POV: Kael
The wind howled through the clearing as the sun sank behind the trees, casting everything in firelight and shadow. Aria stood beside me, her hand warm in mine, but the chill inside my chest had nothing to do with the cold.
“She’s alive?” I said again, though I already knew the answer.
“Not fully,” Aria replied softly. “But enough.”
Liora Draven. My mother. My curse.
I couldn’t breathe around the weight of her name.
She had done it—to me. To Aria. Had shattered the bond before it could ever truly form. All to save us, she claimed. All to protect me from what I might become.
But I hadn’t needed protection. I had needed her truth.
And she’d buried that, just like she’d buried herself.
⸻
Aria didn’t press me to talk. She just stood there as I paced the edge of the glade, tr
