Breathlessly, I stared at him, willing him not to continue, but he did anyway.
"Our son, he grew, and you loved him with all your heart. But every day, a part of you died." He took a deep, shuddering inhale. "I didn't know what to do. The midwives and doctors said it was common after giving birth, that your hormones were going crazy in your body, making you feel things…" he closed his eyes.
I felt a heaviness in and around my chest. It was pressing against me, closing around me like a vise, making it hard to breathe. I might not remember the story Mallack was telling me, but my body sure as hell remembered the emotions. Brought them back up until I felt like weeping.
"What… happened?" I swallowed, my mouth was dry, and every part of me dreaded hearing the answer. My soul deep inside me shuddered, clawed at me like it wanted to break out of this body, get away from words that hurt too much.
"You died," he said brutally and honestly. His eyes held mine.
I died.
That shrine I woke up in. It wasn't just a shrine. It was a casket.
Dizziness overcame me. The edges of my vision darkened, and I felt myself swaying on the bed. Mallack's strong hands steadied me.
"Daphne?"
I tried to breathe, but I managed only to gulp in hollow breaths that weren't filling my lungs at all. Not even close. Not when they were screaming to inhale. Not when my entire body was starved for oxygen.
I began to hyperventilate.
"Daphne?" Alarmed, Mallack grabbed me, held me against him, but that made breathing even harder. I fought against his hold. Clawed, hit, pushed. It was as impossible as trying to move a mountain.
Words formed in my mind,let go, get your hands off me, don't touch me, but the only sounds I made were whimpers. Ifelt myself fading. Fading harder. My already darkening vision began to swim. He was talking to me; I heard the sound of his voice but couldn’t make out what he said. It was so far away. So, so far away.
Daphne, Daphne. Don't leave me, don't leave me… again!
I didn't hear those words with my ears. They were in my head. They reverberated through my mind, echoed in my heart, threatened to break it with an intensity that surprised me. They came from the same voice that was talking to me now. Only then, they had been broken. Anguished. Filled with so much torment that they, more than any of the other emotions running havoc inside me, threatened to choke me.
She didn’t pull away. Her forehead rested against my shoulder, light as breath, but I felt it like a breaking wave. Like a heartbeat I hadn’t heard in twenty rotations. My arms held her loosely, barely enough to touch, but enough to keep her grounded against the weight of truth that could shatter her again. I wanted to pull her closer. I wanted to hug her and never let go, but I wasn't sure she would allow that yet. And I wasn't about to press my luck. If this was all she was willing to give right now, then that's what I was happy with.
Gods. I’d forgotten how small she was, how soft, how good it felt to hold her. Even like this, grief-ragged and with no memories, Daphne was still the strongest female I’d ever known. I hadn’t protected her, not the way I was supposed to. Not when it mattered most. And I was sorry for it. So sorry.
I cleared my throat. “You asked about Thalia.”
She didn’t speak. Just nodded against me. I closed my eyes and let the memory rise, let it cut. Told her about the happiest andmost heartbreaking moment of my life. I didn't tell her that at first, for one brief moment, I’d thought Thalia was her, and how it had shattered me.
“You were right,” I said quietly. “The whole time. About the pregnancy. About her.”
I pulled back slightly, needing to see her face. “You said she was a girl. That youknew. The midwives brought us a boy, and the healers told me you were delusional from blood loss, from the trauma. They called ithormonal collapse. Said it was common in humans. And gods forgive me, I believed them.”
My jaw clenched; if the midwife hadn't come to an untimely end already, I would have gladly killed her. I had never harmed a seffy in my life, but for her, I would have made an exception. And it would have felt good too.
“You cried every day. You tried to bond with him. With our son. You sang to him. Held him. But something inside you just… fractured.”
I looked down at our joined hands. Her fingers were still laced with mine; they were so fragile and warm.
“You told me over and over,That’s not my baby. And I told you to rest. To trust the healers. I thought… gods, I thought I was helping.”
The words soured in my throat.
“I told myself you’d heal. That your love would come in time. But instead, something died in you. Slowly. Quietly. Until one day, you stopped getting out of bed. You stopped eating. You stoppedspeaking.”
I felt her fingers twitch, like her body remembered it all before her mind could catch up.
“And then one morning, I woke up and you… didn't.” My voice broke then. I didn’t care. “You were gone.”
A long silence.
