Page 72

The memory escalates, showing months of Vanessa’s desperate search while I stayed silent.

Each call is torture—listening to her exhaust herself searching for someone who isn’t lost, someone who’s dead because of me.

The stone forces everyone to experience my guilt, my inability to comfort the cousin I love most while she grieves for the man I killed.

Finally, the devastating conclusion:

“A reaper, Ash. He became a reaper. All those months I spent in hell looking for him... he was already there. Working. Transformed.”

My entire body goes numb.

“V, I ? —”

“Who would do this? Who would kill someone and force them to become a reaper?”

The question hits like a blade between my ribs because I know exactly who does that.

Someone who makes decisions about other people’s lives without consulting them.

Me.

The memory cuts off abruptly, leaving me screaming on the dais. Not just from the magical violation but from the emotional devastation of reliving it. My entire body convulses as the stone’s invasion recedes, leaving me feeling like I’ve been turned inside out.

Blood streams from my nose, my ears, even the corners of my eyes where capillaries have burst from magical strain. My hands are locked around the stone, fingers cramped and bleeding where my nails have dug into my palms.

In the gallery, gasps and cries echo through the chamber. Several Seelie Fae have fainted from experiencing the emotional projection directly. Others weep openly, overwhelmed by the depth of guilt and self-hatred the stone forced them to feel.

But the worst part isn’t the audience reaction. It’s the silence from where my bonds sit.

Can’t look at them. Can’t bear to see the exact moment they realize I’m not who they thought I was. That I’m just... broken.

When I finally lift my head, I catch a glimpse of Kieran’s face.

He’s gone completely white, pale eyes wide with something that might be horror.

His shadows writhe with such violence that frost spreads across the stone floor in jagged patterns, the geometric designs screaming his emotional state to everyone present.

“How utterly fascinating,” Lady Amarantha purrs, violet eyes gleaming with predatory satisfaction. “Our royal candidate possesses such an exquisite capacity for intimate betrayal. The artistry of it is almost... inspiring.”

The word betrayal echoes through the chamber, and I feel something inside me crack. Not just break—shatter. Because she’s right. I am a betrayer. I killed someone innocent and then couldn’t even offer comfort to the woman I love most when she grieved for him.

“Unseelie Court presents the second question.” King Moros’s voice cuts through my spiraling shame like a blade through silk.

When he rises from his shadow throne, the temperature plummets ten degrees.

This is the man who shaped Kieran into a weapon of controlled devastation, and now he’s turning that same precision on me.

“What lie have you built your identity upon?”

The stone flares again, silver fire tearing through my consciousness. This time, it reaches for a different kind of shame—not what I’ve done, but who I’ve pretended to be.

The agony is worse than before. The first violation broke through my defenses; this one tears through already damaged neural pathways like broken glass through open wounds.

I scream until my voice goes hoarse, blood flowing freely from my nose and ears.

My body convulses so violently I nearly fall off the dais, but my hands remain locked around the Truth Stone, magical compulsion forcing me to maintain contact no matter how much it destroys me.

The memory that emerges is devastating in its simplicity:

His wrists are raw from the silver restraints.

He doesn’t beg.

Doesn’t speak.

Just watches me with that uncanny stillness Lycans get when they’re deciding whether to kill or survive.

He’s not special.

Just another test subject with unstable readings, violent tendencies, unregistered lineage.

“Subject 42,” the handler says.

But I look at him and think: no, this one has a name.

We just haven’t earned it yet.

I ask the questions.

He doesn’t answer.

So I switch to pain.

It’s not personal.

It’s never personal.

At least—it wasn’t.

Until he growled it. Quiet. Controlled.

“You don’t even know what you are.”

That’s the first time I hesitate.

Not for long.

Just enough to wonder what he sees when he looks at me.

He never screams.

That stays with me.

The memory shifts, showing a different scene:

Sabina’s laughing in the courtyard—that soft, real laugh she doesn’t give to just anyone.

She’s with him.

The Lycan.

I step into view and the moment he sees me, the air changes.

Not in fear.

Not even rage.

Recognition.

His entire body goes still.

His smile fades.

Not for Sabina—for me.

I know that look.

I’ve seen it before.

In a silver-lined room.

Under fluorescent lights.

