23. Kellen

Chapter 23

Kellen

With a final descent, Kellen landed on the property, his massive claws sinking into the soft earth, grinding the flowers beneath his cumbrous feet. The dust settled around his folded wings, the beating of his heart gradually slowing with the reduction of his adrenaline and fear. Everyone was safe. Against all odds, he’d gotten all four of them to the cottage. He didn’t allow himself any room right now to think about his mother, to think about the fact that his own flesh and blood had just tried to kill him—all he had space for was Jarion, Laya, and Noella. He expanded his right wing on a slanted angle so Jarion and Laya could dismount from his back, then lowered Noella slowly to the ground.

The second Noella’s feet touched the earth and he’d slipped his fingers off her, she retched into the sward, her body bucking violently with every painful heave, like she was trying to expel a demon from her chest.

Time to switch back, Coz said, stepping away from the forefront of their mind and reaching out a hand to where Kellen sat inside his own chest, wrenching Kellen to his feet so he could reclaim the mantle.

Kellen’s dragon form began to shrink, his wings retreating into his spine, his limbs stretching back into their humanoid form, smooth brown flesh replacing the obsidian scales. Once he’d fully returned to his humanoid self, no trace of Coz left besides the scales lining the column of his throat on either side, he rushed over to Noella and gathered her hair in one hand so the tendrils were saved from the vomit.

Noella lifted her eyes to him, realizing that he was fully naked behind her, then turned back to the ground to puke even more.

Did she just vomit at the sight of my penis?

“Do either of you have a towel in your backpacks?” Kellen requested his siblings. Both twins dove into their packs, procuring a towel each, one red and one black, and handed them to Kellen. He passed the red one to Noella to wipe her mouth, while he used the black one to wrap around his waist to cover himself. The towel barely contained his dick, but it would have to be enough for now, until he found some clothes inside the house to slip on. “Is everyone okay?” Kellen asked the group.

“Is everyone OKAY?” Noella repeated after cleaning her face, her blonde hair a tumultuous, knotted jumble atop her head. She’d never looked more beautiful. “No, I am not O-K. You put me in your little dragon claw, with no warning, and just took off into the sky, and then you fucking dropped me . You dropped me, Kilic!”

Kellen didn’t have time to react to her calling his dragon claw little before the twins erupted.

“You dropped her?” Laya gasped in horror.

“Kell!” Jarion cried, the twins coming to stand at Noella’s sides, their allegiance resting with her in this instance.

“I did not drop her,” Kellen objected, using all his strength not to roll his eyes. “I intentionally passed her from my hand to my foot. I didn’t warn her before I did it, which I apologize for, but I don’t apologize for doing it. I needed both my hands.”

“What if you hadn’t caught me, Kilic?” Noella pushed, setting her hands on her hips and raising her chin.

“I knew I would,” he maintained. He’d go to his grave asserting this. He trusted his instincts and knew he was capable of catching her, knew there was no universe in which he would have let her fall.

She didn’t trust that, though. She couldn’t see into his mind the way he could see into hers.

“WHAT IF YOU HADN’T, KILIC?!”

“I KNEW I WOULD, NOELLA!” He carelessly used her first name in the presence of the twins. Laya’s brows lifted to show she’d caught the slip of his tongue. Noella shook her head in refusal.

“Why wasn’t I allowed to sit on top with Jarion and Laya?” she demanded, gesturing to the twins.

“Because you don’t know how to seat a dragon,” Kellen growled, losing control of his temper. “You would’ve slid off, and I didn’t have enough time to explain to you how to sit correctly.”

“Oh.” The anger vanished from Noella’s eyes. She was quiet for a moment, a first for her, then mumbled, her tone nicer, “I couldn’t have just sat behind them and held onto one of their waists?”

“It’s more dangerous if you try to hold onto someone than if you’re seated properly,” Laya said. “If the wind is too harsh, it will blow your arms off the person you’re holding. You need to be properly seated and gripping onto the spikes in the dragon’s back. That’s the only way to keep your seat on a dragon.”

Noella frowned at Kellen. “You weren’t trying to kill me?”

“No! I was not trying to kill you.” He’d told her he needed her. He begged her to not leave him, for fuck’s sake, words he’d never uttered in his life, and she actually thought he was trying to kill her? While his thoughts spiraled, Noella nodded in acceptance of his answer. “Next time, I’ll give you a warning,” he promised.

