Chapter — What They Never Knew
Sylvia wasn't some perfect mother draped in spiritual silk and righteousness.
She was shackled by duties no one dared question.
She hadn't wanted children.
Not then. Not ever.
She only had Yona's father because of one thing: the bond.
The soulmate bond.
And he knew.
He always knew she didn't want to be a mother—not in the traditional sense.
Not the kind that makes soup when you're sick or kisses bruises when you fall.
Yona's father, Gareth, understood exactly what happened between his mother and father.
Sylvia never bothered hiding anything from him, and he never questioned her or showed anger.
He understood the nature of their relationship—and they had a very good one.
Her father once told her that some of the best moments of his life were with Sylvia.
She was a unique person with a wild character—bold, unpredictable, and unashamed.
Her father was just as wild and free as her grandmother.
He'd chase her mother—and sometimes even Yona when she was little—around the house in nothing but a towel, smirking like he was born to stir chaos.
His bare chest, damp from the bath, glistened as he prowled the halls like some misbehaving flirt.
It nearly gave her mother a heart attack every time.
She'd scold him, red-faced and flustered, waving her hand and patting her cheeks like she could fan away the heat building in them—but the way she'd glance back over her shoulder said everything.
Yona still couldn't figure out how her father ended up with a woman like Gloria.
But if she had to guess, she'd say her mother couldn't stay away from the shamelessness that had been taught and embedded in their bones by Sylvia.
Her father once also told her:
Never feel bitterness toward your grandmother.
Her life has been harder than anyone will ever know—filled with betrayal by those who were meant to protect her. You give her unconditional love, no matter what.
That was the last thing he ever said to her before he died.
⸻
Sylvia was heartbroken when she first learned about her son.
She refused to take Yona in.
But that changed the moment she discovered Gloria's plan—to send Yona to a boarding school overseas until she was seventeen, only to return and be trained for marriage.
That future went against everything Sylvia believed in.
In her old world, customs like that had long been wiped out.
"They killed off all the heretics," Sylvia once said, "or if any remain, they have no real power. The ones who hold power now—are the government, money, and the people."
She always spoke of that world with a strange mixture of pain and pride.
Sylvia never played pretend.
She never changed for anyone—not even Yona.
Yona used to sit still, letting her mind drift to that world Sylvia described—
a world where weakness was tolerated, and strength was carved into you by survival itself.
A world where no one bowed to power or answered to royals or nobles—not if she didn't want to.
It wasn't obedience that earned survival there, but resilience. Will. Spirit.
A world where tradition didn't hold you hostage—it burned at your feet, daring you to rise above it.
But Sylvia tried in her own way.
Not by faking affection.
Not with sweet words or warm hugs.
She simply showed up for the moments that mattered most.
Not birthdays.
Not tea parties.
The hard decisions.
The quiet stares across battlefields.
The sleepless nights when all you needed was someone to remind you who you were.
And with Yona—it had been different.
They shared everything.
Clothes, meals, scars, and truths.
Sylvia never lied.
Never sugarcoated.
Never hid the ugly just to make the world easier to swallow.
She told stories about her flings—who was good, who was a disappointment, and who wasn't even worth remembering.
Once, she casually described what a "disaster on two legs" looked like… naked.
Yona nearly fainted on the spot.
"Grandma!" she'd squeaked, face blazing red.
But Sylvia just laughed—deep, raspy, like smoke and thunder, full of freedom and unapology.
The kind of laugh that told you awkwardness wasn't something to run from.
It was something to grow through.
And eventually… Yona grew to love those conversations.
She started looking forward to them.
Started hoping that one day, she'd have stories of her own—to share under the stars with Sylvia, not blushing but boasting.
⸻
What Gloria never knew—what she'd never accept—is that priests only conceive when they've met their true soulmates.
And just because you can bear a child… doesn't mean it's out of love.
There have been cases.
Terrible ones.
Soulmates who used the sacred bond as a weapon.
Who treated priests like vessels—tools to create powerful bloodlines.
Not for legacy. Not for partnership. Just strength.
Not every soulmate is kind.
Not every bond is safe.
But Sylvia knew that.
And she made sure Yona knew it too.
And what Gloria couldn't understand—what no one outside the priesthood could—was that Sylvia told Yona everything.
Not the clean version.
Not the one dressed in temple robes and polite doctrine.
The real version.
Sylvia explained that every priest lives three deaths.
Three lives. Three endings.
And before they ever begin their sacred path, priests are born from somewhere else.
Another time. Another world.
This world—this life—was Sylvia's second.
Her in-between.
And she told Yona that when she died here, that would be the start of her real journey.
The one she had waited lifetimes for.
And there—on the other side—she would meet the ones truly meant for her.
Her real soulmates.
Because priests didn't always have just one.
Sylvia explained that sometimes, a priest would meet one soulmate in this life, and another in the next.
Some were scattered across timelines, broken by war or stolen by fate.
But once found, they never left you.
Your soulmates always followed you—somehow, some way.
Even if neither of you realized it at first.
They could show up as strangers. Enemies. Ghosts.
But your soul would know.
Even if your heart didn't.
And once you found one, the others began to awaken—drawn to your light, your frequency.
The way stars pull at each other across the dark.
Once the bond was formed, it couldn't be undone.
And distance only made it worse.
Soul-sickness, Sylvia called it.
A slow ache that grew louder the farther apart you became.
No one died from it—not always—but it withered the spirit.
Hollowed you out.
Only when all soulmates were found, recognized, and reunited, could they finally exist apart.
Until then, fate would keep dragging them back to one another.
And Gareth? Yona's father?
He wasn't it.
Sylvia loved him.
Deeply, in her own way.
But love isn't always born from soul resonance.
And in her son's desperation to stay with her, he did the unthinkable:
He used forbidden magic.
He forced his soul to match hers.
Forced fate's hand.
Sylvia never condemned him for it.
But she never called him her other half, either.
And she warned Yona with the kind of stillness that didn't allow for argument.
"There are people," she said, "who know far too much.
They study us.
Watch us.
Want us.
Not for who we are—but for what we are."
People who quoted words from the Godscript—a language of light and soul, meant only for priests.
A language that looked like blank pages to everyone else.
But Yona had touched those pages.
And they had sung.
Divine and terrible.
Full of secrets and purpose.
And Sylvia had told her:
"If someone tells you they understand our ways, and they are not a priest—run."
⸻
Yona carried that warning under her ribs.
Right beneath her heartbeat.
She never told anyone.
Not her mother.
Not her sisters.
Not even the old allies of her grandmother.
Some truths don't belong in the open.
Some truths are blades—meant to be unsheathed only when the time is right.
And Yona?
She walked with every one of them.
She said nothing as she gathered her things.
Packed her weapons, her grandmother's artifacts, spiritual stones, talismans, clothing, food—everything into her storage ring.
Her life was just beginning.
Not just with her grandmother's warnings—but with the rage, the grief, and the unshakable faith that something still waited for her.
That her third life was out there—somewhere beyond death, beyond pain.
And when she got there—
She'd be ready.
Because she remembered.
And she never forgets.
That was the last time they ever saw Yona.