The scent of sun-baked stone on the breeze did little to soothe the tremor in my hand. I followed my uncle through the winding streets, the distance between us a carefully measured ten paces. It was close enough to follow, yet far enough to escape the storm of irritation that radiated from the rigid set of his shoulders. Where is he taking me? The question was a frantic drumbeat against my ribs.

We rounded a corner, and the sight of the house ahead stopped me cold. I knew it instantly. It was our family home, the one Cassius had shown me when we first arrived. Without a word, my uncle shouldered the door open and vanished into the shadows within.

A nervous flicker of mana, sharp and uncontrolled, danced over my fingertips. The chilling thought that he might attack the moment I was inside, trapped and away from prying eyes, coiled in my gut. I forced my feet to move, stepping over the threshold.

Sunlight pierced the gloom, illuminating a galaxy of dust motes in the heavy air. My gaze was drawn to the grand family portrait in the hall. I saw my mother’s smile, my uncle’s younger face.

“Don’t dawdle,” my uncle’s voice cut through the memory, sharp as shattered glass.

I flinched and hurried to catch up. He led me into a sitting room where daylight flooded in, making the faded tapestries on the walls seem even more ancient. He gestured curtly to a high-backed chair before taking the one opposite.

“Sit, Thalia.”

I sat, my spine ramrod straight, my body a coiled spring ready to react. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. He didn’t speak, just watched me, his eyes dissecting me layer by layer. I met his stare, a silent refusal to grant him whatever satisfaction he sought in my fear.

A muscle feathered in his jaw. He broke eye contact first, his gaze fixing on some point on the far wall. When his eyes returned to mine, the anger had settled into a grim resolve.

“If you brought me here to stare,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt, “you could have saved us the walk.”

A flicker of surprise, or perhaps respect, crossed his face. He let out a slow, heavy breath. “My actions… were unwarranted.” The words sounded as if they were being pried from him, each one costing him a piece of his pride. “I have a deep-seated… distaste for humans.”

I tilted my head. “And that is your right to attack one?”

“No,” he conceded, his gaze dropping to his own clenched fists on the table. “You are right. It is no excuse. I have allowed my anger to fester for a long time.”

“Be careful with that anger,” I warned, my voice low and sharp. “Hate is a poison. It will turn you into the very monster you claim to despise.”

He recoiled as if struck. But he didn’t lash out. Instead, the contempt in his expression fractured, revealing something raw and broken beneath. “An apology is not acceptance,” he bit out, his voice rough with emotion. “It does not change what you are. One of them.”

“I am also your blood,” I pressed, leaning forward. “Your sister’s daughter. Does that no longer matter?”

His knuckles went white against the dark wood of the table. “Yes,” the word was a strangled whisper. He looked up, and the fury in his eyes had crumbled, replaced by a profound sorrow that seemed to steal the years from his face. “You are my family. That is the curse of it. I look at you, and I see Syanna’s fire in your eyes…” His voice cracked. “My sister’s eyes.”

The tension in my shoulders eased, and I clasped my hands in my lap, an unexpected wave of shared grief washing over me.

“One half of you is the shadow of the race I hate for taking her,” he confessed, his gaze distant, lost in memory. “And the other… is the face of the sister I will miss until my dying day.”

His confession unraveled a knot of anger deep inside me. “I miss her, too,” I admitted, my voice soft. “Every day.” An image of my mother’s radiant smile flashed in my mind. “This bitterness you carry… it’s not what she would have wanted for you. She loved you, Uncle.”

He shook his head, a spasm of old pain twisting his features. “I don’t know what your mother would have wanted. Towards the end… we barely spoke. My heart was tainted long before she met your father.”

“Because of Tia?” The name slipped out, a ghost on my tongue.

His head snapped up, his eyes sharp and wounded. He pressed his lips into a bloodless line, the silence screaming before he finally sighed, the sound ragged. “Do not speak her name,” he warned, his voice a low growl. “But… yes. I blamed Syanna for a choice that wasn’t hers to make. She retreated, burying herself in her studies. We began to orbit each other like strangers. Then, she ran off.” He looked at me, his tone laced with a lifetime of bitterness. “For what? To die alone in their world?”

“No,” I said, my voice firm but gentle, cutting through his rage. “She did it so that all of us could live. She knew what was coming, and she found the only way to stop it.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but the words caught in his throat. His face was a battlefield of disbelief and sorrow. “If she hadn’t made that choice, if she hadn’t sacrificed herself, everything—this city, this world—would be gone.”

“A convenient story to justify her abandonment,” he accused, his voice thick with scorn.

I hesitated. This was a truth I had guarded so closely, shared only with Cassius and Amelia. But he deserved to know. He needed to. I leaned forward, my voice dropping to a near whisper, charged with the weight of memory. “It isn’t a story, Uncle. I have seen the end of the world.” I let the words hang in the still air. “K’tthar returned. He burned it all to ash. I watched him do it.” I held his stunned gaze. “My mother found a way. A way to send me back, to rewrite the ending. She changed fate.”

“Fate cannot be changed,” he scoffed, but the dismissal was weak, his certainty shaken.

With a deep breath, I reached into the unseen space of my dimensional storage. My mother’s journal materialized in my hand with a soft shimmer of mana. The worn leather felt cool and familiar against my palm. “It can, if you know how.” I slid the book across the polished table. It came to a stop just before his hands. “You have a right to the truth.”

He stared at it as if it were a venomous snake. Slowly, his fingers traced the intricate tooling on the cover. With a trembling hand, he opened it to the first page, to the elegant, familiar script. A sad, faint smile touched his lips. “She always said this journal was for her future child.”

“I’ve read it,” I confirmed. “Now it’s your turn.”

He closed the book gently, protectively. “I am… still unsure of you,” he admitted, his gaze finally steady, clear of the storm. “But you are Syanna’s daughter. For her sake, I will see you are protected.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, the words feeling small but momentous.

The silence that settled between us was different now. Not hostile, but heavy with unspoken history and the gravity of his grief. I broke it. “I should go. Cassius will be worried.”

He gave a slight, distracted nod, his eyes fixed on the journal in his lap. “Yes. You should.”

I stood and walked to the door. He was no longer just an angry, prejudiced man. He was a ruin, hollowed out by loss. I was just grateful the day had ended in a fragile truce, not a battle. I glanced back one last time. He was completely absorbed, his calloused thumb tracing the loops of my mother’s handwriting. A single tear slid down, gleaming in the afternoon light.

I turned and left. Maybe this was a beginning.

Stepping out of the house’s oppressive silence felt like surfacing for air. A warm breeze, rich with the scent of the sea, rushed to greet me, tangling in my hair. It was a welcome caress after the chill inside.

My gaze landed on him immediately. Cassius. He was wearing a trench in the cobblestones with his anxious pacing, his shoulders hunched and his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.

My voice was softer than I intended. “Cassius?”

His head snapped up. The storm of worry in his eyes vanished the moment they met mine, replaced by a smile so brilliant it seemed to light up the street. All my worries melted away in his smile. After the weight of my uncle’s house, I needed this. “Thalia.” He closed the distance in three long strides, his expression melting with relief. He reached out, his hands hovering for a second before gently grasping my arms, as if to assure himself I was real. “Are you alright? What happened in there?”