Page 48 of Broken Embers

“Tell Mariya to meet Yelena tomorrow at the old swings. She’ll know where that is,” he says.

“Why don’t you tell her?”

“I was told to deliver the message to you,” the man answers.

“And if I don’t tell my mother or she doesn’t show?” I raise my brows. “What are you going to do? Drag me back to the detention center in hopes my mother will come save me.” I shake my head. “Then you’re all going to be disappointed because my mother and I… we’re not very close.”

“But she is close to your sister,” the man tells me, flooring me. “If your mother doesn’t yell at the old swings tomorrow…” He lets his threat hang in the air. “Your sister dies.”

The words gut me.

“You’re threatening Tara?”

“Just relaying the message.”

“Sabrina!” Oleksi’s voice cuts through the trees.

The man steps back. “Tomorrow. Or Tara’s body arrives in a body bag.”

“Sabrina!” Louder now.

I spin around.

When I turn back, the man is gone.

Oleksi crashes through the trees, frantic. “Sabrina! What the fuck? You can’t just vanish like that?—”

“I saw someone,” I gasp. “He was here.”

“Who?”

“A messenger. From Ergorov. He said—he said we have until tomorrow. My mother has to meet Yelena.”

His face hardens. “Or what?”

“Or Tara dies.”

15

SABRINA

“I don’t want to go back,” I mutter.

Oleksi doesn’t say anything for a moment. We’re still standing under the trees near where I met the strange man—his words still hang in my head like smoke. I can’t shake the chill his presence left in my bones.

“I know,” Oleksi says finally. His voice is low, soft in the way only he can make it. “But we have to tell your mother. Now.”

I nod. My stomach clenches. I want to curl up in a ball somewhere quiet, not walk into another fucking confrontation. But I follow Oleksi anyway, because this isn’t just about me anymore. This is about Tara. About my mom. About Elena. About stopping this twisted generational cycle of secrets, sacrifice, and silence.

The moment we step into the foyer of the Golden Palace, it hits me like a gust of cold air: I don’t belong here. Not really. The place is beautiful, sure—walls of polished wood, warm lighting, the faint scent of lemon oil and smoked cedar that clings to wealth like perfume—but I feel like a ghost haunting a life that was never mine. A stranger stepping into a family where everyone already knows the script except me.

Two people are waiting in the foyer. They don’t hover or hesitate—they move forward like they’ve been waiting years for this moment. The woman’s silver curls are pinned in a flawless twist, her navy wool dress as regal as the emotion in her face. The man beside her is tall and broad-shouldered, his white hair thick, his eyes the same sharp blue I see every day in the mirror.

“Sabrina,” the woman breathes, her voice thick with emotion.

Before I can even process it, I’m engulfed in jasmine and lavender. Her arms wrap around me like vines, like she’s trying to graft me back into the family tree by sheer force of will. The man lays a hand on my shoulder—steady, strong, protective.

“My God,” she whispers, her hand brushing my cheek. “You look just like your mother at your age.”

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