Chapter 60: Healing (Her POV)
Malvor didn't expect Ahyona to respond so fast. Usually, her realm required multiple petitions, at least one ceremonial song, and the occasional basket of sage bundles just to get penciled into her lunar calendar. But this time? Her reply came within the hour, sealed in beeswax stamped with a symbol of a thunderbird, scented like sweetgrass and tears. "Come this afternoon," it read. "I will be old enough to help you."
The air shimmered as we stepped through the portal, a doorway woven of bark and bone, feathers and smoke. A soft breeze carried the scent of juniper, burnt sugar, and heartbreak. We emerged into the courtyard of Ahyona's domain, not a palace but a clearing surrounded by towering redwoods. Instead of golden cobblestones, the ground was a carpet of moss glowing faintly underfoot. Fountains bubbled with what looked suspiciously like cedar-infused water, and delicate willow branches hung low, their leaves occasionally sighing when brushed. Malvor adjusted the tray in his hands, stacked with sweets from his realm: his personal contribution: a candy apple that looked completely normal but screamed when bitten into. He felt it added character.
The lodge doors opened before we knocked. Inside, the light was dim, filtered through intricate beadwork and woven blankets that shifted colors with every step. The music in the background sounded like a lullaby sung through a river, deep, old, and unrelenting. Ahyona was already waiting. She reclined on her cedarwood bench, a deep earth-toned dress clinging to her like an emotion she hadn't shaken off yet. Her hair was braided in elegant plaits streaked with gray, and her face was soft, not from lack of power, but from knowing how much it cost to hold it. I blinked. This Ahyona wasn't a glitter-eyed girl or a sobbing teen queen. She was a woman who had seen decades of longing, heartbreak, and healing. Who survived it all with grace and crow's feet intact. "Well," Ahyona said, her voice like silk over cracked sandstone. "You brought sweets. That is already better than most."
Malvor gave her a half-bow, setting the tray down on the nearest carved stump. "Figured I'd soften you up before the trauma talk."
Ahyona arched a perfectly shaped brow. "You're lucky I'm currently feeling emotionally stable. Otherwise, I'd make the river flood."
She turned her gaze to me and stood, slowly, deliberately. She did something no one expected. She opened her arms just a silent invitation. "I'm not here to fix you," she said gently. "But if you want to start unpacking, I'll make sure the lodge doesn't wash away while you do."
I didn't move for a second. Quietly… I stepped forward. Not because I was ready. Because I finally had someone who would stand beside me while I fell apart. Ahyona didn't say a word as she led us down a path lit with flickering candlelight housed in hollowed gourds. The dirt beneath our feet shimmered like a reflection, like we were walking across memory itself.
At the end of the path, she stopped in front of two tall, arched doors made of oak and adorned with carvings of wolves and women and spirits intertwined. She brushed the handle with her fingers. "This is the Grove of Shattered Echoes," she said softly, looking at me. "Everything you've survived lives here. Every wound. Every silence. Every version of you the world refused to see."
Malvor reached for my hand. Ahyona held up a finger. "She walks alone."
I hesitated. The doors creaked open on their own. The grove stretched endlessly in all directions, the canopy high and arched like a cathedral of leaves. Pools of water dotted the ground, still as glass. Trees leaned close, branches heavy with moss and faintly glowing fungi. Totems carved from cedar and pine shifted in and out of focus. Some pulsed with emotion. Others stayed still like even they had learned to hold their breath. I took a breath and walked.
The grove began in silence. Not the kind that soothed, but the kind that pressed in. That judged. My footsteps were swallowed by the moss. My body felt too heavy for sound. The lighting flickered with a soft blue glow, but this first clearing felt darker than the rest. At first, I thought the pools were blank. But they weren't. They were empty. Each basin waited, titled and labeled, prepared, yet the waters? Gray. A muted fog of memory. Untouched. Unrippling. Forgotten. I moved slowly, reading the plaques beneath each one. Some had dates. Some didn't.
Age 3 – Birthday? Winter – No Fire. Someone's Voice, Maybe. Age 6 – Hiding Under the Table. Each title hinted at something, but the surface stayed unchanged. Like my mind had refused to keep anything too soft, too safe. I reached out to one labeled: "Mother's Face." Nothing happened. No swirl of magic. No sudden remembering. Just cold air brushing against my fingers, hovering over a truth I'd never had. I moved on. Further down, a small cluster of reflections emerged, fragments. Slivers of something broken. A chipped teacup in too-small hands. Cracks filled with gold that wasn't real, just painted on to look like care. A window at night, the moon crooked in the sky, a blanket corner clutched too tightly. A hallway I didn't recognize, dark and narrow. I could hear my footsteps inside the frame. No one waited at the end. Then I saw it: "Happy Lies"
At first glance, it was beautiful. Color bled across the water like a kaleidoscope, bright, cheerful, saturated. Children laughed in the corners. Parents, maybe, stood in the center, arms outstretched. But the closer I stepped? The blur emerged. No one had eyes. The smiles were too wide. The laughter had no sound. And beneath all that color, just barely visible, was a small, hollow-eyed girl curled in the corner, completely alone. The word family was etched into the stone in elegant script. When I touched it, the stone peeled back. Underneath, burned into the wood: You told yourself this story to survive.