“Next time?” Noella scoffed. “Gods, no! Not happening. That was the first, and last time, that I will ever ride you, Kellen Kilic.” Kellen’s lips sprawled out in a thrilled grin, concocting a comeback on his tongue. “WITH you,” she quickly added, catching her phrasing. “Ride WITH you. UGH! I’m going inside.”

She marched past the twins and stomped her way into the house, slamming the door behind her.

Laya beamed at Noella’s shadow. “I love her,” she announced.

“Go inside,” Kellen directed, noting the grin that remained pasted to Laya’s lips as she skipped towards the cottage. He turned his focus to Jarion, who was still staring at the gate like he was waiting for the wards to shatter and their mother to appear. “You okay, Jare?” Jarion raised his eyes, then answered with a curt nod.

“Be nicer to Ms. Rose,” he pleaded. “She’s actually pretty cool.” Jarion then started for the house.

Be nicer to Ms. Rose, Kellen repeated in his head with a scoff. What the fuck else am I trying to do?

You’re doing a terrible job at it, Coz reprimanded him.

Kellen flicked his temple to send the blow down to Coz, then headed to meet his siblings and Noella inside.

As he stepped across the threshold, a sense of warmth and tranquility enveloped his senses. The interior of the cottage, ornamented with rustic wooden beams and polished stone floors, exuded an old-world allure. Soft, natural light filtered through the small, leaded glass windows, casting playful shadows on the burnished wooden furniture and cozy nooks. The heart of the cottage was the living room, bathed in sweet, heated air from the crackling fireplace, spelled by a Meteoro fire- bender to always keep a flame even when strong winds wafted into the space. An overstuffed armchair, its cushions worn and appealing, beckoned Kellen to sink into its embrace, his limbs aching for rest from that flight.

This house belonged to Valerie Dyer. She’d gifted it to Kellen after he gained custody of the twins. It had become his favorite place in all of Cavale, the only place that ever felt like home, for his roots with the twins were implanted here, freed from the burden of their trauma, no trace of their mother polluting these halls.

Kellen’s eyes flew to where Noella stood at the fireplace, like finding her was the only thing that mattered. He discovered her phone pressed to her ear and a pissed-off look blighting her beauty.

“I’m with Kellen Kilic and his siblings,” she told whoever was on the other end tersely. Kellen’s eyes squeezed shut while he stifled a groan. Fuck, the way she says my name. Kellen used his heightened sense of hearing to listen to her conversation, catching the clanging male voice reply to her.

“You can’t just leave campus without alerting me,” Aros Cavalian’s envoy snapped at her.

“There wasn’t time to alert you,” she protested. “We needed to get Jarion and Laya to safety as soon as possible. That’s all that mattered.” Noella wasn’t aware that Laya and Jarion were seated on the couch, listening to her conversation as intently as Kellen was, since her back was facing them.

“I understand that’s what mattered to you,” the envoy tried to reason, his friendly tone not convincing enough to be credible, “but I’ve been given an order to protect you, which I cannot do if you run off without any notice. I end up getting a screaming message from my boss about how you’re in danger and I should have been there. I know you don’t want me around. I know you hate that I’m watching over you, but I need you to work with me here a little, Ella, for both our sakes.”

Noella’s expression sharpened with ire. Her back straightened. Kellen watched her arm herself with an invisible breastplate, watched her deftly craft her next words, watched her steel herself to go to war for him and his siblings.

“You know what I got from what you just said?” She spoke with a regal sense of conviction, like she was the queen and the envoy was a worthless commoner, rather than the spokesperson for the King of the Gods. “Aros Cavalian knew we were in danger and did nothing to help Kellen or the kids. He knew their mother was trying to kill them and just let it happen. That is all I need to know about him and his morals. I’m sorry you have to be the messenger here, Eyal, but you tell your stupid, rubbish king that he can keep his lousy protection, because I don’t want it if it’s coming from him. I want nothing from him or any of the Gods. Not if they refuse to do anything of value, like save three deserving people from being attacked by their own mother. Aros does absolutely nothing to stop it, but he’ll go whine to you about how no one protected me when he easily could have if he really wanted to, if he already knew we were in trouble. Besides that, who gives a shit about me here? I’m fine. What about them? His people? Why isn’t he protecting them? ” Kellen’s heartbeat rumbled in his ears.

