Chapter 111. Burning Portals: pt. 1

Esmeray couldn’t hold any grudge against Maeve, no matter how much she wanted to because of the taunts and insults Maeve had thrown her way over the past years.

There had been nights when her pillow soaked in silent tears carried Maeve’s cruel words back to her like echoes. And still, when she looked at Maeve, all she could see was another broken girl who wore her anger as a shield.

At some point, we all just want someone we can blame our miseries on. But Esmeray had passed that phase. She had accepted that we all have to be toughened by fate by facing everything we are afraid of. But it seemed like Maeve was still stuck in that phase.

Esmeray knew that clinging to blame was like drinking poison slowly—it burned you inside while the world kept moving forward. Maeve hadn’t learned that lesson yet, and perhaps she never would.

In Esmeray’s life, everything she had been afraid of had happened. There was nothing she held dear or nothing she cared for enough to be