposed to be real?

Have I not done enough? Am I so useless I can’t even do this much? Am I so incompetent and weak I can’t even turn a dark fate away from those I love the most?

Useless. Selfish. Incompetent. Stupid. Naïve. Once a villain, always a villain destined to hurt anyone close to me. Liliana thought darkly, curling her arms tighter around herself at the thoughts. The words reverberated in her head, an endless cycle, the voice gradually shifting from her own into a far more detested and hateful one. It was always Imogen’s voice she heard when her thoughts got the darkest. Over a year, the woman had been imprisoned and yet Liliana still was not free of her poisonous tongue.

A deep growl drew her eyes, finally, from the window to face Lelantos, who had risen from his position beside the bed, his hackles raised and his lips pulled from his formidable fangs in a snarl as he faced her.

“Lelantos?” Alistair asked, voice unsure and wary. Lelantos had never shown aggression towards Liliana. Of all her bonds, he was the least likely to disobey, to show any hostility towards Liliana. Her first bond, her most loyal and steadfast protector.

“No.” Lelantos’ voice thundered through their bond with all the strength of his roar. The force of it reverberated through Liliana, making her very bones vibrate with the conviction behind it.

“I’m not wrong.” Liliana sent back, her voice dull, toneless. Empty.

“Don’t you dare say that!” Polaris snarled at her, standing beside her on the bed, wings extended and tails thrashing behind him as he faced her.

It was so easy to forget sometimes that her bonds were very much wild creatures, not truly tame nor even close to domesticated. Intelligent they may be, but docile and tame, they most certainly would never be. Their wildness was never more evident than right then. As they stared her down, fangs bared, growls thrumming in their chests as they stood against her thoughts and declarations.

“A tiger fights. You do not welcome defeat; you fight it. Even if it comes from inside.” Lelantos pushed at her, his words more eloquently put together than ever before, even as they ripped through their bond with all the power of a challenge roar. It stirred something weak inside of her, an animalistic side of herself that had only grown with every new bond she made. The wild side of herself she kept hidden under a veil of civility, but was never truly caged. It hissed and clawed at the restraints of despair and numbness Liliana had placed on it, wanting to respond to the challenge in Lelantos’ voice.

But it was so hard to fight. She was always fighting. Someone, something. People. Monsters. Her own thoughts. Always fighting. What was the use of fighting when it all meant nothing in the end? All her years of effort worthless in the face of something that could bring a city to its knees.

“You are a fighter, Lili. You always have been. Do not lose yourself now. Fight, Lili. Fight death, fight this thing that means to ruin you. Fight.” Polaris ordered her, with all the force of his lineage behind him. For a moment, Liliana felt like Minori was in the room with them, her aura pressing down, her words decrees from heaven itself, bending the very world to her whims.

Once more, that beast within her growled and thrashed. Liliana could almost feel the chains on it cracking, hairline fractures skittering across thick shackles as it bucked against her hold.

“You would not let me lose myself to despair and vengeance, seeking absolution in blood and readying myself for a pointless death. Do not become that which you advocated against.” Nemesis hissed in her ear, coils tightening around her chest where she had wound herself, her fangs glittering with poison.

Liliana could almost hear the metal breaking in her mind, but the anger that filled her wasn’t directed at what it should be. It chose easier targets, leaking into her and turning her into a cornered, wounded animal, swiping at anything nearby to it in fear.

“Don’t you get it?! I can’t fight this! I can’t! It’s too strong, and they’ll all die because of me! It could target you because of me! Don’t you see? I’m a curse, a plague on anyone I let close enough to care about because now they’re all targets! And I can’t fight it!” Liliana finally cried out, not even realizing she had spoken aloud in her despair and rage as she sunk her hands in her hair, arms covering her face as she bent double, hiding herself behind the safety of her own body.

Tears poured down her face as she sobbed at the words, dropping her head to her blanket covered knees as she choked on her own agony. The shackles on the beast restrengthened themselves as Liliana forced it down, where it couldn’t remind her of what it felt like to fight. To curse this world and everything that told her she wasn’t enough and drove her on to prove them wrong. Because they’d all been right.