The envoy—Eyal, apparently. How the fuck does she know his name? Why is she using it so casually, like they’re friends? —didn’t acknowledge anything she’d said. He acted as though she hadn’t uttered a word when he demanded, “I need you to tell me where you are right now so I can come get you.”

“Well, tough shit, cause not only do I not know where we are, but even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you, or your king,” Noella snarled.

Eyal yelled, “Ella, please! This isn’t a game.”

“I have never thought this was a game.” The glow from the fire cast yellow beams onto Noella’s face. She clutched her phone so hard that Kellen heard the screen start to crack in her grip. “I’m taking this more seriously than your king is! If he won’t protect these people, if he won’t protect children from the woman who abused them, then I fucking will, because someone has to. As I’ve said before, but no one seems to listen to me around here, if Aros genuinely cared about ensuring my safety, he’d get off his fucking ass and do it himself. I’m done being told I have to wait for answers until he deems me ready to hear them. I’m done accepting protection from him if he refuses to extend that protection to the people who need it most. I’m done with anything having to do with Aros Cavalian.”

“ Ella —”

“You go back to Avatia, Eyal. Your services are no longer needed at Delmarth.” Noella hung up the phone with a shrill ugh, blowing her hair out of her face, then pinched the bridge of her nose like she was trying to keep a migraine at bay. She spun around and gasped when Jarion and Laya began applauding her.

“That was fucking awesome,” Jarion laughed. The corners of Kellen’s eyes stung, his throat bunged with emotion. Kellen couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard his brother laugh.

Noella blushed, then gathered the ends of her black coat and spread them out like a cape, bowing before his siblings with the purest giggle to ever grace this universe. She then glanced over at Kellen.

“You know his name?” Kellen seethed, though that was the last thing he wanted to say to her. He wanted to fall to his knees before her, pledge his undying fidelity to her, tell her how sorry he was for everything, everything, and beg her for forgiveness. But he needed to wait until the twins went to sleep before he unraveled.

“Yeah,” she replied, her tone tinged with confusion. “Why is that a big deal?”

“Envoys never share their names with subjects. With anyone. They always maintain the title of emissary and never reveal personal information about themselves.” Kellen folded his arms across his chest, fighting a smile at the way Noella’s eyes tracked the movement. “He must be fond of you.”

“Ew,” Noella spat, her unchecked reaction causing him to lose the battle against a grin. “I just asked him for his name, and he gave it to me. It meant nothing.”

“And I’m telling you, that’s not a small thing for an envoy of Aros Cavalian. That is not nothing.” Noella shrugged her shoulders to indicate that even if that was true, it didn’t concern her.

“Do we have any food here?” Laya asked, rubbing her stomach.

“Let me check.” Kellen passed by Noella, his shoulder accidentally brushing against her back on his journey to the kitchen. Copper pots and pans hung from hooks above the stove, an oak table positioned off to the side with a colorful, hand-woven tablecloth draped across the surface, surrounded by mismatched chairs. The kitchen counters were made of smooth, aged marble, displaying an array of carefully organized jars filled with homemade preserves and pickles. The shelves were lined with cookbooks, their pages stained with splatters of various ingredients. Kellen strode to the fridge, pulled at the door, and discovered it empty. He grabbed the jar of pickles off the counter and walked back to the living room, holding it up over his head. “We have pickles.”

“That’s it?” Laya’s shoulders deflated.

“Sorry I didn’t have time to go shopping,” he quipped, tossing her the jar. “I can go fly into town and grab something real if you want.”

“No, don’t leave!” Laya screeched, waving her hands frantically at Kellen before hugging the jar to her chest. “It’s not safe. Pickles are fine. I love pickles. Pickles are the best. Just don’t leave.”

Noella and Kellen exchanged a quick, worried look.

“You’re safe here, Laya,” Noella swore, lowering down to the couch to sit beside Laya and Jarion.

“I know…” Laya started, then prattled in a frenzied rush, “But what if Kellen leaves and she finds him and follows him here? What if she’s still in the sky, waiting for him to think the cost is clear, and she attacks him? It’s too risky for anyone to leave.”

“My love,” Kellen sighed. “Mom’s not going to find us here. There’s no way for her to retrace our path. She could be flying all over Cavale forever and she won’t find us. This place is protected, so if you really want some actual food and not just pickles in a jar, I can fly to the city of Sleka and get stuff. Even if she follows me, she won’t get through the wards. She can’t get in here.”

