novelraw Chapter 98 : The Past That Burns
Chapter 98 : The Past That Burns
(Rooga POV)
Dinner that night was louder than usual.
Kain talked the most, telling stories that sounded half like memories and half like myths. How Father once broke a siege line by charging straight through it. How Mother blew up a war camp because someone insulted her cooking.
Even Lyra smiled a few times. That alone made it a rare night.
For once, Father wasn’t just the quiet man who trained every day. He laughed, drank, and looked younger somehow — like time had peeled back years and given him a moment of peace.
I almost forgot the ache in my arms from the morning. Almost.
Then I asked a question I shouldn’t have.
“Father,” I said between bites, “if you can heal really fast… then why didn’t your curse ever go away?”
The table went silent.
Kain blinked, halfway through a sip of tea. “Curse?” he said slowly. “What curse?”
Father’s hand froze halfway to his cup.
Selene stopped cutting her bread. Lyra’s eyes flicked up instantly, alert as a cat’s.
Kain’s gaze shifted from me to Darius. “You never said anything about a curse.”
Father exhaled, setting his cup down. “It’s nothing. It happened years ago.”
“When?”
He hesitated. “During the front line.”
Kain’s expression darkened. “When we fought the witches.”
Father nodded.
Kain’s voice rose, the calm gone. “Darius… I told you to go to the empress after that battle! You were half-dead! Don’t tell me you never went!”
“I didn’t.”
Kain slammed a hand on the table. “You idiot!”
Eria flinched in Selene’s arms. Lyra’s hand twitched toward her knife, purely out of instinct.
Kain leaned forward, eyes burning. “No spell from those witches was normal, Darius. You think a curse that drained the light out of your body for months was simple? I saw the field myself! They sacrificed ten men to cast that on you!”
Mother’s fork clattered onto the plate. “Ten lives?” she whispered.
Father’s voice stayed calm — too calm. “It was just a ritual. They used souls to amplify the spell. Nothing more.”
“Nothing more?” Kain snapped. “Ten men died, Darius! That’s not a spell — that’s blood magic. That’s damnation!”
Father looked at him evenly. “And yet, I’m still here.”
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Kain’s jaw tightened. “Then how did you survive it?”
Father was quiet for a long moment. The only sound in the room was Eria’s soft breathing and the faint hum of the lamps.
Finally, he said, “My mana changed. When I was wounded, the curse tried to eat my core. But instead of destroying it, it merged with another.”
Kain frowned. “Another?”
Father nodded. “An elven core.”
The silence that followed was sharp.
Kain stared at him, voice dropping to disbelief. “How in the hell did you get an elven mana core?”
Father looked down at his cup. “That’s a long story.”
Before he could continue, Mother’s voice cut through the air — quiet at first, then trembling with rage. “Ten lives were used to curse you, and you didn’t bother to tell me?”
“Selene—”
“Don’t you Selene
me!” She stood so fast the chair scraped against the floor. “You kept this from me for years? I thought you were just wounded — I thought it was the corruption’s fault!”Kain leaned back, rubbing his temples. “Oh gods, here we go…”
Father stayed seated, his voice calm but heavy. “There was nothing to tell. It was over.”
Selene’s hands clenched around her napkin. “Over? That curse changed you. It’s why your mana doesn’t feel human anymore. You let me believe you’d healed on your own!”
Her voice broke at the end — a crack like glass.
Lyra stood up silently, her eyes darting to me. “Rooga. Take your brother and sister to your room. Now.”
Riaz pouted. “But Mama’s yelling—”
“Now,” Lyra repeated.
I picked up Eria from Mother’s arms — she didn’t resist, just stared at Father with eyes full of hurt — and followed Lyra upstairs.
Even from the hallway, I could still hear their voices.
Selene’s anger.
Kain’s disbelief.
Father’s silence.
Riaz tugged on my sleeve as we reached our room. “Is Papa in trouble?”
I swallowed. “I don’t know.”
Lyra closed the door behind us and sighed quietly. “Adults and their curses,” she muttered.
I sat on the edge of the bed, holding Eria close while the shouting downstairs echoed faintly through the wood.
For the first time, I realized how much of Father’s past we didn’t know — and how heavy it must have been to carry alone.
(Lyra POV)
Selene left the house without a word after shouting at Darius.
The door slammed hard enough to shake the lanterns.
I waited for a few minutes before following. Someone had to.
The forest air was cool, filled with that quiet hum that always came after the rain. She was standing just beyond the porch, her hands trembling, eyes red even in the dim light.
She didn’t look like a mage or a mother right then — just a woman trying to breathe through betrayal.
When I stepped closer, she didn’t turn. “How long were you listening?”
“Long enough to know he deserved that shouting,” I said.
She laughed bitterly. “Deserved more than that. Ten lives… and he said nothing. All these years.”
I leaned beside her against the old railing. The air smelled of wet grass and smoke from the kitchen hearth.
“Man and his pride,” I muttered. “It’s a poison. They carry it like armor, but it’s just ego in a prettier shape.”
Selene’s fingers tightened on the rail. “Their ego killed them before.”
“Yes,” I said softly. “And I’ve seen it too many times to count.”
The silence stretched between us. I could hear the faint sounds of the children upstairs, and somewhere inside, Darius’s heavy footsteps pacing.
Selene’s voice cracked. “He fought through all that pain, and still he couldn’t trust me with the truth. What kind of pride keeps something like that buried?”
“The same kind that makes a man swing a sword a thousand times to feel alive,” I said. “They think suffering alone makes them strong. It doesn’t. It just makes them lonely.”
She finally turned to me. The moonlight caught the tears on her face. “I’m sorry, Lyra. I didn’t mean to… trigger your memories.”
I forced a small smile. “Don’t worry. As long as you don’t ask for details, we’re fine.”
Her eyes softened, a hint of guilt replaced by understanding.
“I won’t,” she said quietly.
“Good,” I replied, smirking faintly. “Because they’re boring anyway.”
She laughed, weak but real, and for a moment, the heaviness lifted.
We stood there in silence for a while, just listening to the forest breathe.
The leaves rustled like whispers of comfort. Somewhere inside, I could still hear Maori’s faint hum through the roots, a reminder that even in a house full of secrets, life still moved forward.
Eventually, Selene wiped her eyes and straightened. “Thank you, Lyra.”
I shrugged. “You don’t need to thank me. Just… make him sweat a bit longer before forgiving him.”
She smiled faintly. “I planned to.”
We walked back toward the house together, the night air settling calm around us — heavy with secrets, but not hopeless anymore.