My father settled back into the worn embrace of his leather armchair, the deep creases around his eyes and the subtle tremor in his hands betraying the immense weight of the years he carried. His gaze, usually clouded with a quiet resignation, now held a flicker of something akin to vulnerability, as if peeling back yers of carefully constructed indifference to reveal the raw emotions beneath.

  The silence in the library, once a battleground of unspoken tensions and simmering resentments, had shifted into a fragile sanctuary of shared secrets, a space where the long-buried truth, however sharp and painful, could finally be exhumed and examined under the dim morning light filtering through the dusty windowpanes.

  “Your mother,” he began, his voice a low, almost reverent murmur, as if conjuring a beloved ghost from the deepest recesses of his memory. The air around him seemed to soften, imbued with a tenderness I had rarely witnessed.

  “To truly understand how your mother came into my life, you need to understand the life I was already… navigating. My marriage to Sarah…” He paused, the shadow that crossed his features deepening, etching lines of regret around his mouth.

  “It wasn’t a union forged in the fires of passion, Luna. It was… an arrangement. A strategic alliance, if you will. Our families… we were teetering on the precipice of financial ruin. Sarah’s family possessed considerable wealth. The marriage was… a solution, a calcuted transaction designed to pull us back from the brink. There was no grand romance, no stolen gnces across crowded rooms, no whirlwind courtship under moonlit skies. Just a pragmatic agreement, a mutual understanding of the benefits each side would gain.” His gaze drifted towards the towering bookshelves that lined the walls, as if the silent volumes held the unwritten, unspoken chapters of a life lived in the shadows of obligation.

  “We were barely a year into it, both of us going through the motions of a life that felt borrowed, a path neither of us had truly chosen for ourselves, when I had to travel for work. A publishing conference in Edinburgh. A rare escape, though I didn’t recognize it as such at the time.”

  He took a slow, deliberate breath, the scent of aged paper and the faint mustiness of forgotten stories filling the quiet space.

  “One evening, the weight of my unfulfilled existence pressing down on me, I found myself in a dimly lit bar, nursing a single malt, the clinking of gsses and the murmur of conversations a dull counterpoint to the turmoil within. And then… she walked in. It was as if a spotlight had illuminated her, and the rest of the room receded into a hazy background. She moved with an ethereal grace, and when she settled onto the stool at the bar, right next to me, the air around her seemed to shimmer. Her hair… it was the colour of moonlight solidified, a cascade of silver-white that flowed down her back like liquid starlight, and her eyes… vender. Not the pale, delicate hue of some flowers, but a deep, vibrant violet with flecks of silver that seemed to hold ancient secrets. It was a shade I had never encountered before, and haven’t since. They possessed a captivating light that could command the attention of an entire room, yet when she turned her gaze upon me, it felt as though I was the only soul in existence. You… you are her image, Luna. The same striking, otherworldly beauty, the same intense, knowing vender eyes.” A soft, almost reverent smile touched his lips, a fleeting glimpse of the profound impact she had had on him.

  “We started talking,” he continued, his voice gaining a warmth and animation it hadn’t held in what felt like a lifetime.

  “About the books scattered across my table, about the vibrant energy of the city outside, about everything and nothing, the kind of effortless conversation that feels like two halves of a whole finally finding each other. The more we spoke, the more I felt an inexplicable pull towards her, a magnetic force I had never experienced before, a connection that resonated deep within my very being. When she casually, yet with a certain knowing in her eyes, asked if I wanted to come back to her hotel room… I found myself unable to utter a refusal. As fate, or perhaps something more profound, would have it, we were staying at the same hotel. That week… it was like stepping through a hidden doorway into another realm. We spent every waking moment together, exploring the ancient streets of Edinburgh, losing ourselves in whispered conversations that stretched into the early hours, simply being in each other’s presence, a silent understanding passing between us. I had never felt so… truly alive, so completely and utterly consumed by a feeling I could only describe as love.” His gaze softened, lost in the tender ndscape of memory.

