Page 160 of Stormvein

Four powerful Veinbloods, the heads of their families. Princes and Princesses, according to Sacha, who chose to give their lives to hide me away. Not in some remote village or distant land, but across worlds. They didn’t just want me hidden, they wanted me somewhere Sereven could never reach. The enormity of their sacrifice sits heavy in my chest. People I never knewdiedto protect me.

Why?

I pace the length of the chamber, my footsteps echoing off the walls.

Was this always inside me? A birthright rather than an accident caused by Sacha and his summoning spell?

Who were my parents? Did they have powers like mine? Did Sereven kill them to get to me?

The questions spin through my mind, each one birthing a dozen more. If I was born here in Meridian, did my parents know what I was? Did they willingly give me to Sereven, or did he take me from them? Are they still alive somewhere, prisoners of the Authority, wondering what became of their child? Or did they die resisting, bodies burned and names erased from memory like so many others? Or worse, were they like Lisandra, bowing to the Authority’s demands in return for promises of safety?

I press my palms against the cool stone wall, trying to ground myself as the spiral of questions threatens to overwhelm me. My breath comes in sharp, shallow gasps, the energy responding to my emotional state by pulsing more rapidly.

The storm building inside me feels too big for my body to contain. My entire life, I believed I was an ordinary woman from Chicago, abandoned as a child like hundreds of others, growing up in the foster system with dreams no bigger than finding somewhere to belong. All of it, everything I thought I knew, has unraveled in the space of hours. The foundation I’ve built mysense of self upon is crumbling, revealing something unfamiliar beneath, something that makes the air around me crackle.

“Am I even human?” The question slips out in a broken whisper.

My legs give way, and I sink to the floor, back against the wall. The stone is cold through my tunic, the chill seeping into my bones, but I welcome it. It’s something real to focus on besides the chaos in my mind. I draw my knees to my chest, making myself smaller, as though that might somehow contain the storm of emotions threatening to tear me apart.

Closing my eyes, I think of the Chicago skyline at sunset, Lake Michigan’s waters, and the small apartment I called home with its creaking floorboards and drafty windows. The memories feel both vivid and distant, like looking at someone else’s life through glass.

Was none of it real? No, of course it was real. But the context has shifted so dramatically that I no longer know how to make sense of it. My entire history has been rewritten.

“Ellie?”

Sacha’s voice pulls me from the spiral. I didn’t hear him enter, didn’t notice the door opening, but he stands a few paces away in the doorway. Darkness pools around his shoulders, while he watches me with an intensity that would have once made me uncomfortable. Now it feels like the only stable thing in a world gone sideways.

“I’m fine.” The words are automatic. The lie is obvious to my own ears.

He doesn’t call me on it. His eyes take in the power lighting up my skin, and the way I’ve made myself small against the wall. Instead of speaking, he crosses the room and simply slides down beside me on the floor, his back against the same wall, our shoulders touching. He doesn’t try to fix things with words, justsits with me in silence, his steady presence saying what words cannot.

You’re not alone.

“What if my parents were monsters?” I finally give voice to one of the darker questions circling my mind. The idea of it horrifies me, but I need to say it. “What if there was a reason Sereven wanted me? What if I was born to people who—” I can’t finish the thought, the possibility too terrible to articulate.

Sacha turns his head slightly. “You think your power might have come from something dark.” It’s not a question, but an observation, spoken without any judgment.

“I don’t know what to think anymore. It doesn’tfeelevil, but it’s wild … unpredictable. It can be destructive.”

He shifts more fully toward me, and lifts his hand. It hovers in front of my face for a second, then gently tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. The intimacy of the gesture sends warmth through me despite everything.

“Your power doesn’t control you, Mel’shira. You control it.” His voice is low and certain. “You choose what to use it for. The kindness you show to people, the healing you brought when everyone believed I was beyond saving, the choices you make. Those are what define you, not where you came from or who birthed you.”

The simplicity of his statement cuts through some of the chaos in my mind. The tightness in my chest loosens. He’s right, at least partly. Whatever my origins, my responses to the world and the people in it have been my own. The choices I’ve made since arriving in Meridian. To help him escape the tower, to stand with the Veinwardens, to fight for people with powers the Authority wants to destroy. Those were mine alone.

“It’s still disorienting,” I whisper. “To question everything about where I came from, who I might have been meant to be.”

I let my head drop onto his shoulder, and after a minute, his arm comes around me. We sit in silence, the soft sound of his breathing gradually steadying my own.

My thoughts drift back to the questions that won’t let go. “I keep thinking about my parents. If I was born here in Meridian ... Who were they? What happened to them? Did Sereven kill them?”

Sacha frowns, reaching for my hand and turning it palm up. His fingertips trace gentle patterns across my skin.

“There might be records. The Authority documents everything. Births, deaths, arrests, executions. They’re meticulous about recording the names of everyone they purged. If your parents were targeted, there would be records in Ashenvale.”

“Somewhere we can’t access.”

“For the moment, but that can change.” There’s steel in his voice, a promise of retribution and restoration I’ve come to recognize.