Chapter 110 – The Truth She Can’t Hide Anymore
POV: Liora
For a long mont after Kael asked the question, I couldn’t answer.
Not because I didn’t know what to say.
Because I knew exactly what I needed to say.
That was the problem.
So truths beco easier to carry than to share.
For days I had been living with knowledge that felt impossible. At first, I had convinced myself I was protecting him by keeping it to myself. Then I told myself I needed more evidence. After that, I claid I needed ti to understand it better before dragging soone else into the chaos.
Those excuses had worked for a while.
Standing beside him now, they felt hollow.
Because the truth was simple.
I wasn’t protecting Kael.
I was afraid.
Afraid of what would happen once the words left my mouth.
Afraid of what they would change.
Afraid that speaking them aloud would sohow make everything more real than it already was.
The evening wind drifted across the balcony.
The fortress below glowed with scattered lights.
Sowhere in the distance, wolves laughed.
Soone closed a door.
Life continued.
Normal.
Ordinary.
Completely unaware that my world had beco sothing else entirely.
I stared at the mountains for several seconds before finally speaking.
"I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure how."
My voice sounded quieter than I intended.
Kael didn’t respond.
Didn’t pressure .
Didn’t demand answers.
He simply waited.
That alone made this harder.
If he had pushed, I could have argued.
If he had beco angry, I could have defended myself.
Instead, he stood there and gave room to tell the truth.
The silence forced honesty.
I took a slow breath.
"The mories aren’t what we thought."
Kael’s expression remained unreadable.
"What are they?"
I swallowed.
The answer still sounded absurd even after everything I had experienced.
"They’re not past lives."
A faint frown appeared between his brows.
I continued before he could speak.
"They aren’t random people connected to the bloodline either."
The confusion in his eyes deepened.
I couldn’t bla him.
A few months ago I would have thought the sa thing.
The problem was that reality had stopped caring what sounded reasonable.
My hands tightened against the stone railing.
I hated this.
Not because I didn’t trust him.
Because I did.
I trusted him more than anyone.
That was exactly why this terrified .
The people we trust have the greatest ability to be hurt by the truths we tell them.
"I t soone."
The statent drew his attention imdiately.
A slight tension entered his posture.
Not jealousy.
Concern.
"What do you an?"
I stared at the horizon.
Trying to find the right words.
Eventually I accepted there weren’t any.
There was only the truth.
"Another version of ."
The silence that followed felt enormous.
I could practically hear Kael attempting to make sense of what I had said.
Part of wanted to laugh.
Another part wanted to run.
Neither option seed productive.
When he finally spoke, his voice remained surprisingly calm.
"A mory?"
I shook my head slowly.
"Not exactly."
The mory surfaced vividly in my mind.
The silver chamber.
The woman with my face.
The exhaustion in her eyes.
The sadness in her smile.
The certainty in her voice.
My chest tightened.
Because I suddenly realized I missed her.
A woman I had t once.
A woman who was sohow .
Nothing about that thought should have been possible.
Yet there it was.
"I don’t think she left the mory accidentally."
Kael studied carefully.
"You think she was waiting for you."
The statent wasn’t a question.
I nodded.
"Yes."
The word felt heavy.
Everything felt heavy lately.
Kael looked away briefly.
Processing.
Analyzing.
Trying to fit impossible information into a world that still followed normal rules.
I almost envied him.
At least he still had the illusion that the rules existed.
I lost that weeks ago.
The silence stretched between us again.
Then I forced myself forward.
Because stopping now would only make things worse.
"She told sothing."
The mont those words left my mouth, anxiety twisted in my stomach.
Not because I doubted the truth.
Because I knew what ca next.
Kael’s attention sharpened instantly.
I could feel it.
The anticipation.
The concern.
The growing awareness that whatever I was about to say mattered.
A lot.
"What did she tell you?"
The question sounded simple.
The answer wasn’t.
I closed my eyes briefly.
Then opened them again.
No more avoiding it.
No more softening it.
No more pretending it might sohow sound better if I delayed long enough.
"It wasn’t the first attempt."
The words settled between us.
Neither of us moved.
Neither of us spoke.
The air itself seed heavier.
I continued before courage abandoned .
"There were others before ."
Kael remained silent.
I appreciated that.
Interruptions would have broken whatever fragile montum I had managed to build.
"The mories aren’t different lives."
My throat tightened.
"They’re records."
I looked directly at him.
"For twenty-six previous attempts."
The words sounded worse aloud.
Much worse.
Inside my head they had beco familiar.
Manageable.
Sothing I could analyze.
Sothing I could study.
Speaking them aloud transford them into sothing else.
Sothing terrifying.
Because now another person could hear how impossible they sounded.
Kael’s expression didn’t change.
That worried more than shock would have.
I pressed forward.
"There were twenty-six won before ."
The admission felt strangely personal.
As though I were betraying people who no longer existed.
"Every one of them tried to stop sothing."
My voice lowered.
"Every one of them failed."
The wind moved softly through the silence.
Kael still hadn’t spoken.
Still hadn’t interrupted.
Still hadn’t looked away.
I could feel my heartbeat accelerating.
Because I wasn’t finished.
Not yet.
And the next part was the hardest.
The part I had spent days avoiding.
The part that changed everything.
I turned fully toward him.
For several seconds I simply looked at him.
Tried to morize the face I knew so well.
The face that appeared in mories that should have belonged to strangers.
The face that sohow existed across centuries.
Across failures.
Across repetition.
The realization hurt in ways I still couldn’t explain.
My chest tightened.
Not because I feared his reaction.
Because I feared understanding my own.
When I finally spoke again, my voice sounded almost steady.
Almost.
"The more mories I recover, the more patterns I see."
Kael’s jaw tightened slightly.
I noticed.
Of course I noticed.
I noticed everything lately.
"The people change."
I swallowed.
"The details change."
The bond stirred faintly between us.
A strange ache accompanied it.
"The outcos change."
My voice dropped further.
"But so things stay the sa."
Understanding flickered briefly in his eyes.
Not full understanding.
The beginning of it.
The dangerous beginning.
I felt my pulse hamring.
There was no way back after this.
No pretending.
No half-truths.
Only honesty.
The terrible kind.
The kind that permanently alters a conversation.
The kind that permanently alters people.
I forced myself to say it.
"This isn’t the first ti we’ve been here."
The words hung between us.
Simple.
Clear.
Devastating.
I watched them reach him.
Watched the realization begin spreading through his thoughts.
Not fully.
Not yet.
But enough.
Enough to understand the implication.
Enough to recognize the scale.
Enough to know this wasn’t rely about anymore.
The fortress faded from my awareness.
The mountains disappeared.
The wind vanished.
For several seconds there was only silence.
Only Kael.
Only the truth.
Only the distance those words had created.
Or perhaps revealed.
I didn’t know which was worse.
Then sothing unexpected happened.
He didn’t interrupt.
He didn’t argue.
He didn’t tell I was wrong.
He didn’t demand proof.
He didn’t laugh.
He didn’t walk away.
He simply looked at .
And as I watched, sothing changed in his eyes.
Not confusion.
That had been there before.
Not disbelief.
That wasn’t there at all.
Sothing deeper.
Sothing older.
Sothing that made my breath catch unexpectedly.
Recognition.
The sight sent a chill through .
Because for the first ti since this conversation began, I realized sothing I hadn’t considered before.
What if I wasn’t the only one rembering?
And judging by the look in Kael’s eyes, he might have just begun wondering the sa thing.
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