The Demon's Half

Chapter 49

The sun hung low in the sky, its golden light casting long shadows across the cemetery. But no matter how bright it shone, the cold bit deep.
Oz's thin black shirt clung to my skin, and my pants were useless against the wind.

I knelt in front of the grave underneath the tree, fingers brushing the damp, frozen earth.
Mia.
I touched the stone like it might respond. Like maybe she'd reach back.
And for a second, I could've sworn the wind was making a different sound.

Thank you.
It sounded like her.
Thank you.
But it was just the wind. Just my brain twisting grief into hope. Tears spilled. Lately, it was like they were on autopilot. I read the words on her gravestone over and over, like if I read them enough times, they might change.

Mia Jimena Brando de la Cruz

Beloved daughter.
Beloved sister.
You are stronger than you think.

Beloved.
She was. She always would be.

"Morgan." Oddy's voice cut through the quiet. "We can't stay long."

I wiped my face.
Didn't bother to answer. But he was right. Ornella was hunting us.

My fingertips followed the grooves of Mia's name, damp and jagged under my skin. "I didn't even know she was here."

He knelt beside me, his hand landing gently on my shoulder. "Oz did this for you. He knew what it would mean to have her here. To give you a place to come back to."

I shook my head, vision blurring again. "He should've told me. He should've—"

The words clogged in my throat, as if I was trying to swallow sand. Alexander had buried her. Built this place. Made this moment. And never said a word.

"He couldn't," he murmured. "Not with the bargain. He did what he had to do to protect you."

"Protect me?" I snapped, hands curling into fists. "He left me."

Oddy was quiet for a moment.
Then he looked at the trees beyond, and faintly smiled as he said, "My mother used to tell us... no one ever warns you how lonely survival feels. But you're still here and that matters."

I looked at him slowly, my breath caught in my throat.

"Morgan," he said gently, his gaze deep, steady. "He never left you."

"He did—"

"Not for one damned second. Every time you were hurt, it wasn't me. Every night while you slept, it wasn't your imagination. Every day in that prison-cell, he was there. Guarding. Bleeding for you."

And just like that, my heart wasn't the same anymore. Was Alexander the voice I'd heard in the dungeon? Was he the snake that healed me?
The snake that warned him? Had he made me watch his memory with Camille?

"I never saw him," I whispered.

"He didn't want you to," Oddy nodded. "He didn't want you to know. He wanted you to hate him. Thought it'd make it easier for you to kill him."

His voice was gentle, but his eyes, those beautiful, haunted blue eyes, were full of something deeper.

"I don't know what changed his mind in the end."

I pressed my lips between my teeth. "I... kind of called him a coward."

"Yup. That'll do it." His hand brushed my shoulder. "But when he wasn't healing you or guarding your cell, he was giving you more and more of his power. That's the only thing we actually figured out. Through all the quests. All the cursed books. That's what we learned."