Page 193 of Daughter of the Serpent

Was she still enough to make the journey?

Her heart was a battlefield - hope clashing with fear, defiance warring with despair.

She wanted to rise. To claim something different. To be someone different. But in that moment, as the ships rocked in the distance restless, she wasn’t sure she could.

She wasn’t sure she was strong enough.

Was she walking toward her glory - or her undoing?

Despite all the emotions she wished to feel, they crumpled under the weight of her unnerving fear - of what was to come, what would be next.

She watched in silence as the others moved along the shore, boarding the ships, saying their last goodbyes, loading the vessels with provisions and offerings. Voices carried on the wind - soft murmurs, laughter laced with nerves, whispered prayers. The village gathered to witness their departure, their songs rising like smoke into the overcast sky, offerings to the gods, parting hymns for those daring enough to face the unknown. Some wept. Some smiled. All of them believed in what was to come.

But she stood frozen.

Her body refused to move, her breath caught somewhere between now and the thousand yesterdays that had brought her here. She couldn’t step forward - not yet. Not with the weight of everything she’d endured pressing against her spine like a blade. Terror gripped her chest like a closing fist, but beneath it churned a deeper ache - hurt. Not just for what she had lost, but for what she might never become.

She didn’t want to live another chapter defined by failure, by unworthiness. She couldn’t bear to repeat the same story.

Thishadto be different. This had to work. This wasn’t just a journey - it was her reckoning, her only chance to become something more than what they said she was.

The instinct to flee stirred in her like a storm wind - screaming for her to turn back, to disappear, to carve a quiet life somewhere no one knew her name. Somewhere the past couldn’t find her. Somewhere she wouldn’t have to face the risk of rising - and falling.

But then, the inner knowing came.

It rose in her chest like wildfire. Fierce. Untamable. It didn’t ask permission - it simplywas. The truth she could no longer deny:if she walked away now, she would regret it for the rest of her life.

She had to know.

Who she truly was. What blood coursed through her veins. What strength lived beneath her skin. She needed to see what she was made of - to believe in herself, even if no one else ever would.

And in that moment, she understood something vital - every pain, every betrayal, every wound that nearly broke her - had also shaped her. Each scar was a map that led here. Each heartbreak, a chisel carving her into someone stronger. The story of her life was forged in fire and sorrow - but that didn’t mean it couldn’t end in triumph. It didn’t mean she couldn’t write a new chapter.

Her first step was small. Trembling. But it was hers.

She didn’t know where it would lead.

She didn’t know if glory or ruin awaited her.

But at last, she knew this much - this choice, this path into the unknown - it belonged to her.

Even if no one ever spoke her name. Even if she never became a legend. Even if the gods struck her down before her foot touched the boat's polished surface - she would go knowing that shechoseit. Her life. Her future. Her fate.

Each step left a shallow imprint in the soil - fleeting, already fading. The salt breeze reached for her, twining through her hair, brushing her skin like a lover long - lost and finally returned. She inhaled it, deep and slow, letting it settle in her lungs. The scent of sea and forest. Smoke and moss.

Home.

This land had tested her, broken her - but it had also forged her into who she had become.

And now, it gave her this moment.

With every step toward the water, she could feel the past recede - its voice growing dimmer, its grip loosening.

The ghosts were not lost - but they no longer led.

And now, she felt the first flicker of something then fear quake along her spine -excitement- as if the ships themselves were calling her name.

Around her, the shore bore the marks of prayer and ceremony. Scattered ash. The faint scent of burnt herbs. The dying coals of offerings, snuffed out by the wind. She wasn’t the only one who had spent her final day in worship. Each warrior, each delegate, had spilled their hopes and dreams, desperate for safe passage to Kallithea - the land of the gods.

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