Chapter 123 The Journal 2

Chapter 123: Chapter 123 The Journal 2

Talia’s POV

The leather was soft and worn, and it was darkened by age and use. The edges of the pages were gold and faded, but still beautiful. There was no title on the cover, no name, and nothing to tell me who it belonged to.

But I knew it was my mother’s.

I opened the journal, and the handwriting on the first page was my mother’s.

I would recognize it anywhere, because of the loops of her letters, the slant of her words, and the way she crossed her T’s and dotted her I’s. I had seen it on old notes she had left me, on recipes she had written out, and on the edges of books she had marked up with her thoughts.

I traced the letters with my finger.

The loops, the slants, and the way she crossed her T’s. It was like hearing her voice again, and like she was in the room with me, reading the words aloud.

I closed my eyes and listened.

The silence was loud, but her voice was louder. It had never left me, it was like, the voice had just been waiting.

My hands were shaking as I read the first line.

"My daughter is a Silvertongue. If you are reading this, Talia, then I am not there to tell you myself. So I will tell you now, with these words."

My eyes burned. Tears spilled down my cheeks, hot and fast, but I did not wipe them away.

My mother wrote this for me.

She knew I would find it one day. She knew I would open this trunk and search through her things and find this hidden compartment. She had left this for me, and it had been waiting for fifteen years.

I turned the page.

"A Silvertongue is not like other wolves. Our power lives in our voice. We can command, persuade, and compel anything. We can speak words that cannot be ignored, and we can make wolves do things that they would never choose to do on their own."

"This power is rare, and most wolves have never heard of it. The ones who have, fear it. And the ones who fear it, hunt it."

"Your father does not know what you are, because I never told him. I could not risk it. If the wrong people found out, they would come for you. They would take you from me, and I would never see you again."

"So I hid you. I gave you the glamour charm to hide your face, and I hid your power by keeping you quiet. I know that was cruel, and I know you must have suffered. But you were alive, and that was all that mattered to me."

I stopped reading.

My hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold the journal. My tears had soaked the pages, blurring some of the words, but I did not care.

She hid me to protect me, and she silenced me to save me.

And I had spent fifteen years hating her for leaving, and wanting to find her, but not knowing that she had never stopped trying to keep me safe.

I turned the page.

"Your power will wake up slowly. First, you will feel it in moments of stress. You will speak, and wolves will listen, but they will not know why. They will just feel compelled to do what you say."

"As you grow stronger, you will be able to command more wolves at once. You will be able to speak words of power, words that cannot be ignored, and words that can change the course of a battle or end a war."

"But be careful, my daughter, because the power is addictive. It is easy to use, and it is easy to abuse. If you use it too much, it will consume you. You will lose yourself in the voice, and you will become something terrible."

"So use it wisely. Use it only when you must, and never, ever forget who you are beneath the power."

I closed the journal and held it against my chest.

My mother had given me everything in these pages. The truth about my bloodline, the warning about my power, and the love she had never been able to say out loud.

Now I understood where the ancient power I felt at Stoneclaw Pack had come from. It had come from my mother’s side all along, and she had given me the glamour charm to protect me, and the power within.

I sat there on the floor, with my mother’s journal in my hands and her words in my heart, and I cried.

I cried for the girl I had been, and for the girl who had hidden in a storage room and scrubbed pots and believed she was nothing.

I cried for the mother I had lost, and for the mother who had loved me enough to risk her life for me, if it meant I would stay alive.

And I cried for the woman I was becoming, the Silvertongue, the Luna, and the one who would not hide anymore.

I was not the girl from Cresswood anymore, I was not the servant who scrubbed pots and slept on a cold floor, and I was not the girl who flinched when someone raised their voice. I was a Silvertongue, I was a Luna, and I was my mother’s daughter.

And from now on, I would not hide anymore, not from anyone, and not ever.

I did not know how long I sat there.

But when I finally looked up, the fire had burned low, and the shadows on the walls had grown long.

And I knew, deep in my bones, that nothing would ever be the same again.