The next entry was dated months later.
I was wrong. There's no freedom in running. Only fear.
They're hunting us. Not openly—they can't admit the sun holder fled, can't admit they've lost the amulet. But I see their agents in every town. Feel their eyes watching. Joraan tries to keep me calm, but I can see the strain in him. The shadow magic he swore he'd abandoned—he's using it again. To hide us. To protect us.
And it's changing him. Making him colder. More paranoid.
This is my fault. I asked him to give up everything for me, and now he's becoming the thing he feared most.
The baby is due in a month. I'm terrified.
The entries became sporadic after that. Shorter. More frantic.
Contractions started. Too early. Something's wrong.
Joraan is gone. Went to get help. I'm alone.
Esira found us. My old mentor. I thought she'd turn us in, but she's helping. Says she owes me. I don't understand, but I'm too weak to argue.
The pain is bad. Really bad.
If I don't survive this, I need to write it down. Need him to know.
The handwriting here was barely legible, scratched out between what must have been contractions.
To my son—
I'm sorry. Sorry I couldn't be strong enough to fight. Sorry I chose to run instead of stand. Sorry you'll grow up without me, without knowing where you came from.
But I'm not sorry I chose you. Given the choice again, I'd make the same decision every time. Because you deserve to live. To choose your own path. To be more than a symbol or a weapon or a tool for other people's ambitions.
The amulet is yours now. Not because you're chosen—I don't know if the sun even works that way. But because it's the only thing of value I have to give you. Keep it hidden. Keep it safe. And if you ever have to use it, remember: power always has a cost. Always.
Be free, little sun. Be free in ways I never could be.
I love you. I wish I could have told you that in person. I wish I could have held you and sang to you and watched you grow. But wishes don't change reality.
You were worth everything.
Everything.
The entry ended there. The next page was blank except for a single line in different handwriting—my grandmother's, sharp and angry:
She died giving birth. The fool died choosing him over the world.
I closed the journal.
The room was silent except for our breathing.
"Rhohar—" Sebtenius started.
"Don't." My voice came out rough. "Just... don't."
He didn't push. Just sat there beside me while I tried to process what I'd read.
My mother hadn't been a coward. She'd been trapped. Forced to choose between impossible options, and she'd chosen me. Knowing it would cost her everything. Knowing history would judge her harshly. Knowing she might die.
And she had died. Giving birth to a son she'd never meet, in a desperate flight from a system that wanted to use him as a pawn.
The anger in my chest shifted, changed shape.
Not anger at her anymore. Anger at the world that had forced that choice. At the nobles who'd made her run. At the system that said power was more important than love. At Awsar for presenting it as a binary when there should have been other options.
At my father, who'd promised to come back with help and apparently never did.
"Where was he?" I said out loud. "Joraan. Where was he when she died?"
"Maybe he couldn't find help in time," Sebtenius offered.
"Or maybe he abandoned her." The bitterness was back. "Maybe when it got too hard, when the reality of what they'd done set in, he decided it wasn't worth it."
"You don't know that."
"I know he's not here now. That I've never met him. That he left me with a grandmother who hated me and never looked back."
Sebtenius was quiet for a moment, then: "What are you going to do?"
That was the question, wasn't it?
My mother had run to give me freedom. Had died to give me a choice.
And now I was being asked to throw that choice away. To take up the burden she'd rejected, stand in the place she'd fled, become the symbol she'd refused to be.
The amulet burned warm against my chest, and I could feel it waiting. Expectant.
A knock on the door. Tet's voice: "Time's up. We need to move."
I stood, tucking the journal inside my shirt next to the amulet.
"Rhohar?" Sebtenius was looking at me with concern. "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking," I said slowly, "that my mother chose freedom. Chose love. Chose me. And it got her killed and changed nothing. The nobles are still moving. Awsar is still dead. The kingdom is still falling apart."
"So?"
"So maybe running isn't the answer. Maybe freedom isn't worth the cost if everyone else pays for it."
"You're not seriously considering—"
"I don't know what I'm considering." I moved toward the door. "But I know I'm tired of running from things I didn't choose. Tired of being afraid. Tired of letting other people make decisions about my life."
I pulled open the door. Tet and Aret stood in the hallway, packs ready, weapons at their belts.
"Ready?" Tet asked.