“I don’t want you to leave, Kellen.” Laya’s voice resounded with fervor. The emotion she’d bottled up to focus on getting here safely was bleeding through the lid of the vessel inside her, threatening to pop the top and explode. Everyone in the room sensed how close she was to detonating and chose to handle her current state with delicacy.

“Okay. Then no one leaves.” Kellen’s eyes wandered to Noella. “No one leaves,” he repeated to her directly.

I can’t spend the night, Noella refused into his mind. I wish I could, but I have Freya to take care of.

Then ask Josefyn if she can watch your dog for the night. I’m not flying you back to campus and leaving them here without supervision. Besides, you and I need to talk. REALLY talk.

Noella gulped. Color stole across her cheeks. Color Kellen desperately wanted to feel under his lips.

“Is there coffee in the kitchen?” she asked, her pledge to stay lying in the underbelly of the question.

“Not sure. I can go check.”

“I’ll come with you,” she said, gently fondling Laya’s hair before rising from the sofa to follow Kellen. Noella rotated to face the twins, inquiring, “Jare? Laya? Do you guys want some coffee?”

“I’ll take a cup,” Jarion replied, lifting his index finger before his eyes dropped to where Laya was chewing her hair.

“Laylie?” Noella crooned, her voice extra kind, employing the nickname Kellen always called her. “You want some coffee, love?” Laya bobbed her head in a tiny nod, folding into herself deeper, hiding her face between her knees. Jarion’s mouth twisted to the side, his gaze flitting to Noella, a message passing between them that Kellen didn’t understand. Kellen tried to step forward, but Noella threw out her arm to hinder his route. “Give them a second,” she whispered, motioning with her head for the two of them to move into the kitchen, leaving the twins alone in the living room.

Noella made a beeline for the pot of coffee on the stove.

Kellen claimed one of the stools at the counter and studied Noella drifting around the kitchen, procuring four mugs for herself, Kellen, Laya, and Jarion. He rested his chin in his palm, content to sit back and observe her existence, fully aware of what an honor it was to be in her presence after everything he’d done to her.

“Thank all the Gods in existence that you have coffee in Cavale,” she said, portioning the steaming brown liquid into each mug. “I would have been devastated to have to part with caffeine for ten months.”

“Most of the foods in Cavale are the same as the Earthly Plane, no?”

“Mostly the same. You guys don’t have artificial flavoring, though.” She lifted her right and left hands, as if weighing two heavy options. “Traded one evil for the Primordials.” Kellen couldn’t stop himself from laughing.

“We’re not all bad,” he drawled, her grey eyes burning into him.

“Not all the time,” she admitted, sliding his coffee mug across the counter to him. His fingers closed around hers before she could withdraw, keeping her hand trapped beneath his on the wall of the mug. She waited for him to say something. When he didn’t, when he just continued staring at her, she croaked, “What? Is there something on my face?” touching her cheek with her free hand.

“You look pretty in this lighting.” Noella’s mouth popped open, then sealed shut.

“I don’t understand you,” she muttered with a shake of her head, trying to retract her fingers from the mug, but he clamped down harder, not ready to lose the precious contact. “Kellen,” she warned. “Let go.”

“It feels impossible,” he professed, a dark confession wrenched from his soul.

“My fingers are burning from the coffee.” At that, he reluctantly slid his hand away, allowing her space to detach her fingers from the seething mug. Once her hand was free, she sighed, then decided to unroll across the counter and flip his hand over so she could begin tracing the lines etched into his palm with her index finger. With her eyes glued on the map she sketched on his hand, she murmured, “Are you okay? That wasn’t just the twins’ mother who was after us.”

Kellen swallowed. Am I okay? he asked himself. What does okay even mean?

“I stopped thinking of her as my mother a long time ago.” Noella’s finger stroked his pulse.

“I can relate to that,” she whispered. He was about to request more detail, but she quickly changed the subject by bantering, “Are you going to put some clothes on at some point?” Kellen smirked.

“I kind of need my hand for that,” he told her, having no plan to ask for his hand back anytime soon.

She didn’t seem inclined to give it back either. “I didn’t remember you lose your clothes when you shift.”

