Kora’s POV
Morning came grey and brittle, the kind that bites through your skin before the sun even fully rises. I hadn’t slept at all. Edward sat near the dying embers of the fire, head bowed, elbows on his knees. The first light of dawn brushed over his face, turning the hard lines of his jaw to gold.
He looked like he hadn’t slept either.
No one spoke when the others began to stir. There was a heaviness in the air, the kind that comes before something inevitable. I could feel it in my bones, in the quiet way Edward avoided my eyes, in the way my pulse beat too fast whenever I thought about what Aaron had said.
The ritual wouldn’t free me. It would bind me—to whichever heart I chose.
I wrapped my arms around myself, watching as the camp slowly came alive. Mara handed out bread, the
