Page 19 of The Minotaur’s Little Peach

SOREYA

T he kiss haunts me.

For three days, I've been moving through the house like a specter, tending to Taran with mechanical precision while my thoughts spiral in endless loops of shame and confusion.

Every footstep in the hallway makes my heart stutter—is it him?

But then the sounds fade toward his room or out the front door, and I'm left with this hollow ache that has nothing to do with grief and everything to do with the way his mouth felt against mine.

I check the trees obsessively, counting fruit that won't ripen for weeks, pruning branches that don't need attention.

The orchard becomes my refuge, a place where I can breathe without wondering if Daegan will appear around the corner with those sea-glass eyes that seem to see straight through my carefully constructed walls.

He keeps his distance too. No more easy conversations over breakfast, no more gentle teasing while we tend to Taran together.

The comfortable routines we'd built over months have crumbled, leaving behind this terrible politeness that cuts deeper than silence.

When our paths cross—reaching for the same plate in the kitchen, both of us checking on Taran at the same time—we dance around each other like strangers sharing space by accident.

The house feels enormous and suffocating all at once.

Taran notices. My sweet boy turns his head toward sounds that might be Daegan's voice.

His little fists wave when he hears those familiar heavy footsteps, and when they fade without the promised appearance, his face scrunches in what I can only call disappointment.

Even my infant son misses the minotaur who's been helping raise him, and the knowledge sits like lead in my stomach.

I wonder if Daegan regrets it. If he's as mortified as I am by what happened, by the way I responded before terror took hold and sent me fleeing like a child.

Maybe he's disgusted that his brother's widow threw herself at him with such shameless need.

Maybe he's counting the days until he can return to his ship and leave this mess behind.

The thought makes something twist painfully in my chest, and I hate that it does.

On the fourth morning, while I'm mechanically folding Taran's tiny clothes and pretending I don't hear Daegan moving around the kitchen, familiar footsteps approach the front door.

Not his measured gait, but lighter, quicker—accompanied by the faint scent of herbs and something indefinably sharp that always clings to Mirath's clothes.

"You look terrible," she announces without preamble as I open the door, her dark eyes taking in my face with clinical assessment. Cinnamon-brown fingers push a strand of black curl away from her forehead as she steps past me into the house. "When's the last time you slept?"

"Good morning to you too, Mir." I close the door and lean against it, suddenly exhausted by the prospect of pretending everything's fine. "Taran's been fussy lately."

She turns those knowing eyes on me, the ones that have been seeing through my carefully constructed lies since we were children picking berries behind her mother's shop.

Freckles dust her cheeks like scattered star maps, and her mouth quirks in that way that means she's about to call me on whatever foolishness I'm peddling.

"Taran's been perfect every time I've seen him," she says, settling into the chair across from where I perch on the couch's edge. "Try again."

The words want to stay locked behind my teeth, but Mirath has always been able to pull confessions from me with nothing more than patient silence and that expectant tilt of her head.

We sit there for long moments, her dark gaze steady while I fidget with the hem of my dress and try to find words for something I barely understand myself.

"I kissed Daegan," I blurt out finally, the admission tearing from my throat like something physical.

"Four nights ago. And then I ran away like a coward, and now we can barely look at each other, and I feel so stupid because what kind of person does that?

What kind of person kisses her dead husband's brother? "

Mirath's eyebrows climb toward her hairline, but she doesn't look shocked. If anything, she looks relieved, like I've finally acknowledged something she's been waiting for me to see. "Ah. That explains the careful choreography you two have been performing whenever I visit."

Heat flames across my cheeks, settling in my ears and down my neck.

"It's not choreography. It's mortification.

I threw myself at him, Mir. I kissed him, and then I panicked because—because it felt so good, and how can I feel that way about someone who isn't Korrun?

How can I dishonor his memory like that? "

She leans back in her chair, arms crossed, and that knowing smirk spreads across her face like sunrise. The expression transforms her from healer to the mischievous girl who used to dare me to steal sweets from the baker's cooling racks.

"Oh, honey," she says, voice rich with amusement and affection. "You think wanting someone else means you loved Korrun less?"

