Page 202 of Daughter of the Serpent

She scanned the crowd. Some faces wore scorn. Others, indifference.

But a few - just a few - had shaped her into who she was now.

Among them, she found Tara.

Their eyes locked, a hollow exchange, devoid of the warmth they once shared. Her face was a mask that revealed nothing, and yet it said everything.

Was this truly how it would end?

The questions gnawed at her soul. All those nights spent agonizing in the temple, reliving that night that tore them apart - had it all led to this? A silent, distant farewell, with no words to heal the wounds, no arms to pull her close, no chance at reconciliation?

The memory of how Tara had looked at her, like she was something cursed, evil, and wrong - clung to her like the cold dead winter that refused to abate, the sharp sting of it as fresh as that night. How she wished she could rewrite it all, undo the choices that had shattered their friendship to pieces. But deep down, she knew - the fracture would never heal, just as the events of that fateful night would never vanish from her mind. Tara, the friend she had thought to have had forever, now felt like a stranger. Her eyes - those same eyes that had once brimmed with shared laughter - were now filled with something bitter, something final. Judgment. Anger. Blame.

In that cold moment of clarity, she realized there was nothing left to be said. Nothing left to do. She could never reach across the chasm between them, could never mend what had been so thoroughly broken.

Perhaps this was their goodbye - a cold meeting of faces, before she left to claim her fate. Perhaps this was all that was left for them - two paths diverging, forever separate. Some things couldn’t be fixed, no matter how desperately she wished to, no matter how much that truth had broken her heart. And so, as Tara’s gaze flickered away and she melted back into the crowd, it struck her with the force of a final blow.

This was it.

It was over.

Forever.

The ship drifted.

Godvick’s weathered face got smaller and smaller with the stretching distance. And somewhere in the temple walls - or maybe tucked away behind closed doors - her mother waited. Or mourned.

Mardova began to shrink behind them. Its shores. It's salty wind. Its ghosts. And with it, a part of herself slipped quietly into memory.

She whispered a silent prayer - not to the gods, but to the girl she had once been.

The girl who had begged for belonging.

Who had drowned in shame.

Who had been bled, broken, and left behind.

But she was not that girl anymore.

The wind caught in her cloak. She stood tall at the helm.

The sea stretched wide before her, vast and unknown.

And for the first time, she felt it in her bones.

Her life was changed forever.

THE END