“Would you like to watch?” Noella pinned a glower over his wolfish grin. Now that he’d managed to obtain her gaze as well as her hand, he continued, “I would have liked the first time you saw me naked to not be in front of my siblings. And for you not to puke at the sight of my dick.”

“I didn’t puke at the sight of your dick!” she squeaked, an adorable flush bombarding her cheeks, sprinting up to consume the tips of her ears. “I was nauseous! I honestly didn’t even look.”

Thank the fucking Gods for that. “My ego appreciates your honesty. It was quite wounded back there.”

“Fuck, I shouldn’t have said anything then.” She joked, humor and light dancing in her eyes, “I should have let you continue thinking your dick made me vomit. You need to be knocked down a few pegs.”

“Too late now, sweetheart. Can’t take it back.” Noella wrinkled her nose at him. If it was possible, his grin grew even wider, overwhelming the entire bottom half of his face, broadening up to his ears. How was it that ten minutes ago, he’d been barreling through the sky to circumvent his mother trying to murder him to get to his siblings, and right now, he was gripped by sheer happiness to the point where it made his limbs feel buoyant, like they’d disintegrated into clouds?

“Guys?” Jarion called from the living room, splintering their beautiful, rare moment of peace. “How long does it take to get coffee?”

“We’re coming!” Noella shouted, pulling her hand away from Kellen to wrap her fingers around the cup handles, then carried two of the mugs to the living room, leaving him stranded at the counter.

He gathered the two mugs left behind, hissing down at his erection control yourself, then headed back to the living room.

Noella had passed off her mugs to the twins, so Kellen had the pleasure of handing her one of his mugs, gliding his fingers across her knuckles at a slow, coquettish pace as he relinquished the cup to her. Noella curled up in the armchair that had been calling Kellen’s name since he’d walked into the house, but seeing her get comfortable in his space, making herself at home when she kicked off her boots and tucked her sock-clad feet under the cushion, was more satisfying than if it was his ass in that chair.

“I’m going to run and put some clothes on,” he told the twins, noting the tears and snot smearing Laya’s features and Jarion’s arm swathed tightly around her shoulders, their entwined fingers resting on Laya’s knee. “Laylie? Jare?”

“Go change,” Jarion told him, giving their sister’s hand a squeeze. “We’ll talk when you get back.”

“Okay…?” Kellen peeked over at Noella, who looked equally as perplexed. Why did that sound so ominous? What had the two of them discussed when Noella and him were in the kitchen? “I’ll be right back.”

Kellen dashed into the bedroom on the lower level, which had been appointed his bedroom when they first moved in. He maneuvered around the large bed, adorned with hand-stitched quilts and plump white pillows, and grabbed the first clothes he saw in the armoire; black sweatpants and a navy blue t-shirt. He threw them on, then rushed back to the living room, where it seemed like no one had moved an inch since he’d left, the twins resembling inanimate statues on the couch.

“Someone want to tell me what the fuck’s going on?” Kellen blurted too forcefully, his own concern shadowing his ability to be gentle. Laya sniffled and cleaned the snot from under her nose with the sleeve of her sweater.

“We’ve come to a decision about something,” Jarion declared, speaking for the both of them.

“Want to clue us in on what that is?” Noella fired at Kellen a look that hissed soften your tone.

“We don’t want to go back to Delmarth.” Both Noella and Kellen’s eyes widened.

“Why not?” Noella asked gently, tilting closer to them on her armchair and setting her coffee mug down on the floor.

“It’s not safe!” Laya wept at the top of her lungs. Every wretched, desolate sob she exorcized pelted Kellen in the chest and ripped more air from his lungs, clogging the channel so no new oxygen could travel into him. “She can come for us so easily there. There’s nothing stopping her.”

“There is an entire security squad in place at the school who knows what she’s done and will not allow her entry,” Kellen reminded her. “You have a Headmistress there who has alarms set up on her phone to alert her if our mother is approaching campus, so she can call for me immediately. In addition to all that, you also have a big brother who would take a permanent sentencing in Terminus before he let that bitch get her hands on you. I will always be there, Laylie, and I will always get you out in time.”

“It’s not enough!” Laya screamed, slamming her fists into the couch pillows. “ You’re not enough!”

Laya’s nails clawed at her temples like she was trying to pry the terrified thoughts out of her brain. Kellen was so used to seeing this kind of panic gush out of Jarion that it felt extra jarring to see Laya in the throes of anxiety, to see his sweet little sister’s lucidity dissolve before his very eyes. He tried not to take what she said personally, repeating to himself that this was her fear speaking, not her heart.

