Offered to the Triplet Alphas

[Xanthea]

Asher words reverberated in my mind like an eerie echo leeching into my thoughts.

My grave? What the hell does that even mean?

I am right here. Alive-

That's when it hit me, numbing my rage and fear, leaving me empty. My body went limp as the realization sunk deeper.

If my heart didn't slam against my ribs as violently as it did, I would have believed that I was truly dead.

A thought that had never crossed my mind before crashed like a wave, drowning my entire reality within seconds - was I ever truly alive?

"You mercilessly killed yourself every year on your birthday, burying your soul right here..." Asher said with a faint tremble in his voice. He pressed my palm against the cold white marble of the grave.

"Look what you've done to yourself, Xanthea... what you're still doing. You never mourned your mother. You only mourned yourself..."

Goosebumps prickled across my skin as tears welled in my eyes. Not because I was breaking, but somehow his words were making sense in a way that fixed something inside me. Something he never broke. I could feel the haze of my dark thoughts splintering as the moon glowed a little brighter.

His grip on my body turned gentler. Maybe because I had stopped resisting. I still didn't understand what he was doing or why, but it was working. It was slowly burning away my mother from me. Maybe because I finally realized what he wanted me to.

My tears dropped on the forget-me-nots as I peered at the grave.

"Do you want to know what happened to your mother's soul?" He asked grimly.

My breaths turned colder in my lungs as I took a quick gulp.

"Such information is highly confidential. I could get into a lot of trouble for breaking several laws of the universe as I share this with you, but the trouble's going to be so worth it."

He sounded almost like Ezra, his voice edging towards madness.

"Your mother's soul isn't rotting in some hell." Asher's laugh was jagged, like shards of glass. "No - hell would've been a mercy. After losing her immortality, Cadence died as a mortal, and her soul entered the karmic cycle - the cycle of life and death. She will live and die as many times as the lives she destroyed. Her every life will be uglier than the last until she's endured every drop of pain she ever caused."

His thumb brushed over my tear-stained cheek, almost tender like a blade when it cuts the skin.

"You think you can redeem her by punishing yourself?" He chuckled. "The karma is far crueler than you. That's how the universe works: anything you give others returns to you tenfold."

My breath hitched as he sank into my nape, his nose trailing along the curve of my neck.

"Right now, her soul is probably somewhere in a mortal body, receiving the mortal punishment. Her soul will suffer not death, but life."

His words were filled with a daunting gravity, and despite his attempt to keep a neutral tone, his hatred bled through.

"No prayer can save her, Xanthea. No pain will suffice. There will be no peace for her."

Taking a deep breath, I pursed my quivering lips, shutting my eyes.

"Cadence will pay for her sins and every wound she caused. Her redemption is her responsibility, so no one else can, or 'should,' bear the burden of her karma. Her guilt will follow her through countless excruciating lives for thousands of years - thousands of deaths."

"Stop! Please..." I whimpered. My chest tightened, his words hitting me like a physical blow.

What followed was a silence that haunted our proximity.

Hearing all this, I was torn. A part of me knew she deserved it, and there could have been no harsher punishment for her. But another part of me was consumed by grief - the part that couldn't wish such a fate on even my worst enemy. But somehow, no matter how harsh his words were or how deeply they cut, a strange relief washed over me, because his words gave me a closure I didn't know I needed.

I came to terms with the fact that my mother was gone. I finally accepted the one thing I had been denying all my life: my mother was dead, buried in this grave, and she was never coming back.

Like Asher said, once someone loses their immortality, their soul is bound to remain trapped in the endless cycle of life and death. And this was the rule of the universe that even my mother couldn't break.

The only reason she had been alive for me was because I had consciously - deliberately - kept her alive within me for all these years to cope with my loneliness.

She had held this power over me only because I had allowed it. But I was the only one who could reclaim my identity. From this grave, she couldn't touch me, let alone control my mind or my thoughts.

Asher wanted me to distance myself from my mother, from her emotions and her memories. He wanted me to understand that what was hers could never be mine, and she could never steal what belonged to me - not my mind, and certainly not my life.

I was safe.

I had always wanted to be like my mother, convinced her death was my fault. I longed to live her life, to fulfill her dreams out of guilt. And so, I had buried myself in this grave for twenty-three years. This was, indeed, more my grave than hers.

"So tell me, wife, if not for revenge... why else would I've brought you here?" Asher's voice was low, dangerous. "Shouldn't you pay for your mother's sins? Shouldn't you suffer?"

