Chapter 88: Sisters in the Garden

Silence held the hall long after Daemon finished speaking.

Kassia remained where she was, eyes lowered, fingers pressed hard into the sofa’s edge as though the fabric alone could keep her steady.

Evelyn looked no less unsettled. Too much had been set before them at once other women, another world, a System, and the plain truth that Daemon’s life had continued in her absence.

Victoria’s gaze flicked to Sana, then to Roxanna.

That was all it took.

She rose, crossed the short distance, and closed her hand around Kassia’s.

"Before this grows heavier than it needs to be," she said, "come with us. Only us."

Kassia turned to Daemon, uncertain.

He gave a small nod.

"Go."

She went. The three women led her from the hall toward the garden, and when their footsteps faded, the room felt abruptly too large for the two who remained.

Evelyn’s eyes found Daemon at once.

He shifted, half rising.

"I should"

"Sit."

He did.

"We are not finished," Evelyn said.

For a moment she only watched him, measuring the man her daughter had married against the life now laid bare in front of her.

"You wear honesty well," she said. "Kindness, even. But from where I sit, it looks as though you betrayed my daughter."

Daemon’s brow drew tight.

"I didn’t betray anyone. Victoria knows. She accepted"

"Enough."

The word cut cleanly through the air.

Daemon fell silent. Explanation would only dig him deeper. So he changed course, voice lower, edged with deliberate guilt.

"If you truly believe I wronged her... then what of the morning you found me unclothed? We held each other."

Evelyn went still.

Color rose through her face in a sudden, helpless wave.

"You!"

She closed the space between them and seized his wrist before he could continue.

"Do not speak of that to Victoria. Do not even jest."

Daemon stared, caught off balance.

Her grip was firm, but anger was no longer the only thing in it. Something more fragile lived underneath.

"I asked because I needed to know the sort of man you are," Evelyn said. "I am not blind. You are not cruel. After her father died, Victoria withdrew from everyone.

She stopped speaking as other young women do. She carried her grief alone. With you, she has changed. She argues. She smiles. She looks as though she belongs to the living again."

Her voice softened.

"That is all I want for her. Do not take it away."

Daemon covered her hand with his own.

"I won’t. You have my word."

Neither moved.

They stood too near hands joined, breath shared in the narrow space between them. Evelyn’s expression faltered, as though her body had leaned forward without her consent.

Their mouths were scarcely an inch apart when

Glass shattered against the floor.

Evelyn started back so sharply she nearly lost her footing.

"I forgive me! Victoria, I didn’t he "

Daemon turned with her toward the doorway.

It was only a maid, frozen there with broken glass at her feet and panic written plain across her face.

Evelyn’s ears burned scarlet.

Daemon exhaled and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Mother-in-law... you are a dangerous woman."

She glared at him, still flushed.

"Of course I am."

The absurdity of it broke something loose between them. Their laughter came quiet and unwilling, but real.

Ding!

[Evelyn Hale’s affection has increased.]

Daemon nearly sighed at the System’s timing.

In the garden, the air was kinder.

Light filtered through the leaves in shifting patterns. A stone path curved past the flower beds, and beneath a broad tree waited a low bench.

Victoria brought Kassia there first. Sana settled at the edge. Roxanna remained close, watchful in the way of someone who had already learned how quickly strength could fail.

For a time, none of them hurried the silence.

Then Victoria spoke.

"I’ll begin."

Kassia lifted her eyes.

"When I met Daemon, I was already living on borrowed time."

Kassia’s brows drew together.

"My bloodline was incomplete," Victoria continued. "On Earth, that incompleteness became a curse.

It was slowly eating my life force. The healers, the treatments none of it solved the root. At best, I had about three years left. Maybe less."

The garden went quieter.

"I had accepted it," Victoria said. "I was preparing to die while pretending I still had a future. Then Daemon entered my life.

He didn’t pity me. He didn’t treat me like glass. He looked for a real answer. Through him, I learned the truth that my so-called curse was never meant to end on Earth.

The path to complete my bloodline existed in another world. Because of him, death stopped being the only ending left for me."

Her voice softened.

"He didn’t just give me affection. He gave me time. A future I had already started to let go of. he gave me a hope.

Sana leaned forward, elbows on her knees, expression more serious than usual.

"My story is simpler," she said. "And harder."

Kassia waited.

"In Virendal, I got caught in something far above my level. Prince Adam. A fight I couldn’t win alone. Daemon didn’t calculate the risk.

He put himself between me and death without hesitation." Sana’s fingers tightened slightly. "That choice nearly cost him everything. He fell into a coma for six months because he saved me."

The words landed heavy.

"Six months," she repeated. "While his body wouldn’t wake, Roxanna and I stayed. We trained. We waited. We didn’t know if he would ever open his eyes again.

And the reason he was lying there like that... was me."

Sana looked straight at Kassia.

"A man who will risk his life that completely doesn’t disappear from your heart.

I didn’t stay because it was convenient. I stayed because he chose to protect me when walking away would have been safer for him."

Roxanna’s voice was quieter still.

"I was married once," she said. "To Garrick. From the outside it looked tolerable for a time. Within, it was not.

After we lost our child, everything collapsed. He blamed me. Bound me with guilt. Made my grief feel like an inconvenience. I began to believe that was simply the shape of my life."

She drew a breath and continued.

"Daemon never treated me as something ruined. He spoke to me as though a future still waited.

That alone kept me standing. I trained. I healed. And now I am the first SS-Rank healer in a hundred years. I did not reach that place alone."

Kassia listened without interruption.

The jealousy she had expected never arrived in the form she feared. What settled over her instead was heavier and strangely gentler

the understanding that none of these women had stolen a perfect life from her. Each had found Daemon in the wreckage of her own.

And he had not discarded one to keep another.

Tears gathered at the edges of her vision.

"So this is his life now," she murmured.

Victoria’s hand closed over hers.

"It can be yours as well, if you wish it. We are not here to drive you out."

Sana’s mouth tilted.

"If anything, you’re stuck with us. Welcome to the problem group."

Roxanna’s smile was small, but unfeigned.

"We can be sisters if you allow it."

Kassia released a shaky breath that nearly became a laugh.

Fear remained. Hurt remained. But beneath both lay something she had not felt since the night she walked away from Daemon eight months before.

Space.

There was still space for her.

"I want to stay," she said. "I want to walk his path with him. If you will have me... then yes. Sisters."

Victoria’s expression eased.

"Then it is settled."

Kassia rose, meaning to return inside and carry the answer to Daemon herself.

The moment she stood, a thin pain caught low in her abdomen.

She drew a sharp breath and pressed her hand there.

Roxanna was already moving.

"Sit. Carefully."

She guided Kassia down again and set her palm against her stomach. Lifeweaver energy slipped outward in a measured tide, reading what the body would reveal rather than forcing its secrets.

Roxanna’s eyes widened.

The garden seemed to hold its breath with her.

"What is it?" Sana asked.

Roxanna looked from Kassia to the house where Daemon still waited, shock plain upon her face.

"She’s pregnant."