The town parted for her.
Her bare footsteps echoed louder than they should have. With each step forward, the butterflies followed. Not a dozen, not fifty but hundreds. They fluttered in the air, each one glowing faintly.
They circled around her like a living storm. And the villagers… they felt it.
Everyone over the age of seven could sense a Flux. It was like a pulse in the chest, a frequency on the skin. Her Flux wasn't wild. It wasn't out of control. It was contained but unbearably dense. It was so thick with evolution it made even the older warriors shift uncomfortably, stepping back.
Her eyes scanned them with indifference. There was no warmth in her. No relief, no reunion. Only stillness.
Then, her mother broke through the crowd.
"Verdamona!"
Bena shoved past a dozen people, her soaked dress flapping behind her, her face twisted in a violent storm of disbelief and fury. Her boots splashed mud with every sprinting step until she stood in front of her daughter, panting, crying, rain dripping from her chin and lashes. Her hands were trembling. Her teeth clenched.
And then, she slapped her.
The sound rang louder than thunder.
Verdamona's head tilted with the force. Her cheek reddened slightly, but she didn't flinch. She simply turned back toward her mother with those deadened, otherworldly eyes.
"You—" Bena's voice cracked with rage. "You were gone for six weeks! Forty-two nights! Do you know what we thought?! Do you know what you did to us?!"
Felix rushed forward, catching Bena's shoulders, but she didn't stop. She screamed over him, shouted past him. She didn't care that the village was watching. She didn't care that the rain was drowning her out.
"You vanished like you meant to die out there, and you didn't come back. Not a word. Not a sign. We thought you were dead, Verda! We found blood. We found a beast's corpse! We thought—" her voice cracked again, breaking into something softer. "We thought you were gone…"
Bena tried to hit her again, but Felix caught her wrist gently.
"Bena, stop. Please. Let her speak."
The town was silent now. One could hear the wings of the butterflies flickering. Leuven stood off to the side, mouth slightly parted, confusion laced with a hint of something like awe. Or dread.
Verdamona didn't look at them when she spoke. Her voice was quiet.
"I didn't come back because I didn't want to."
A few people gasped. Bena's expression broke into something wild and wounded.
"I needed the blood of a leopard," Verdamona continued. "And I found one. It tried to kill me so I killed it first. I stayed for thirty-nine days to feed silkworms with my blood. And with the blood of other beasts. I made them change."
She looked at the butterflies circling her head.
"They weren't supposed to become butterflies. They were supposed to become silkmoths. But something… changed. Their metamorphosis was different. My Flux changed them."
Her eyes flicked to Bena at last.
"So no. I didn't come back because I didn't care to. Not until they were ready. Not until I was ready."
"You didn't care?!" Bena's voice cracked like ice underfoot. "You didn't care that your family was searching for you in every corner of the woods?! That your brother couldn't sleep? That your father—"
"I didn't," Verdamona said. "If you knew I can kill a creature that would take an entire town to take down, wouldn't you have believed that I was going to be fine?"
No one spoke.
"I care about becoming stronger. That's it. Everything else is a distraction. I'm going to leave this island. And to do that, I need power. I'm not like Lilith. I'm not going to wait around for a test to be handed to me and stay here. I'll make my own. And I'll take what I need."
Bena trembled.
"I gave you everything! We protected you, raised you, tried to understand you even when you shut us out. I waited every night for you to walk back through that door. I—"
"I never asked you to," Verdamona cut in.
The butterflies flickered once like a pulse. Leuven stepped forward, but stopped himself. His fists clenched.
Bena's knees nearly buckled. She turned and buried her face into Felix's shoulder, who held her with the weariness of someone used to burying his own pain in silence.
Her cheek still stung faintly from her mother's slap, but her voice was steady when she finally spoke again.
"I didn't tell you I was leaving. And I accept that. I should've said something. That was my mistake."
Bena looked up, chest heaving, tears mingling with the rain. Felix held her tightly, but even he was stunned by how calmly Verdamona stood there, addressing them like a tactician making a report.
"But what I don't accept," Verdamona continued, "is being hit because you needed somewhere to throw your grief."
Bena flinched like she'd been struck again but this time with words sharper than any blade.
"Verdamona—"
"No. You slapped me because you were in pain. Not because I deserved it. And that's not what a mother does. That's what someone does when they need a punching bag. I came back after surviving forty-two days of monsters, isolation, and bloodletting. I came back stronger. And you didn't ask me what happened. You didn't even say 'thank the gods you're alive.' You hit me."
She stepped forward. The butterflies followed.
"I killed a three-meter-tall leopard alone. Something an entire village wouldn't even approach without calling for backup. I dragged it across a ridge to bleed it out because I needed its essence to feed what I was growing. I made it out. I came back."
She tilted her head slightly, her voice calm like ice, like reasoned fury.
"And now I'm getting chewed out for it?"
Felix stepped forward then, reaching out a hand as if to mediate.
"Verdamona… we only care about you. We were terrified."
She didn't brush his hand away but she didn't lean into it either.
"And if it were Leuven? If he had vanished for six weeks, would you be this worried?"
Felix opened his mouth and closed it. Verdamona answered for him.
"No. Because you'd trust him. Because you think he's strong enough to handle himself. But I'm stronger. You know I am. And yet… you panicked. You searched like I was helpless. Like I was a lamb dragged into the woods."
Bena's eyes widened, and something fragile broke in her.
"You think we want to keep you locked up," she said softly, more accusation than denial.
"No. I think you don't know what to do with me."
The butterflies lifted higher, their glow intensifying again.
"You want to keep me close. To protect me. But I don't need protection. I need space. I need challenge. And I thought—I hoped—that you'd understand that. That you'd trust me to make my own path."
Her voice cracked slightly, just once.
"I do care about you. I didn't come back because I hated you. I didn't stay away to make you suffer. I left because I needed to grow. I thought… maybe you'd be proud. Maybe you'd look at what I did and say, 'That's our daughter. That's the survivor we raised.'"
She looked down at her hands, pale and calloused, smeared faintly with dried blood that the rain couldn't fully wash away.
"I stayed in the forest for thirty-nine days feeding silkworms my blood. And they became butterflies. That shouldn't have been possible. But it was. And I made it happen. I changed something fundamental about nature. And I survived."
She looked up again. Her eyes weren't empty they were alive.
"But all you saw was a girl who disobeyed."
Silence followed her words like thunder after lightning.
The villagers didn't move. Many stared at her with awe now instead of fear. Some looked away, ashamed. Others still watched, uncertain whether the girl who stood before them was still the same one who used to fish by the harbor with her brother.
Felix let out a long breath. His eyes were wet now too, though he tried to hide it.
"We are proud. Of everything you did. But… we didn't know what to think, Verdamona. We're your parents. Watching you disappear without a word, finding your knife, your Flux strings... it felt like finding a gravestone."
Verdamona's expression softened by a millimeter.
"I didn't mean for it to feel like that. But tell me..."
Lightning struck, revealing her glowing blue eyes and a face that made everyone flinch.
"Are you scared of me now?"