  “But even amidst that intoxicating bliss, we both knew, with a quiet certainty, that it couldn’t st. Her life… it was vast, encompassing continents and cultures. She was a high-ranking official for a powerful global company, constantly travelling, shaping events on a scale I couldn’t even begin to comprehend. I was a simple book editor, my world contained within the tangible pages of manuscripts and the quiet solitude of my study. And while my family’s immediate financial woes had been alleviated by my marriage to Sarah, that was the extent of her family’s assistance. I was expected to prove my worth, to demonstrate my ability to maintain this… unconventional family.”

  The wistfulness in his voice deepened, tinged with a lingering sorrow.

  “When the inevitable time came to say goodbye at the airport, it felt like a physical tearing, a part of me being ripped away, leaving a wound that I suspected would never fully heal. But I had always known, deep down, that this ephemeral magic had a finite end. Her world and mine were simply too disparate. I couldn’t ask her to abandon the life she had meticulously built, to confine herself to my mundane existence, and she, with her responsibilities and her very nature, couldn’t truly stay in mine.”

  He returned to his wife, to the life that was his duty and his obligation, and buried the incandescent memory of that week deep within the hidden chambers of his heart, never uttering a single word of it to another soul. Until one cool autumn evening, almost a year ter, a soft, insistent knock echoed through the silent apartment.

  “I opened it,” he said, his voice thick with a renewed wave of emotion, the memory still vivid after all these years, “and there she was. Standing on our doorstep, holding a small, precious bundle wrapped in a soft, shimmering silver shawl… you, Luna.” His eyes met mine, a profound love that had been dormant for so long finally breaking through the barriers of guilt and regret.

  “That night, under the hushed stillness of the city, she expined everything. About who she truly was, about the extraordinary nature of your lineage, about what you would inevitably become, about why she had to entrust you to my care, where you would be safe.”

  He paused, the weight of the past hanging heavy in the air between us, a tangible presence.

  “My carefully constructed, ordinary life was about to be irrevocably shattered, turned inside out by a reality I could barely grasp. But one look into your tiny, innocent face, into those wide, intelligent vender eyes that so perfectly mirrored hers… I was utterly smitten. Completely and irrevocably. Sarah… well, she reacted as you might imagine. There were terrible, screaming arguments that shook the very foundations of this apartment, bitter accusations hurled like poisoned darts, veiled threats that hung heavy in the air. It took a long time, a considerable amount of… persuasion, and perhaps a touch of… fear. I think, in the end, the only reason she grudgingly accepted it was out of a primal fear of what your mother, with her undeniable power, would do if she refused.”

  His gaze was filled with a deep, abiding sorrow.

  “That, Luna, is why she never truly loved you. Why there was always that undercurrent of coldness, that simmering resentment that permeated our home. And why I… I often retreated, stayed silent during your conflicts. I was consumed by guilt, guilt for my brief, passionate betrayal, for bringing you into this complicated, often hostile environment. But also… a strange sense of gratitude. Gratitude that she had, however begrudgingly and often with cruelty, accepted the responsibility of raising another woman’s child.”

  He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, his gaze drifting towards the window, as if seeking soce in the mundane view of the street below.

  “In the beginning, your… unique appearance… sparked a great deal of specution. You didn’t resemble either Sarah or me. People in our small circle talked, whispers followed us like shadows. Sarah was always acutely aware of these murmurs, terrified of the judgments, the potential social ostracization. She knew first-hand how quickly rumours could take root and spread like wildfire.” His words offered a stark, if not excusable, insight into the deep-seated anxieties that had driven my step-mother’s often harsh and controlling behaviour.

  My mind swam with the weight of his confession, the pieces of a lifelong puzzle finally clicking into pce, creating a picture that was both heart-breaking and strangely illuminating. The coldness, the resentment, the fear of judgment… it all had a source, a twisted logic born from a complicated past.

