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Chapter Twenty: Shards in the Blood

2025-08-22 11:02:21

The medical wing was silent except for the rhythmic pulse of machines, though even their sounds had begun to distort, echoing faintly as though carried through glass corridors that did not exist.

Lina lay on the central bed, her chest rising and falling in shallow rhythm. Light flickered beneath her skin, veins glowing like fiber-optic cables. Each pulse was stronger than the last, as if her blood itself was turning crystalline.

Kael hovered beside her, refusing to look away. Every instinct told him to drag her out of this room, away from Threshold Headquarters, away from Ward’s whispering orchard. But there was nowhere to run.

Kestrel stood near the doorway, arms crossed, jaw locked. Her presence was iron, but her eyes betrayed something softer — a fear she would never admit.

“She is not surviving this,” Kestrel said flatly. “She is becoming something else. If you cannot see that, then you are already lost to her influence.”

Kael clenched his fists. “She is not lost. Not yet.”

“You k

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Chapter Thirty-Four: The Falling Divide
The plunge was endless.Air whipped past Lina’s ears, though there was no air. Her scream caught in her throat, swallowed by the void. Darkness folded over itself in layers, as though she were falling through a thousand curtains of shadow.Her fingers clawed at nothing. The memory of Kael’s hand burned in her grip, phantom warmth clinging to her skin even as it slipped away.He was there. He wasn’t. He was Aurex. He was Kael.Her stomach lurched. The void wanted her to let go, to dissolve into it.But she forced her eyes open. She would not be swallowed.⸻Something shifted below.Not ground—something worse.A shape coalesced in the blackness, vast and writhing. Silver filaments tangled together, forming a surface that looked like woven glass threads. The threads pulsed faintly, as if each strand carried a heartbeat.And in the center of that tangled lattice: a figure.Her breath caught.Kael—or what looked like him—was suspended in the threads, arms spread wide, body twisted as thoug
Chapter Thirty-Three: The Thread Between
The hand in hers was steady, strong, familiar.But the cold lingered.Lina stared into Kael’s eyes, searching for the warmth she knew, the fire she had trusted when everything else had burned away. For a heartbeat she thought she saw it—the stormy brown flecked with gold that had once held her together when the world fractured.Then it flickered silver again, and her chest clenched.“It’s me,” he said, voice hoarse with urgency. “Don’t let go, Lina. No matter what you see, hold on.”The sound of his voice tore at her. She wanted so desperately to believe. But Aurex’s words hissed in the air, threading through her doubts like smoke: One truth. One lie.Her fingers tightened around his without realizing. “How do I know?” she whispered.His brow furrowed. “Because you’ve always known me. Haven’t you? Through every shadow, every trick, every wound—I’ve never stopped being me.”The words struck deep, but Lina’s chest ached. Aurex was clever. He could weave lies into truths so seamlessly th
Chapter Thirty-Three: The Thread Between
The hand in hers was steady, strong, familiar.But the cold lingered.Lina stared into Kael’s eyes, searching for the warmth she knew, the fire she had trusted when everything else had burned away. For a heartbeat she thought she saw it—the stormy brown flecked with gold that had once held her together when the world fractured.Then it flickered silver again, and her chest clenched.“It’s me,” he said, voice hoarse with urgency. “Don’t let go, Lina. No matter what you see, hold on.”The sound of his voice tore at her. She wanted so desperately to believe. But Aurex’s words hissed in the air, threading through her doubts like smoke: One truth. One lie.Her fingers tightened around his without realizing. “How do I know?” she whispered.His brow furrowed. “Because you’ve always known me. Haven’t you? Through every shadow, every trick, every wound—I’ve never stopped being me.”The words struck deep, but Lina’s chest ached. Aurex was clever. He could weave lies into truths so seamlessly th
Chapter Thirty-Two: The Fracture
The world ripped apart.One moment Lina’s hand was pressed against Kael’s chest, her heartbeat thundering in rhythm with his. The next, the pressure vanished. The light swallowed everything, burning through her eyes, her skin, her breath. She tried to scream his name, but the sound was stolen before it left her lips.Then—silence.She opened her eyes and found herself standing on smooth black glass that stretched endlessly in all directions. The sky above was not a sky at all, but a mirror turned upside down, reflecting her form with perfect cruelty. Each step she took echoed twice — once beneath her, once above.Her pulse raced. “Kael?”No answer.The silence pressed in, thicker with every passing second.“Kael!” Her voice cracked, raw with fear. “Where are you?”Only her reflection replied, mouthing the name back at her with a hollow delay.She pressed her hands against her temples, trying to steady her breathing. He had to be here. Aurex couldn’t just erase him. They were bound, we
Chapter Thirty-One: The Throne of Echoes
The air in the throne hall was thick enough to choke.Kael tightened his grip on Lina’s hand until their knuckles ground together. He didn’t trust the ground beneath them, didn’t trust the shadows creeping along the walls, didn’t trust the way the carvings seemed to shift if he looked too long. But most of all, he didn’t trust the figure seated on the throne.Aurex was no longer a phantom in the glass. He was solid. Terrifyingly real.His body shimmered like it was woven from molten silver and obsidian, every line precise yet unnatural, as though sculpted by a hand that despised the very idea of flesh. His eyes burned white, pupils like thin cracks that reached deep into endless night.And yet, when he spoke, his voice was calm. Gentle. Almost inviting.“You’ve walked far to reach me,” Aurex said, his hands resting loosely on the arms of the throne. “I’m impressed. Few ever do.”Kael’s heart hammered. His instinct screamed to strike, to rush forward and tear Aurex from that seat with
Chapter Thirty: The Grip of Glass
The world fractured around them.Kael’s knuckles whitened as he held onto Lina’s wrist, refusing to let her slip into Aurex’s grasp. The silver claw shimmered, cutting into her skin with unnatural strength. Blood smeared across the mirrored floor beneath them, dark against the pale reflection of their bodies.“Kael!” Lina’s voice broke with panic. She twisted, her nails biting into his forearm as though she feared he might let go.“I’ve got you!” he roared, pulling until his muscles screamed. The ground beneath him trembled, spiderweb cracks racing across the glass with every jerk.But Aurex’s voice slithered into the chamber like smoke.You hold her now, but not for long. You can’t rip what belongs to me.Kael bared his teeth. “She doesn’t belong to you!”The claw tightened. Lina’s cry cut through him like a blade. Her legs slipped across the fractured surface, her body halfway inside the mirror, halfway out. Her eyes locked on his, pleading.Kael yanked harder, his shoulder threaten

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