By the time the council stopped screaming, Arcelia was gone.
Not "left the room" gone.
Gone.
The doors were flung wide. Guards tripped over each other rushing after her. Someone shouted orders. Someone else cried. Someone tried to calm Father down.
And I just stood there.
The air tasted like iron and fear.
Lysander's words still echoed.
"She is the girl who shouldn't exist."
I wasn't sure if that was supposed to comfort me.
It didn't.
Father finally found his voice.
"Find the princess!" he roared. "No one leaves the palace—NO ONE!"
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
"Search the halls!"
"Check the eastern gate!"
"The stables—!"
The chaos swelled again.
Kael didn't move.
He stared at me.
Like if he looked away, I might vanish too.
"Aura," he said quietly, "come with me."
I didn't want to move at all.
But staying here, surrounded by liars and half-truths and wide eyes, felt suffocating.
"Fine," I said.
Lysander shifted behind me.
Kael's eyes flickered toward him. "Alone."
"No," Lysander replied.
"This is between us," Kael snapped.
Lysander's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Everything involving her is my concern."
"Both of you," I muttered, "stop deciding what I am without me."
Kael exhaled sharply, trying to steady himself.
"Aura," he said, gentler, "please. Just… you and me. One conversation. No shadows. No monsters. No council. No blood."
I looked at Lysander.
His expression didn't change, but I felt it:
A silent question.
A warning.
A test.
"I'll be fine," I told him.
"For now," he said softly.
Then he stepped back into the edge of the room, blending with the darker stone. Not gone—he never really left—but not between us either.
Kael touched my elbow lightly, as if I might shatter.
"Come," he said.
I followed.
We ended up on the western balcony.
Of course.
The one that overlooked the forest line.
The wind carried the faint scent of pine and earth. From here, the western woods were just a dark, endless blur of green, hiding the ruins and all the ghosts that lived there.
Kael braced his hands on the stone railing, breathing hard.
For a few moments, neither of us spoke.
Then, without looking at me, he said:
"Tell me everything."
"About what?"
"The prophecy," he said. "The other life. The creatures. Him. You. Me."
His fingers tightened on the railing.
"Tell me how I killed you."
A sharp ache cut through my chest.
"You didn't kill me," I said quietly. "Not with your hands."
"That doesn't make it better," he said bitterly.
I stared at the forest.
"In that life," I said slowly, "Father died first. Poisoned. The council took control of everything. They needed a queen the people trusted, so they kept me on the throne… weak. Sick. Alone. Arcelia stood beside me. You stood behind them."
His breath hitched. "Behind who?"
"The council. The priests. The ones who told you I was unstable. Dangerous. That the kingdom needed 'someone more reliable' to rule."
He slowly turned his head. "And I believed them."
"Yes."
I didn't sugarcoat it.
His jaw clenched.
"And you," I continued, "stopped arguing for me. Stopped defending me. Stopped coming to my chambers unless protocol required it."
He flinched at every word.
"So when the blood moon rose," I whispered, "and those same enemies walked into the throne room with Arcelia at their side… and the blade went in…"
My hand moved unconsciously to my chest.
"—you stood there. You didn't lift a hand."
He looked like the wind had been knocked out of him.
"I watched you die," he said hoarsely.
"Yes."
"I let it happen."
"You didn't try to stop it."
A long silence followed.
His voice, when it came, was wrecked.
"I hate him."
"Who?"
"The version of me that did that," he said. "I hate him more than any enemy in this kingdom."
I believed him.
That was the worst part.
"Kael," I said quietly, "a prophecy says you'll choose again."
He exhaled shakily.
"Death or throne," he murmured. "Mine or yours."
"Mine," I corrected. "Or mine."
His eyes snapped to mine.
"It's not just about whether I survive," I said. "It's about who I become if I do."
"I don't care who you become," he said fiercely. "As long as you live."
"You say that now."
"I'll say it again and again and again, in every life, until it's true."
His words felt like a blade wrapped in velvet.
I looked away.
The forest loomed at the edge of my vision, dark and patient.
"Arcelia ran," I said. "They won't find her in the palace."
"You think she escaped?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"Where would you go," I asked, "if you were terrified, guilty, and connected to things you don't understand?"
He followed my gaze.
To the western forest.
His expression hardened.
"The ruins."
"Yes."
He cursed under his breath, looking toward the gates.
"I'll take a patrol," he muttered. "We'll search the outer perimeter. If she's working with someone—"
"She is."
He looked back at me sharply. "Who?"
"I don't know."
Yet.
Kael hesitated.
"Aura," he said softly, "do you want her caught?"