The totem stood alone. A carved cedar figure beneath a flickering spotlight of moonlight. I didn't want to look too closely. But I did. The girl was tiny, no more than eight. Her wooden skin red-veined and trembling beneath carved ceremonial robes. Her shoulders hunched, her eyes downcast. Rusted chains looped around her neck and wrists. A price tag dangled from her collarbone, swaying slightly in a breeze that didn't exist. The number on the tag shifted. 40 silver. Then 25. Then a single copper coin. I reached out not to comfort. Just to understand. My fingers brushed the bark. The totem bled. Thin red sap seeped from the wood, running down the girl's legs and pooling at her feet. The scent of iron filled the air like a memory I'd spent years trying to forget. I pulled back, heart stuttering.
The next path was narrower intentionally. The trees leaned in like ribs in a cage. The air turned metallic, damp with something old, holy, and wrong. Here? The memories were no longer fragmented. They were ritual. Each effigy lined the path, a girl carved mid-motion, arms flung out, backs arched, mouths open in expressions that weren't quite ecstasy and weren't quite pain. Their skin bore etched runes, some glowing faintly, others crusted with resin like scabs. To my right stood another. Girls in temple robes, frozen mid-chant, hands clenched around nothing. Each title read like a sermon:
Preparation – Silence
Obedience – The First Cut
Purity – No Voice
The carvings were raw. Violent. Chiseled by hands that either trembled or should have. One figure knelt. A blade hovered just above her spine, suspended. Her hands reached for nothing. There was nothing to hold. Not comfort. Not mercy. Not even a name. I looked away. I found something so much worse.
Offering #43 Not a painting. Not a sculpture. A jar. Tall. Thin. Crystal-clear. Inside: thick, red liquid. Still. Unmoving. Eternal.
A gold label at the base read, in delicate script: She Didn't Scream Loud Enough.
Behind it: more jars. Dozens. Each one numbered. Each with its own brutal truth:
#27 – She Cried, But Not For Them
#61 – She Bled Beautifully
#88 – She Was Silent, So They Called It Consent
I stopped breathing. Just for a moment. Then stepped forward. My footfalls were absorbed by the earth. Not because the grove had changed. Because I had. I didn't touch the jars. I didn't need to. I already knew the taste.
The next path was simply labeled The Johns. The path narrowed again. No paintings. No sculptures. Only pools and totems. Dozens. Hundreds. Each one rippling with illusion magic, settling into images of me. But not me. Versions of me. Smiling. Giggling. Moaning. Performing. Each one customized for the faceless figure standing beside her. Their features blurred. But their hands were always present. Stroking my cheek. Pulling my hair. Tilting my head just so. Pinching, groping, hurting. I walked among them like a ghost. Each reflection shimmered as I passed, reflecting a new version of myself, different laugh, different moan, different need to please. I tried not to flinch. One reflection cracked. No warning. No sound. Just a thin, jagged line, splitting my reflection down the middle. The version inside that pool didn't smile. Didn't beg. Didn't perform. Just stared. Blank. Empty. I exhaled. I kept walking. Not because I was ready, but because turning back would mean choosing that life again.
The path narrowed to a single space. Not a room, just a hush. A final breath held too long. At its center: A pedestal. Atop it stood a statue of me, fractured, mosaic-like. Broken pieces reassembled with desperate hands and too much hope. The seams still oozed. The glue never set. My figure was bent, not bowed. As if the weight of being had finally become too much. My body shimmered with cracks. Thousands of them, spine, throat, legs, arms. Some jagged. Some delicate. Porcelain veining, but deeper. Every shard held a memory. I could feel it. What held it all together? A mask. Not worn, held. Two raw, shaking hands gripped it in front of my face. Split down the middle: One side, the painted smile of comedy. The other, the smeared tear of tragedy. My real face was hidden. Not from shame, but because no one had ever looked beyond the act. The statue's hands, gods. My hands were bleeding. Bone-deep. Torn wide. Locked around the mask like it was both lifeline and weapon. The blood wasn't fresh, but it hadn't dried either. It was ritual. Ongoing. Endless. I didn't move. Didn't blink. I just stood there. The pain wasn't a scream. It was a quiet ache that spread through my ribs. When my knees finally shook, I didn't fall. I reached out. Braced my palm against a nearby tree, one breath, one heartbeat, one inch of my spine still standing. Not because I wanted to move forward. But because somewhere beneath the bruised bark and bleeding masks, I still could. I stepped slowly out of the grove.