The same man who never screamed ? —

Now standing beside my cousin

Wearing softness like it doesn’t burn

I try not to show it.

But his eyes don’t leave mine.

He remembers.

And worse?

I do too.

The memory dissolves, but this time the stone doesn’t just project what happened—it projects my realization. The understanding that’s crashing over me now, in front of hundreds of witnesses.

I’ve become exactly what I hated. Someone who makes decisions about other people’s lives without consulting them. Someone who hoards truth like a weapon and calls it protection. Someone who builds their entire identity on the lie that they know what’s best for everyone else.

But worse than that—I’ve been doing it to everyone. To Sabina about Kade. To Vanessa about Greyson. To my chosen family about missions I can’t discuss. To Kieran and Finnian and Orion about who I really am.

I’ve built my entire identity on the lie that protecting people from difficult truths is the same as loving them.

“The candidate constructs her entire identity upon protective deception,” King Moros observes with the clinical precision of a surgeon removing organs. “She believes herself entitled to determine what truths others may bear about themselves and their nature.”

More whispers ripple through the chamber, but they sound distant now, filtered through the ringing in my ears. The Unseelie delegation murmurs among themselves, and I catch fragments: Trust issues. Manipulative tendencies. Fitness for leadership questionable.

“The Wild Court presents the final question.” The Morrigan’s voice cuts through my spiraling shame, ancient authority that makes the stone beneath my hands pulse with renewed intensity.

When she rises from her throne, power radiates from her like heat from a forge.

This is a goddess asking me to bare my soul, and I have no choice but to comply.

“What part of yourself are you afraid to set free?”

This time, the Truth Stone doesn’t just reach into my memories—it reaches into my heart. Into the locked chambers where I keep the emotions too dangerous to acknowledge, the wants I’ve never dared voice, the parts of myself I’ve spent a lifetime strangling.

The violation is the worst yet. Where the first two questions felt like surgical strikes, this feels like having my soul turned inside out and displayed for public consumption.

I scream until my voice breaks completely, blood flowing from my mouth where I’ve bitten through my tongue.

My entire body seizes, muscles cramping from magical overload.

The chamber spins around me, consciousness fracturing as the stone tears through the deepest parts of my psyche.

The projection that erupts above my head isn’t a single memory—it’s a montage of moments that will destroy me completely. Not generic loneliness, but specific choices. Specific moments where I chose isolation over truth, cruelty over vulnerability.

My phone buzzes on the nightstand. Sabina’s name lights up the screen—the third call today. I know what she wants to ask. How I’m doing. If I’m okay. When I’m coming home.

My finger hovers over the answer button.

But answering means talking. And talking means telling her that I tortured her mate in a silver-lined room. That I’ve killed seventeen people this year. That I’m not the cousin she thinks she knows.

I can’t lie to her. The truth constraint won’t let me.

But I can choose not to answer.

I let it go to voicemail.

Again.

The message she leaves breaks my heart: “Ash, I miss you. I know you’re busy saving the world, but... I need my cousin back. Please call me.”

I delete it without listening to the end.

Because hearing her voice hurts too much when I know I can never tell her what she wants to hear: that everything’s okay, that I’m still the person she thinks I am, that coming home won’t destroy everything she believes about me.

The projections continue, showing a pattern of isolation. Pepper’s wedding invitation sitting unopened for months. Christmas dinners spent alone while family gathered around empty chairs. Phone calls ignored because honest conversation would reveal truths too devastating to share.

And then the most damaging memory of all:

The call comes at 2 AM. Pepper’s name on my screen, and I know before I answer that something’s wrong.

“Ash.” Her voice is raw, broken. “I need you.”

“What happened?”

“Everything’s falling apart. The gods, the mortals hunting us, Deimos—” She’s crying so hard she can barely speak. “And I think... I think one of us is gone. Really gone.”

Lightning strikes through my bones. “Who?”

“I don’t know yet. But the connection’s severed and I can’t—I can’t hold this together anymore. I’m pregnant and exhausted and everyone’s looking at me like I’m supposed to fix this, but I can’t even ? —”

“Pepper.” My voice cuts through her spiral with military precision. “Take a breath.”

“I can’t breathe, Ash. I can’t do this. They’re all going to die because of me and I ? —”