Chapter 218: The Prison of Guilt
The woman did not turn when Kira and Braxton walked into the room.
Braxton offered Kira a reassuring look before walking over to the side of the chair. He dropped down onto one knee beside her, reaching out to take her frail, pale hands in his.
Kira hung back, standing a little behind, watching. Her heart was thumping so violently against her ribcage that she was genuinely convinced it was making an audible thudding noise in the quiet room.
Her fingers twitched nervously against the hem of her oversized cotton hoodie. She watched as Braxton gently squeezed their mother’s hands.
"Mother," he said softly. "I want you to turn around. There’s someone here. Someone you’ve waited a very long time to see."
Carefully, he turned the chair so that the woman faced the room. Kira’s breath caught in her throat. Sitting right before her was a woman who looked like an older and beautifully matured version of herself.
Her mother’s eyes were distant at first, unfocused, and gazing somewhere far beyond the walls of the room.
But slowly, as they settled on Kira, something began to shift in them. A spark. Recognition began to creep in like dawn over a dark horizon, until at last the woman was looking at Kira. Really looking at her.
Kira’s heart hammered against her ribs. Her hands shook involuntarily, and she completely forgot how to perform basic human tasks like breathing.
"I finally found her, Mother," Braxton said quietly from behind the chair. "I brought her home."
Tears welled up in Claire’s eyes as she stared at Kira, her gaze moving over every inch of her face.
"Serene?" she breathed, her brows knitting together, as if afraid to believe it.
Kira’s gaze flicked briefly to Braxton, lost, unsure, more nervous than she had ever been in her life. She had no idea what to do, what to say, or how to be.
Braxton gave her a small, encouraging nod.
Kira swallowed and nodded quickly at the woman. "Yes," she managed, her voice barely working. "I... I’m Serene."
"Oh, my baby." Claire whispered, her voice breaking under the weight of her grief and joy. Her hands lifted from her lap, quivering violently, and stretched out toward her daughter. "Oh, my beautiful, dear child. It really is you."
She beckoned, and Kira walked slowly toward her, drawn forward as if by a thread tied somewhere deep in her chest.
Claire wept as Kira drew near and sank down onto her knees before the chair, bringing herself level with her mother.
And then Claire pulled her in, wrapping both arms around her in a fierce, desperate embrace, squeezing her eyes shut as the tears poured freely down her cheeks.
And Kira felt it.
A warmth pooling somewhere in the very core of her. A warmth she had never once felt in all her years of life.
It spread through her, soft and golden and entirely new, and in that moment she knew, beyond any doubt, beyond any need for proof. This was her mother. This was real.
"I’m so sorry," Claire whispered brokenly into her hair, holding her tighter still. "I’m so sorry I couldn’t get to you. I’m so sorry, my dear child. I’m so sorry."
The raw brokenness in the woman’s voice cracked Kira wide open, and she began to sob too, her own arms coming up to wrap around her mother’s back, clinging to her as if she were her only anchor in a stormy sea.
"I have never forgiven myself," Claire wept. "Not for a single day. For leaving you out there, with that monster. It was never my intention, you have to believe me. Never. I mourned you for years."
Kira pulled back just enough to look into her mother’s face, to meet those wet, pleading eyes. She reached up to wipe a stray tear from Claire’s cheek.
"It’s not your fault, Mother," she said fiercely, shaking her head. "Do you hear me? None of it was your fault. Not one bit of it."
Claire gripped her daughter’s hands and wept loudly into them, pressing them to her face.
Braxton watched the entire scene from the side, a solitary tear escaping his own hazel eyes, though he quickly wiped it away to maintain his tough Alpha image.
***
A few minutes later, once the worst of the tears had passed, they were all seated.
Kira sat in a chair directly opposite her mother’s, with Braxton settled beside her.
Claire still clutched Kira’s hands, refusing to let go, as though she feared the girl might vanish the moment she released her. And her face, lined and weary, was lit up with a smile that did not fade.
Kira had braced herself, walking into this room, for a kind of strangeness. An awkwardness. A distance, surely, with a mother she had never truly known, a woman who was a stranger by every measure except blood.
But she felt none of it. Quite the opposite. She felt only warmth, a deep maternal warmth radiating off Claire, her mother’s love wrapping around her as surely as those arms had moments before.
Braxton cleared his throat, leaning his elbows on his knees as he looked between the two of them.
"You have no idea, Kira. Mother hasn’t spoken a single word to anyone in what feels like forever. I’ve tried everything. Everything I could think of, to coax some life back into her"
His voice grew thick.
"Doctors, specialists, familiar things. Nothing reached her."
Kira turned her head toward her twin brother, her expression softening. "I am so sorry, Braxton. It must have been so hard for you to carry all of this alone."
Braxton turned to her, puzzled. "Sorry? Why on earth would you be sorry?" He shook his head.
"Kira, I’m grateful. More grateful than I can put into words. That your presence alone could pull this from her, could make her speak, could make her smile like this. Do you know how long I’ve prayed just to see our mother smile again? It’s been my greatest wish for years. And you’ve given it to me in a single morning."
Kira’s chest tightened and she smiled back. Then, she looked around the room.
"But why," she asked gently, "did you keep her shut away in this room? It seems a bit lonely."
"I didn’t keep her here," Braxton said. "She chose it. According to Father, after everything, she began coming to this room to grieve. To be alone with her sorrow. And over time, she simply stopped leaving it. This became her whole world."
He paused. "And in part, we let her stay hidden here for her own protection. So that no one outside would discover what she is, and try to use it against us. Against all of us."
Claire still didn’t say a single word during their exchange. She simply sat in her chair, her eyes locked onto Kira’s face, her smile never wavering for a fraction of a second.
Braxton chuckled softly after looking at their mother.
"She’s still in shock, seeing you after all this time." He looked at his mother with quiet sadness.
"She blamed herself for not giving birth to you at the same time with me, for leaving you behind. For years and years, she’s been trapped inside the prison of her own guilt, drowning in it, unable to climb out. I think part of her stopped speaking because she didn’t feel she deserved to. And now..."
He trailed off, watching the smile on their mother’s face. "Now, perhaps, she can begin to heal."
As he spoke, Oliver’s voice came cutting into his mind through the link.
Alpha. We have a situation. Connor, the royal Gamma from Dravengard has just arrived. He is standing right in the courtyard, and he is demanding to see the Queen this very instant. What are your orders?
Braxton’s heart lurched violently, dropping straight into his stomach.
Kira caught the sudden change in him at once, the way his whole body went rigid, the colour shifting in his face. She frowned.
"What’s wrong?" she asked. "What is it?"
Braxton turned to her slowly.
"Connor," he said. "Connor’s here."