“Lili?!” Alistair’s voice cried out, finally shaken from his shocked stupor from seeing the beasts in the room act so bizarrely by his sister’s agonized words.

The tray crashed to the ground as he flung himself at his sister, prying her hands from her head and holding tightly to them as she fought against his touch, so warm it burned her gelid skin. Didn’t he understand? She had to hide herself away. She couldn’t look at their faces, encouraging her, believing in her. She didn’t deserve it!

“Lili, stop fighting me.” Alistair grunted out as she tugged at her arms, trying to free them, uncaring for how her bones creaked and her skin chafed from his grip as she thrashed in his hold.

“Let me go! I’ve sentenced you to death, Alistair! You should hate me!” Liliana cried out as Alistair physically moved her around until he was behind her, her wrists still caught in his iron grasp as he hugged her to his chest, his warmth leaking onto her skin, trying to defrost her frozen body.

“Lili, what are you talking about? Tell me, please. I could never hate you. Never.” Alistair reassured her, his voice verging on panic as he tried to calm her frantic state.

“I’ll tell him if you don’t. You can’t continue to bear this burden alone, kit. And he deserves to understand.” Polaris warned. Liliana let out a broken cry at his words, shaking her head fiercely.

“You can’t. You can’t. He’ll hate me, he’ll leave. You can’t. Please, I don’t want to be alone again.” Liliana pleaded with her Bond. It was selfish, her request. She knew it. But she knew she was a selfish being, from the first time she had accepted Alistair’s outstretched hand. No, from the first time she’d accepted anyone’s outstretched hand. She’d been desperate to ease the ache of loneliness that had transcended lifetimes.

Polaris regarded her solemnly, and she knew he would, because to him this wouldn’t be a betrayal. It would be what he deemed necessary for her health and life. It would be him protecting her, even if she disagreed. Even if it would bring to life her deepest fears.

Her greatest fear had never been becoming a villain. It had never been becoming something bloodthirsty and evil.

Her greatest fear had always been being alone.

It was a fear she and the original Liliana shared, strengthened and reinforced with the combined weight of two lifetimes of loneliness compounding. It was such a core part of who she was she had accepted the love and care of those who most needed to be protected from her. So deeply integral in her character that she’d built her class around never being alone ever again.

It was why she thought now, in the back of her mind, that the original Liliana and accepted the amulet and all it had offered. Not for revenge, not for power, though that might have been the surface motivations. But because she’d been a lonely, hurt little girl who just wanted someone who would never leave her.

“Fine.” Liliana spat out, eyes cold as she glared at her Bond.

He sent his love, his overwhelming concern and worry for her through their bond, for a moment drowning out her own feelings. Her glare faltered and her head dropped in the face of the honesty of his emotions. She could never hate him for loving her, even if he forced her to confront things she’d rather leave dead and buried deep in her subconscious. Where the only person they could hurt was her.

But she was no longer the only one being hurt by her memories, was she?

Just this once, she could be the selfless hero the brother she so admired would one day be.

“I didn’t tell the guards everything.” Liliana spoke, her arms relaxing and stilling as she leaned back into her brother, selfishly taking these last few moments where he still loved her. She’d always been a selfish person, and now Alistair would finally understand the depths her depravity reached.

“I know,” Alistair murmured, his arms folding around her, still holding her wrists as he hugged her.

“The man who attacked me- I don’t know who he is. That’s true. But it doesn’t matter, because I know what’s controlling him.” Liliana stared at the ceiling, eyes dull as she locked her heart up in her chest, boxing her emotions away until she felt a cold apathy taking over her mind. The growling of the beast inside her finally quieted as the soothing nothingness so reminiscent of the Void washed over her mind.

It was easier if she didn’t care, for now. She could postpone the heartbreak for later, and she wasn’t sure she could tell everything if she could feel the shame, the hate, she still harbored for herself.

You’ve discovered the skill Frozen Heart! Would you like to accept this skill?

Frozen Heart: Psyche

Stop your emotions, as if you had frozen your very heart. Your heart will still beat and function as normal, but you will not suffer at the hands of tumultuous and painful emotions as long as the skill is active.

