Helanie:
"Say that again," Maximus said. I’ve told them everything my mother told . In response, I just watched their faces change color.
"I belong to Arthendel." I repeated myself exactly the way my mother did.
"No. You belong to your mates," Maximus hissed, and Norman gave him a look, warning him not to pressure .
"Helanie, it’s all fine and good," Norman said. "Like, we support that. And we sympathize with your mother. But we’re not going to let you go away." Norman had finally made up his mind, and I sighed. Things had been so rough between and my mates. After everything that happened, I hadn’t had ti alone with Maximus, Norman, or Kaye, or any of them.
"You sympathize with my mother? There should be more than just sympathy," I said, looking at Norman.
"Your mother also did a lot of shit to our mother," Kaye said. It was the first ti he had spoken since the cruise ship. His words were pretty harsh, even Norman gave him a look.
"No, it’s okay. Let him speak. I want to know what he thinks," I said, gesturing at Norman to not stop him.
"All I’m saying is, we don’t know who’s telling the truth. But we do know what we saw. And we saw your mother torture our mother every single day. My mother was losing babies. She went through countless abortions in front of us," Kaye hissed, pointing at , then at the door, as if he were pointing at my mother.
"It’s true. I was once hiding under the table, and I heard your mother threaten mine, and almost admit that she might be the reason my mother was having miscarriages," Norman corrected gently. I began to gulp and take shallow breaths.
"So what? Your mother doesn’t deserve to have babies," I hissed. They all looked at in shock.
"Don’t look at like that. Didn’t you hear what she did to my mother? After that, I’m not surprised my mother wanted revenge." I knew I was being cruel and cold-hearted, but what they did to my mother wasn’t nice either. His mother couldn’t just go on living a normal life and expect mine not to retaliate.
"So you’re justifying your mother killing babies?" Kaye hissed.
"All I’m saying is that my mother did all that because she was emotionally disturbed. She went through so much!" I yelled.
Kaye added, "Do you have proof?"
And my jaw dropped.
"I know my mother isn’t lying," I said.
"How? Your mother didn’t even want you for years?" Kaye uttered, almost under his breath.
"Well, we know our mother could be a liar," Kaye replied, "but we also know what your mother is capable of." Kaye was the only one speaking much. The others kept a little distance from the topic.
"Isn’t your mother the one who wanted dead because of your curses? Doesn’t that make you think, maybe there were other curses she was fighting when she was sacrificing babies?" I retaliated, getting out of bed in anger.
"Okay, okay. Everyone calm down," Norman said, stepping in to deescalate, while Kaye glared directly into my eyes.
"So what are you suggesting?" Maximus asked. "That we punish our mother? There’s no proof. No witnesses. Helanie, I know—I know how you’re feeling. But for our mother to be imprisoned, or even questioned, we need to build a case. We need to prove it to the council."
He stopped talking when I cut in.
"Not when there’s a war," I hissed. They all exchanged glances.
"What are you talking about?" Norman asked, stepping toward urgently, trying to understand what I ant.
"Nothing," I said, folding my arms over my chest and looking away.
Suddenly, a knock on the door interrupted our tense eting. Maximus answered it. and in ca Charlotte.
"Lady Darcy is here," she said. "Since it is Mate Moon, she wants to follow the tradition and plan a grand dinner here."
She spoke awkwardly, glancing at each of us, clearly trying to figure out why the room felt so heavy.
"Great," I scoffed.
"Um! So are you guys coming downstairs to talk with her about the grand dinner?" Charlotte asked, again noticing the awkwardness between us.
"Yeah, sure. We’ll be there," Norman said, giving her a small nod and gesturing for her to close the door and leave. She followed the cue and left.
"So now she’s back here. Do you really think it’s easy for my mother to face her?" I hissed at Kaye, looking him straight in the eye.
"I don’t know about that, Helanie. All I know is we saw your mother torture ours. So your mother could be lying. And what if our mother using you is her retaliation for your mother’s cris or her revenge? We don’t know who’s right. We don’t know for sure. So it’s pretty wrong of you to accuse our mother outright, when she could be a victim too. She could be the one who lost her mind because your mother mistreated her so much. Who knows? What if the things you’re accusing my mother of are actually your mother’s doing? What if the roles are reversed, and my mother is ntally unstable because she was tortured?" The way he was arguing with made feel deeply uncomfortable. I hadn’t expected them to defend their mother so hard, but I should have known Kaye would.
"How about we put these argunts to the side? Not every disagreent needs to be explosive. Let’s go downstairs, talk about this mate full moon dinner, and then start our own investigation," Norman said, trying to keep the peace.
But I was already enraged. I had seen it in my mother’s eyes, she had been through so much. But of course, they wouldn’t believe it. To them, their mother was the victim. Even if she had done wrong, they saw it as balanced by the wrongs my mother had committed too.
She had been rude to for a very long ti, so they didn’t believe she did it to protect . They claid she was now making up stories, as if I were accusing their mother of doing the sa.
I felt like my mother was going through the sa pain I once did. Except, for , it was just one night. For my mother, it had been two years of endless suffering. And the worst part? She had no proof.
I hated the fact that I had to go downstairs and speak with Darcy. That’s when tears started to fill my eyes.
"Hey," Maximus said, noticing. "We’re asking you to attend the dinner tomorrow not because we want you to just keep the peace, we just don’t want this issue spreading to everyone’s ears. If we’re going to investigate, we need to make sure no one knows, so no one can cover their tracks."
He stepped closer, gently trying to calm down. I finally nodded.
"Sure. Let’s do it, then. Let’s find out the truth," I hissed, locking eyes with Kaye.
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