The doors closed, quietly final, sealing the weight of it all behind me like an unspoken confession. I didn't cry. I didn't collapse. But gods, it felt like I'd aged a century in there. My steps were slower now. My shoulders heavier. Not with defeat, with understanding. Ahyona was waiting. Still in her middle-aged form, though something behind her eyes shimmered. She didn't speak. Just extended a hand and led me into a smaller room off the path. It was warm here. The candlelight flickered, suspended in crystal chandeliers shaped like teardrops. Even the air felt aware. The parlor was less grand than the grove, but no less strange. Two benches waited, deep plum velvet. The one on the left gave a soft hiccup of a sob as I lowered myself into it.
Ahyona poured tea into delicate pottery. It smelled like lavender. When I sipped, it tasted like grief and honey. Ahyona folded into the opposite seat. "Start wherever you like, dear," she said gently. "The lodge will fill in the gaps."
I stared down at my cup for a long time. "I don't know where to start."
"Then start there."
My breath left me in a slow, involuntary shudder. I tried to speak, But the words scattered. So I circled them. Facts. Timelines. Things that had happened to me, like I was narrating someone else's tragedy. But the lodge wasn't having it. The mirror on the far wall darkened, rippling like a disturbed pond. First, nothing. Then, a red-haired child. Mute. Bound in silence. The image flickered. Now: a younger me in the temple. Kneeling. Obedient. My hands clenched around nothing. My lips moving, but no sound came out. Ahyona said nothing. Just watched. My voice cracked. "I was sold. After that... I was remade so many times, I don't know what parts are mine."
The teacup in my hand trembled. The surface rippled, darker, thicker now. "I was good at it. The pretending. The versions. I knew how to make them love me. Or at least want me. That was survival." I blinked fast. Too fast. "I thought... if I could be exactly what someone wanted, then I'd matter."
Ahyona asked, quiet as a secret: "Did it work?"
I didn't answer. I didn't have to. The torches dimmed. The room leaned in, breathless. I whispered it: "Even with Malvor… I didn't mean to do it. But I think I still disappeared. Just softer this time." I set the teacup down. "I don't know if anyone's ever loved the real me. I don't even know if I have." My voice dropped further, as if each word took more oxygen than I had to spare. "He never asked for anything from me." I stared at the steam rising between us, eyes glassy. "But I gave anyway. Because that's what I've always done. I don't know how to stop."
The torches flickered again. Somewhere behind the walls, a wind chime began to play, familiar, but wrong. Slowed. Warped. Ahyona didn't respond. Didn't nod. Didn't offer affirmations. She just listened. Her silence? It wasn't empty. It was permission. Permission to unravel. To sit in the shame without being shamed. To speak truth without it being soothed away. So I kept going. "With him, it's different. It always has been. He doesn't pull. He doesn't demand. And that… should make it easier. But somehow it's worse." I blinked hard, like I was trying not to remember something too clearly. "Because if he never asked... then he never needed it. If he never needed it… maybe I was never necessary."
The mirror behind me shifted again. Now it showed Malvor's bed. My curled form asleep. His hand resting gently on my back. The version of him in the reflection smiled in his sleep. The first true smile I'd ever seen in a mirror here. Ahyona finally spoke, barely louder than steam. "You were never meant to earn your place, Asha. You were always meant to have one."
My throat tightened. "Then why do I still feel like a guest in my own life?"
Ahyona didn't answer. The silence wrapped around us like velvet stitched with shards of glass. "I thought I was being honest, I thought Annie was real. That the calm, the softness, the control... was me. That I had finally found something whole." The mirror shifted again. Me curled against Malvor's chest. Smiling. Sleeping. A picture of peace. "If they hadn't touched me, if Aerion, Ravina, and Navir hadn't taken the last thing I didn't even know I was guarding—" My jaw locked. "If they hadn't violated me… I would have stayed." I said it flatly. Not with shame. With devastation. "I would have kept pretending. Kept smiling. Kept building my little fantasy life with him. Never questioned it. Never cracked the mask."
My voice hitched. "I was happy. At least I thought I was. Because no one had touched the dam yet. No one had reminded me that I was still... still property if someone powerful enough wanted me." The torches pulsed violently. The mirror blurred. "They didn't just break my body. They broke the lie." My breath hitched. My chest tightened, like ribs cinched too tight to hold anything soft. "The lie that I was safe. That I was enough. That if I stayed small and sweet and careful...nothing could reach me. I would've lived like that forever. A quiet, lovely life. In Malvor's bed. In his world. In his arms... I never would have healed."
