After I Amazed the World the Cold Alpha Regretted

Chapter 184

The first syllables of the piano echoed softly, pulling me back to a time long past.

As my fingers traced the familiar keys, memories washed over me, vivid and haunting.

I had been ostracized by my foster parents as a child, and my only refuge was a broken piano stowed away in the dusty attic.

It was my escape, the one thing that could alleviate my loneliness when no one else was there.

On my seventh birthday, I had crept to the top of the stairs, hoping for a surprise, hoping maybe this year they would remember.

read. I saw my foster parents, arms around Alice, leading her out the door to play, laughing as they left me behind. Forgotten. Unwanted.

I had crept back to the attic with tears in my eyes and sat at the piano.

It was then that I composed my first melody.

A simple, fragile tune that whispered the only birthday wish I'd receive that day.

Happy birthday to me. That small song became my secret, a balm for the wounds I carried from my so-called family.

Later, as the years went by, my foster parents would drag me along on visits to other packs, parading me in front of strangers to show their kindness

A cruel irony, really. They would never treat me with kindness themselves, but to outsiders, they wanted to appear generous.

to Silvermoon stayed

from the group and stumbled upon

fingers were drawn to it, like a moth

and started playing the melody I had

played it

can still remember that moment-how the wind blew softly through the open

room in golden light, and for

sitting alone and lost, overlapped with the me of this moment, standing here at this piano,

pressed the keys again, lost in the melody I had composed all those

noticed a change in the air. Leo, who had been quietly listening,

and a look

widened as if he'd seen a

to face him, only to find him

a whisper, but his

pounded. I had guessed

I was a child, on my birthday. No one else has ever heard it. I

eyes. He staggered back a step as if

"It wasn't Aira... It was

his face etched with regret,

egretted

Chapter 184