  “What was her name?” I finally managed to ask, my voice barely a whisper.

  “Zaraphine Myrrhiel” my father answered with sorrow in his voice.

  “Do you have any information? A st known address? A contact? Anything that could help me find her?”

  My father reached for a worn, leather-bound journal resting on the small table beside his armchair. Its pages were brittle with age, the ink faded in pces. He flipped through them with a tenderness that spoke volumes of the woman who had penned its contents, his brow furrowed in concentration as he scanned the handwritten entries.

  “Dawnmere… yes, that was the name of the company. A global corporation… involved in… well, she was always rather vague. Said it often dealt with matters ‘beyond human purview’ most of the time.” A soft, reminiscent chuckle escaped his lips.

  “As for where she lived… she was constantly in motion. Hotels that felt more like opulent paces, private residences scattered across the globe. There wasn’t really one pce she considered ‘home’ during that period. I tried, years ago, after… after your abilities began to manifest, to find some trace of her, of Dawnmere. But the company seemed to have vanished, or been absorbed by another entity, its name lost to time. And Zaraphine… it was as if she had simply ceased to exist in our world. A ghost, as I said.” His voice held a profound note of resignation, a quiet acknowledgment of the vast chasm that separated their worlds.

  “I doubt you’ll have much luck, Luna. Her existence was… on a different pne.”

  “Thank you,” I said, the name Zaraphine Myrrhiel resonating within me, a fragile beacon in the overwhelming darkness of the unknown. A starting point, however faint the trail might be. “I’ll go gather the rest of my things.”

  My father’s voice was ced with a hesitant concern. “Where will you go, Luna? Will you… will you be alright on your own?”

  “That is no longer your concern,” I replied, the words carrying a newfound weight of independence, a severing of ties that had long bound me to a life that wasn’t truly mine.

  “But you can rest assured… I will be fine.” A sudden, fleeting thought crossed my mind, a whisper of uncertainty in the face of my newfound resolve. Will I truly be alone? My gaze flickered almost imperceptibly towards the shadowed doorway, a silent acknowledgment of the enigmatic presence that had become an unexpected, if unwelcome, constant in my turbulent existence.

  On my way to my small, cluttered bedroom, I passed Sarah in the hallway. Her eyes, still smouldering with years of resentment and a fresh wave of fury, locked onto mine. I paused, a strange, unexpected mix of pity and a dawning understanding washing over me.

  “Goodbye, Sarah,” I said, the simple word carrying a quiet weight of finality, a closing of a painful chapter. A flicker of something unreadable, a fleeting glimpse of the sacrifice she had made, however unwillingly, in raising me, crossed her hardened features before her anger solidified once more, a mask of bitterness firmly in pce.

  ……………………

  The walk back to the ancient chapel was shrouded in silence. Sis kept his customary distance, a silent guardian, a shadow amongst the lengthening shadows of the te afternoon. The weight of the revetions sat heavy within me, a complex tapestry woven with threads of grief, anger, a fragile sense of understanding, and a nascent spark of purpose. Zaraphine Myrrhiel. Dawnmere. The names echoed in the quiet spaces of my mind, a faint, ethereal melody in the vast, unknown symphony of my true origins.

  Would I seek refuge with the Fallen Ones, this strange, chaotic collective who had thrust themselves into my life? Would I accept their unconventional help, their cryptic guidance? Or would I strike out on my own, fuelled by the desperate, almost primal need to find the elusive ghost of my mother, the woman with silver hair and vender eyes who had briefly illuminated my father’s ordinary life and gifted him, and ultimately me, with an extraordinary, terrifying burden? The path ahead was uncertain, veiled in a thick mist of the unknown, but for the first time in my life, I felt a fragile bud of hope pushing through the hardened soil of my past, a quiet dawn breaking on a long, dark night.

  TO BE CONTINUED…