WARNING: Frequent use of this skill can eventually result in an inability to feel any emotions and can impact soul bonded beings’ emotions and ability to feel emotions as well.

Cost:

200 Stamina a minute

Liliana paused her story at the notification that popped up. She stared at it for long moments, trying to judge if the skill was worth the cost.

Would it be so bad? To sever her emotions off? To not feel anything at all? Her pain, it would end with a single skill. She’d never again have to feel as if she was slowly bleeding out from a wounded heart again. Every step she took, tinged crimson with the blood she dripped every day from a heart that had never been given a chance to heal before some new cut was slashed into it.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Do not accept. It will turn you into the very thing you do not wish to be. It will sever your love, Lili. You will no longer care for anyone or anything. It will turn you hard, cold, and cruel. You will become like your father.” Polaris warned, his voice harsh in her mind.

Liliana physically recoiled from the skill at his words and denied it. She might wish her pain would lessen, but she would never sacrifice the love she had for her friends, her family, her bonds. It was who she was, it was what guided her. Without that love, she would be nothing at all. She’d take agonizing, debilitating pain every second of every day if it was the price she had to pay for love.

She would never become like her father. She hated the man with every fiber of her being, and the thought of being like him made her ill. The apathy cloaking her lessened. Her emotions were still distant. But she could feel them now that the skill had been entirely denied to her. Something deep inside of her purred subtly, and she wasn’t sure if it was a response from her bonds or herself at her choice.

“Lili?” Alistair asked after the silence continued for too long.

“Sorry, a notification popped up.” She murmured as she remembered where she was, what she was supposed to be doing. Telling the truth, revealing secrets she had guarded as a dragon protected its hoard.

“The thing controlling him. I know it because,” Liliana closed her eyes and took a deep breath, fortifying herself, “because it controlled me, too.” Liliana whispered the words, shrinking down into herself, pulling away from Alistair to curl tighter.

“What? What are you talking about, Lili?” Alistair asked, his voice distressed and confused.

“The pendant. That we found in our first dungeon. Do you remember it?” Liliana asked, her voice so small, so broken now.

“Yes?” Alistair said it like a question, his hands flexing around her wrists.

“It was cursed. Or a conduit. Whatever it was, it enabled some thing to commune through it to whoever wore it.” Liliana spat the words out, tears prickling in her eyes. How could she face her brother once she confessed how rotten she was to her core? How weak she had been? How weak she still was?

“After-“ Liliana took in another gulp of air, “After the first assassin attacked, I wore it. I was so scared, and I felt so alone. I knew Imogen was sending the assassins and I-I-“ Liliana couldn’t continue, the words getting stuck. How could she confess she hadn’t been able to trust Alistair? When it was her who had done things that could never be forgiven?

“You couldn’t trust me, because you thought I might side with my mother.” Alistair finished for her, his voice soaked in sadness, but coated in understating, too. It loosened something in Liliana’s chest. That cloak of apathy lifted further, and she noticed, distantly, that her fingers stung as if they were heating up again.

“Yes. I’m sorry, Alistair.” Liliana said, tears finally breaking free and coursing down her face once more.

“Don’t be. I hadn’t done much to earn your trust by then. Not enough to make up for what she did to you.” Alistair said, his voice soft and kind as he tried to tug her back to him. Liliana resisted, shaking her head. She wasn’t done, and he wouldn't want to touch her once she was.

“The pendant, I didn’t know what it was, but I could sense the power on it. It oozed off of it. I thought it was my only option to protect myself from assassins I couldn’t hope to stand against.” Liliana continued, tears still falling and her voice weak and trembling like her body, still trapped in eternal shivers.

“It… whispered things. In my mind. Made me suspicious of everyone, seeing enemies where there weren’t any. It made- no. It suggested I distance myself from everyone and I listened.” Liliana corrected herself, not willing to lay the blame on the pendant when every choice had been hers to make, and she had. Influence or not, she had made her choices and she would own them.