“She will find a way anyway!” Laya continued, bawling, “She always does, and what if, next time, you can’t get to us fast enough? You can’t guarantee that you’ll always be there, Kell. You just can’t. This isn’t sustainable. Please, don’t make us go back there.”

“I’m sorry, Laya.” Kellen glanced at Noella for guidance. All she could offer was a small, tight smile of encouragement, because this was a battle he needed to fight himself. He turned back to Laya and said, with tender consideration of her turbulent state, “I’m sorry, my love, but leaving Delmarth isn’t an option. You need to be in school.”

“Homeschool us, then,” Jarion proposed, a bite to his words as he prepared to square off with Kellen. “You’re a teacher.”

“And deprive you of the chance to be with kids your own age? To be kids?” Kellen shook his head. “No. I can’t do that.”

“This is you once again making choices for us rather than hearing what we’re telling you,” Jarion growled, flames arriving in his eyes to battle the fire Kellen knew raged within his own irises.

“I am hearing what you’re saying, Jare, but I get to make these choices because I’m your guardian. You can hate me for it, but being at Delmarth is the best thing for you. You deserve to have the best education possible. You are safer on that campus than you would be anywhere else.”

“It’s safe here.” Laya oscillated her hand around the living room, gesticulating to all corners of the cottage. “This is the only place in Cavale that she can’t enter. We’re protected here. We shouldn’t leave.”

“So what’s the plan, guys?” Kellen was struggling to keep a damper on his rage. “For the two of you to hide here for the rest of your lives? In what fucking universe do you think that I would allow you to give up living an actual life because you’re so scared of what she might do?” He pressed his hand to his heart, vowing, “I’ve got you. I’ve got you guys. Why can’t you trust that?”

“Why should we trust that?” Jarion snarled. “You couldn’t stop Mom from coming for us today. She never should’ve been able to get that close to us. We trusted you to prevent that at least, and you failed us.”

Fuck, that hurt his heart. Kellen’s throat ached from the lump burrowing into the walls of his esophagus.

“I will live with that regret for the rest of my life, Jare, but don’t for a second think I didn’t do anything to try and prevent this. I’ve been working tirelessly with my lawyer the past few weeks since she first tried to come on campus, fighting a system that is wrapped around Miya Kilic’s finger. I don’t think you understand what a big fucking deal it was that I even got custody of you two. That is only thanks to the Gods’ intervention, because if that decision was in the hands of the court alone, Miya would’ve won, with her reputation in Cavale. My every request for a restraining order has been denied. I keep requesting them, even with all the refusals. I’ve fucking tried, Jarion. I’ve done everything I am capable of doing. I had her officially banned from campus. Headmistress Dyer set us up with this safehouse. And when I found out she was approaching campus today, I got off my fucking ass and got you two to safety. I’m sorry what I’ve done isn’t enough for you guys. I know you want more, but my loves, sometimes more just isn’t possible.”

“ Please, Kell,” Laya begged, slobbering tears onto her clasped hands. “ Please!”

“No, Eulaylia.” His tone was more stern with her than it had ever been before. The twins kept accusing him of not listening to them and their needs, but neither of them were listening to him right now. “I’m sorry, but no. You have to go back to school. You have to live your life. I will not let you stop living because you’re afraid.”

“Ms. Rose!” Laya turned to Noella in vain, begging, “Please, help us!” Kellen peeked over at Noella, her expression giving nothing away.

Unless you’re going to take my side here, please stay out of this, he pleaded with her mind-to-mind.

Can you fucking trust me, Kilic? she snapped back, though none of the ire in her tone was evident in her facial features.

“What’s the worst thing that can happen if you stay at Delmarth?” Noella asked the twins.

“She’ll come for us,” Jarion replied automatically.

“She’s already come for you. Now, you know what will happen if she does. The security squad, Headmistress Dyer, your brother, and I,” she added with emphasis, pointing at Kellen and herself, “won’t let any harm come to you both.”

“It’s not safe there!” Laya screeched.

