Chapter 177: Princess Norelle
~ Ava's POV ~
The silver pool wasn't done with me yet. As I knelt there, trying to catch my breath, more images began to form on its surface. I wanted to look away, but I couldn't. Something told me this was the part I needed to see most.
I saw Norelle again, but this time she looked sick. Tired. Standing in a room filled with angry voices.
"You must choose," a man in golden robes said. His voice was cold. "Your kingdom or the beast. You cannot have both."
Through Norelle's eyes, I felt the weight of that choice. It wasn't about love anymore. It was about survival.
Grey was changing, becoming something dark and dangerous. His anger was growing, eating him from the inside. And that anger was threatening everyone, although according to Lorraine, they caused it.
I watched as Norelle tried again and again to reach him. To pull him back from whatever had done to him. She didn't give up on him even at this point. She never did, she just continued pouring her all.
The gods wanted her to abandon him. Her own parents begged her to let him go. But Norelle couldn't. Not when she saw glimpses of who he used to be.
"I won't give up on him," I heard her say, her voice shaking but determined. "There has to be another way to save everyone."
But the pool showed me what happened next, and my heart broke all over again.
A young woman with kind blue eyes and pale silver hair stepped into the room. Callie. Norelle's lady in waiting, her friend, the person she trusted most in the world.
"My lady," Callie said softly. "I brought you some tea."
Norelle smiled at her, the first real smile I'd seen in the memories. "Thank you, Callie. You always know what I need."
But as Norelle drank the tea, I saw Callie's face change. There was no kindness there anymore. Only envy.
The next scene, showed what I feared. The tea was drugged. And while Norelle slept, Callie sent word to the gods. She told them everything. Where Norelle was weak. How her powers worked. How to trap her.
I watched in horror as Callie opened the barrier for the god realm's soldiers. As she stood back and let them chain Norelle in that dark chamber.
"Why?" Norelle whispered when she woke up, seeing Callie standing there with her captors. "Why would you do this?"
Callie's voice was empty. "Because they promised me power. And because you're too weak to do what needs to be done. The people would be happy. They will reward me."
That was the moment Norelle truly broke. Not when Grey suddenly changed, to her, she could fix him once she resolved the issue of Grey with the God realm.
Not when her kingdom fell from favor with the third realm. But when the person she trusted most, the one who knew all her secrets, sold her out for power.
I felt Norelle's heart shatter. Felt her give up fighting. What was the point? If even Callie could betray her, then maybe she really was as foolish and weak as everyone said.
The pool showed me Norelle's last days. Alone in that chamber, her powers slowly fading because she was cut off from the world. From people. From life itself. For she was life itself. She couldn't give life if life taken from her.
I learned something terrible then. Our people, the people of Mesodomica, we need freedom to survive. We need to move, to connect, to live openly. Lock us away, keep us isolated, and we die. Not quickly, but slowly, painfully, as our powers eat us from the inside.
Callie had told the gods this secret. She had given them the weapon they needed to destroy her adding the fact they had sought the dark one for help.
Norelle died alone, not from battle or magic, but from loneliness. From the crushing pain of betrayal and isolation.
The images faded, and I found myself sobbing by the pool. Not just for Norelle, but for all of it. The unfairness. The cruelty. The way everyone had used her and then blamed her when she couldn't save them all.
"She tried so hard," I whispered through my tears. "She tried to save everyone, and they all turned on her."
Lorraine knelt beside me, her hand gentle on my back. "Now you see the truth. She wasn't weak. She wasn't foolish. She was fighting a war no one could win."
"But Callie," I said, anger rising in my chest. "Why is still alive? Why was she never punished?"
Lorraine's face changed. I saw pain and sadness. "Because she disappeared right after Norelle's death. Vanished like smoke. When I came back from my travels, I found my daughter Siwan losing herself."
" Her husband was no different. They were filled with pain and anger. So they sent people to search for her, but they never found her. Until later, when the truth came out." I looked away. I don't care the truth, Callie deserves death as slow and painful like Norelle.
"That's not fair," I said, my hands clenching into fists. "She should have paid for what she did. Norelle trusted her with everything, and she sold her out. She gave the gods the key to destroying our people."
"Life rarely is fair, child," Lorraine said sadly. "But perhaps that's why you're here now. Perhaps that's why you've been given this second chance at life."
I looked up at her, tears still streaming down my face. "I hated her for so long. I blamed her for everything. But she was just trying to do the right thing."
"And now?"
I took a shaky breath. "Now I understand. She wasn't my enemy. She was just like me, trying to protect everyone she loved. And she was betrayed by the person she trusted most."
For the first time since I could remember, when I thought of Norelle, I didn't feel shame or anger. I felt sadness for her. And respect.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, as if she could hear me. "I'm sorry I hated you. I'm sorry no one understood what you were going through. I'm sorry you died alone."
The silver pool's surface shook once, as if responding to my words. Then it went still.
I stood up slowly, my legs still shaky. But I felt different. Lighter. Like a weight I'd been carrying had finally been lifted from my shoulders.
"What do I do now?" I asked.
Lorraine smiled, and for the first time since I'd known her, it reached her eyes. "Now you live, granddaughter. You live the life she never got to finish. And maybe, if you're strong enough, you make sure no one else suffers the way she did."
I nodded, wiping the last of my tears away. "I will. I promise."
As we left the silver pool towards Alexis, I sworn
I wouldn't let her sacrifice be for nothing. And someday, somehow, I would make sure Callie Darien paid for what she had done.
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