My heart raced as our lips met in a soft and hesitant kiss. It was as if time stood still, and all that mattered was the feeling of his lips against mine.
Our lips met in a soft and tender embrace, and I could feel the warmth of his breath against m...
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Silence spread and then the uneasy murmurs among the people grew much louder.
When I looked around, I saw how the other women in the room were looking at me and whispering to each other. My mother tried to shield me from their scornful looks and whispers.
"Perhaps my daughter became part of a new form of eurybia's blessing." She turned to me. "Exactly, that's how it must be. Tell everyone Yona. Tell them about your blessing."
I waded through the water and stopped in front of my mother. Slowly I took hold of her hands. "Mother, I have not received a blessing from Eurybia because I am not one of her believers."
"What are you talking about. Of course you are..."
"Mother!" I interrupted her and looked at her urgently.
"Her soul belongs to someone else."
The priestess stepped up to us and examined me from top to bottom. I returned her astonished gaze. How did she know?
"That's not possible!" my mother whispered.
"OH, YES IT IS! I KNEW IT!" My father's voice echoed angrily through the hall and everyone flinched.
What did he know?
He detached himself from the wall and came slowly towards us. "Onea!" My father grabbed my mother by the arm and turned her roughly towards him. "Tell me the truth. You did it, didn't you? Twenty years ago.... you did it...."
She shook her head though my father had not yet uttered a reason.
"No I didn't..."
"Oh yes you did how could I have been so stupid..."
My father turned to the crowd with a pained expression on his face. "That bastard child is not my daughter."
What had he just said? I was not his daughter?
My mother fell onto her knees in front of me. "I swear by all that is holy that I did not do this."
"Don't lie! You gave shelter to the unknown traveller and that night you were not with me. Shortly afterwards you became pregnant with this child. Look, even the hair is the same, the hair of the traveller. But you only said that this child, that Yona, had a genetic defect. YOU LIED TO ME AND I WAS SO STUPID AND NAIVE AND BELIEVED YOUR WORDS!"
A wave of anger swept over me. Everyone was staring at me in shock, but I did not care any more.
"No...", my mother whispered, but it was clear that she was lying.
"This man was a traveller who wanted to explore Niantra, no one knew where he came from and no one had ever seen hair like that before." My father turned to me. "Look at you child, you don't look like me or your mother, you are the child of a nameless man."
Everyone turned to look at me. No one seemed surprised by what my father had just said.
I clung to the memories I had. My life was a lie... no it couldn't be. "Father, please stop. That's not true."
