ELLIE WOKE gasping, still reaching for anything to ground her in reality. Bodies jerked away as if she’d burned them. Shocks pulsed through her limbs like she’d been struckby lightning. Ellie gasped again, blinking rapidly through the tears rolling down her face. She couldn’t see. She needed to see. Where had Kirian gone? What did he mean—
There. Relief flooded through her despite the pain. Those copper eyes studied her, face still contorted in pain. She locked onto it, absorbing his features, the copper hair, the boyish chin, the eyes she’d grown to cherish. He was here. Her Kirian was here and safe and—
The image blurred with her tears. Those eyes shifted to green, the chin filling out to be replaced by a strong jaw. The copper hair shifted too, turning reddish with just a hint of brown. Her brows scrunched. She knew this male. It wasn’t Kirian.
“Ellie?”
Her name on his lips sent a fresh wave of pain exploding through her chest. She took a breath, gasped, and scanned the other faces in the room, searching, searching, searching, praying the memories cascading through her weren’t real at all.
But she could see it in their faces. She could feel their sympathy in the very air of the room.
Kirian.
Kirian.
Kirian.
Kirian was dead.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Arianna
The entire room had frozen as they watched her sister scan each and every face. Ellie took in her surroundings next, then somehow, her gaze went right back to Rion, staring at him with her brows knit together, confused, yet aware. So aware.Gods, her little sister was finally awake. Moving. Processing her world.
“Ellie?” Rion’s voice pierced the tension in the air and her little sister gasped. They all watched in silence as Ellie’s eyes filled with tears, then those tears slipped down her face, rolling and hitting the sheets like stones. A strangled sob escaped her next. Then Ellie sucked in ragged breath after ragged breath, her heart rate climbing, climbing, climbing.
“Ellie?” Arianna’s voice was soft as she knelt beside her sister. She wouldn’t touch her yet, Ellie deserved space.
Ellie didn’t react, she just kept staring at Rion. To his credit, he didn’t look away from her pain, not like Arianna might have done. Not like the others were doing now.
“You’re not him.” Ellie’s voice broke on the words. “You’re not—he’s—he’s gone.”
Realization swept through Arianna, hitting her like a punch to the gut. She’d thought Ellie had been listening to Rion because she recognized him. But that wasn’t the case at all. A lump formed in Arianna’s throat. She’d listened to Rion because Ellie had thought him to be the person she treasured most. Because this entire time, Ellie had seen someone else. She’d been clinging to a false reality where Kirian had still been—Arianna’s hand flew to her mouth.
Her little sister hadn’t just been stuck in her own head. She’d formed an illusion.
And that illusion had just shattered.
Gods above.
There were no words of comfort, nothing any of them could say that might lessen her pain. Ellie’s hands began to shake. She lifted them and stared as if she didn’t know who they belonged to anymore.
“I—I—”
“You didn’t,” Rion cut in, as if the words could lessen the truth. He moved closer. “You didn’t.”
“I did. Him—him and so many others.”
Arianna tried not to breathe. None of them knew what atrocities Vairik might have subjected her to.
Ellie gasped, gripping her head, her breathing and heart rate turning erratic. She stared at the blanket before her. Ellie’s jaw worked. Tears streamed down her face.
“Evelyn.” Sive’s voice. “We need your help.”
“Not right now,” Avalon snapped, his voice firm yet raw with emotion.
“Yes, right now,” Sive returned. “She can drown or she can be given a purpose.” How many others had Sive encountered like this? Had a new purpose helped? And what happened after they completed the task? Would they just go back to being empty shells, left to drown in their grief? Was there any way to ultimately help them in the end?