He grabbed my jaw, turning my face to the side as he kissed the corner of my lips.

"I have every right to fuck you over your mother's grave. For my cock to ravage your pussy while you rip the forget-me-nots, screaming my name as your holy juices cleanse your mother's unholy grave. No?"

His hands on my body slid away. I voluntarily stayed on my four, my chest heaving as he unbuckled his belt.

But before he could unzip his pants, I rose to my knees, using all my strength to push him back as I turned around.

Grabbing his wrists, I slammed him to the ground, pinning his hands beside his head as I straddled his waist, breathing heavily.

My hair cascaded down the side of my face as I leaned in, my face right above his.

He could have easily neutralized my actions, but he silently remained on the ground, contemplating me with a blank yet warm gaze.

Silent tears streamed down my face, dripping onto his and soaking into his hair.

It was painful for me to be here, but why had it taken me so long to realize that it was probably hurting him a thousand times more to be here with me?

It was only now that I understood why his harsh words hurt so deeply. His raw pain had bled into them so subtly that I doubted if he had noticed it himself.

"Stop it," I choked, my voice cracking because of the lump in my throat.

Yet our eyes remained locked for what felt like an eternity.

"Stop pretending to be strong," I said. "Stop hiding behind those harsh words. If there's one thing I know about you, it's that you never do anything without a reason. And your reason... it can never be as hollow as revenge." "My reasons - if they are related to you - can never be futile, even if it's revenge."

I scrubbed the tears off my eyes and cheeks, refusing to let them blur my vision as I took him in.

"You took me to the darkroom. It was one of the most overwhelming experiences of my life; something I'll never forget. Not because I almost lost my mind there, but because it helped me find us - our memories. And in those memories, I met myself... for the first time. The real Xanthea who has all the freedom to feel all emotions. There is no darkroom around me right now, but I feel..."

I licked my dry lips, swallowing hard.

"I feel, Asher."

Letting go of his wrists, I sat on his waist, lowering my head so that my hair hid my face from him.

"What do you feel?" he asked in a soft, calm tone, the word 'feel' drifting from his lips like a caress.

"Angry. So. So. So fucking angry." My eyes dropped to his chest. "With myself. But... at the same time... there's this feeling that... I... I... I..." "That you survived?" He completed my words, and I broke into sobs.

He took a deep breath and sat up, shifting me gently onto his lap so that my head nestled against his chest.

"Because you did," he said, stroking my hair. "Using your mother to survive the abuse that you went through - wasn't wrong. Loving her - even if she didn't deserve it - wasn't a mistake. And if you see it as one, then I'm grateful that you made that mistake because it kept you alive. It made you strong. It brought you to me. So... forgive yourself."

The winds carried his words to my ears, softer than the petals of forget-me-nots crushing beneath us.

He hadn't planted these flowers to ensure I remembered this night forever. He had planted them to help me forget everything that no longer served a purpose in my life.

My fingers clenched around the soft fabric of his shirt.

Forgive myself?

Time froze. The graveyard, once restlessly alive, fell into stillness. The winds slowed, and the moon's light turned fragrant with his scent.

I waited to feel something - perhaps the guilt. I waited for the noise of my clashing emotions to roar within me. But there was nothing. Just silence.

A hollow, aching silence that felt like... freedom.

Forgive myself.

Those two words pounded in my chest with every heartbeat.

I had accepted her guilt, her redemption, because I didn't know who I would be if I wasn't my mother. I believed I only had two choices: to let my mother continue to own me as she always had, or to reject her completely.

Going against everything I had been conditioned to believe, I tried to reject her completely. And that's why it hurt the way it did. From her memories to her blood, I wanted to rid myself of everything that tied me to her. But it was impossible. I couldn't escape my origin.

I didn't have to fully accept or completely reject her identity, knowledge, and powers. There was a third path. I could choose which parts of her were useful to me, and mold them into what served my purpose.

Cadence Starsoul and Freya Plath might be the same person, but they were two distinct identities.

And I was beyond both of them. I could absorb her knowledge and powers, yet remain true to myself, my values.

My pain, my guilt, my redemption - they weren't my fault. But my healing is my responsibility.

With every tear, every sob, the heaviness in my chest lightened - like I was finally letting go of all the baggage I had carried all my life.

It felt like I was reclaiming the identity I had buried with my mother.

I didn't have to forgive my mother - only myself. For living as someone else when my life was my own duty.

I shut my eyes, taking a deep breath.

I... forgive myself.