Chapter 111: The Weight of Ashes

Orion stared at her like he could not believe the person that was sitting next to him. And what was that impression of him she did? If there was one thing he was sure if, it was the fact that he did not sound like that. At all.

"I don’t sound like that," he told her.

"You sure about that?" She asked him with a smug smile.

Orion huffed a laugh. "I know how I sound like and it’s definitely not like that. I don’t know where you got that impression from but it’s not me."

Sophia’s lips curved, the corners tugging upward with an almost smug calm. "Too bad, that’s how you sound like to me," she replied, tone softer than before but no less insistent.

Orion scoffed as he drank from the wineskins. Sophia glared at him but he pretended not to notice.

There was a beat of silence between them but Orion knew her brain was already travelling a mile. She looked like she was mulling over what to tell him.

He thought it was about the drink and that she had forgotten her earlier question and opened his mouth to speak, to tell her that even if she glared at him he wasn’t going to give her the wineskin but then she sighed, her glare softening. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Her gaze fell briefly to her hands where her fingers worried at the hem of her sleeve before she looked back up at him.

The rustling of branches and the far-off echoes of the festival drifted through the forest. The laughter and music from the pack grounds felt almost cruelly distant, like another world entirely.

"I understand or rather I know what the festival is all about." she told him softly.

Orion’s brow furrowed, he had no idea where she was going with this although he suspected it had to do with her earlier question but he didn’t interrupt.

She pressed on, her words weaving slowly, carefully, as though each one was a step on thin ice. "It’s not just about celebration. It’s remembrance, isn’t it? For your people. For what was lost. That’s what you said when you gave your speech."

Orion’s breath caught faintly, but his face stayed unreadable.

"I know what the enclave did," Sophia continued, her voice soft but firm. "How they hurt your people. Your family." She swallowed, the weight of the knowledge pressing against her chest. "I know you lost your parents that day."

The words hung between them. Orion’s body stiffened, his knuckles tightening where his hand rested against his knee.

"And you weren’t the only one," Sophia said, eyes glimmering with quiet determination. "Ronan lost family. Brynhild did. Everyone in the pack has been hurt by that attack in one way or another. Every person here carries scars because of it." Her voice cracked slightly, though she tried to steady it. "And I think... I think that’s why you’re sad tonight. Because being reminded of it, celebrating survival... it reminds you of all that pain."

For a heartbeat, Orion only stared at her. Then the corner of his mouth twisted, and a bitter laugh escaped him.

"Oh wow." He said as he tried to calm himself. "You know everything." He chuckled.

"You think you know everything, Sophia. You think you do, but you don’t." He said to her.

Her brows pinched, but she stayed quiet, letting him speak. He wasn’t the same person that had been joking with her just a few minutes ago, this person looked bitter and even more sad than before.

"You don’t know anything." His tone cut deep, rougher now, the bitterness bleeding through like poison. His eyes burned with something unguarded, a rawness that made him look older, wearier than his years. "Did the same person who told you about how they lost family, how I lost my family tell you about me? About how I’m the reason it all happened?"

Sophia was quiet even as the words made her stunned.

"The person didn’t tell you that everything happened because of a child did they?"

She didn’t answer, but her silence was answer enough.

"You see, the attack happened because of a child," Orion said, his voice dropping lower, "A stupid, stubborn child who insisted on saving his family. He wanted to be a hero like his father. Wanted to show that he could do what his father did for the pack too besides, he was his father’s heir. All he had to do was wait until the adults came up when th a solution but he couldn’t wait because he heard his mother was carrying his younger sibling and wanted her to be okay so he could boast to his friends that he also had a sibling. That he wasn’t the only child."

Sophia’s chest tightened as she watched him. His words weren’t distant recollections, they were sharp, jagged, and still cutting him still after all these years.

"If he hadn’t pushed his friends into sneaking into a pack that was forbidden... if he hadn’t dragged them into danger they weren’t prepared for...danger they were too young for..." His hand curled into a fist against his knee. His voice cracked, though it hardened again in the next breath. "...then maybe most of them would still be alive. Maybe my parents would still be alive. Maybe half of this pack wouldn’t have buried their blood that night."

"Orion..." she tried again, but he shook his head violently, as if her voice was unbearable in this moment.

"I’m that child," he spat out, the words shuddering from somewhere deep in his chest. His eyes blazed with grief and self-loathing, darker than she’d ever seen them. "I’m the reason everything happened. I’m the one who couldn’t just fucking wait. I thought I could change things, and all I did was destroy them."

His breath came heavier now, controlled but shaking at the edges. The hand gripping the wineskin flexed as though he might crush it just to rid himself of the weight of it all.

Sophia’s throat burned, her heart pounding with the sheer force of the grief pouring from him. She wanted to reach out, to close the space between them, but she could see the walls he was building around himself even as the truth cracked through.

Her voice softened to a whisper. "Orion..."