“Safety is not something that can be guaranteed anywhere,” Noella argued. “Even here. Your brother has done everything in his power to make that campus safe for you both. He’s set up so many precautions to protect you from her. I understand being upset with his answer. I understand why you don’t want to go back to school, and at the same time, don’t minimize all the work Kellen has done to keep you safe.” The acknowledgement of his sacrifices made Kellen’s eyes burn. His shallow breaths scorched his chest. “Try to hear what your brother is saying to you,” she continued. “He’s not trying to punish you. He wants you to live, and you deserve to live. Both of you.”

“What life is this, though?” Jarion fought back. “Picking up and running away every time she comes near us? Watching the door, waiting for Kellen to appear and tell us we need to leave at any moment’s notice? It was easier to put that fear aside when she was in Terminus, but now that she’s free, we carry fear with us everywhere we go that she’ll come back for us. We’re not truly living right now, Ms. Rose. Why would leaving school be worse then what we’re already experiencing?”

“So there’s nothing at school you like?” she questioned. “No friends you’ve made in your classes? No activities you enjoy?” Jarion and Laya fell silent, neither one of them wishing to betray their position by admitting she had a point. Noella nodded in acceptance of their silence, as though their muteness was the verbal confirmation she’d been seeking. “Your mother did terrible things to you both. No one can deny that. She and your father robbed so much from you, and she deserves to rot in Terminus for the rest of her life for it…but she doesn’t get to take your life from you, too. She doesn’t deserve to hold that much power over you. There is so much about what you’ve been through that hasn’t been a choice, but both of you can choose now to acknowledge your fear, to accept that it’s there, and to keep living inspite of it. I know that’s not easy to do. Believe me, I understand.”

“You don’t understand, Ms. Rose,” Jarion barked. “You couldn’t possibly understand what we’ve been through.”

Noella blinked at Jarion, the light Kellen was so used to seeing blaze through her eyes extinguished. She sucked in a harsh breath that whistled through her teeth, then shut her eyes so she didn’t have to look at anyone. She was quiet for so long that the air crackled with tension in anticipation.

“One time, I walked into the kitchen while my mother was boiling water to make pasta,” she began, squeezing her eyes shut, either to keep from giving into the temptation of looking at them, or to keep the image of whatever memory she’d dredged up in front of her. “I accidentally knocked into her, and some of the pasta spilled on the floor. She got so mad…that she proceeded to shove my face into the boiling water.”

Kellen’s blood ran cold. Laya’s cheeks paled. Jarion’s mouth fell open. Noella flinched as though she’d felt the change in their demeanor, even though she hadn’t seen it with her eyes closed. She kept talking.

“Half my face was melted off. She kept me from school for a week so no one would see. The only reason she eventually took me to the doctor was because a neighbor of ours saw me and told my mother that if she didn’t take me to see someone, she was going to report us.” Noella opened her eyes finally to regard Jarion, whose green gaze overfilled with tears. In a sensitive, mellifluous voice, she said to him, sadness thick in her words, “I understand all too well, Jarion. I wish I didn’t.”

No one spoke for several minutes.

The world stopped moving. The wind perished into the quiet. The fire in the fireplace became as motionless as the rest of them. Kellen felt like his heart had been cleaved from his body and stomped on under the sadistic heel of the universe that had been so fucking cruel to the three purest people he’d ever known, the universe that had allowed them each to be touched by such ghastly trauma. He watched tears slide silently down Noella’s cheeks, streams she did nothing to scrub off, letting them roll down to her chin as she held her breath, stared at the twins, and waited for someone to say something.

The first person who dared to break the silence was Jarion. “I never would have known,” he whispered.

“Because I seem so put together?” Noella snorted. She blotted away the pools collecting beneath her eyes with her fingers. Staring down at the teardrops amassed on her hands, staring at them like she could see her past through each limpid droplet, she said, “I worked years to pick up every broken piece of myself and glue them back together. It took a shitload of therapy and the love of my beautiful big sister who saved my life.” She peeked up at Kellen when she added softly, “Just like your brother saved yours.” Kellen had to smother his hand over his mouth to fetter a sob. She then moved her gaze back to the twins. “It’s been fourteen years since I’ve been free of my mother, and even now, I’m not completely fixed. You can have a scar on your face from your mother burning you cosmetically removed, so for anyone who doesn’t know, you appear to have never been harmed. You can mend the physical reminders, but nothing can ever fully wash away the internal wounds. It’s something you learn to live with. Sometimes, the broken pieces still chafe against each other, or one wiggles out of place to remind me that there’s glue there, why I needed the glue to begin with. I’m not going to sit here and sell a dream to you where you’ll never think about it or feel that pain again, because that’s not real. That’s not life. That’s not what healing is.”

