Finn shook his head. “No. He told everyone your purity was sacred. His to claim—after marriage.”
He looked up, face pale and wrecked. “But that didn’t stop him from doingotherthings.”
I didn’t cry.
I didn’t scream.
I just sat there, the silence settling around me like ash.
Hard. Cold. Still.
“I think that night pushed Liora too far,” Finn said quietly. “She loved you, you know. I didn’t see it then, not really. But she was always watching. Always looking for a way to free you.”
His voice wavered, but he pushed on.
“That night... the night before the wedding, maidservants were allowed into your chambers to help you prepare. Liora had already been whispering in their ears. Planting seeds. Gaining their trust. Vael wasn’t allowed to see you before the ceremony—superstition, tradition, whatever it was—so he’d be gone for a while.”
He looked up at me, haunted.
“Liora unlocked my cell. Handed me a map. Told me to take you and run. The maids helped sneak you through the walls, dressed like one of them.”
His voice dropped, rough with memory.
“But you were... gone. You wouldn’t stop crying. Wouldn’t speak. Wouldn’t even look at me. Just kept shaking, like the world had shattered around you.”
He paused, swallowed hard.
“So…” he began.
I finished it for him, my voice barely more than a whisper.
“So you asked Liora to remove my memories.”
Finn nodded, slow and solemn, eyes glassy with unspoken weight. “She said it was the only way to give you a chance at peace.”
My thoughts spun like leaves in a storm. Everything I’d believed, everything Iwas—reshaped in seconds.
“Then what?” I asked, dazed. “What happened next?”
“Then we ran,” Finn said, his voice steady, too steady.
“Where were we supposed to go?” I pressed. “What did the map say?”
For a moment, something flickered in his expression—too fast for me to name.
He looked away. “I… lost it. In the chaos. I was trying to keep you safe. Everything was a blur.”
I watched him closely, but my head was pounding too hard, my heart too raw to see clearly.
“Right,” I said softly, more to myself than to him.
And I believed him.
Because Ineededto.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” I asked, my voice low, biting. “Why did you let me live aliefor six years, Finn?”
He looked wounded but not surprised. “I was trying to protect you. Gods, Elira—wouldyou have wanted to remember what he did to you? Would you have chosen to carry that pain?”
