The anger inside me exploded, tangled with grief so deep it felt suffocating.
“Stop lying to yourself, Thorian!” I snapped, my voice shaking. “If you actually cared, you wouldn’t have left her alone out there—for her.” I shot a glance at Selindra. “She was six. Six years old. Did it ever cross your mind that she might’ve been terrified? That she needed you?”
“Why do you keep dragging this out?” he barked, losing what little patience he had left. “You’re making a scene over nothing!”
Before I could react, he moved.
With a careless, almost irritated motion, his foot struck the urn lying near the disturbed soil.
A hollow crack echoed.
The container rolled, then tipped—spilling its contents across the ground.
Ashley’s ashes scattered into the dirt.
For a second, my mind went completely blank.
When I saw her body that night, broken on the pavement, it felt like my world had ended. But this—this was worse. This was her own father destroying what little remained of her.
A gust of wind swept through, lifting the ashes into the air like pale smoke.
“No… no, stop!” I struggled violently against the men holding me, reaching out desperately as if I could gather her back with my bare hands.
But there was nothing to hold on to.
The ashes slipped through my fingers, carried away—gone just like that.
The last piece of her… gone.
My strength gave out. I collapsed onto the ground, my hands digging uselessly into the soil, searching, hoping, refusing to accept that there was nothing left. Tears blurred everything.
Selindra stepped closer.
Without hesitation, she pressed her heel down over the scattered remains, grinding them into the earth as if they meant nothing.
Her voice came low, almost amused.
“Morwen,” she said, “it’s just someone else’s ashes. Why all this drama?” She tilted her head slightly. “If you didn’t want Danny resting here, you didn’t have to make such a spectacle.”
“Stay away from me!” I snapped, surging to my feet and shoving her hard.
She stumbled backward and fell, hitting the ground with a dull thud.
That was enough.
Thorian’s temper snapped completely.
In an instant, he closed the distance and struck me across the face. The impact rang through my skull—but it was nothing compared to the pain tearing through my chest.