Page 30 of The Minotaur's Little Peach
She turns those knowing eyes on me, the ones that have been seeing through my carefully constructed lies since we were children picking berries behind her mother's shop. Freckles dust her cheeks like scattered star maps, and her mouth quirks in that way that means she's about to call me on whatever foolishness I'm peddling.
"Taran's been perfect every time I've seen him," she says, settling into the chair across from where I perch on the couch's edge. "Try again."
The words want to stay locked behind my teeth, but Mirath has always been able to pull confessions from me with nothing more than patient silence and that expectant tilt of her head. We sit there for long moments, her dark gaze steady while I fidget with the hem of my dress and try to find words for something I barely understand myself.
"I kissed Daegan," I blurt out finally, the admission tearing from my throat like something physical. "Four nights ago. And then I ran away like a coward, and now we can barely look at each other, and I feel so stupid because what kind of person does that? What kind of person kisses her dead husband's brother?"
Mirath's eyebrows climb toward her hairline, but she doesn't look shocked. If anything, she looks relieved, like I've finally acknowledged something she's been waiting for me to see. "Ah. That explains the careful choreography you two have been performing whenever I visit."
Heat flames across my cheeks, settling in my ears and down my neck. "It's not choreography. It's mortification. I threw myself at him, Mir. I kissed him, and then I panicked because—because it felt so good, and how can I feel that way about someone who isn't Korrun? How can I dishonor his memory like that?"
She leans back in her chair, arms crossed, and that knowing smirk spreads across her face like sunrise. The expressiontransforms her from healer to the mischievous girl who used to dare me to steal sweets from the baker's cooling racks.
"Oh, honey," she says, voice rich with amusement and affection. "You think wanting someone else means you loved Korrun less?"
"It's his brother," I snap, the words sharp enough to cut. Saying it aloud makes it worse somehow, adds another layer of wrongness to feelings I can't seem to control. "His brother, Mir. What does that make me?"
Without missing a beat, without even blinking, she grins. "Smart? You're keeping it in the family."
The shocked laugh that escapes me sounds more like a sob, but it's followed by another, and then another, until I'm doubled over with helpless giggles that feel like breaking apart and coming together all at once. Mirath joins me, her laughter bright and infectious, and for a few precious moments the weight on my chest lifts enough that I can breathe properly.
When the laughter finally subsides, leaving us both wiping tears from our eyes, she reaches over and takes my hands in hers. Her palms are warm, slightly rough from years of grinding herbs and mixing potions, and the familiar comfort of her touch anchors me.
"Soreya," she says, her voice gentle but firm. "Korrun is gone. He's been gone for months, and grieving him—loving him—doesn't mean your heart has to stay buried with him. You have decades of life ahead of you, and Korrun would want you to live them."
"But Daegan?—"
"Is a good man who cares about you and Taran. Who's been taking care of you both, who makes you laugh, who's brought light back to your eyes over these past months." She squeezes my fingers, dark eyes serious. "The fact that he's Korrun's brother doesn't make your feelings wrong. If anything, it meanshe understands what you've lost. He knew Korrun, loved him too. Who better to help you heal than someone who shares that grief?"
The words settle into the spaces between my ribs, finding cracks in the wall of guilt I've built around my heart. I want to believe her, want to accept that feeling alive again doesn't make me a traitor to the man who gave me everything good I'd ever known. But the shame feels too heavy, too deeply rooted in months of careful numbness.
"He hasn't spoken to me since," I whisper. "Barely looks at me. Maybe he regrets it. Maybe he thinks I'm pathetic for?—"
"For what? For responding to him? For letting yourself feel something other than grief for five minutes?" Mirath's voice carries that sharp edge she gets when she's about to demolish whatever foolish notion has taken hold in my head. "Or maybe he's giving you space because he saw how terrified you were afterward. Maybe he's waiting for you to make the next move because he doesn't want to push you into something you're not ready for."
She releases my hands and sits back, studying my face with the intensity she usually reserves for particularly complex healing cases. "Have you considered that he might be just as confused as you are? Just as worried about what it means?"
I hadn't. In my spiral of self-recrimination and shame, I'd assumed his distance meant disappointment or regret. But now, thinking about the careful way he's been avoiding me, the deliberate space he's created between us, I wonder if Mirath might be right. If maybe he's trying to protect me from pressure I'm not ready to handle.
The possibility shifts something inside me, makes room for thoughts I've been too frightened to examine. What if the kiss wasn't a betrayal but a beginning? What if wanting Daegandoesn't diminish what I had with Korrun but adds something new to the life I'm trying to rebuild?
After Mirath leaves, her words linger in the quiet house like incense, filling corners that have felt empty for days. I move through my afternoon routine—feeding Taran, checking the windows, tidying spaces that don't need tidying—but her voice echoes in my mind with each task.
Keeping it in the family.
The phrase should sound crude, inappropriate. Instead, it feels like permission. Like maybe there's no betrayal in wanting someone who understands exactly what I've lost, who loved Korrun enough to abandon his own life to care for the family left behind. Maybe loving them both isn't a contradiction but a different kind of harmony, one that honors the past while making space for whatever comes next.
Maybe Soreya can have something special with Daegan and still love Korrun.
The thought unfurls in my chest like warmth, pushing against months of careful numbness. For the first time since that night, I let myself remember not just the panic that sent me fleeing, but the sweetness that came before it. The way Daegan's hands felt against my face, sure and gentle. The soft sound he made when I kissed him back. The rightness of it that terrified me more than anything else.
Maybe I'm not wrong to want that again.
Maybe I'm wrong to deny us both the chance to find out what it could become.
And yet… the memory of Korrun makes me unsure of everything I'm doing.
17
