"For over nine hundred years, the three clans have lived in harmony… everything changed when that man came. He changed the relationship between them and made us into enemies… from that point, our rift only began to tear apart."
The Matriarch set her tea cup to her mouth and took a small sip.
"What started as a dispute born out of jealousy began to draw a rift that left the clans with larger wounds after his absence, to the point where people from the Watermoon Clan had executed several failed assassination attempts on us."
She lowered the cup, cradling it between both palms.
"They have always been dissatisfied with their relevance in the Waterlands. That was not my business, especially since their ancestors parted ways over a man."
She paused for a moment, shaking her head.
"I just never thought it'd come to this…"
Silence reigned for a beat and I could hear her inhaling and exhaling. Measured breaths, the kind someone uses when the truth sits heavier than they'd like to show.
