Hades
It hit me all at once.
Not rage.
Not yet.
Just silence.
A silence so heavy it pressed down on my ribs, curling around my throat like a noose. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move.
All I could do was feel.
The paper.
The voice.
Her face.
This is why she did it. So your blood would never match his.
The words slammed through my chest like knives made of memory.
And I remembered.
I remembered her screaming as I pinned her to the lab table.
Her wrists bleeding in shackles she didn't deserve.
The way she begged me to believe her—hoarse and wild and broken.
And I…
Gods.
I called her a liar.
Told her I'd rip the truth from her corpse if I had to.
I had done this.
I had helped build the walls she was buried under.
My knees buckled.
I stumbled a step back, a roaring in my ears like drowning in fire.
No one moved.
Not Kael.
Not Montegue.
Not the guards who still had their weapons trained but limp at their sides.
And then—
The first to move wasn't me.
It was her.