The room responded. Leaves curled in on themselves. A sob echoed, soft, hidden, from somewhere behind the walls. Ahyona's voice came gently, like a balm she wasn't sure would soothe: "You weren't healed. You were hidden."
My hands shook. "The worst part is…he never asked me to hide. Not once. But I still did it." I exhaled. Barely breathed. "I made myself disappear. Worst of all, I called it love." I reached for my cup again. "This time... I will stay."
Ahyona leaned forward now, voice a little firmer, but not unkind. "Then let's unlearn it. Let's find what's left when you stop disappearing." A pause. "Would you let him see that version of you? Even if she's raw? Even if she's angry?"
I blinked hard. "Yes. Because if he loves me at all, he deserves to know who he loves."
Ahyona gave me a choice. Just a question. She stood an elegant shift of motion as she crossed the room and opened the door. She didn't call for him. He was already there. He stepped in slowly, careful, like his boots might disturb the quiet. His coat was gone. Even the glitter. So was the usual glamour. Just Malvor. Raw. Tall. Tan-eyed. So strangely still. When he saw me? He smiled. Not the smirk. Not the smolder. Something warm. Something real. He didn't rush across the room. He stood there for a breath. Then said it, earnest, steady. Soft in the way that only comes after surviving something you didn't think you would: "Thank you for letting me be here."
That was it. No flood of words to drown the moment. Just that. Gratitude. For me. For the now. For being allowed into the part of me I used to hide even from myself. I exhaled slowly. I didn't brace for the next wound. I let him see me. Not the perfect girl. Not the vessel. Not Anastasia. Not Annie. Just... Asha. This woman I want to learn to become. Malvor didn't move right away. His hands stayed at his sides, careful. As if afraid too much affection might crack the moment. But gods, I could tell, he wanted to hold me. Wanted to wrap me in his arms like something sacred. "You look tired," he said gently.
I let out a dry, brittle laugh. "Understatement of the century."
He smiled, genuinely, but didn't push. I gestured to the seat beside me. Only then did he step forward quiet and respectful. For a long time, we didn't speak. The tea between us had long gone cold. The room didn't react. Just stillness. Just us. "I thought I was protecting you," I said finally. My voice wasn't bitter. Just... tired. Honest. "From everything I've been through. From everything I still carry."
He turned slightly toward me. "I never needed protection from you."
"But I needed it from myself." That landed harder than anything else could've. He reached out slowly, palm up between us. An offering. Not a request. I hesitated, only a moment, before sliding my hand into his. It fit easily. It always had. "I'm not asking you to fix anything."
He shook his head. "I'd never try to fix you, my love. I just want to know you."
I huffed. Half-breath, half-laugh. But it still counted. "I just don't want to disappear again."
"Then don't. Be seen. Be loud. Be messy. I will always stay."
My fingers tightened around his. "Even if I fall apart?"
"Especially then. Like I said, always." A pause. "Always and forever." The torches dimmed above us, casting soft, golden light over our joined hands. Somewhere behind the walls, a flute began to play. This one was different. Not warped. Not broken. Just quiet. Gentle. Restful. Ahyona had not returned. I wondered if she ever would, or if this was the final part of the healing. Sitting beside someone who didn't try to rescue me. Didn't rewrite my pain. Just stayed.
"I'm not ready for forever," I whispered.
Malvor looked at me, tan eyes full of warmth, and gave the smallest, sweetest smile. "Then stay for now."
Something inside me softened. Cracked. Exhaled. Ahyona reappeared in the doorway. Now wielding a wooden cup with a tiny sprig of cedar and what looked suspiciously like edible glitter floating inside. Her gaze swept over us, me and Malvor, hand in hand. Not saying a word, but somehow saying everything. She smiled. Slow. Knowing. "Healing is exhausting, darling. Go nap while the universe rearranges itself."
Malvor blinked. "Is that what it's doing?"
Ahyona sipped. "What else do you think trauma processing is? Cosmic feng shui."
She winked at me. "You did well. Even if you hate me tomorrow."
I smiled. A real one. "I think I already do."
"Perfect," Ahyona beamed. "That means it's working. I will start seeing you as often as we both have time but at least weekly."
With that, she turned, dress swaying, glittering drink in hand, and disappeared back into the lodge, leaving behind the scent of sage smoke and old regrets. Malvor leaned in. "She terrifies me."
I nodded solemnly. "She terrifies everyone."
We stood. Slowly. Neither of us let go. Because even if the universe wasn't quite rearranged yet, We were.