Chapter 94 – The Distance That Keeps Growing
POV: Liora
I was becoming very good at pretending.
The realization ca to one morning while sitting through breakfast, listening to conversations I barely heard and smiling at comnts I couldn’t rember five seconds later.
Nobody seed to notice.
Or perhaps they noticed and chose not to say anything.
Either way, I had learned how to make it look like everything was fine.
I knew when to smile.
I knew when to nod.
I knew how to answer questions without revealing how exhausted I truly was.
The performance had beco second nature.
Unfortunately, pretending for everyone else was much easier than pretending for myself.
Because no matter how calm I appeared on the outside, I was unraveling on the inside.
Every day brought another mory.
Another fragnt.
Another life.
Sotis they arrived as flashes.
Sotis they ca as dreams.
Sotis they appeared while I was fully awake, leaving staring at places and people that no longer existed.
The worst part wasn’t seeing them.
The worst part was feeling them.
Their grief.
Their fears.
Their hopes.
Their love.
Every mory carried emotions powerful enough to leave shaken long after the vision ended.
At first, I believed they belonged to strangers.
Then I learned the truth.
Now I wasn’t sure which possibility was worse.
Because if those mories truly belonged to , then how many versions of myself existed inside my head?
And if they were all ...
what happened when I stopped being able to tell the difference?
The thought followed everywhere.
It followed through the fortress.
Through conversations.
Through sleepless nights.
Most of all, it followed whenever Kael was near.
That was why I had started avoiding him.
Not intentionally.
At least not at first.
The distance happened gradually.
One missed al.
One shortened conversation.
One excuse after another.
The pattern continued until I realized several days had passed without spending aningful ti together.
Part of hated it.
The rest of believed it was necessary.
Because every ti I was near him, sothing inside beca complicated.
The bond still existed.
Stronger than ever.
Sotis I could feel his presence before he entered a room.
Sotis I sensed his emotions before he spoke.
Sotis all it took was knowing he was nearby to make my pulse react.
That part remained unchanged.
It was everything else that frightened .
The mories reacted to him.
At first, I thought I was imagining it.
Then it happened too often to ignore.
One afternoon I saw him crossing the training grounds below my balcony.
The mont my eyes found him, a mory surfaced.
Not a complete one.
Just a feeling.
Relief.
Intense and imdiate.
The emotion arrived so suddenly that I actually grabbed the railing to steady myself.
The feeling didn’t belong to .
Not entirely.
It belonged to soone who recognized him.
Soone who trusted him.
Soone who had loved him.
The realization should have been impossible.
Yet before I could process it, another reaction followed.
This one felt completely different.
Suspicion.
Distance.
Confusion.
The emotional shift happened so abruptly that it left dizzy.
For several seconds, conflicting feelings collided inside my chest.
One part of wanted to go to him.
Another part regarded him as a stranger.
A third seed uncertain whether he represented safety or danger.
The contradiction terrified .
Not because it happened.
Because it felt natural.
As though multiple perspectives were responding simultaneously.
I spent the rest of that day trying not to think about it.
The effort failed.
The following morning only made things worse.
I was walking through one of the eastern corridors when Kael appeared around the corner.
Our eyes t imdiately.
The bond reacted first.
Warmth spread through .
Familiar.
Comforting.
The connection I had co to rely on.
Then the mories responded.
A rush of emotions struck so quickly that I almost stumbled.
Recognition.
Grief.
Affection.
Loss.
Longing.
The intensity stole my breath.
For a mont, I wasn’t sure which emotions belonged to and which belonged to soone else.
Kael imdiately noticed sothing was wrong.
Of course he did.
His expression changed as he approached.
"Liora?"
I forced a smile.
"I’m fine."
The lie sounded weak even to my own ears.
His eyes narrowed.
Neither of us believed it.
For several seconds neither spoke.
The silence stretched between us.
I hated it.
There was a ti when silence with Kael felt comfortable.