“Then the night the second assassin attacked I-“ Liliana cut off again, hunching her shoulders and gripping at her sides, ignoring the hold her brother still had on her wrists.

“I was watching while the assassin’s blade plunged towards my heart. I couldn’t do anything. I was about to die. I was desperate, and I reached for anything that would save me. The pendant, whatever is behind it, reached back.” Liliana forced the words out around a suddenly numb tongue and closing throat.

She could feel it. The helplessness, the desperation. The will to live no matter the cost. The pain, the exhilaration, the delayed terror when she realized she no longer had control of her body and no idea if she ever would again.

“It took control of my body. Flooded me with power I’ve never felt before. It was like I was channeling a god. It was the most euphoric experience I’ve ever had, and the most violating thing to ever happen to me. It killed the assassin, using my body to do it. It broke my body, for the story it told me I had to sell. It used me like a puppet, and I let it! I asked for it to!” Liliana’s voice rose with each word, ending on a wail at the end, as sobs choked out of her.

“Oh Lili,” Alistair’s voice sounded broken behind her and he tugged her harder, and this time Liliana wasn’t strong enough, selfless enough, to refuse the comfort. She turned her head and hid it in his shoulder. He let her cry into him until she could breathe again, until she could get words out once more.

“That’s not all of it.” She said, her voice rough and ragged.

“It’s not even the worst of it. I would’ve kept the pendant. It was addictive, the power it promised. It was like a drug. I hated it, hated what it had done to me. I wanted to slough off my own skin to get the feeling of it out of my body. But I couldn’t let go of it. Not once it had given me a taste of the power it promised. I could’ve leveled the entire manor that night. It would’ve, if it felt like it. I had no control. Despite knowing that, I still couldn’t remove the thing. Lelantos had to rip it from my neck.” Liliana confessed, her voice full of the hate she still felt for herself. “It violated me, in the worst way it could’ve. It removed my free will. And I still wanted it even as I feared it, despised it, with every part of me.” Liliana whispered the last words, confessing her sin. But not the end of it.

“Lili-“ Alistair said, his voice still gentle. Liliana shook her head sharply, cutting his words off.

“I hid it in a ring, soul bound to me so no one could get to it. But I couldn’t get rid of it. I tried to destroy it, but nothing worked. And then. After Astrid, I-I,” Liliana’s nails bit into her arm as she forced herself to continue her sordid story, “I wanted to use it again. And somehow I knew, if I did, I’d kill anyone who stood between me and Imogen. You, Emyr, anyone. If I took the pendant out and put it on. I knew I’d never escape it a second time. And yet, I still considered it.” Liliana spoke the words as if they were punched out of her, in a rush that was barely decipherable.

“And then I gave Polaris the ring and ordered him to hide it somewhere no one would find it. And ordered him to never reveal the location to me, because I’d never be strong enough to resist its call if I knew where it was.” Liliana spoke her one redeeming facet to this story.

She’d ensured she could never fall so far again, but it was a pale redemption in the face of the fact that she had wanted the pendant. Had been prepared to sell her soul to the devil for revenge.

“I thought it was the only one. I was naïve. Now whatever is behind the pendant has found me again, and it wants me back. And it’s going to target everyone I care about to get to me, to shatter my heart and soul, so I come crawling back to it, a broken shell of who I was. Because of my weakness, my selfishness, you’re in danger now, Alistair.” Liliana finished her confession, voice dripping in venom directed at herself, her heart aching with the self-flagellation she heaped on it for all her mistakes.

“Lili,” Alistair started, then stopped. She braced herself for his words, for his blows that were sure to come. She deserved every cruel word, every strike.

“Lili, I’m so sorry.” Alistair finally said, the words so unexpected Liliana didn’t register them for a moment, then she went still with shock.

“What?” she asked, finally turning to look at her brother and recoiling at the open vulnerability on his features.

She could read his broken heart in his eyes, broken for her. There was no hate, no derision or disgust in his features, no matter how thoroughly she searched for the emotions. There was only love, and so much sorrow for her.

