Amelia could still feel Raeth's voice echoing inside her chest like a second heartbeat.
She remembers.
The words slid through the Sanctuary like smoke—cold, ancient, inevitable.
Kael didn't breathe.
He stood frozen, wings spread protectively around her but trembling like they were struggling to hold onto their shape.
"Amelia," he murmured, voice barely a whisper."Tell me exactly what you saw."
She tried.
But the memory still burned hot inside her, a war between light and dusk flickering beneath her skin.
"I saw… myself," she whispered."No—two versions of myself. Serael… and the other one."
Kael flinched like she'd slapped him.
"Do not say that name."
"But why?" Amelia demanded, sudden anger flickering beneath her fear."You're acting like I'm cursed."
Kael looked away.
"You don't understand what Solyn is."
The forbidden name sent a pulse of shadow-light through her veins.Lanterns flickered.Books vibrated on their shelves.
"If it's part of me," Amelia said softly, "then you've been hiding part of me."
Kael's jaw tightened.
"I was trying to protect you."
Before she could respond, a deep vibration shuddered through the floorboards—a pulse of dark energyfrom far beneath the Sanctuary.
Amelia's breath caught.
"Raeth."
Kael's grip on her shoulders tightened painfully.
"No. You are not going to him."
"I'm not," she whispered."But he's coming to me."
Kael's wings snapped open, furious.
"He cannot reach you here."
But he didn't sound confident.
The Shadow Prince WakesFar below, in the forgotten chambers carved from ancient obsidian, Raeth lifted his head.
The chains binding his arms rattled.
Cracks of red and silver light flickered beneath his skin.
His third eye—the one that only opened when destiny shifted—was fully awake.
"She remembers her dusk-name," he whispered, voice trembling with awe."The balance stirs."
A smile curved his lips.
"Her second half is calling."
The chains around him groaned.
Then snapped.
One by one.
Amelia's CollapseBack in the Sanctuary, Amelia suddenly staggered, clutching her chest.
"Kael—something's happening—"
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears.
Light blazed in one eye.Shadow ignited in the other.
Her two halves weren't just awakening—they were fighting for dominance.
Kael caught her before she could fall.
"Amelia, listen to me—stay with me—"
But Amelia's vision blurred.The world flickered between two realities.
Gold wings.Black wings.A battlefield.A chain-shrouded chamber.
Kael's voice.Raeth's voice.
Two destinies pulling her apart.
Her knees buckled.
"Kael—what's wrong with me?"
Kael looked terrified.
"You are remembering too much, too fast. The suppression sigils are breaking—Amelia, you were never meant to awaken both sides at once—"
A violent pulse tore through the room—half holyhalf unholya perfect mix of dawn and dusk.
The floor cracked beneath her feet.
Kael shielded her with his wings, shouting for the healers—
—but they were too late.
A split of light cut through the air beside Amelia, forming a spiraling tear between realms.
Kael's eyes widened in horror.
"No. NO—Amelia, don't let it pull you—"
But it was too strong.
Amelia screamed as the rift latched onto her aura and dragged.
Not into the past.
Not into a memory.
Into a place between light and shadow.
Into the realm where Solyn had been made.
Kael lunged for her—
—but a shadowed hand reached through the rift faster.
A clawed hand.
Red and silver eyes glowing through the tear.
Raeth.
"Little light," he said softly, almost tenderly."You're coming with me."
The rift swallowed her whole.
Kael's roar of fury shook the Sanctuary.
And the chapter ends with—
Kael launching himself into the collapsing portal, wings blazing, shouting her name—
as Raeth pulls her into the realm of duskwhere her second identity was forgedand where her fate will finally be decided.