Seraphina's POV:
I stood, swaying slightly, but my feet were planted firm. The look in my eyes must have changed, because Ethan, who had been sneering down at me, took an involuntary step back. The despair was gone, replaced by a cold, burning resolve.
"What now?" he spat, his surprise quickly morphing back into disgust. "You're going to fight?"
I ignored him. My gaze locked on the one person who had remained silent, the one person whose judgment had hurt more than any of Ethan's blows. My mother, Luna Genevieve.
My voice was a raw whisper, but it cut through the tension in the hallway. "Mother. In ten years, was there ever a moment? A single moment, when you chose to believe me?"
The question struck her like a physical blow. Her frail body trembled, her eyes darting away from mine, unable to meet my gaze. The scent of her grief, like withered roses, intensified.
I took a painful step toward her. "I am your daughter. You raised me. I loved Celeste more than anything. Do you truly believe, in your heart, that I was capable of what you accused me of?"
It was the question I had screamed in my mind for a decade, and it was finally free.
Her lips parted, a wordless sound escaping. She looked at Ethan, at the elders, anywhere but at me, before letting out a long, shuddering sigh.
Ethan, ever the protector, moved to stand between us. "Stop trying to poison her mind! Your pathetic act won't work!"
"Answer me, Mother!" I insisted, my voice rising, raw with a decade of unshed tears.
My demand finally broke through her wall of sorrow. The Luna of the Blackwood pack looked at me, her face a mask of profound exhaustion and pain.
"Sera..." Her voice was as fragile as dried leaves. "The evidence... it was everywhere. What we saw... Celeste was destroyed. Your father... the shame nearly killed him."
"So you believed it," I said, a bitter, broken laugh escaping my lips. "You believed the evidence. You believed one heartbroken daughter. But you didn't believe the other."
My words hung in the air, heavy and damning. I saw a few of the elders shift uncomfortably, their gazes falling to the floor.
My defiance seemed to snap the last of Ethan's control. "You ungrateful wretch!" he snarled, lunging for me again.
But this time, a hand shot out and grabbed his arm. My mother's.
"That is enough, Ethan," she said. Her voice was quiet, but it held the unmistakable, unbreakable authority of the pack's Luna.
Ethan froze, staring at her in disbelief. It was the first time she had intervened.
"Your father is in there," she said, her voice thick with unshed tears. "We will give him peace in his final moments. This... all of this... can wait."
Her words weren't for my protection. They were for my father's dignity, for the sanctity of an Alpha's passing. But for me, it was a reprieve. A single breath of air in an ocean of condemnation.
Genevieve turned her complex, tired gaze on me. Then, with a slight tilt of her head, she indicated the ICU door.
"Go," she said, her voice barely audible. "Say your goodbye. He deserves that. And... so do you."
In that one sentence, I heard it all. The pity. The exhaustion. The last, flickering ember of a mother's love, buried under a mountain of duty and shame.
Ethan started to protest, but a sharp look from our mother silenced him.
I looked at her, really looked at her, for a long moment. I didn't say thank you. This wasn't forgiveness. It was a temporary truce, a courtesy extended to the dying.
Without another word, I turned my back on them all and walked toward the door that had defined my life.
My hand rested on the cold, steel handle.
Behind this door was my father. The source of my exile. And now, my only hope for the truth. I took a deep breath and pushed it open.