“How do you do it?” Laya mewled, tears speeding down her face. “How do you live with it?”

“I made a choice a long time ago that I would put myself first,” she answered, her strength carrying into her clear tone of voice, overpowering the sorrow that lingered under the surface. “I decided that my right to live, my right to happiness, mattered more than what she’d done to me or what she thought of me. I deserved more, and the only person who could give me that was myself.”

Noella tipped forward and grabbed Laya and Jarion’s hands. The twins gazed at her with the same heady veneration that Kellen regarded her with, the three of them hanging on to her every word.

“Healing isn’t forgetting,” she proclaimed, squeezing their hands. “Healing is being able to remember, to look back at what you’ve been through and see how far you’ve come. Your brother is right. The two of you have come too far to give up now. Go back to school. Live your lives. Accept your dragons. Figure out what happiness looks like for you. Yes, your mother’s not going anywhere. Yes, you have every reason to fear her, and you also have every reason to trust your brother to keep you safe, as he’s done numerous times before and especially today. You have every reason to trust that there’s more life for you to experience that could be so much greater than what you’ve experienced before. We cannot allow the people who have hurt us, who have taken things from us, to take anything more. You mother has taken enough from you guys. Let the cycle end here, and let that be a choice you’re making for no one’s benefit but your own.”

Laya fell off the couch and crawled across the floor to enter Noella’s open arms, burying her face in Noella’s shoulder while expelling raw, tortured sobs from deep in her soul. Noella swaddled Laya with one arm and extended the other to Jarion, cupping his cheek and cleaning his tears with her thumb.

Kellen gazed at her embracing his siblings with a face covered in tears. He couldn’t look away. He didn’t know how he had the willpower to ever not look at her. She wasn’t looking back—her eyes remained locked on his brother, on the quiet, painful understanding they were sharing.

Noella twisted her head to the side, her gaze searching the furniture before landing, crashing, into Kellen.

In the depths of her eyes, in the warmth of her tiny smile, he discovered his purpose.

When Noella Rose first arrived in Cavale, Kellen was certain she’d been brought to Delmarth to be the living embodiment of Terminus for him. Her presence could only be described as a penalization for all the Primordials who failed to help that student last year who’d taken their life. Staring into her eyes now, he recognized that she was the complete opposite of that, at least for him.

She was no penalty.

She hadn’t come here to punish or plague them. She’d come here to be a savior for these kids, for the twins, for him.

She’d come to Cavale to help them all heal, to show them how, to give them permission to let go.

What do you give to the person who sacrifices everything of themselves for everyone around them? Who doles out kindness like its candy? What do you give to the people who spent so many years being made to feel small and unimportant by the person who was supposed to champion them most?

You make it your personal mission to protect the heart they wear openly on their sleeve. You let no one touch them again, and anyone who tries doesn’t make it to see tomorrow. You put them on your shoulders and make them feel so tall that they believe they tower over the whole world.

He’d been that for the twins. They might not have always recognized it, but that had been his most important role, which he’d taken on willingly and proudly. He felt it now, deep in his bones.

It was his destiny to be that for Noella too.

He couldn’t explain it, but the certainty left him winded. He was meant to be that person for her. She was meant to be that person for him. Why else would the Gods have placed such a dazzling angel in his path, filled with sass and fire that reminded him of his own, but so much kinder, who’d lived through such similar trauma to his siblings? Someone so perfectly suited for him, even if he wasn’t worthy of her?

If she was put in his life to be his refuge, if she was put in his life to help heal his siblings and heal him in turn, then he would make damned sure he gave her everything of him and then some to make up for what she’d given him. He’d make it worth it, because there was suddenly nothing more important than proving himself to her, proving to the Gods that they’d made the right choice in bringing her to him.

No more fucking around. No more fighting his feelings. No more pushing her away or treating her like crap.

Into her mind, not that she fully understood yet—but he would make sure she did—he whispered, No more, Noella Rose.

And even though she didn’t comprehend what he meant by that, didn’t grasp the full weight of that declaration, she said it back, making him even more confident in his epiphany that she was a blessing to him.

No more, Kellen Kilic.