I looked at them both. At Sebtenius behind me. At the small house that represented safety and hiding and everything my mother had wanted for me.
Then I looked at the amulet in my hand, glowing faintly in the morning light.
"No," I said. "I'm not running."
Aret's eyes narrowed. "What?"
"You heard me. I'm not running. Not hiding. Not pretending I'm nobody just to survive another day while the nobles tear everything apart."
"You'll die," Aret said flatly.
"Probably." I met his gaze. "But my mother died giving me freedom, and all I've done with it is be afraid. Well, I'm done being afraid. If they want this amulet, if they want to kill me for what I represent, they can try. But I'm not making it easy for them."
"You're a child playing at heroism," Aret said. "This isn't a story. There's no glory in dying young."
"I'm not looking for glory. I'm looking for..." I paused, searching for the right words. "Purpose. Meaning. Some reason why my mother's sacrifice mattered."
"It mattered because you lived." Tet's voice was gentle. "That's enough."
"It's not." I shook my head. "Living just to survive isn't enough. Not anymore. My mother ran to give me choice. Fine. I'm choosing. I'm choosing to stand."
"Against the entire Shadow Council?" Aret laughed, harsh. "You and what army?"
"I don't know yet. But I'll figure it out." I looked at Sebtenius. "You don't have to come. This isn't your fight."
"Yes it is." Sebtenius stood, jaw set. "You're my brother. Your fights are my fights."
"Sebtenius—" Tet started.
"No, Father." Sebtenius's voice was hard. "You don't get to decide for me. Not after lying to me for seventeen years. Not after letting his mother walk away without a fight. You had your chance to do the right thing, and you chose safety. Well, I'm choosing differently."
The words hung in the air, brutal and honest.
Tet's face went grey. "You're right. I failed her. And I've been trying to make up for it by keeping you safe. By keeping him safe." He looked at me. "But maybe safety isn't what either of you need."
He turned to Aret. "Call them. The remaining Serpents. Everyone who's still loyal. Tell them the sun holder's heir is making a stand, and we need bodies to hold the line."
Aret stared at him. "You're serious."
"As death." Tet's hand went to his belt, to the knife he always carried. "I failed Kessara once. I won't fail her son. Not again."
Something shifted in Aret's expression. Respect, maybe. Or resignation.
"You're all going to die," he said.
"Maybe." Tet smiled, grim. "But we'll take some of them with us."
Aret shook his head, but he was already moving toward the door. "I'll send word. But don't expect miracles. Most of the Serpents are old, broken, or dead."
"We'll take what we can get."
After Aret left, the three of us stood in the small house, and I realized what I'd just done.
Condemned us all to fight a war we couldn't win against enemies with more power, more resources, and more willingness to do whatever it took to win.
But I also felt something I hadn't felt in days.
Something that might have been purpose.
"Your mother would be proud," Tet said quietly. "Or horrified. Maybe both."
"Probably both," I agreed.
"So what's the plan?" Sebtenius asked. "Besides 'stand and fight.'"
"I have no idea." The honesty was freeing. "But I think it starts with understanding what I am. What this is." I held up the amulet. "And that means going to the one place they'll never expect me to go."
"Where?" Tet asked, though I could see in his eyes that he already knew.
"The temple. Where my mother was chosen. Where the Lost Books are kept. Where I can learn what this amulet really does and what I'm supposed to do with it."
"That's suicide. The temple is crawling with nobles and their agents."
"Then I'll have to be very careful." I smiled, and it felt strange on my face. Not the defensive grin I usually wore, but something harder. Sharper. "Besides, I'm the sun holder's heir. That temple is mine by right. Time I claimed it."
Sebtenius was looking at me like he'd never seen me before. "Who are you?"
"I don't know yet." I tucked the journal more securely against my chest. "But I'm going to find out."
We had three days before the Black Sun rose.
Three days to figure out how to stop an ancient prophecy, unite a scattered and broken resistance, and learn to use magic that cost me pieces of myself every time I wielded it.
Three days to become something more than a bastard with a stolen amulet.
My mother had chosen me over the world.
Now I had to decide if I could choose the world over myself.
The amulet pulsed warm against my skin, and somewhere in the distance, I swore I could hear the Weeping Tree singing.
Not screaming. Not weeping.
Singing.
Like it knew what I'd decided.
Like it approved.