Lucian
The moment Seraphina begged me to stop, I knew everything had changed. Not because she had finally grown a conscience. That had always been there. Hidden beneath loneliness. Buried beneath resentment. Drowned beneath years of disappointment. No.
What changed was that she had finally seen the consequences. People often imagined guilt arrived immediately after wrongdoing. It didn't. Guilt was slow. Patient. Painful. It waited until consequences acquired faces. Names. Children.
Then it arrived all at once. And now it sat in front of me wearing Seraphina Blackridge's face. Tears glistened in her eyes. Her hands trembled. The confident Luna who had walked into this cabin months ago was gone.
In her place stood a frightened woman finally realizing she was standing in much deeper wa