“Because of my mother, because I wasn’t a better big brother, because I didn’t protect you when I should’ve, because I turned my back on you too many times and ignored your pain for years. You felt so alone. You were scared, a terrified child who didn’t have anyone she thought would stand by her, protect her, and something took advantage of that. Used your loneliness, your fear, and offered you protection no one else had offered to you. Of course you took it. And it’s my fault. It’s the fault of everyone in our damn manor for leaving you alone and defenseless when you needed all of us the most.” Alistair spoke, his voice breaking but full of conviction and regret as he pulled her closer to him, cradling in his arms like the broken doll she felt she was now that her sins were revealed, all the cracks in her delicate skin finally bared to the light.

It was the most seen she’d ever felt in her entire life.

“You’re not at fault. You did what you thought you needed to, to survive. Something older and more powerful than you took advantage of your vulnerability and made you think it was all your fault.” Alistair told her, one of his hands finally freeing her wrist to stroke at her hair, and Liliana couldn’t comprehend it.

She heard his words, but she didn’t understand. It was her fault. She’d made her choices. She’d asked for it, so it was her fault. Why didn’t he see that? That all she’d suffered, it was her own fault? That she alone held the responsibility for what had happened to her. She didn’t deserve his kind words and gentle hands.

He should be screaming at her, slicing her apart with his sword for what she’d done. He should hate her, not love her. She was tainted, disgusting. She had allowed something dark and evil to poison her mind, had invited it into her body. And now the price for her sins had finally come up, and she wasn’t the one who had to pay it. Everyone she loved would be the tender used to repay her sins.

Couldn’t he see that? That she was corrupted beyond forgiveness? Beyond salvation? Her soul had been tainted to begin with, otherwise that thing wouldn’t have enticed her. There was something wrong with her, and he should be abandoning her for his own good.

“Lili, it wasn’t your fault. No one would blame you for what you did, and anyone in the same situation would’ve fallen. But few would’ve been able to pull away from it. Lelantos only ripped it away from you because you wanted him to. He would never have acted like that if it wasn’t something you needed and knew you needed deep down, something you wished for. He hadn’t tried to remove it before then. You tried to destroy it, and when you couldn’t, you got rid of it in a way that meant no one else would ever stumble across it. You were strong enough to walk away, and I know I wouldn’t have been. You’re a hero, Lili.” Alistair told her, as if reading her thoughts. Or perhaps they were painted on her face for him to see. She knew she had no more masks to hide behind now, they’d been shattered underneath the truth of her words today.

“He’s right.” A gruff voice called from the door and Liliana whipped her head around to see Jason and Silas standing in the room, the door closed behind them. How long had they been there?

“I let them in.” Polaris told her, sounding unbearably smug.

“Why?” Liliana asked him, huddling further into Alistair as she realized she’d confessed her sins to more people, people she had never planned to. Now they too would know of the darkness inside of her. Would hate her.

“You need your skulk. If you can’t fight it, then you need to ask for help from those stronger than you.” Polaris informed her, “They do not hate you. Look. Use [Empathy] if you do not believe.” Polaris said, voice softer as he urged her.

Mentally preparing for the hate she would feel, despite the concerned and woeful expressions on the older men’s faces, Liliana activated [Empathy], now strong enough to let her feel emotions around her, not just those of who she was touching.

Love flooded her as her emotional awareness spread through the room. It overwhelmed her, pressing down on her like a weighted blanket. It would’ve been suffocating if it didn’t feel like the most comforting thing she’d ever experienced.

She’d said the power the pendant offered was addicting, but it had nothing on this.

If she could feel this every day, she would never feel sad again. It was like the love was coating every inch of the room, soaking through it all. Behind the waves of love, was anguish and regret. Sorrow for her, regret for them not being able to prevent the events in her story. Liliana turned off [Empathy] before she got dizzy from the strength of the emotions in the room.

“How? How can you all forgive me for what I’ve done? For the danger I’ve put you in?” Liliana asked, her voice torn between wonder and anguish.

“Because there’s nothing to forgive, little lady.” Jason told her as he moved forward, sitting at the edge of the bed and taking one of her hands in his own.