That was a simple question with a painfully complicated answer.
Did I want my sister dead?
Jailed?
Broken?
Did I want revenge?
Justice?
Something in between?
"I want the truth," I said. "Then I'll decide what I want."
He nodded slowly.
"That, at least," he said, "I can help with."
"Can you?"
He swallowed.
"I don't know," he admitted. "But I want to try."
I had no answer for that.
Because somewhere beneath all the anger and fear and prophecy, a part of me still remembered what it felt like to trust him.
And I didn't know if that made me foolish…
Or human.
By the time I returned to my chambers, the sky had turned an uncertain gray.
Lysander was waiting.
Of course.
He sat casually on the windowsill, boots on the stone, cloak trailing in an elegant spill of black. Moonlight clung to him as if it had missed him.
"What did the prince say?" he asked.
"That he hates the version of himself that watched me die."
"Convenient," Lysander replied.
"Honest," I said.
"Sometimes those are the same thing."
I leaned against my door, suddenly exhausted.
"He's going to the ruins," I said. "To find Arcelia."
"Then he's walking into a nest without knowing it."
"Should I stop him?"
"No."
I frowned. "You just said—"
"I said he doesn't know what's waiting," Lysander corrected. "I didn't say he shouldn't go."
"You trust him to handle it?"
"I don't trust him at all," Lysander said. "But I trust you to decide what to do when he fails."
My jaw tightened.
"Stop talking about him failing like it's guaranteed," I snapped.
"It is," he said calmly.
I glared at him.
He just watched me patiently.
"You wanted the truth, Aura. This is what it feels like."
I looked away.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then I said, quietly:
"You said my mother tried to protect me."
His gaze sharpened.
"Yes."
"How?" I whispered. "From what?"
He slid off the windowsill and walked toward me until we were an arm's length apart.
"From the same thing that wants you now," he said softly. "The thing beneath the ruins. The thing that marks moon-children."
"The thing that sent the creatures?"
"Yes."
I swallowed.
"What is it?"
Lysander's eyes darkened.
"A god that forgot how to be one," he said. "A hunger wearing the memory of a god. The Primordial beneath the stones."
A chill ran down my spine.
"And my mother?" I whispered.
"She bargained with it once," he said. "To save you."
My heart stuttered.
"How?"
"She traded years of her life," he said. "So you could keep yours."
My knees felt weak.
"I… killed her?" I whispered.
"No," he said firmly. "The Primordial killed her. You simply existed."
That didn't make it feel better.
"What did she buy me?" I asked, voice shaking. "What did her life pay for?"
His gaze softened.
"Time," he said. "Enough for you to grow. To choose. To remember."
"Remember what?"
He stepped closer, eyes burning.
"That you are not just a pawn," he said. "You are a door."
My blood went cold.
"A door to what?"
"To the power that god wants back," he murmured. "It touched you when you were born. Marked you. Realized too late that you were… more than it expected."
"More what?" I demanded. "More weapon? More sacrifice?"
"More alive," he said.
Silence fell heavy.
I swallowed hard.
"And you?" I whispered. "What are you to it? To me?"
Lysander's expression finally shifted—
something old and painful flickering there.
"I was its servant," he said quietly. "Once."
"Was?"
"I disobeyed."
His lips curved humorlessly.
"I stole something it wanted."
"What?"
His gaze met mine.
"You," he said.
My heart stopped.
"I pulled your soul out of its grasp when you died," he continued. "I placed it back where the moon could reach it. I broke its claim."
"The night I was killed," I whispered.
"Yes."
"So you…"
"Cheated a god for you," he said simply.
I stared at him.
"You should have let me stay dead."
"I couldn't."
"Why?"
His jaw tightened.
"Because," he said slowly, "you're not the only one who remembers the other life."
My breath caught.
"You…" I whispered. "You were there?"
"In the shadows," he said. "Watching."
He took one more step, close enough that I could feel the cold hum of his magic.
"I watched them kill you," he said softly. "And I decided I was tired of watching."
Something in my chest cracked open.
Fear.
Grief.
A strange, sharp warmth I didn't have a name for.
"So now what?" I whispered. "The Primordial wants me. The moon wants me. The prophecy wants me. Kael might kill me. And you… what do you want, Lysander?"
He studied me for a long, quiet moment.
Then he said:
"I want you to choose yourself before any of them."
The forest wind howled outside.
Somewhere beyond the walls, Kael rode toward the ruins.
Somewhere beneath the earth, something hungry stirred.
And for the first time since waking in this second life…
I realized:
I was not just trying to survive fate.
I was standing between gods and kings—
And neither of them were used to hearing the word no.