"How could you?" My voice is hoarse, cracking like the ground beneath me, as I face the one person I thought I could trust.
He stands before me, the weight of his betrayal etched into his expression—calm, detached, as though nothing has changed. "You don't understand, Eira."
I take a step back, my heart pounding in my chest. "Understand? How could I possibly understand this?" I gesture to the room, the faces of those who had once been my family, now reduced to shattered pieces of what we once were. "You’ve been working with them all along. The shadow society... you were one of them."
Arden’s eyes—so cold, so calculating—meet mine, and the words that follow feel like poison slipping from his lips. "I did what I had to do to survive. To protect myself, my future."
My breath catches in my