“I was with you during that time. But you didn’t feel safe enough with me to trust I’d keep you safe. And I didn’t deserve that trust, because I didn’t protect you as I should’ve.” Jason said, shoulders slumping and Liliana could see him blaming himself for what had happened, despite him not being the one to wear the pendant, to ask for the power it held.

“And I wasn’t with you when I should’ve been. You were in danger, and I wasn’t there for you.” Silas said, leaning against the wall by the bed. The lines in his face deepened by the sorrow in his eyes and remorse in his voice.

“But, no. It was my fault.” Liliana tried to explain. Perhaps she hadn’t told her story properly. They had to see. To understand. They should hate her. Why didn’t they?

“No. It wasn’t Lili. You were taken advantage of because you didn’t feel safe. And that’s all of our faults alone, not yours. You were a victim, not a villain. And in the end you were a hero who fought a battle no one ever saw.” Alistair said, tone severe as he cut her off. Liliana blinked at the words, those hitting her harder than she expected. Victim? She had never considered herself a victim, had never thought she was one.

A hero? Her? Such titles were reserved for those like Alistair, pure, kind, undeniably good, despite circumstances constantly trying to mold him into something different. Such titles didn’t belong to forgotten daughters of dukes who accepted dark pendants and risked the lives of those they loved because of selfish desires.

“If it had been Marianne, in your same situation. Hunted by assassins sent by her mother, surrounded by people who had never before lifted a hand to help her, people who had more reason to give loyalty to her mother than her. If she had been utterly alone, weak, powerless, and she had reached out to a person who offered to protect her, offered her all the power to defend herself, and then took advantage of her in her most desperate moment. Would you hate her? Or would you still love her?” Polaris asked, and based on the way the men in the room shifted to look at the kitsune, she assumed he had made the words public for everyone to hear.

“No. It’s not the same, though.” Liliana shook her head, not willing to accept it. To let go of the self-hate, the blame she had born for so long.

“It is.” Silas told her, in a voice that brooked no argument.

“I don’t. I- I don’t understand.” Liliana finally said, sounding lost, confused, and so scared. She pressed herself further into Alistair, seeking his stability, his comfort, while her emotions ran rampant through her. He was the only thing that felt constant, while confusion twisted her mind and left her feeling like the world was suddenly upside down.

“You don’t have to, not yet.” Jason told her, with a reassuring smile as he squeezed her hand in his calloused one.

“Let us protect you now. When we couldn’t before.” Silas said, pushing off the wall, his gaze steely and filled with a simmering anger. “If this thing thinks it can hurt you like that again, I’ll skin it alive.” Silas growled, hand going to his sword he wore on his belt at all times, as if he would march out of the room to do just that this instant.

“You can’t! It’s too strong.” Liliana bolted upright, eyes panicked.

“You underestimate my power, and my connections, Liliana.” Silas told her, lips finally twisting into a grim smile.

“You’ve fought enough on your own. Now it’s time to let others fight for you. As they should’ve long before now. You deserve to be protected, to be safe, Liliana. You always did. Let us right this wrong.” Silas asked her and it was partially the surety in his every word, the confidence in his stance, and partially the fact that this was more words than the man usually ever spoke that mollified her.

And perhaps, it was because as much as she tried to be an adult, to shoulder burdens meant for older, stronger shoulders, she was still a child. And Silas was a man her heart recognized as her father, and a father was always supposed to be able to protect his child. A father was strong enough to fight any demon, any foe.

So despite the fear in her chest, the fear of Silas dying against this entity she didn’t know the true power of, she nodded hesitantly. Trusting him to protect her, to fight what she couldn’t. Until the day she could fight for herself. For all of them.

Inside of her chains shattered, metal raining like down like hail in her mind. The beast within her roared in triumph as the will to live, to fight, to protect this family she had found overcame her despair, bolstered by the all-encompassing love she could still feel lingering like a caress against her warming skin. Melting the chill coating her as the first breath of spring melted the frost over the land.

She was Liliana Rosengarde, and she’d lived every day fighting just to survive. Now she had something infinitely more precious to fight for, and she would do so until the day her heart stopped beating.