Chapter 171: She is You.
~ Ava's POV ~
Just as I turned from Alexis's comforting embrace, movement in the doorway caught my eye. My breath caught in my throat.
Lorraine stood there, watching.
Heat flooded my face as shame crashed over me like a wave. I couldn't meet my grandmother's eyes. How long had she been standing there? How much had she heard of my breakdown, my confessions of weakness and failure?
I looked down at my hands, at the tears still drying on my cheeks, and felt smaller than I had in years. Here I was, supposed princess of Mesodomica, crying like a child over things I should have moved past by now.
Alexis shifted beside me, but said nothing. The silence stretched between us all, heavy with unspoken words.
Finally, Lorraine spoke. Her voice was soft, sadder than I'd ever heard it. "Come, granddaughter. It's time you see her… all of her."
I looked up, confused. "Grandmother, I—"
"Come," she repeated gently, but there was something in her tone that brooked no argument.
I followed silently, my legs still shaky from sitting so long. Trembling inside, I walked behind her through corridors I'd never seen before. Alexis started to follow, but Lorraine held up a hand. "This journey is hers alone to take."
We walked deeper into the castle than I'd ever been. The walls grew older here, the stones more weathered. Ancient symbols carved into the rock seemed to pulse with their own inner light as we passed. The air itself felt different—thicker, charged with something I couldn't name.
Lorraine stopped before a heavy wooden door bound with iron. Runes covered every inch of its surface, glowing faintly blue in the dim corridor. She placed her hand against the wood and whispered words in a language I didn't recognize. The runes flared brighter, and with a deep grinding sound, the door swung open.
"This chamber has been sealed for years," Lorraine said, stepping inside. "Waiting for you."
I hesitated at the threshold. The room beyond was circular, with walls covered in more of those glowing symbols. In the center sat a pool of what looked like liquid silver, its surface perfectly still and mirror-bright.
"What is this place?"
"A place of memory," Lorraine said simply. "Of truth. You hate her so much—the girl you were before. But you've only seen fragments of her story. Pieces torn from context, colored by pain and regret."
She gestured to the pool. "This will show you everything. Not just the mistakes, not just the pain. All of her—her joy, her rage, her betrayal, and her love. The weight she carried, the power she wielded, the chains that bound her."
I shook my head, backing away. "I don't want to see more. I've seen enough—"
"You've seen nothing," Lorraine said firmly. "You've seen what others told you to see. What your pain allowed you to remember. But Norelle—your past self—she was more than your mistakes. She was more than her love for him."
"I can't." The words came out as a whisper. "I can't relive all of that again."
Lorraine stepped closer, her weathered hands gentle as they touched my face. "Child, you cannot heal what you refuse to understand. You cannot forgive what you will not truly see."
My grandmother's eyes held such compassion, such deep sadness. "She is not your enemy, Ava. She never was. She was a young woman trying to save everyone she loved with the only weapon she had—her heart."
Tears started falling again. "But she failed. She failed everyone."
"Did she?" Lorraine's voice was soft. "Or have you simply chosen to remember only the ending, not the journey that led there?"
I stared at the pool, its silver surface reflecting the chamber's ethereal light. Every instinct screamed at me to run, to refuse, to keep the painful memories buried where they belonged.
But something deeper, quieter, whispered that maybe—maybe I needed to see.
"Will it hurt?" I asked.
"Yes," Lorraine said honestly. "Truth often does. But it will also heal, if you let it."
I took a shaking breath and stepped toward the pool. The moment my fingers touched the silver surface, the world disappeared.
Suddenly, I was her—Norelle—standing in a grand ballroom, laughing at something Raphael had whispered in my ear. The joy that filled me was pure, untainted by what was to come. I felt her—my—power humming beneath my skin, wild and barely contained. The way everyone in the room looked at me with a mixture of awe and fear. The weight of expectations pressing down on my shoulders like a physical thing.
I saw her training in secret chambers, pushing her abilities to their limits because she knew—somehow knew—that greater threats were coming. The frustration when the council dismissed her warnings, when they saw her power as something to be controlled rather than utilized.
I felt her rage when Raphael's true nature began to surface. Not the helpless heartbreak I remembered, but fury—blazing, righteous anger at his betrayal. I saw her trying to save him, yes, but also trying to save everyone else from what he was becoming.
The memories came faster now, overlapping and intertwining. Her desperate attempts to hold a kingdom together while fighting a war on multiple fronts. The impossible choices she faced daily. The way she loved—not just Raphael, but her people, her family, her duty—with an intensity that burned like a star.
I saw the moment she realized she couldn't save him. The devastation that followed wasn't weakness—it was the breaking of someone who had given everything and found it wasn't enough.
But I also saw her strength. How she kept fighting even after her heart shattered. How she sacrificed pieces of herself to protect others. How she faced each day knowing she was hated for choices that had no good options.
The silver pool released me, and I collapsed to my knees beside it, gasping. But for the first time in so long, the weight in my chest felt different. Lighter somehow.
"Do you see?" Lorraine asked gently. "She wasn't a fool driven by blind love. She was a warrior fighting an impossible battle. She was you—brave, determined, powerful—trying to save the world with whatever tools she had."
I looked up at my grandmother through fresh tears. "She was so strong."
"She was," Lorraine agreed. "And so are you. Because you are her, and she is you. The strength that carried her through darkness? It lives in you still."
For the first time, when I thought of Norelle—of my past self—I didn't feel hatred. I felt something else entirely.
Understanding. And maybe, just maybe, the beginning of forgiveness.
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