Chapter 272

Chapter 272

Chapter 272

Chapter 272

ARIA

All of it flooding back at once. Not gradually. Not with time to process or adjust. Just everything simultaneously, her mind trying to accommodate three years of experiences and emotions that had been forcibly deleted.

Her head looked like it might explode from the pressure. Every detail, even the smallest moments-the way Kael’s voice changed when he was tired, the specific rhythm of his heartbeat when she’d rested against his chest, the inside jokes and shared references and accumulated intimacy of three years living in close quarters.

Finally, the screaming stopped. Ivory’s body went still, her breathing ragged, her eyes opening to show something I’d never seen there before.

Rage.

Pure, undiluted

rage directed entirely at me.

Not-me materialized a dagger from nothing and held it out to Ivory. “Here,” she said softly. “Take it. Let yourself finally choose yourself. Let yourself have what you want instead of always being the noble one, the self-sacrificing one, the one who puts others first. Kill the thief. Take back what she stole p>

Ivory grabbed the dagger, her movements fluid despite her recent trauma. She stood, turned toward me with expression that made my blood run cold.

“Ivory, please,” I tried, my voice shaking. “I didn’t know. I didn’t understand what you’d lost. I never wanted to p>

“Shut up,” Ivory snarled, advancing on me with the knife held professionally, like someone who knew exactly how to use it to cause maximum damage. “You don’t get to apologize. Don’t get to make this better with words. You took everything from me. Everything I worked for. Everything I suffered for. Everything I earned p>

She lunged and I barely dodged, the blade missing my throat by inches. The telekinetic force holding me against the wall had released when Ivory stood, giving me freedom to move but nowhere to go in this chamber of mirrors with a timer racing toward zero and my partner trying to kill me.

“Three years!” Ivory shouted, attacking again. “Three years I gave him! Three years I protected

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him! Three years I loved him! And you just-just swooped in at the perfect moment and took it all p>

I scrambled backward, using the mirrors as cover, trying to stay away from the blade. Ivory was well-trained despite being a healer-I’d forgotten that she’d spent years learning combat alongside medicine. She moved with precision, each strike calculated to disable or kill, no wasted movement.

“I didn’t choose the bond!” I protested desperately. “The curse needed to be broken! Kael needed p>

“Kael needed me!” Ivory screamed. “Not you! Me! I was the one who kept him alive! I was the one who should have bonded with him! I was the one who deserved to be Luna p>

2:30:50

Two and a half hours remaining. The timer was still accelerating. We were going to die here. Either from Ivory killing me or from time running out while we fought.

“The truth will set you free,” not-me said, her voice cutting through the chaos. “Both of you. Confess your deepest shame. What you’ve hidden from everyone. Only then does this end. Only then can you claim the crystal and survive p>

I dodged another attack, Ivory’s blade catching my arm, drawing blood. The pain was sharp but I couldn’t afford to focus on it. Had to keep moving, keep avoiding, keep trying to reach her through the rage.

“I’m sorry!” I shouted, desperate words tumbling out. “I’m sorry I took what you’d earned! I’m sorry the bond happened the way it did! I’m sorry you lost your memories! I’m sorry for everything p>

“Not good enough,” Ivory said, closing the distance between us with speed that caught me off guard. “Sorry doesn’t give me back three years. Sorry doesn’t undo the theft. Sorry is just words from someone who got everything she wanted while I got nothing p>

She had me cornered now. Backed against a mirror with nowhere to go. The knife was at my throat, pressing just hard enough to draw blood, Ivory’s eyes showing she was seconds away from actually killing me.

“The truth, Aria,” not-me said again. “Your deepest shame. What you’ve hidden that would destroy you if it was revealed. Say it. Confess it. Or die with your secrets p>

I knew what she meant. Knew what truth I’d been hiding, what secret had been eating at me since Sera had written that name on paper and handed it to Kael as an offering of cooperation. The name he’d been reluctant to read. The name that might have come out if the Ghost

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Council hadn’t arrived and the Hunt hadn’t started and everything hadn’t gotten so chaotic that the paper had been forgotten.

But I couldn’t say it. Couldn’t confess. Couldn’t admit what I’d done because once it was out there, once everyone knew-

Kael would hate me. The pack would exile me. Everything I’d built, every connection I’d made, every bit of acceptance I’d earned would be destroyed by the truth.

Ivory’s hand was around my throat now, squeezing, the knife forgotten as she chose

strangulation instead. Her fingers dug into my windpipe, cutting off air, her face showing absolute determination to finish this, to finally take what she wanted instead of always being self-sacrificing.

“Confess,” not-me commanded. “Or die. Choose p>

I glanced at the timer through my darkening vision. 0:30:40. Half an hour left. The next second would jump to zero. Game over. We’d failed. We’d die here with all our secrets intact and our truths unspoken.

The pressure on my throat increased. My vision was going black. This was it. Death by strangulation or death by time running out. No other options. No escape except-

the one who visited Damon’s cell!” I screamed, forcing the words past Ivory’s grip, past

and fear and certainty that this confession would destroy everything. “In the neutral mbers! I went to see him! I talked to him! I was the betrayer p>

Everything stopped.

Ivory froze, her hand still around my throat but the pressure suddenly gone. The rage in her eyes slowly fading, replaced by confusion and then something that looked like horror.

And she started bleeding.

From her eyes. Actual blood, flowing like tears, running down her cheeks in streams that were

red, too wrong. Her body convulsed once, twice, then she collapsed onto me, her ing both of us to the ground.

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