Now it felt dangerous.
Because every quiet mont gave the mories room to breathe.
Room to surface.
Room to remind that I no longer fully understood my own mind.
"I’ve barely seen you lately," he said carefully.
The words carried no accusation.
That sohow made them harder to hear.
I looked away.
The corridor suddenly felt too small.
Too narrow.
Too intimate.
"I’ve been busy."
The excuse sounded ridiculous.
We both knew it.
Kael continued watching .
Waiting.
Giving every opportunity to tell the truth.
I couldn’t.
Not because I didn’t trust him.
Because I didn’t trust myself.
How was I supposed to explain sothing I barely understood?
How was I supposed to tell him that every ti I looked at him, it felt as though dozens of invisible voices reacted differently?
That so mories recognized him.
Others didn’t.
That so seed drawn toward him while others remained distant.
That occasionally I felt emotions so foreign they frightened ?
The truth sounded insane.
Even inside my own head.
Eventually Kael stepped aside.
His expression remained calm.
But disappointnt lingered beneath it.
Not anger.
Not frustration.
Sothing worse.
Concern.
The sight filled with guilt.
Because I knew I was hurting him.
I simply didn’t know how to stop.
The distance continued growing after that.
Not dramatically.
Quietly.
Like a crack spreading through stone.
Every day beca slightly more difficult than the one before.
Every interaction demanded more effort.
Every conversation felt like a balancing act between honesty and self-preservation.
The mories grew stronger.
Clearer.
More persistent.
Sotis I woke rembering nas that weren’t mine.
Sotis I knew details about places I had never visited.
Sotis I felt emotions that appeared without warning and vanished just as quickly.
The boundaries separating past and present continued weakening.
And Kael remained at the center of all of it.
One evening I finally understood why.
I was standing alone on a balcony overlooking the forest when another mory surfaced.
This one lasted longer than most.
Long enough for to experience it fully.
I wasn’t myself.
Yet sohow I was.
I stood beside a man beneath a silver moon.
His face remained frustratingly unclear.
The mory refused to reveal it.
But the emotions ca through perfectly.
Trust.
Love.
Devotion.
The certainty of belonging beside soone.
The feeling wrapped around so completely that tears burned behind my eyes.
Then the mory ended.
And I realized sothing horrifying.
The man wasn’t Kael.
The understanding struck with brutal force.
Not because I loved soone else.
Because so version of had.
So life.
So mory.
So existence buried beneath centuries of forgotten history.
The realization opened a door I had been desperately avoiding.
Not all of these mories belonged to the sa person.
Not all of these emotions belonged to the sa life.
The people surfacing inside my mind weren’t identical.
They carried different experiences.
Different relationships.
Different losses.
Different loves.
Which ant sothing even worse.
Not every part of recognized Kael as my mate.
The thought settled into my chest like ice.
I stared out across the darkened forest while the implications unfolded.
The Liora standing here loved Kael.
There was no uncertainty about that.
But what about the others?
The won whose mories lived inside ?
The lives I had begun rembering?
The pieces of myself awakening one by one?
Did they love him?
Did they know him?
Would they choose him?
Or would they see a stranger where I saw ho?
For the first ti since this began, I felt truly afraid.
Not of the mories.
Not of the awakening.
Not even of whatever I was becoming.
I was afraid of losing the one thing that still felt unquestionably mine.
My love for him.
The thought lingered long after darkness covered the mountains.
Long after the fortress fell silent.
Long after I returned to my room.
I lay awake staring at the ceiling, unable to escape the question circling endlessly through my mind.
If these mories continued growing stronger...
If more lives continued surfacing...
If one day I lost the ability to separate who I was from who I had been...
Then what would happen to the choices I make now?
What would happen to the woman Kael loved?
The answer refused to co.
Only the question remained.
Quiet.
Terrifying.
Impossible to ignore.
If I lose myself completely...
will I still choose him?
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