He actually smiled at that, and it was almost worse than his threats. “I can see why he’s so taken with you. That fire, that defiance—you’re so much like her.”
“Like who? Jo?”
“In spirit, if not in temperament.” He set down his glass, the liquid clinging to the sides wrong. “Did you know he’s left a trail of dead forests from Mirror Lake across the realm? Entire groves withered to ash just from his presence. The corruption is spreading faster without you to balance it.”
The words hit like ice water, but I kept my expression neutral. “He’s stronger than you think.”
“Is he?” He produced a scrying mirror from nowhere, its surface rippling to show Kaelren in what looked like a rebel hideout. His corruption had spread past his jawline, black veins mapping his face like cracks in porcelain. He was destroying training equipment with methodical violence, and each piece didn’t just break—it rotted, corrupted by his touch.
My throat tightened. “Stop. Just stop.”
Auradelle dismissed the mirror with a wave. “If you don’t accept what you are by the Convergence, he dies. You die. The realm dies. Everyone dies.”
“Except you,” I said bitterly. “Let me guess—you get to watch it all happen because you’ve found some loophole.”
His eyes went sharp, predatory. “Ah. So you did hear about that at the Autumn Court. Yes, they told you about the wheel, didn’t they? About how a human split Root and Bloom, how the realm has been trying to reset itself. But they didn’t tell you everything, did they?”
“What do you mean?”
He leaned back, and a servant immediately appeared to refill his wine. “They told you a human broke the realm. What they didn’t tell you—what they couldn’t have known—is which human.”
My blood went cold. “What?”
“It was you, Elle. You were that first human who fell through. You made the choice that split Root and Bloom apart. And you’ve been paying for it ever since.” His smile was sad now, almost pitying. “Sixteen times you’ve lived this same life. Sixteen times you’ve come through that portal, developed those marks, met Kaelren, been dragged into this impossible choice. Sixteen times you’ve failed.”
“That’s not possible,” I whispered, but my hands were shaking. “I would remember—”
“Would you? The wheel erases memories when it turns. Resets the board. But patterns remain. Connections persist.” He gestured between us. “Do you think that bond with Kaelren is coincidence? You’re drawn to each other because you’ve been drawn to each other sixteen times before. You were always going to meet. Always going to fall for him. Always going to be trapped in this same dance.”
“You’re lying.”
“Am I? Then explain why you’ve adapted to Wynmire so naturally. Why it was so easy to fall for him. The way you knew how to use your marks without training, as if muscle memory reached across iterations.” He leaned forward. “I discovered this recently, you see. Found records that survived the resets—fragmentary, scattered, but enough to piece together the truth. Sometimes you and Kaelren are lovers. Sometimes enemies. Sometimes allies who never quite cross that line. But every single time, you fail. Every single time, one of you chooses Root and the other chooses Bloom, or you both refuse to choose, or you choose the same one and create imbalance.Every single time, the realm collapses and iteration seventeen becomes iteration eighteen, eighteen becomes nineteen, on and on forever.”
I was going to be sick. The room spun. “No,” I managed. “My grandmother—she figured it out. She found a different way—”
“Did she?” His laugh was bitter. “Your grandmother ran to Earth and hid your mother there, thinking that would break the cycle. That if you never came to Wynmire, the wheel couldn’t turn. But it didn’t work, did it? Because here you are anyway. The wheel pulled you back. It always does.”
Through the bond, I felt Kaelren’s rage spike—he was closer now, fighting his way through whatever stood between us. But underneath that rage, I felt something else. A terrible, familiar ache. Like recognition. Like remembering something you’d forgotten but your body never did.
“He knows,” I breathed. “Doesn’t he? He knows about the iterations.”
“Fragments. Pieces. Enough to drive him half-mad with déjà vu.” Auradelle stood, the untouched feast between us vanishing as if it had never existed. “That’s why his corruption spreads so fast this time—he’s carrying the weight of sixteen failures, even if he can’t consciously remember them. Every time he looks at you, some part of him remembers watching you die, or watching you choose Bloom and dissolve, or watching you walk away, or a thousand other endings, none of them happy.”
“Then what’s the point?” My voice broke. “If we’re trapped in this cycle, if we always fail, why are you even bothering with this ritual?”
“Because I learned something from all those iterations. Something your grandmother never figured out.” He moved closer, and I saw genuine desperation in his eyes beneath the cold calculation. “Every time before, you’ve had to choose between Root and Bloom. Between him and the realm. Between love and duty. But what if you didn’t have to choose? What if there was a way to merge them properly, to become both, to finally break the pattern?”
“The binding ritual.”
“The binding ritual,” he confirmed. “It’s never been tried before—not in any iteration I could find records of. Your grandmother was too afraid, Kaelren was too corrupted, previous versions of you were too… limited. But you? You’re different this time. Stronger. More adaptable. You’ve already started merging Root and Bloom in small ways. I’ve seen the reports from your time in Wynmire, how you used both powers simultaneously.”
“So you’re going to force me into this ritual and hope it works.”
“Hope?” He laughed, cold and sharp. “I’m going tomakeit work. I’ve spent fifty years studying every iteration, every failure, every version of you that came before. I know exactly where each one broke, exactly how to push harder this time.” His voice dropped, losing any pretense of warmth. “Eight days, Elle. Eight days to learn what you are, what you’ve been, and what you could become. Eight days for me to break you down and reshape you into something that can finally serve its purpose.”
He pushed back his chair and stood, taking one last sip of wine like he was savoring a victory already won. He started for the door, then paused, glancing back with a smile that made my skin crawl.
“Oh, and don’t worry about Kaelren. He’ll come for you—he always does. It’s quite romantic, really, in a cosmically doomed sort of way. Sixteen times he’s torn through my forces, corruption spreading with every step, thinkingthis timehe’ll save you.” His smile widened. “This time, I’ll be ready. This time, I’m going to let him reach you—just in time to watch you dissolve into the ritual. His corruption will peak at the exact moment you’re most vulnerable, and you’ll have no choice but to merge or die. Perfect synchronization.”
