Chapter 21
Chapter 21:
She laughed—a sound so warm and sudden it caught me off guard, like walking into a room and finding the fireplace already lit.
“Sweetheart, I’m old enough to be his mother. Well—almost.” She crossed the room in three quick steps, took my hands in both of hers, and held them the way you hold something you’ve been searching for in a dark room—tight, relieved, afraid to let go in case it disappears again. “No, I’m not his girlfriend p>
Her eyes moved over my face with an intensity that was almost medical—mapping my features, cataloguing details, comparing what she saw against something she carried in her memory. And then the composure broke.
Tears spilled down her cheeks without warning or preamble, the way a dam breaks—not gradually, but all at once, as if the structure had been holding for years and this moment was simply the molecule that exceeded the load.
“My daughter.” Her voice fractured around the word. “All these years. All this suffering. And I wasn’t there p>
She pulled me into an embrace so fierce it pushed the air from my lungs—arms wrapped tight, her face pressed against my hair, her body shaking with sobs that sounded like they’d been stored somewhere for a very long time and were now, finally, being released.
“It was my fault. I lost you. Forgive me p>
I stood rigid. My arms hung at my sides like things that had forgotten their purpose. My brain, which had spent the last few weeks processing the death of both parents, the dissolution of a marriage, and the complete restructuring of my identity, received this new information the way an overloaded circuit receives one additional volt: with a soft, internal pop, followed by stillness.
I looked at Alaric over her shoulder.
He stood a few steps back, hands clasped in front of him, wearing the expression of a man who has been carrying a secret for a long time and is simultaneously relieved and terrified to see it unpacked. He nodded—once, slowly, with the gravity of a confession.
“She’s your biological mother, Isolde. The parents you grew up with—they adopted you p>
A pause.
“After I found you, I had a DNA test done. Quietly. I should have told you sooner, and I’m sorry for keeping it from you. But I needed to be certain before I—” He gestured, a rare break in his composure. “Before I did this p>
My mouth opened. Nothing useful came out.
Lɑτєѕτ cнαρτєrs 𝑖n
There is a specific kind of shock that doesn’t look like shock from the outside. No gasping, no collapsing, no theatrical denial. Just a very deep, very thorough silence, as if every system in your body has simultaneously decided to pause and wait for the update to install.
They recognized it. Alaric murmured something to the woman—my mother, my biological mother, words I wasn’t ready to think yet—and she released me, gently, with the reluctance of someone setting down a bird they’re not sure will stay.
“Take whatever time you need,” Alaric said. “We’ll be here p>