Callie’s POV
The rain kept falling.
Slow.
Steady.
As though the entire world had decided to remain suspended around that empty road while we tried to understand something that probably no one had understood in centuries.
Aurek stood motionless before us.
Drenched.
Covered in blood.
And for the first time since I met him, he looked old.
Not physically.
Something deeper.
As though he were carrying the weight of too many years on his shoulders.
No one spoke for several seconds after what he had just said.
She isn’t becoming the next heir.
She’s becoming the first.
The words still echoed inside my head.
Impossible.
Incomprehensible.
Terrifying.
Because if they were true…
then everything I thought I knew about myself was wrong.
I swallowed slowly.
And finally broke the sil
