Page 67

Chapter 67

Saelyn

I WAS ALMOST SEVENTEEN, AND I LIVED FOR VIRIDIS

“ You’re like a father to me, Pah - Pah .”

“ The Overseer ? ” the Blightress asked, raising a brow as we watched myself and Pompeii from months ago eating apples and cheese in my favorite Viridis hall.

I laughed, my eyes filling with tears upon seeing him again. “ Yes . I miss him. ”

We listened to the chatter and just as I had at the time, the Blightress did not miss the sudden stiffness in Pah - Pah’s back at the mention of my seventeenth birthday.

“ Your father made Karus promise to raise you under her protection for seventeen years. ”

“ You know about that? ”

“ I heard his begging to your mother, yes. ”

“ And still you tore them apart? ” I fisted my hands at my sides, hearing Pah - Pah’s words of what was worth risking in my life.

“ I care naught for your father. He is just a Baron . ”

“ Do you not see it? ” I pleaded. “ You are hundreds of years old and still you cannot understand what you have done. You broke my mother. She was happy. She was powerful and using it for the good of her people. You tore that from them. How can you call that love? ”

Pah - Pah finished his words of wisdom. Words that had stayed with me from that moment on. “ The same, Sae . The same life we have always lived.”

The Blightress lashed, “ She chose that life. She could have been happy at my side. I even offered for her to take your father with us if she was so attached to him, and still she refused. ”

I opened my mouth to argue, but she grabbed my hand and grinned wide, calling my name again.