CHAPTER TWO:MY NEW FAMILY

I had learnt to disappear while standing in the open.

Even fifteen years later, my mind still wandered back to ashes and silence, to hands that once held me and never would again. Grief had become a place I visited so often it felt like home.

"Sabrina."

I didn't hear it.

"Sabrina."

A sharp snap cut through the air.

I blinked.

Anna stood before me, her fingers still raised, her expression caught between amusement and worry. Sunlight kissed her dark skin, making it glow like polished obsidian. She was beautiful in the way strength is beautiful-unapologetic, steady, alive. Her braids were pulled back, her posture proud, her eyes always watching, always guarding.

"You were gone again," she said softly.

"I wasn't," I replied, even though we both knew it was a lie.

Around us, the others moved with practice ease, packing up fabrics and instruments, laughter weaving through the air like music. Charlotte, sharp-tongued and warm-hearted, argued playfully with Clara, whose smile hid a past she rarely spoke of. Mireya, quiet and observant, folded costumes with reverence, as if each thread held memory.

Five survivors.

Five souls the world had failed to erase.

We were dancers now.

Not because it was easy-but because movement was the one thing that kept the memories from crushing us. From village to village, city to city, we danced in open squares and royal outskirts alike. We earned our meals with aching feet and sleepless nights. We protected one another fiercely, shared everything, and trusted no one else.

We had no blood ties.

But we were family.

Anna fell into step beside me as we walked away from the others. "You drift when you're quiet," she said. "That place again?"

I didn't answer.

She stopped walking. I didn't. Her hand closed gently around my wrist, firm enough to ground me. "Sabrina."

I turned, irritation flickering in my chest. "What do you want me to say, Anna? That I'm fine? That time healed me?" A bitter laugh escaped me. "Time only taught me how to survive."

Her eyes softened. "You survived," she said. "That matters."

"They didn't," I snapped.

The words hung between us, heavy and unkind.

Anna didn't flinch. She never did. Instead, she stepped closer, lowering her voice as if the wind itself might be listening. "Holding on to their deaths won't honour them. It's killing you slowly."

"I'm not letting go," I said, my jaw tight. "If I let go, then they're really gone."

Her hand pressed over my heart. "They live here," she whispered. "Not in your pain."

For a moment-just a moment-I felt the crack. The ache. The unbearable longing to rest, to stop remembering every detail as if memory were a duty.

But I pulled away.

"I need my grief," I said. "It's all I have left of them."

Anna's eyes glistened, but she nodded. "Then I'll walk with you while you carry it," she said. "Just don't forget-you're not alone anymore."

She turned back toward the others, calling out something teasing, light, alive. I watched the four of them gather-laughing, arguing, moving together like pieces of the same soul.

My new family.

They did not replace the old one.

Nothing ever could.

But they held me up when the weight of memory threatened to crush my spine. They reminded me that even broken things could still move beautifully.

I followed them.

Still grieving.

Still breathing.

Still standing.

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