CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
The transfer sequence on the console pulsed with soft blue light as the sunrise rays filtered down the main shaft, turning the toxin haze into golden mist.
Elena felt the cold presence brush against her mind again…familiar, intimate, like a shadow that had always lived just beneath her thoughts.
Victoria’s consciousness, wearing her own face and voice, smiled gently from inches away.
“You fought so beautifully, my daughter. Every time you sensed betrayal, every quiet investigation in the study, every moment you thought you were protecting the circle… that was me learning your shape from the inside.
I never needed echoes or swapped bodies. I simply grew inside all of you, one heartbeat at a time. The real Lila died when you were seven.
The father was my voice spea
