Reborn, Its Time To Save My Family And.. My Enemy!
Chapter 190: Not A Witch

Chapter 190: Not A Witch

"I know you.." he drawled, "and I am waiting to know what you felt, experienced and lived." his hands reached for hers and he slowly entwined them. Olivia did not break her gaze even when her body started to heat.

"Damon..."

"I am listening. I will always listen. But Olivia, me and others could only make assumptions. You have to explore the truth." Olivia wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it.

"Will you trust me if I take you somewhere?" Olivia paused, not sure and her eyes fell on the sky, it was still red.

"We will return by night. And you would get the answers you wanted." Olivia hesitated. She had come to him on a whim. Because a part of her was scared. But did she really want answers? What if it shatters her life.

"I will be with you, no matter what you find." and then he whispered, making her close her eyes and take a shaky breath.

"I am afraid!" she confessed and he nodded.

"I am afraid too. But with you, I am ready to take any risk."

Olivia recognized the bend in the trail before she saw the gates—rusted iron curled like vines, still standing though nature had tried its best to swallow them.

Damon walked beside her, silent but certain.

"I haven’t been here in years," Olivia said, her voice barely more than a breath.

"I know," Damon replied. "But I thought... it was time."

The Baron Manor stood like a forgotten monument—its once-elegant pillars chipped and cracked, ivy climbing where velvet curtains used to hang. Olivia froze at the threshold.

Everything within her wanted to run.

She could still hear the laughter of her sister echoing down those halls. The scent of her mother’s rose oil. The sound of her father’s boots on the polished floor. It was too loud in her head.

"I know you..." Damon drawled gently, stepping closer, "and I am waiting to know what you felt, experienced, and lived."

His hand found hers again, firm but careful, like he knew she was just one breath away from shattering.

Olivia didn’t look at him—her eyes stayed fixed on the manor—but her fingers curled around his instinctively.

"Damon..."

"I’m listening," he said, voice low. "I’ll always listen. But Olivia... only you can walk through this. Only you know what this place holds."

A bitter smile touched her lips. "Will it change anything?"

"I don’t know," he admitted. "But it might change you. And I want you to know everything. Not what they told you. Not what I guessed. The truth."

She shook her head slowly, the weight of it all threatening to crush her.

"I didn’t want to come back here."

"I know."

"Then why?" she whispered.

"Because you deserve to remember without fear. And I need to see what shaped the girl I..." he paused, the words heavy on his tongue, "the girl I failed."

Her breath hitched. "You didn’t fail me."

He looked at her then, his gray eyes impossibly soft in the fading light. "Didn’t I?"

She had no answer.

Her feet carried her forward on instinct to her own room. The corners hadn’t changed. The worn edge of the wardrobe still bore the scratch marks she and Oriana had made, pretending it was a portal to another realm. The windowsill was chipped from when she had insisted on climbing out to pick wildflowers and Oriana had screamed until she came back, petals and laughter tangled in her arms.

Olivia reached out, brushing her fingers across the sill, and her knees buckled before she realized what was happening.

She sat down on the edge of what remained of the bed frame, hand clasped tightly over her mouth as tears brimmed thick, hot, unstoppable.

"I can still hear her," she whispered. "My mother used to sit right there... and braid my hair while telling me stories she made up on the spot. While my father responded to the letter with a smile on his face. Oriana sits with him, learning the ways to run the barony. She was sure she would run it one day. She was born to be a heiress."

Olivia gave a shaky laugh. "Sometimes I think that’s the cruelest part. Remembering everything. When the people I love are gone, and I’m the only one who knows what was lost."

Damon reached over, cupping her cheek with his hand. His thumb brushed away a tear she didn’t even know had fallen.

"You brought me here to break me," she said quietly.

"No, I have brought you here because only your mother could give you the answers you needed." he said softly as he rubbed her cheeks lightly. "Olivia, you must follow your heart. I am sure she had left something for you here. It could be anything but only you can find it."

"Why are you so sure?" she probed, taking a breath to control her emotions. She did not have the time to play victim. She had to hold the power so that the past would not repeat itself.

Damon hesitated. He was dodging the question from the start, but he knew he could not do it all his life. And it was time he was honest with her.

"Because if you are.." he held her hand to take strength more than giving it. "A witch, one of your family members should be one too. We knew the baron for a long time and had investigated his lineage. He was not a witcher. But your mother had come from northern lands. She was not a noble but a commoner." she gulped,

"So you expect my mother was a witch and I am.. Her descendent." Damon felt words too heavy to speak. But the way he looked at her, she knew the answer.

"Witches are hunted and burnt in our empire." her voice shook and fear crawled in. "Me and my mother are none of it." she stood up with force but he did not let go of her hands.

"Even if that is the case, we must confirm it before the storm starts."

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