"It's his brother," I snap, the words sharp enough to cut. Saying it aloud makes it worse somehow, adds another layer of wrongness to feelings I can't seem to control. "His brother, Mir. What does that make me?"

Without missing a beat, without even blinking, she grins. "Smart? You're keeping it in the family."

The shocked laugh that escapes me sounds more like a sob, but it's followed by another, and then another, until I'm doubled over with helpless giggles that feel like breaking apart and coming together all at once.

Mirath joins me, her laughter bright and infectious, and for a few precious moments the weight on my chest lifts enough that I can breathe properly.

When the laughter finally subsides, leaving us both wiping tears from our eyes, she reaches over and takes my hands in hers. Her palms are warm, slightly rough from years of grinding herbs and mixing potions, and the familiar comfort of her touch anchors me.

"Soreya," she says, her voice gentle but firm. "Korrun is gone. He's been gone for months, and grieving him—loving him—doesn't mean your heart has to stay buried with him. You have decades of life ahead of you, and Korrun would want you to live them."

"But Daegan?—"

"Is a good man who cares about you and Taran.

Who's been taking care of you both, who makes you laugh, who's brought light back to your eyes over these past months.

" She squeezes my fingers, dark eyes serious.

"The fact that he's Korrun's brother doesn't make your feelings wrong.

If anything, it means he understands what you've lost. He knew Korrun, loved him too.

Who better to help you heal than someone who shares that grief? "

The words settle into the spaces between my ribs, finding cracks in the wall of guilt I've built around my heart.

I want to believe her, want to accept that feeling alive again doesn't make me a traitor to the man who gave me everything good I'd ever known.

But the shame feels too heavy, too deeply rooted in months of careful numbness.

"He hasn't spoken to me since," I whisper. "Barely looks at me. Maybe he regrets it. Maybe he thinks I'm pathetic for?—"

"For what? For responding to him? For letting yourself feel something other than grief for five minutes?

" Mirath's voice carries that sharp edge she gets when she's about to demolish whatever foolish notion has taken hold in my head.

"Or maybe he's giving you space because he saw how terrified you were afterward.

Maybe he's waiting for you to make the next move because he doesn't want to push you into something you're not ready for. "

She releases my hands and sits back, studying my face with the intensity she usually reserves for particularly complex healing cases. "Have you considered that he might be just as confused as you are? Just as worried about what it means?"

I hadn't. In my spiral of self-recrimination and shame, I'd assumed his distance meant disappointment or regret.

But now, thinking about the careful way he's been avoiding me, the deliberate space he's created between us, I wonder if Mirath might be right.

If maybe he's trying to protect me from pressure I'm not ready to handle.

The possibility shifts something inside me, makes room for thoughts I've been too frightened to examine. What if the kiss wasn't a betrayal but a beginning? What if wanting Daegan doesn't diminish what I had with Korrun but adds something new to the life I'm trying to rebuild?

After Mirath leaves, her words linger in the quiet house like incense, filling corners that have felt empty for days. I move through my afternoon routine—feeding Taran, checking the windows, tidying spaces that don't need tidying—but her voice echoes in my mind with each task.

Keeping it in the family.

The phrase should sound crude, inappropriate.

Instead, it feels like permission. Like maybe there's no betrayal in wanting someone who understands exactly what I've lost, who loved Korrun enough to abandon his own life to care for the family left behind.

Maybe loving them both isn't a contradiction but a different kind of harmony, one that honors the past while making space for whatever comes next.

Maybe Soreya can have something special with Daegan and still love Korrun.

The thought unfurls in my chest like warmth, pushing against months of careful numbness.

For the first time since that night, I let myself remember not just the panic that sent me fleeing, but the sweetness that came before it.

The way Daegan's hands felt against my face, sure and gentle.

The soft sound he made when I kissed him back.

The rightness of it that terrified me more than anything else.

Maybe I'm not wrong to want that again.

Maybe I'm wrong to deny us both the chance to find out what it could become.

And yet… the memory of Korrun makes me unsure of everything I'm doing.