Lysara.
Alive.
And she was smiling.
I froze.
Not just because I thought she’d been dead—buried beneath a mansion explosion that had taken her entire bloodline with it—but because the way she stood there now, in the middle of that moonlit cathedral corridor, was nothing short of haunting.
Alive. Smiling. And changed.
"You look like you’ve seen a ghost," she said, her voice low, velvet-smooth, and deadly.
Dimitri stepped forward first, instinctively putting his body between me and her. His hand hovered near his holster. "Lysara... what the hell is this?"
She tilted her head, amused. "Oh, Dimitri. Always the protector. Always the soldier." Her eyes flicked to me. "But you. You’re the one I came for, Alessia Elara Hale. Or should I just call you Elara?"
My heart clenched at the sound
