“And if we can’t?” My voice was barely a whisper.
His expression went cold, any pretense of sympathy evaporating. “Then you fail again, the realm dies, and we reset. But you’ll carry the weight of seventeen lifetimes of failure into iteration eighteen. And I?” He touched his corruption marks almost lovingly. “I’ll remembereverything. Every scream, every failure, every version of you I’ve broken trying to fix this. I’m tired of being gentle. I’m tired of giving you choices.”
He moved to the door, his robes shifting like living shadows. “So no, Elle. I’m not hoping. I’m ensuring. Whether you survive it with your mind intact is entirely up to how quickly you learn to obey.”
Then he was gone, leaving me alone with impossible truths.
I sat there for a long moment, trying to process it all. Sixteen previous iterations. Sixteen versions of this same story, all ending badly. Sixteen times I’d met Kaelren, loved him or hated him or something in between, and watched everything fall apart.
Through the bond—muffled but still there—I felt his rage. Distant, like hearing someone shout from miles away, but unmistakable. He was planning. Gathering forces, probably, rallying rebels for an assault that Auradelle was already prepared for.
“I remember you,”I thought into the silence, testing the words. “I don’t remember remembering you, but some part of me knows. Some part of me has always known.”
There was no response, but for just a moment, I felt something back—recognition and rage and desperate love all twisted together.
The door opened. The same terrified serving girl stood there, not meeting my eyes. She gestured for me to follow, keeping her distance from my restraints. The walk back was silent. She kept glancing at the chains on my wrists but never reached to help.
Back in my room, the restraints still burned cold against my skin. My markings writhed beneath them, trying to pull away from the Root-forged metal. Through the bond, I felt Kaelren’s fury building, even from however many miles separated us.
I stood at the window, looking out at the dying realm. Twisted forests stretched to the horizon. Rivers flowed backward, defying gravity. Reality itself was coming undone at the edges, and I tried not to think about sixteen other versions of myself who had stood at windows just like this one, facing the same impossible choice.
“Hold on,”I thought into our bond. “I’m going to figure this out. This time has to be different. This time, we’re going to change the ending.”
There was no response. Just that distant rage, burning steady somewhere far from here.
Eight days. Seventeen iterations. One chance to finally break the wheel.
I pressed my hand against the cold glass and tried to believe it was possible.
26
Elle
The serving girl woke me by dropping the breakfast tray.
The crash of porcelain shattering against stone jerked me from whatever passed for sleep, and I bolted upright to find her on her hands and knees, frantically trying to gather the pieces before anyone noticed.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” I said, moving to help before the chain on my wrist snapped taut, yanking me back. “Are you hurt?”
“Don’t—please don’t tell anyone,” she whispered, not looking at me. Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely hold the broken pieces. “They’ll think I did it on purpose. They’ll think I was trying to…”
The door slammed open.
A Bloomguard filled the doorway, his expression already twisted with suspicion. “What’s going on here?”
“I dropped it,” the girl said immediately, her voice high and thin with panic. “It was an accident, I swear—”
“Clumsy bitch.” He grabbed her by the hair, yanking her to her feet. She didn’t even cry out, just went rigid and silent like she’d learned this was the best way to survive it.
“Let her go,” I said. “It was my fault. I startled her.”
He looked at me then, and his smile was cruel. “Oh? The Crown Prince’s special guest thinks she can give orders now?”
“I said let her go.”
“Or what?” He twisted his grip, and the girl’s face went white. “You’ll burn me with your pretty marks? Oh wait,” He gestured to my restraints with his free hand. “You can’t. Because you’re just a chained-up anomaly playing at being important.”
Something in me snapped.
