Yosef cursed under his breath. Claude swore louder.
“So, we’re just supposed to act like it’s no big deal that our friend has a secret assassin cult past?” Imara snarked.
Christian raised a brow. “Would you prefer I’d been part of a knitting club? And they aren’t assassins. You know that.”
After a beat, she groaned. “Okay, fair. I just . . . I mean, for fucks’ sake, Christian. You should’ve told us.”
His shoulders drooped. “I know.”
“Are they still coming?” Lysa asked, gripping the blanket.
Christian shook his head slightly. “I don’t know. Probably not, now that you’re here.”
The pause stretched long.
“You know, man, I gotta say,” Hawk started, “despite being really pissed, your past is your past. None of us—well, none of us from Perileos anyway—came in here unscathed. I just wish you’d trusted me enough to share.”
“And me,” Lysa said, her voice sad. “I’m your sister, for stars’ sake.”
His chest pinched. Silence was the only way he’d been able to keep his family safe. But what did it say about how much he respected Lysa and his friends when he hid the truth?
“You’re right,” Christian said at last. “I’m sorry.”
“How much does Gemma know?” Imara asked. The edge in her voice was impossible to miss.
“Enough. She knows I was involved and some of what went on. She just doesn’t know all the details.”
Imara nodded, seeming pleased with his answer. “You should tell her, though, before she hears it from someone else. You don’t have to tell us the nitty gritty, but she deserves to know.”
Christian frowned. Imara was right. Gemma had been nothing but open and honest since the night she failed to poison Rami. And he loved her. Completely. She had a right to know the full truth and decide whether or not she truly wanted to love him back. Stars knew he wasn’t worthy of it. Or her.
Another long, awkward silence filled the room. He needed to break it.
“All right, well, I’m going to bed,” he said. “Thanks for . . . I don’t know. Not walking out.”
Imara flipped her long, black hair. “Too late. You’re stuck with us now. Even if you were a secret assassin.”
“I was not—”
Imara winked, cutting off his argument, and he exhaled a breath that might’ve been the first real one he’d taken all day.
Gemma wandered the temple’s inner maze, though the walls were too smooth, the light too still.
She glanced down. The ground beneath her boots wasn’t stone at all, but glass—no, a mirror. Each step shimmered with fractured reflections of her face, staring up from beneath her feet. Again and again, identical yet not—one bleeding, one screaming, one laughing with joy too wide to be sane. Others wept; some whispered. One stared back with violet eyes that didn’t blink.
Gemma walked faster.
The corridor ahead split into three paths, all visible fromwhere she stood.
Down the first, a version of herself knelt beside the orb like she was in prayer. Her hands glowed with violet light, her eyes closed in surrender. She looked almost too at peace, though, as if nothing human remained.
The second version wore armor laced in dried, violet blood like warpaint drawn across her cheek. Her grin was unrepentant, and her dark braid swung behind her as she lifted a blade still dripping. Bodies of Dissent, Systems, and civilians alike lay scattered at her feet. The look on her face said she hadn’t cared; victory was all that mattered.
The third wandered alone through gray ash, hair singed and boots worn through. She called out names—Nadine, Christian, Imara, Hawk—over and over until her voice cracked. No one answered. Her eyes were hollow. Her hands trembled as if she had survived something but had forgotten what.
Gemma’s pulse was thunderous, and her throat was dry. Who were these versions of her?
All three turned to her at once. “You are who we become.”
